Daijoubu

Time for some Author Style (but with comments enabled, so more like Bootleg Author Style!!!). Also, the image is random, ’cause I like to put images (I don’t think Author uses a lot of images). And there’s no quote from other blogs, so basically, this post is not Author-like at all, sigh. JP and Author have commented on the whole Greg Ayers fansub thing. I actually stayed for an hour of his panel and saw part of the one at Anime Boston as well, so I thought I might make a brief random comment on it. Now, it’s true that there was a substantial prime time slot where Gundam Seed and Fullmetal Alchemist aired just a few years ago which no longer exists. But I agree that his whole argument is very strained, because I think he’s saying that we should support the American industry because, since the Japanese industry is having trouble, they will depend more and more on American money to survive. But if they are having trouble in Japan because otaku there are not buying the products being advertized, then Japan has a more serious problem at the root of its distribution system and if they have to adjust because of it, then they just hase to, without having to depend on American money.

I think that there may be other issues lying behind Ayers’s argument. As was made very clear in that other panel he was on, he has an elevated opinion of himself as an “actor” and, of course, he probably regards the American voice actors as just as good as the Japanese. So when he argues that the American Industry is “where it’s at” for the future of anime and so fans must therefore support it, he’s putting himself and his friends in the industry in a position at least equal to that of the Japanese creators. This would explain his comments about buying anime to support “the creative process.” Those in the industry and those fans who attach themselves to the industry (like at AoDVD and ANN) probably relish their position as effective “gatekeepers” between the fans and the anime and have never liked others who bypass that.