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  • Here's an idea: Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are anime.

  • If you were to check my DVR you'd see four things: Adventure Time, Regular Show and The

  • Legend of Korra.

  • (aaaand How I Met Your Mother which my girlfriend records and I pretend to hate but secretly think is

  • genius SSSHHHHH DONT TELL HER).

  • ANYWAY, in 2005 Nickelodeon began airing Avatar: The Last Airbender, a story about a world

  • where magic is as common as war and where a great figure--The Avatar--has the singular

  • ability to unite both magical and national forces.

  • Only the avatar can master all four types of elementally themed magic, called bending.

  • There's only ONE avatar at a time and a new one is born as soon as the old one DIES. Which is

  • pretty brutal.

  • And means, as a rule, they experience a kind of coming of age Hero's Journey. With magic. And super-cool

  • hybrid animals. Which is exactly what we saw happen with Aang, the avatar from the first series...

  • and Korra, the protagonist of the currently on-going series: The Legend of Korra. Henceforth

  • collectively referred to as "The Avatars".

  • What is perhaps most striking about The Avatars, at first, is their style. Both visual and tonal.

  • It's "for kids" but also ... not really. There are serious themes, political messages, complex

  • relationships, including one very controversial love triangle.

  • All packaged up in an animated TV show rated Y7. So. Y'know. FOR kids.

  • But that doesn't mean that the show's complexity suffers at all. For instance, there are Four

  • Nations, and they all have their own attitude, history and look.

  • Show creator Brian Konietzko has listed PLENTY of influences on the show's style: Asian cinema,

  • Chinese, Indian, and Korean Culture, Harry Potter, Eastern Philosphy, and maybe most

  • importantly... ANIME.

  • Specifically Cowboy Beebop, Fooly Cooly, Miyazaki -- though I did recently learn that the famed director might not necessarily

  • consider his films "anime", strictly speaking.

  • The fact that Anime is listed amongst those influences makes perfect sense--many people's

  • first reactions, including my own upon seeing The Avatars is "Oh, is this Anime?"

  • And what they usually mean is "Is this animated TV show made in Japan?" And in so asking they

  • are also stubbing their toe on an interesting conundrum:

  • Because, as far as the West is concerned--and more on that later--The Avatars are definitely NOT anime.

  • When we say anime we mean Akira, Evangelion, Samurai Champloo, Naruto, Trigun, etc.

  • And sure, in a visual comparison, there IS a difference between the Avatars and these things,

  • though... sometimes not a significant one, a point made very handily by Chris

  • O'Brien over at the Escapist a couple years ago. Link in the doobly-do.

  • But strictly speaking it's not the subject or tone or STYLE that makes or breaks anime-itude

  • in the west, it's that the Avatars AREN'T MADE IN JAPAN.

  • Which is especially interesting given that IN Japan the world "anime" is used to reference ANY animated

  • work, regardless of nationality.

  • So! While The Avatars are not animes here... it stands to reason that they ARE. in Japan.

  • Along with the Simpsons and Boondocks and Archer and ... well you get the point. All

  • these things might be "foreign anime" or "western anime" but, anime nonetheless.

  • But The Avatars are, I think, are a much more interesting case given, all things considered,

  • their resemblance to what many of *us* would call Authentic Anime.

  • Meaning: if The Avatars were exactly the same, but made in Japan--would they uneqivocally be called

  • "anime" in the West?

  • It's that thin line accounting for genre solidity that's really interesting: there's one between

  • champagne and sparkline wine, Tennessee Whiskey vs Bourbon, Pizza vs. Papa John's, anime vs

  • cartoon vs animated TV show.

  • For all intents and purposes these things ARE the things that they, technically, are ... not.

  • Real talk though, I actually love Papa John's

  • And it is that "technically" that's really neat - like, by the anime standards we were just discussing

  • Torkaizer is not an anime because it was made in the Middle East.

  • But look at it. It's an anime!

  • The question, I think, is then what is gained by EXCLUDING works that MEET major stylistic

  • criteria from a genre.

  • Are we maintaining the usefulness of the word "anime", having it mean a very specific thing?

  • There is a usefulness in having "anime" communicate a quality or set of qualities--but is a disservice

  • done when it starts excluding things that admirers of the form might otherwise appreciate

  • regardless of its "AUTHENTICITY"? Which is...just so many quote fingers. So complicated

  • Or, speaking of which... maybe it's about protecting the sanctity or quality of the

  • genre itself?

  • In classic "thats not punk rock!" fashion, does saying The Avatar's are not Anime somehow

  • maintain an artistic integrity within the genre?

  • Are avatar-deniers protecting their own cultural turf from n00bs? Or MAYBE, as animated works continue

  • their path to legitimacy in the West this'll become a non-question...

  • ...and we'll eventually adopt the Japanese usage. Can

  • you imagine? Family guy, anime. Adventure time. Anime. Bob's Burgers. Anime

  • What do you guys think? What does the genre designation "anime" mean?

