Letters

Your recent Last Exit article is right on. I've been ranting over how Anime is being treated in the states for the last 3 months and nobody's been listening to me. Now that Fox Kids is slicing poor Escaflowne to peices, I hope I never hear that an American network is buying into one of my favorite anime. Before Fox bought Nic's rights to Pokemon, it was actually a decent series, but now it's a plotless hole from which there is no return. Thank god at least Cartoon Network's airings of Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon are post-production work. Now we have rumors floating around like bodies in the east river, such as possibilities of where Anime is going to be shown in the states.

My opinion is that it's best left to the dealer's table at countless conventions across the US. Honestly, it's a wonderful thing that PPV has been able to have some success with Perfect Blue, and I hope it's true that HBO plans to air an uncut Neon Genesis Evangelion. Let's face it, though, Anime just isn't meant to be for the states, with all of our censorship and ratings guidelines. Of course, I have my own predictions on that matter. http://otakubell.com is a domain I just recently registered (and already submitted to AniPike) for fanfics, and contains Otaku Bell Magazine, where my article posted to http://animeclubs.com is cross-posted, with the addendum of the news concerning Fox Kids. The problems arising are with many things, and one of the major problems that alot of Otaku are having nowadays is in DVD releases of Anime. We Americans have to deal with what is put out, which is months behind Japanese release, which our DVD players won't recognize, even though they have the English language options.

In short, capatalism and miles of red tape are binding the entertainment rights of US Citizens, and nothing good can come of this.

Trey Holliday bakasama@innova.net
Editor & Designer
http://otakubell.com

On the other hand:

I think some of the people out there who are currently expressing their hatred of FOX and Bandai are overreacting quite a bit. The recent surge in anime series on US television is a huge step in making anime more accessible and available to the masses, EVEN IN IT'S EDITED FORM. Of course we'd all like to see unedited versions of anime classics such as Escaflowne on US television, I would too. But getting Esca on US TV at ALL is a huge step. If the Sci-fi Channel hadn't ran EDITED anime during it's 'anime week' 6 years ago, I wouldn't have known that it even existed at the time. In short, US television introduced me to anime. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were original, unedited, Japanese language tapes of these anime out there. And that's what I got.

Fast forward to the year 2000. Anime is now on tv every day, which is introducing more and more people to this art form we all love. Nothing could be better! Many, if not most of these new fans will quickly realize that there are unedited, japanese language versions available and want to find them. Others will know that they're out there, but will prefer to stick to their dubbed versions. And still others will be perfectly happy with just watching their anime as it is on television. And you know what? That's fine! The DVD format has created the best alternative for every type of fan! There are even edited VHS and DVD versions of some shows that satisfy protective parents from objectionable material. There couldn't be anything more perfect, in my opinion.

All I ask is that those of you bashing FOX and Bandai for editing your favorite anime on US television is to keep an open mind. Your unedited versions are available. ANY anime on television is good, in ANY form, because it's introducing new fans to our world. The television version is obviously not for you. Get the DVDs/tapes. Enjoy them, and encourage FOX and Bandai to put more anime on television to get more and more people introduced to anime. (And if your argument against all this is that you don't have the money for DVDs and tapes, then you are in the wrong hobby. Try bird watching.)

Gene Jones
genedabean@yahoo.com
http://omocha.shc.uiowa.edu/scp/
genethebean on icq
Hameln on EFnet irc

Point taken. However, the reason for the fan's ire wasn't so much that Escaflowne was edited as much as that Bandai led us to believe it wouldn't be. Bandai stated at Anime Expo that the anime would be edited only to meet FCC and network standards. Instead, we find that editing is taking place for content, changing background music and deleting scenes the network bigwigs find too boring. Although the editing should have been expected, people felt lied to.

Just thought I'd tell you, there's a nice little forum for posting and reporting illegal online auctions of fansubs at http://network54.com/Forum/50995 . I've been trying to help maintain it, and recruit members, BUT NO ONE POSTS!!!

(Ok, that was a tad unnecessary O.o)

Let me also say that the group started as a mailing list called "Fans Against Bootlegging" started by Jonathan Lam, editor for "Omake" and "Jon-san Ni Omakase" at VKLL. address: http://www.spots.ab.ca/~lamv/ Now it's a forum at Network54, since Sailor Moon S and SuperS were aired here and Jonathan didn't have time (due to many requests for these titles) to maintain the M.L..

If anyone is interested, we are always in need of new members! ^_~

Trent Torkelson
j122@miliserv.net
http://www.crosswinds.net/~wcloak