<Continued from Part 1

Judging from the names of most anime shows though, it does not seem to be so far-fetched to imagine that the people who “localize” anime for America are deaf and dumb Germans who have learned a little Japanese from the back of an action figure box, and then used this knowledge to learn English from an elderly Asiatic man who wanders the mountains of a lower Russian province.

The creators of anime also have a strange propensity for choosing inane or unimportant items from the show and using that word for the show’s title. They also seem to like picking random English words out of thin air and using a combination of those for the title as well. Here are some examples of actual anime titles to show you what I'm talking about:

If this show is not about a security guard at a college who spontaneously combusts when she becomes aroused, then this title is highly misleading. If this show is about a security guard at a college who spontaneously combusts when she becomes aroused: I believe I've just managed to disprove God.

Alright, at first I was going to guess that this was a show about a girl who flashed her unwashed bosoms at men in order to fight sex crime in rural Japan, but this seemed to be a little too ridiculous. Then I remembered that this was Japan we were talking about, and that therefore its creators likely had no shame. So I think I’ll stick with that guess after all.

This is about a band of merry anthropomorphic cats who design, make, or repair small firearms. I know I just made this up, but I have the feeling that's probably what this show is really about.

Certainly this is about the trials and tribulations of the rough-and tumble cattlemen of the ooooold west. In addition, it will also provide viewers with a visual history of Bebop music (A style of jazz characterized by fast tempos, complex harmonies, and intricate melodies, in case you were wondering.)

I have to give the creators of this show credit though; at least they’re trying to educate anime fans about something other than how to shoot fireballs or denigrate women.

Perhaps: The Origin or coming into being (Genesis) of a Colorless, odorless gas (Neon). Also there must be something about the winning or revival of personal commitments to Christ in there I guess. Sounds like a winning combination! It should also be noted that I do not believe Evengelion to be an actual word.

The most puzzling aspect of this title is it's usage of the word dual, and the midsentence exclamation point which follows it. Is the title trying to inform us in an excited manner that it consists of TWO parallel trouble adventures?

I don't even know what a single parallel trouble adventure would consist of, but I'm almost positive it would involve the (mis)adventures of parentless white-skinned Japanese children with tellingly western features. Or maybe they just meant “duel” and just used the incorrect spelling of the word. But I suppose that somehow makes even less sense.

Let's discuss the geography of anime, if only because many "anime fans" will obstinately refuse to enjoy any animation which does not come directly from the timid island of Japan itself. Obviously any rational person will of course dismiss this as ridiculous, but it does raise a number of logical questions that the serious-minded anime fan must answer, aside from why Japanese animation is “superior” in the first place. (Hint: Different = Better).
Wade through a roomful of discarded fast food wrappers to your favorite Japanese-only anime fan and see if they can answer these questions:


1. Must the production team be 100% Japanese? What if a few Americans went over there and were working along with the animation team to create it? Even better, what if they used to work for *gasp* DISNEY!

2. Must the entire production company be Japanese? What about the marketing department? CEO? Can the director be from a different country? What if the idea guys take ideas from western sources, (of course this never happens!) does this affect the quality of the anime?

3. Do the animators have to be 100% Japanese? What if they are half Japanese, half American? What if they are half Japanese, half Chinese? What if a Japanese guy has 1% Australian in him? If the Japanese create better animation, surely a “mutt” would be a less effective animator, wouldn’t he?

4. Does the animation have to be done in Japan? What if an all Japanese animation team came over to America and created a show on American soil? Would it still be good? What if they went out to sea in a ship? Would the anime still be good as long as it were drawn in Japanese waters?

5. What would happen if...an experiment were conducted in which an American was made to live his entire life locked in a room in America with no mirrors or other reflective surfaces and was taught only Japanese, and told that he himself was a Japanese man in Japan would this man be a better anime artist because of his belief that he is in fact Japanese or would the impure American blood which pollutes his veins cause him to animate only in the shockingly hideous Aeon Flux style huh huh huh?

Many people believe that anime has become fairly popular lately. This is false. See, the market for anime used to consist solely of Japanese schoolchildren, grown men with hairy stomachs hanging out of the front of their shirts, and a few other types of fish-smelling misfit. But recently anime has also latched its diseased, crotchfondling tentacles into stony-eyed young men who use filesharing sites and troubled junkies who watch Cartoon Network at 3AM. This seems to give people the false impression that anime has become popular when in fact, it has not increased in popularity at all.

Imagine the distended belly of a rotting corpse. Inspect it closely and you might see one or two maggots crawling on the ground nearby, or a one curled snugly inside the belly button; nothing too extreme. But pierce the wall of the stomach with a sharp object, and thousands of plump, wriggling maggots coated with a thin layer of shiny white pus will spill out onto your shoes as you unsuccessfully attempt to stifle a sickly-sweet vomit belch with your closed fist. I realize this is an extremely poor analogy for what I was just talking about, but I wanted to work that image into your brains anyway for kicks.

Believing anime to be popular is a mistake a lot of people make. If you just delve a little deeper into the world of the internet, you will quickly see why some things appear to be more popular than they actually are. There thousands of insane anime fans who have NOTHING BUT free time (most of them being chained to a radiator behind a reinforced door in their parent’s attic at which they claw and moan fruitlessly) and because of this, they are able to cumulatively allocate nearly 43,362% more time to preaching and arguing about anime than a normal, healthy human would be able to for their chosen hobby. This creates a skewed popularity perception, mostly among internet users.

If you’re still confused, perhaps this hypothetical situation might help you to understand. To put this in perspective, when you visit the statistics page of the average anime message board, you might see something like this:

Gundam erotic fanfiction message board statistics:
Number of topics created yesterday: 20,141
Messages posted yesterday: 999,129

Now, if this was the only information you saw, it would not be unreasonable for you to assume that anime is immensely popular. “Just imagine the amazing number of people it would take to post all those Gundam-related messages in one day!” you might be heard to remark as you closed your browser window and went off to tell your friends how popular anime is. But wait! If you would have continued reading you would have discovered the well-kept secret of these boards:

 

“But surely there must be some kind of error in the statistics!” you cry, tearing at your hair and beating your fists against the walls, “There’s no way a little more than two hundred people could ever post that many messages relating to cartoon robot-human intercourse in a single day! That’s about an average of 4,250 messages per person! 177 message per hour! 3 messages a minute! 0.05 messages per second! It’s impossible I tell you! It’s a madness! MAAAADDNESSSS!”

The door to your cell bursts open, and the doctor rushes in, followed closely by three large orderlies in white smocks. The men wrestle you roughly to the ground as the doctor stands silhouetted in the doorway, flicking a dripping hypodermic needle. He moves toward you, smiling slightly and holding out his palms as if he were calming a spooked horse.

“Shh-shh-shhh, it’s alright…” he coos. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, we’re here to help, you see?” You lie pinned to the floor, thrashing and clicking your teeth like a rabid fox. One orderly straddles you, sitting across your chest and pinning your arms to the ground. Another places his hand acrossyour forehead and presses your head firmly to the floor. The doctor closes in, smiling his clinical smile.

“This will get rid of those nasty dreams of yours.” He says, hovering over you and blotting out the light, "Those nasty, nasty dreams."

The room begins to darken.

“Nighty night” he says.