Blog Talkback: Toons of the 2000s: Anime We Hope Never Come to America

[Six Samurai]

Okay, this thread is treading on dangerous ground here. Back on topic or it gets closed.

 

[hooka]

Actually that is nothing less ballsy then what the average "Adult" cartoon with an M rating would do.

 

[kristay <3 .]

And the fact that it was still censored in broadcast form and didn't even air on some of it's sister stations

 

[conifer]

Even so, that's hardly reason for people to be up in arms about the ending, as if it's really even close to the worst thing put to media.

 

[Pandora Tomorrow]

I'll give you that, it's definitely not THE WORST EVER, but it was certainly shocking

 

[mintee d]

I'm making the comparison, because someone essentially said 'they should ban it because of the violence at the end'. I'm thus comparing it to something that was nothing but over the top violence to show why this is a silly reason to ban something. I'm not making any artistic comparison between the two.

 

[RUBAL]

Ah, I see, well that's just ridiculous.

 

[Mike G.]

It would have been trash heaven if the budget was a little better. I did like the design work of the show.

 

[Suprotim]

If you watched it in english and didn't take any of it seriously, then it was slightly watchable, great is an overstatement

 

[uaewarrior]

I disagree completely, what exactly do you think is the problem with Speed Grapher, aside from not having the best animation, what was wrong with it? It is not like any of the series being discussed here, it was a good series with good characters and a good plot & action and everything.

 

[whitneyskywalker]

Maybe it was too "seedy" for him.

There are certainly some pacing issues in SG. And some of the more fantastical scenes seemed a little off-tone at times.

But if you're a fan of those old "Pinko Violence" Japanese films of the 70s, Speed Grapher comes closer to them than most anime I've seen, OAV or TV. I'd like to see anime mine some older Japanese sub/pop-culture more often. For example. I thought Black Lagoon was at its best in the 2nd season, riffing on old, dingy, B-type yakuza films with the Fujiyama Gangster storyline.

 

[ApacheJack]

Speed Grapher was smut. But that was the point. It was about how low people would stoop in the name of pleasure. And it was awesome, albiet flawed. There was a definitive context to its depravity.

Context, not content, is always the hallmark of maturity as well as watchability.

 

[Taj]

There's nothing wrong with using sex and violence to tell a story, but in Speed Grapher these elements are used with virtually no sophistication whatsoever; they're simply tossed into the story, sometimes in very contrived ways and always in an exploitative manner. This show might be

 

[Haru]

Uh, I never said I had a problem with Speed Grapher, I was just making a witty comparison to the statement.

Apparently, I only got the comparison part right. I haven't even finished Speed Grapher.

 

[Nickia]

Exploitative of what exactly?, this is a cartoon. Also i don't agree, a big part of the show was how this was a society of decadence, it all fits.

 

[Out of Kool-Aid?]

I was about to respond "so?" but maybe my tastes are just too liberal...

Honestly, there's a lot of stuff out there that's exploitative. People use the term so liberally to label shows with any amount of gratuitous sexual content or violence, but fail to see that a lot of the "classy, mainstream, popular" shows out there are just gratuitous. For instance, isn't Dragon Ball Z basically male power-trip porn? Isn't Haruhi Suzumiya a show that wants to have its cake and eat it too with it's "self conscious" nature regarding otaku fandom while still completely enjoying the fact that Mikiru is just there to squeal in moe manner and send male moe fans' hearts aflutter?

Someone in here mentioned that Perfect Blue is exploitative but is saved by innovative direction and intelligence.

And I totally agree. Perfect Blue is no different than your typical Italian Giallo film but in that genre there are standout examples of intelligent, emergetic filmmaking and Perfect Blue would be considered a standout as well.

In the end, most shows and movies are exploitative and gratuitous in some way or another. Hollywood movies are some of the best examples. We get copious amounts of wedding porn, SFX porn, gross-out "comedy" porn, and audiences--FANS IN THIS FORUM--eat that stuff up. And they're all totally gratuitous in how they present these elements. But for some reason people have this conception that your typical shiny Hollywood movie is somehow classier and more acceptable to watch than some Grindhouse film.

The only difference I see is that Speed Grapher doesn't pretend to be classy when its not, unlike some anime out there.

 

[ninjalette]

It's already bad enough that Japanese law prohibits the depiction of full-frontal nudity, and not just in porn, but on legitimately artistic works as well.

 

[mikeymagic]

That is untrue. Nudity in art is perfectly legal in Japan.

 

[Serena Elizabeth G]

Trainspotting was cut in Japan for showing genitals. And Kinsey had to be approved to be shown uncensored there (being the first of its kind)

 

[Island Princess]

If that's true, then it was for theatrical ratings reasons, not legal ones. If you do a quick Google search you'll find the Japanese Blu-ray was uncensored.

Also it would help if you could provide some links. I'm not finding anything about Kinsey's screening resulting from a change in the law.