CitizenBane's semi-essays on manga and race in comicbooks were really good reads, I thought:
"I have lots of stuff against anime/manga in general, and then some more specific stuff against it relating to the acceptability and viability of the medium on the battle forum vis-a-vis debates featuring these characters against comic characters, and then some other stuff relating to the ludicrous and patently false claims that
a) comic fans "just can't handle it", and
b) anime fans have conducted themselves so magnanimously on these threads thus far that there should be some kind of award or something for their moral rectitude in the face of adversity, preferably one with huge eyes and flowy hair
I suppose most of the "general" category stuff that I have against anime/manga could be called subjective in nature. I mean, I'd like to just say it's an idiotic medium filled with idiotic characters and idiotic stories designed for idiotic people and leave it at that, but whenever I make generalizations like that people get angsty and call me names. So I'll make some other generalizations. The vast majority of manga stories have childish, simplistic plots. And before anyone counters "Well, so do comics!", do they really? When's the last time you read a Batman (as an example, since he's a comic character who just happens to be more popular than Jesus, so in a sense he can represent the entire medium) story that could be called childish? I just went through at least 90% of Batman's Post-Crisis appearances while preparing a respect thread for the character, and I can think of maybe 5 stories (over a period of 26 years and hundreds of stories) that could truly be called childish or simplistic.
DBZ's one of, if not the, most popular anime/manga franchise there is, and it's easily the most apropos example of what I'm talking about. Out of all the DBZ story arcs you can possibly think of, who here can name more than 3 that can't be summed up as characters punching each other for the most banal and rudimentary reasons possible? Even characters who are primarily identifiable by their jocularity like Deadpool (and to a lesser extent, Spider-Man) have plots that aren't as.....basic. How many popular anime/manga franchises can you think of that don't revolve around characters punching each other for increasingly unlikely reasons? Naruto? Pokemon? Get Backers? The Law of Ueki? One Piece? Inu Yasha? Yu Yu Hakusho? Flame of Recca? Black Cat? Et al, because I could go on for hours listing here and I don't have that kind of time?
I realize an argument like this can border on the absurd considering combat is a major part of comics as well, but comic book stories where characters punch each other for reasons that are just plain stupid are not well received. But that kind of writing is the veritable center around which popular manga revolves. No one in their right mind liked AvX, even with the cosmic metal Russians. You can have stories like Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? and so on (for Batman, still using him as the medium's figurehead) and others like Superman: Red Son, Daredevil: Redemption etc etc where the crux of the stories have nothing to do with combat but are still considered excellent.
You can have comics revolving around characters who wouldn't be caught dead in a fistfight like The Sandman and Lucifer that are not only highly critically received, but also commercially successful given that they're part of a more mature niche subsection of the comic book audience. It's borderline impossible to say the same thing for anime/manga. Even the ones that are more mature by that medium's standards follow done-to-death themes and character arcs. So the medium is boring on the rare occasions that it's not childish and simplistic, but sure, that's a subjective point of view, I guess. You have a precious few creators like Hayao Miyazaki who can come up with beautiful, well told stories, but they're a microscopic fraction of the medium as a whole.
The art in 95% of all manga series sucks and the rest is passable at best. You're never going to find a manga story with art that can match the stuff that people like Lee Bermejo, Amanda Conner and Esad Ribic put out on a regular basis, and you can take that to the bank. I don't even think this generalization is subjective at all. A point that a lot of people have raised is the language barrier, and that's a pertinent point: comics are, and always have been, simply far more accessible to the majority of readers than manga has ever been. Dubbed anime? People make fun of how hideously bad most of that stuff is. Translated manga? If butchering the English language turns you on, sure. And then there's just personal tastes that can be tossed into the fray, although I have to admit, manga traditionally fares poorly with hard comic fans: ask Marvel why their Mangaverse initiative was so successf ---- wait, no, must have been something else. Maybe their X-Men anime series that released a year ago? No? Lukewarm results at best? The non-accessibility of the medium is also applicable to the battle forums, because it restricts who can debate on a thread to a much smaller group of people. Like jashro said, lots of people can comment on Captain America vs Batman. Kakashi vs Batman? Far fewer.
And what is everyone else supposed to do? 90% of the threads on the first page now have anime characters in them. What happens to the people who don't follow anime/manga or simply don't care because they're here for comics? The site is called ComicVine for the same reason AnimeVice is called AnimeVice, they serve separate audiences. People come onto this site to discuss comics. They come onto the debate forum of a site called ComicVine to debate about --- surprise, surprise --- comic book characters, and instead every thread has some unknown anime character. As for the argument that if the glut of anime/manga threads bothers people, they should simply learn to look away ---- are you people serious with this? Look away where? Where are debaters who come to this site to debate about comic book characters supposed to go? And the quality of debate in these new threads is miserable, don't kid yourself. Every single DBZ thread revolves around the same old arguments --- should power scaling be allowed?
Why are there so many contradictions? Did Piccolo dodge a lightspeed attack? etc etc -----ad nauseam. They're boring. And the manga debaters who are now heralded as the "rational" ones? Seriously? Not to name names, but back when the ban was still in place, all these particular posters did was wank and downplay assorted characters based on a few comics they'd read about a character here and there. If they're being held up as examples of what debating on the Vine should be like, something is seriously wrong with debating on the Vine. And even the supposedly thorough arguments they put forward that the rest of the anime fans rave about? I've read them, and they're mostly just sophistry. Debating on the Vine was already a piss-poor affair, adding anime/manga characters into the fray just dumbs down the quality of debate even further.
