::takes out soapbox once more, which looks slightly damaged but still usable::
My move to Korea, which was about 4 to 5 years ago, was a blessing in disguise. At first I loathed the place. I may be Korean, but I grew up in the US until I was 13. All of a sudden I was forced to move to a country where corporal punishment is still legal. I almost fainted the first time I saw my teacher whack some of the students with a stick that look like something out of a pirate story (a belaying pin or something?). And in my 4 years here, I've been able to experience such beatings more than once myself. (and let me tell you, they HURT)
So anyway, here I was, cursing the fate that made my family move to this damn country. And one day I chanced to turn on the TV and see Wedding Angel Peach. That was my first anime. Gradually I came to bless the move to Korea. Why? Because I had access to all sorts of fantastic that Americans have probably never even heard of. Anime quickly became my life, the thing that I loved with all my heart, with all my soul, and all that other good stuff.
::soapbox creaks lovingly::
However, I very quickly learned that things are never as good as they seem at first. The (of course dubbed) anime shown in Korea was all wrong! The names were changed (Usagi is Sarah, Rei is Vicki, Sakura is Cherry, etc.) and a bunch of scenes were cut out, especially in Slayers and Sailormoon. They even stopped showing Sailormoon for awhile because they claimed the anime was "too revealing for toddlers". Like the toddlers know, or even care! And that's far from all. It's almost impossible for us fans in Korea to get OVAs or anything of the like legally. Pure Japanese anime is a big no-no in Korea.
::soapbox squeaks in indignation::
For those of you who don't know, right before WWII Japan invaded Korea and colonized us for around 40 years. They did everything in their power to degrade us, like not letting us use our own alphabet, and making everyone change their names from Korean to Japanese. Young woman were made to "serve" as "comfort women" to the Japanese soldiers, and the Japanese even used our people to conduct experiments, like dissections while the person is still breathing, or freezing parts of the body and using hammers to shatter them. They did all sorts of terrible things that make your skin crawl, and they still refuse to admit it ever happened, much less apologize.
But for heaven's sake, what does that have to do with their anime?! We can't live right next to them and close our door to them forever. It's going to come in anyway, so why not make it legal and regulate it? And learn from it? It just exasperates me sometimes, the way adults think. Closing our doors to Japanese anime just because it is Japanese anime is stupid. Hate them, curse them, send spies to sabotage their government, whatever, I don't care. But don't let your hatred of them work against you. If you hate them so much, learn from them - and defeat them!
::waves hands wildly as soapbox creaks::
(as if some government official is really going to read this and change something - -;)