slash authors in anime/manga fandom. fish on land?

[naanima]

I've been thinking about this for awhile but could never make what I'm thinking make sense in words, and I doubt this attempt is going to be any better.


If an anime/manga series is set in a place that is /not/ Japan slash authors often don't bother with the Cultural difference issue, and often depict the characters/situations in a very Western POV. I'm not saying that anime/manga fic authors don't either, it is just that anime/manga authors (good ones anyway) seem more aware of the Cultural differences as well as the conventions that you find in anime/manga.

I'm not saying all slash authors turned to anime/manga is the same. It is just many of them seem to be completely unaware of certain conventions/ideas/assumptions in the initial text. One of the most interesting things I find is the Weiss Kreuz fandom. Slash-fic authors seem to be attracted to WK because of the moral issues of WK (or lack of); good guys actually killing type of thing. The whole meta stream on that one confused me a tad. I'm pretty sure most anime fans recognised that WK was one of the Bestest merchandising scheme, aimed completely at the female demographic. You watch it for the pretty boys, for the melodrama, and for fic-writing (or reading) purposes, but you really don't feel the whole 'good guys killing people' to be an issue. It isn't as if that was the point. But slash authors (initially) seem to fall madly in love with the series because of the complete disregard for societal conventions (I'm so reaching here.)

It is a given that everyone likes a series for different reasons, but there's usually a few common threads that links everyone up. And more often than not I find people from a slash fandom likes anime/manga for different reasons than someone who have been watching/reading anime/manga for years. And that's fascinating, but I realised that beyond the fact that I find the reasons for slash-writers in liking a particular series to be interesting, I also find it at times to be down right irritating.

I, I think I get the sense that most slash-authors seem to completely disregard the anime/manga fandom. Even when there's countless resources out there, most people from slash-fandoms tackle the anime/manga fandom (or series) from a complete W-media standpoint (and I know I haven't defined what W-media is, but I'm still trying to get everything straight in my head, so, it'll have to wait.) And that irritate me, on a completely personal level. The prime example being the whole 'Naruto' fiasco, and no I'm not linking it, especially when my own feelings are so ambiguous. It is as if the person in question didn't bother with any sort of 'research' (?) about a series that she supposedly like, and in fact seem to like the series for all the fucking wrong reasons. I admit I read about 90% yaoi fics for 'Naruto', and there are weeks where I only read 'Naruto' for the fic reading experience, but dammit, Naruto is more than the gay, and can be in fact read for complete none-gay-subtext reasons. Kishimoto has created a damn fascinating world; complex, layered, and so much left unsaid. I find all the levels of Ninja to the awesome, the implied clan and village politics damn interesting, and all she has to TALK about is the GAY. WTF?!

What gets to me is that most of the slash-authors that do these things are intelligent, but release them onto the anime/manga fandom and their brain size seem to shrink. And yeah, the disregard for cultural differences also gets to me, but I find that if you give them time they usually begin to get it. Usually.

And I just realised that there's three or four topics in this discussion that can be 2000 words essays alone. Unfortunately, I don't have time, and to tell the truth I'm getting tired of venting so much. I'll get over the whole irritance. Eventually. Or, I could avoid it. Probably makes better sense.

[EDIT: javelle, I have received your email and will hopefully have a reply to you by Sunday, at the latest.]

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You've expressed the problem much better than I've been able to. For me it's always remained at the level of amorphous irritation. But yes, they disregard the manga/ anime fandom, and they disregard the manga/ anime ethos-- and in my day, there was a grating condescension in the way they dismissed the ethos at least as something to be considered before writing their fics. 'I'm turning this silly foreign *drawn* series into Serious Fiction, and I trust you're grateful.' Suggest that they had their cultural blinkers on and the response was 'I'm a westerner. I can only see this series from a western viewpoint.' Which made me too angry to speak.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

I can even over look the 'ignorance' (?) of there being a cultural bias in what's basically a cartoon/comic (and I'm going by the fact that they are new but they will learn). But what gets to me is the total disregard for, as you said, manga/anime ethos. It isn't as if it doesn't exist, sure, most of the anime/manga fandom want to disown the 'fangirls,' but we are here, we are a significant part, and we are /very/ vocal. There are established asusmptioins/convetions, and as petronia pointed out and understanding that most of the time there is a lack of 'Deeper Meaning' when it come the use of crosses and religious symbols. They draw it in because it is pretty.

And I remember the Holier Than Thou attitude, it made me angry back then it still make me mad now. Writing fics about 'real' people does not make them any more superior than writing for a series that is completely drawn.

Back to the Western-pov. Like I said, I do believe that given time they'll get it, but unfortunately there are slash-authors out there who just doesn't seem to understand that yes, this cartoon you are watching, this comic you are reading is a culturally different text than you are used to watching/reading. And this, like you, makes me really, really angry. I think it isn't even the ignorance that irritate me, it is the complete and utter none-thinking involved in what they do. It astound me how all these intelligent people would miss the obvious. A different language, a different culture, and a different reason for doing things. ARGHH! I get all frustrated, but I'll keep on hoping.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

As always you are ahead of the curve in your fandom-related irritations. *g*

[lizbyrd.livejournal.com]

I think it's interesting that there is a distinct difference in wrtiting styles for slash vs. anime. And there is. I think I once described as being like the difference between a Mercedes Lackey book (say, the Vanyel ones) and a Poppy Z. Brite one (say, Drawing Blood). Neither are actually cute and fluffy, but the Vanyel ones have that feel to them. That's how I find anime slashfic. (I'm comparing styles, incidentally, not quality of writing. :))

Although, that said, a lot of that could be based on the source material. I was trying to think of two thematically similar series, and all I can think of is Cowboy Bebop and Firefly, which isn't going to work as an example if only because I don't read fic for either fandom! Hm. Maybe the difference I perceive is that the western series I read fic for are just aimed at a much older audience than the anime series I read fic for, and the fic reflects this.