The argument that anime/manga threads aren't the problem, users/trolls are? Nice one, Sherlock. A three year old could have arrived at that conclusion. Anime/manga threads have traditionally had flame wars out the wazoo, and these threads aren't sentient and capable of producing flame wars by themselves. Who exactly thought users weren't the problem?
Most of all, I love how the anime fans are claiming they've been perfect little angels so far and it's just the mean ol' comic fans who want to ruin their fun. My constant refrain: are you people serious with this? I was afk for most of this week because I had to relocate, so by the time I got back online the ban had already been lifted for a few days. Here is just a sampling of some of the gems from the anime fans over the last few days:
You know whats wrong with your logic? You seem to think speed and strength advantage is an automatic win battles.(not that it isn't proven dbz outclasses supes level heroes in speed and strength anyway). DR Strange also isn't very strong fast t boot, I guess Supes beats him too, OH WAIT NO DR STRANGE RAPES SUPES DOESN'T HE HAHAHAHA.
LOL superman forgets he has speed in comics? ROFL MOST RIDICULOUS SHIT I'VE EVER READ. Take off your tin foil hat you proved absolutely nothing and started making things up halfway through.
SSJ4 Goku would stomp any comic character short of Pre-Retcon beyonder and that's all there is to it.
Sory Superman, you have rather steal money from your own mama than to fuck with Vegeta.
Yea go ahead and start the insults because you know everything you said was bullshit and now you got caught between a rock and hard place with no way out. Because you and me both know, Vegeta would murder supes.
There are like 20 or so more examples I could probably find. Clearly, this is riveting, rational, civil debate! Get real. If you haven't seen anime fans trolling, perhaps you should try looking harder.
TL;DR, if you decide this is nothing more than the rant of someone with an irrational hatred of the medium..............you wouldn't really be entirely wrong. But for the love of god, you people need to stop feeding folks this crap about how anime fans are trying their best to have civil debates while the comic fans keep trolling on purpose. You people are equally as bad as everyone else on this site and the world to boot. If the ban was reinstated, there'd be less trolling simply because there'd be fewer characters to troll about. That reason alone is good enough to have the ban reinstated, although the chances of that happening are less than awesome.
P.S Also, manga has no Batman-equivalent character. What self-respecting medium of entertainment has no Batman-equivalent character? Get out of my sight, manga."
Taken from: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/whats-so-wrong-with-animemanga-730761/?page=2
This was so incredibly true:
"The idea that "race doesn't matter" is nice on paper, but it completely ignores the fact that race is an important part of the lives of countless millions of people everyday. It's a sheltered, privileged position to take, and it'll go far on the internet, even if it has next to no relevance for most in the real world. It may not be THE factor that decides what kind of experiences you face, but it is a pretty big factor, and the things you experience are what shape you as a person. The idea that "race doesn't matter" just serves to sweep different backgrounds and experiences under the rug as if they don't exist or never did, and in the long run, it only isolates different cultures from the mainstream.
No, people are not just uniformly the same under their skin, and writing characters like that is just diversity for the sake of diversity. As a person of color, I don't feel anything when I'm reading a character that "looks like me". When I'm reading a character that both looks like me and thinks and responds to specific situations like someone from my ethnic background would, that's the kind of diversity I appreciate, because it's the kind that's actually thought through and not just there so people on the internet will stop sneering at superhero teams for being filled with white people.
Do you actually believe that a character's look isn't an important part of their appeal? People find comfort in familiarity. Wally is a character fans have watched grow up for years, and they've gotten used to his red hair, green eyes and yes, white skin. More than anything else, those are the three visual cues that mark Wally out to his fans as "their Flash", and now they're gone. What was wrong with Wally West being white? What was so wrong with Wally that he needed fixing? Changes aren't made to make characters worse, at least not on purpose, so the logical conclusion is that DC thinks making Wally black is better for him.
What was so wrong with Wally that he needed to be improved?The only thing that's worse than knowing DC doesn't think the Wally that fans knew and loved deserves to be around anymore is the knowledge that Wally West fans can't even ask what was wrong with a character they've followed for years being changed indelibly without people who don't have the slightest clue about the complexities of racial relations insisting they must all be racist for even considering the question.
Do you know Justice League Beyond has a black Flash? And that she's great? And that it would take no effort on DC's part to bring her into mainstream continuity like they did with Renee Montoya? What's wrong with keeping Wally the way he is and bringing an original black Flash into the mainstream continuity? Is it more important for minority characters to ride off the popularity of their mantle or for them to stand on their own feet and carve out their own space in the universe?
You know how you do diversity? You create Miles Morales and Kamala Khan. Both of whom have critically acclaimed comics to their name. Kamala in particular is now one of my favorite Marvel characters because she both "looks like me" and she has, by and large, the same ethnic background and many of the shared experiences from that background. For the same reasons, Solstice is one of my least favorite DC characters. She's just there to be brown and not much else. You know how you don't do diversity? You make Wally West black and Alan Scott gay.
Congratulations, DC. You can finally go "There, another black superhero. Happy?" and Tumblr will stop calling you racist for a while, but you've ruined a great character for a lot of us."
Taken from: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/idiots-on-wally-west-1557401/?page=2
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