What planet are the io9 people even *from*?

[snarp]

Because it evidently does not have the internet. Or Japan.

Regarding the news that Supernatural is going to get turned into an anime (note: I don't know if this news is real and I'm not sure I care), someone over there explains the appeal the series might have in Japan thusly:

Though Supernatural is in many ways an all-American magicked bromance of the midwest, it makes a perfect fit for anime audiences. The brooding boys who treasure family above all else, fighting demons who want to break into our dimension from another world - it's a classic horror anime. Adding in those exotic American touches like "God" and "hamburgers" will only make it more fun for Japanese audiences.

1) LADY DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BL IS

1a) I mean. How can you even post about this without bringing that up? It makes no sense. And the anime's apparently by Madhouse, the studio that did frigging Death Note. These are people who knew good and well what licensed L and Light figurines were going to end up doing when teenaged girls got hold of them.

2) Hamburgers?!

Get on a goddamn plane and go to Japan right now. HOW MANY HAMBURGER PLACES DO YOU SEE RIGHT OUTSIDE THE TRAIN STATION. (Answer: One, and it's McDonalds. But there's either a Mosburger or a Freshness Burger a couple blocks away.)

I forbid you ever to discuss Japanese culture in public again.

Edited a couple hours later because I felt that the narrative which I presented did not entirely cohere.

Comments

[branchandroot]

*weakly* God and hamburgers, huh?

...is it very bad of me that I now want to give this woman Angel Sanctuary to read?

[snarp]

I'm giving her Saint Young Men.

[torachan]

Oh my God, seriously? D:

I thought this reaction was bad enough, with it's implication that Japan/Japanese fandom/anime is icky and weird, unlike western fandom.

[branchandroot]

*falls out of her chair laughing* Oh, perfect!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

And all the Inuyasha episodes where Kagome and her buddies are eating WacDonalds hamburgers. And the From Eroica With Love chapters where Dorian and Klaus are hanging out in a Catholic church discussing atheism...oh, and the bit where Dorian's robbing the Vatican, for good measure. And the bits with the persecution of Kirishitans in Samurai Champloo, and pretty much all of Trinity Blood and Vassalord and One-Pound Gospel and and and *flails*

[holyschist]

I distinctly remember learning how to say "hanbaagaa" in Japanese lessons when I was, like, 8.

[inkstone]

OMG, how embarrassing.

[starlady]

OMFG. The ignorance, it burns.

ETA: And now I want a tsukimi burger from MacDonald's. Or maybe a teriyaki egg burger from Mos (or is it the other one? I forget). Mm, teriyaki egg burger.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

ROFL

oh boy, the stupidity, it's so stupid it's funny instead of burning.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Apparently I don't know what "BL" is, because all I can think of is, "?"

Although the description reminds of someone-or-other -- and if it was you, this is going to be kind of embarrassing -- remarking in regards to the shoujo-style manga of Twilight that this is finally the version in which all the weird stuff in the book actually makes sense, right down to the sparkliness.

[snarp]

BL. Supernatural fandom is well-known for the quantity of slash fanfic it produces.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Ah. I'm aware of the genre, but not sufficiently so as to be able to decode the acronym without assistance.

And I did in fact know about the, ah, proclivities of the Supernatural fandom, but only because I once stumbled across a "Wincest" reference on TVTropes. It made me reflect that Rory Gilmore's exes seem to end up in very strange places.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

I've long suspected that Hikaru and Kaoru was Japan's answer to Fred and George.

[mikkeneko]

I am extremely confused by that. Is he trying to say that incest and dub-con don't already exist in the SPN fandom? Or... maybe he's arguing that the US has the incest and dubcon and Japan is going to bring on the pedo?

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

When I was little, the McDonalds in some parts of Waikiki and Honolulu did so much business with Japanese visitors that they had permanently-mounted Japanese menu boards right next to the English ones. AND THIS WAS BACK IN THE EARLY 1970s.

[torachan]

Yeah, not only does it have this tinge of "ew, weird Japanese!" but it doesn't even make sense, because um...this is SPN we're talking about.

[eisen]

Adding in those exotic American touches like "God" and "hamburgers" will only make it more fun for Japanese audiences.

/stares

/just ... stares

Has she ever watched any porn anime. Ever. Where does she think the recurring nun fetish comes from.

For that matter, I can't count the number of romantic comedies I've seen/read that include scenes set in thinly-veiled ripoffs of Starbucks and McD's. (My favorite: Sudohbucks in TORADORA!, for prompting even the characters to comment "Are these guys trying to get sued?") For god's sake, JAPAN HAD A SEVEN-PATTY BURGER PROMOTION TO CELEBRATE THE RELEASE OF WINDOWS 7. That is the sign of a country that loves its burgers.

THIS IS WHY "WACKY JAPAN" IS A MEME THAT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE.

[snarp]

Freshness Burger has a really good teriyaki tofu burger; I have tried to make one like it for myself and failed totally.

[snarp]

See, by itself, I could almost accept the "god" thing, because a lot of manga does use Christian symbolism in weird ways because it looks kinda cool and foreign. And, uh, I say "because it looks kinda cool and foreign" as shorthand for "as the result of a complicated phenomenon comprised in parts of Western cultural imperialism, Japanese classism and xenophobia, and embroidery." The shorthand is necessary because analyzing the phenomenon in question in any useful detail is more of a "doctoral thesis"-level project than a "stupid blog post"-level project.

But anyway - I mean, I could have gone along with her saying it if I thought she had meant, "It's well-known that some Japanese manga, anime, and novels make use of Christian mythology in ways that might surprise and alarm Western Christians." I think that'd be a fair point to make. But... the thing about hamburgers makes it clear that she doesn't know enough about Japan to mean that. She doesn't have a clue. So she means something else, and I think that it is something that is not particularly coherent and smells funny.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Supernatural having quite the reputation for generating particularly high levels of general obsessive batshit and skeezy RL behavior focusing on the poor actors: http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Supernatural

[snarp]

That's been my assumption, too.