... babbling, should be doing work. Stopping now.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

Total agreement (except in specialised cases).

That's how I find anime slashfic. >> referring to the fluffy.

My brain breaks in wonderful ways. It makes so much sense.

Source material difinitely plays a major part, I think what is interesting though is that most slash-fic authors seem to forget that the series they are ficcing for comes from another country. They seem to go about as if what they are handling is still, uhh 'Firefly' rather than 'Cowboy Bobop'. While sharing similarities have completely different themes. I ahve also found that more and more anime/manga fics authors have matured (or maybe just the ones I'm reading) and their fics reflect that.

I wouldn't mind the difference, at times it is really quite interesting. It is the disregard for a none-western POV that irritate me.

Babbling is fine. We all should it more often.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Charmian and I were talking about this: to me it seems like slash authors come in and essentially try to reinvent the wheel. It's like something I've heard genre authors mention on their blogs or in essays: "serious" non-genre writers sometimes decide they're going to write a SF novel about, say, multi-generational colonization ships, without realising that it's been done before - and how it's been done - because they don't read SF themselves. Slash authors get into anime, automatically read the shoujo-sparkly fanservice as "the author wants us to think these characters are gay", exhaust themselves coming up with rationalisations for the Deeper Meaning that must be lurking in the depths of such series as Yami no Matsuei, and a year or so later begin to come around to the idea that possibly there isn't a Deeper Meaning and the religious symbolism is there to look pretty and the shoujo sparklies are there because the authors wants us to buy merchandise.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

"the author wants us to think these characters are gay"

... that's pretty much exactly it. Most of the time I find it incredibly amusing but the way they go about it, but there are times when I get terribly irritated. Pre-existing fandom here; maybe they should try reading what is already available. But ok, mostly I'm amused by the searching of deep meaning in series like YnM and WK.

Woe. To misjudge the pink sparkles so.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Agreed with Sabina. Actually, my main confusion is that from what I hear, people seem intent on discussing the deep meanings and subtleties of WK and Yami no Matsuei. Much joy may it bring them, but I don't understand why they don't want to discuss things that aren't, well, so badly written, or are more interesting/innovative genre-wise, like Death Note or Cowboy Bebop.

I guess I also find the disregarding of the anime/manga fandom irritating. Some meta might be hard to find, but it's not as if basic things like fanfiction are. I guess you can say that taking WK seriously isn't reinventing the wheel because people in anme/manga fandom didn't really do that...but in some senses it's like inventing the flat tire.

I suspect people refusing to consider the audience and context the series were made for is mostly Eurocentrism/Anglocentrism, but I also think it can be partially blamed on postmodernism like I always do! Just digging the corpse of the Author again, I guess. See, when you believe that authorial intent is crap and nonexistent and shouldn't be considered, and that reader response is All, then the cultural context of the author falls there too. You are then only concerned of your own cultural context.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

'Some calls it post-modernism but I calls it culture-bound, and I say the hell with it.'

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I guess you can say that taking WK seriously isn't reinventing the wheel because people in anime/manga fandom didn't really do that...but in some senses it's like inventing the flat tire.

XD XD XD

[i-smile.livejournal.com]

:DDD This is harder for me to understand than the Sasuke talk, man. But I think I might be one of the people you're talking about? In that I don't much like most anime/manga conventions (either in the source or in the fandom), if I do recognise them, and I tend not to consider cultural differences much in a lot of anime (especially in series like Naruto, as they aren't even of our world--I would assume all necessary knowledge for ficcing the series would come from the series itself). I don't even really mind--cultural translation, I guess it'd be, in fic. Where a writer makes a play on words that totally wouldn't work in Japanese, on the presumption that there would be something similar in Japanese if one were to look for it. (Like--for example--"Touchy-bana", for Tachibana. I think I've seen that? And I don't mind, because I bet that Japanese kids could make up a similarly insulting nickname that works in Japanese, as that is what kids are good at, and using the English version keeps one from having to 1. know Japanese and 2. explain the joke to one's readers, when one is writing in English.)

Also, I was totally drawn into WK for the Deep Issues. :D (However, I was drawn into HP for that, too, and HP is similarly lacking real depth.) I mean, of course I love the characters--even Youji, sometimes--because I would have a lot of trouble watching a show I find visually and emotionally unappealing (see also: reality TV), but it's important to me that I'm able to read into things, in a fandom.

Am I missing your point here? :/ I don't actually know anything about the event that set you off, so I could be focusing on something you're not really trying to say.

[I am not quite finished responding to the Sasuke thing; I am just taking some time off to do assignments. :D]

[halcyonjazz.livejournal.com]

On a drive by here...

I don't think that's what she was saying. I think she meant that slash authors centered more toward western fandoms getting into anime completely ignore any cultural change. So it's not so much play on words as it is completely disregarding any cultural differences.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

What chirachira said ^_^