  • And is it changing? Does Avatar have anything to do with it?

  • Let us know in the comments and subscribe out of pity because of how bad you feel

  • that I have a cold.

  • Trolololololololololololo Hahahahaha Remember this week we're gonna be

  • responding to comments from two videos: surveillance and reality TV and trolls. And we're going

  • to do it in that order. MythicAlexthinks and

  • Benjamin Chi have pointed out my mispronunciation of Jyfe. Thank you.

  • JanettCilene points out that another example of a kind of media which might

  • transgress some privacy boundaries is vlogging and yeah I think you know the

  • tension between those two things is that reality TV seems to me that it's

  • a lot like "I can't believe these people are like this!" whereas in vlogging it's someone welcoming

  • you into their life I guess? But yeah I wonder you know which

  • one is a more constructed experience if that's even a fair thing to ask. June Bendich

  • and Joe Betzle both asked whether or not if you claim that

  • reality TV is changing people's ideas about privacy do you then also have to agree that violent

  • video games make people violent and other kinds of media affect people

  • in different ways. And I think there's a lot to this question

  • there's questions about the general audience of both those things

  • the cultural pervasiveness of all them but yeah this is a really great and

  • I think very complicated question to ask. Bill Bird says that it's not reality TV

  • that affects our ideas about surveillance but rather our pre-existing

  • ideas about surveillance make reality TV seem normal and this makes

  • me think about Josh Harris's project that was documented in

  • that movie We Live in Public which if you haven't seen it, it's awesome as a kind of like older

  • "older", what thirty years, example

  • of something where you know for art's sake people

  • were forced to live under surveillance and yeah

  • it was edgy but kinda seemed timely and expected and maybe normal. I dunno. Hat

  • Person provides some insight into actually being on a reality TV show which he

  • was so I'll just leave this. You should just read this cuz its

  • interesting and a little scary towards the end. To

  • Mimimarcus I have absolutely no idea what my IQ is and I forget my SAT score but

  • it was not good. I remember being very upset and that's, I mean I'm

  • terrible at taking tests and also like those numbers don't really

  • tell you how smart anyone is, like I know people with very high IQ's who are in certain situations

  • not the smartest people and people who did worse on their SAT

  • than if they were to just fill in random boxes who are some of the smartest

  • people that I know so, you know, smartness is a

  • whole, whole lotta stuff. And just as a point of

  • clarification and maybe pride. Matthieu Rheaume who's responding to

  • Mimimarcus: I wish I had a team of writers. That

  • would be awesome. It's just me. While I totally agree with

  • Shin Garugamesh I can't shake the feeling that they're just trying to

  • hurt my feelings. And it is on that note that we

  • transition to: Trolls. So instead of responding to specific comments I'm just gonna talk for a second

  • and we're just gonna throw some comments down at the

  • bottom that illustrate what I think were the

  • largest and most frequently made comments and responses. One of the most

  • common responses was people saying I unfairly lumped trolls and harassers

  • together into one group of people. However I think for a

  • lot of people their experience of the Internet is that

  • trolls to them are only harassers that they might not

  • even know that this other group of people exists or they

  • don't see a distinction between them; they see all these people as there to harass them.

  • Which is exactly why I became uncomfortable saying that there's a

  • good side to trolling because to a lot of people trolls just are people who threaten

  • and harass them. Knowing and being able to make a distinction

  • between funny waste-your-time troll and death threats troll is itself a kind of privilege.

  • Which really makes me wonder what percentage of the group of people saying

  • that there is a clear difference between funny waste-your-time troll and death threats

  • troll are straight white guys like me. I mean I did it and then

  • I tried really hard to see it from another perspective.

  • And it was scary. And finally to everybody saying

  • that trolling makes you a better, stronger, or smarter

  • person I think this is the position that the episode

  • started out in that I revised because it becomes very complicated to say that

  • when you realize that trolling is not the exact same thing for every person

  • who experiences it. And furthermore to everybody who thinks

  • that someone becomes a stronger or better person because they know how to

  • deal with rape or death threats: I don't know what

  • world you live in but it's nothing like mine...What?? This week's episode was brought

  • to you by the hard work of these very reasonable

  • people you'll notice there's only one writer. We have an IRC a facebook

  • and a subreddit, links in the description. And the tweet

  • of the week comes from Thomas Hatter who asks whether or not it's okay that he had an

  • epiphany while playing an RPG. I say you can have

  • epiphanies while reading novels, maybe while watching YouTube shows, why

  • not an RPG? Seems fine to me.

  • And of course we have to switch out a record. I know I said we weren't

  • gonna be doing any more record swaps of things that

  • were already on the wall but in observance of Pete Seeger's recent

  • passing I would feel much better about keeping

  • him on the wall. So we're gonna give him a place, little bit more visibility.

  • Again we'll eventually replace Johnny Cash, but welcome Pete Seeger: America's balladeer.

Here's an idea: Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are anime.

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