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http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903
Previous Poll Results:
Question: Would you become part of a collective consciousness / hive mind?
Choices:
Yes - votes: 586 (19%)
No - votes: 2506 (81%)
There were 3092 total votes.
The poll ended: December 19th 2021
Could one argue that the mass media is already creating a lower form of collective consciousness?
Comments (limited to first 100 replies)
» ElKaichou on December 19th, 2021, 2:40pm
The work has to be pretty enjoyable for me not to think about the author's views. And even so, what kind of morals are we talking about here. There's a difference between something like believing drugs are okay and thinking that women should stay in the kitchen.
And let's say that the author does believe that women should stay in the kitchen but I enjoy their work(s) very much, it's just not that easy for me to enjoy their work to fullest having to know that fact.
» residentgrigo on December 19th, 2021, 2:50pm
» Ceiye on December 19th, 2021, 3:05pm
» VawX on December 19th, 2021, 11:17pm
Like how Rurouni Kenshin is still a good manga no matter how degenerate Watsuki Nobuhiro actually is mmm...
» residentgrigo on December 20th, 2021, 9:26am
The manga instead glorifies the Shinsengumi and its values (a politically motivated police task force), has a negative view of the weapons market or 19th-century prostituation and establishes that the killing of other people is dishonorable. These are some of the morals of the work that strongly inform the plot itself, moments of catharsis for the characters, etc. All harmless stuff or the most mainstream manga anthology on the market wouldn´t have published it as an all-ages manga. It's also why the potentially political Death Note is so tame and simply focuses on the mind game. It would have needed to run in their Seinen spin-off otherwise and there is less money in that. Interesting that Disney now owns the Punisher but his comics profile is currently being strongly reduced due to, well look it up.
Another example of an obvious moral. Spriggan, Spec Ops: The Line or Metal Gear preach with a megaphone that American military intervention is bad bad BAD. The limited US manga release for Spriggan even had some of its Anti-American content removed as it would have upset the apple cart back then. You will not like how the plot to any of these unfolds if you hold the conviction that the US military is a well-meaning world police and the 1998 Spriggan anime film got criticized for how it portrayed American soldiers when it came out in the US. Don´t expect that criticism repeated when the 2022 anime drops. The wind shifted even in the US.
You can´t have a high view of 20th-century communism and enjoy Animal Farm 1954 as that animated film was funded by the CIA. It is literally propaganda but fairly close to the book too. You need to see value in BLM to get anything out of Candyman 2021. Etc.
Behold, actual Japanese politics in a manga: Gekiga Hyouryuu. Run for you life kids! KAWAGUCHI Kaiji also does that and here is Imperial Japan did nothing wrong - The Animation:
https://myanimelist.net/anime/6229/Konpeki_no_Kantai
The quite funny 1/10 review ain´t wrong. I have no idea which nation would date to license this on a lark.
@Ceiye El Cantare will reign for 20000 years and a day! Glory be to God Eagle!
https://happy-science.org/el-cantare/
Edit: A top to bottom Punisher reboot just got announced. How timely. He was benched for 1,5 years. Even the near 5 decades old logo got a redesign. Looks great but this is what happens if real-world politics and IP accidentally collide: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/jason-aaron-reinvents-mar vel-punisher-for-2022/
Marvel EIC C.B. Cebulski says "The Punisher is not a hero or a role model, a fact that's reinforced in the pages of our books. For readers who unpack Frank's character, there's a deep and compelling story about how his demons drive him to do terrible things that heroes would never do. And when you think about his story in that context, it directly contradicts how the Punisher has been appropriated."
Now that is a wild (Disney!) press release and note how the moral of the story is its selling point? No one is ignoring authorial intent. Certainly not the publisher. Not that these are always understood. See Fight Club, Starship Troopers (funny how the book and film are on somewhat opposite ends), etc.
» Careena on December 19th, 2021, 11:52pm
If a work is pushing an agenda that I don't agree with:
- If the agenda is the whole point of the work to the point where it becomes unenjoyable, then it's a simple matter of not consuming what I don't enjoy.
- If I only see glimpses of it or if other aspects of the work are interesting, then such things are easy for me to ignore (or skim through if they're too much) because I consume media for entertainment, and if it's entertaining then it's served its purpose.
There are many things I don't agree with in media. If I were to look for a custom designed echo chamber for myself my selection would be very limited.
A not so heavy example: I don't agree that "cute" should be synonymous with stupid, clumsy, airhead...etc. and portrayed with childish mannerisms. These characters come off as developmentally challenged. It's actually something I feel strongly about, but if I skipped every manga or anime that has such a character, I'd be missing out on some works I really enjoyed (like Steins;Gate) because that stereotype is quite prominent in manga/anime. I may not like that character, but does it really matter if I like the rest?
Another more specific example: I absolutely hated how women (especially the romance interests) were written in Bakuman. Every part of those romances was against what I believe about gender roles and portrayal of women, yet I really really enjoyed the shounen aspects of it and rated it highly.
» ForeignerChan on December 20th, 2021, 11:14am
lambchopsil asking the right questions.
» mattai on December 20th, 2021, 11:24am
I'm not going to scour the internet for information about every author whose work I read, and an author being a POS doesn't necessarily ruin a work for me (though I'm not going to want to support them), but...
It's kind of hard not to feel the author's opinion seeping into their work at times.
Anything anyone creates is going to be shaped through the lens of their own perspective, and if the author has especially unpalatable morals or opinions, it can easily lead to the work being less enjoyable - or more enjoyable, just from the novelty of seeing how a messed up person thinks. It can have an impact either way.
» blackkittycat15 on December 21st, 2021, 1:50pm
» hkanz on December 20th, 2021, 12:09pm
Re: propaganda, I don’t agree that an author pushing a certain view makes a work propaganda (though it could be). Naturally any author would present their own worldview as correct and try to portray that in their work, but you can’t really get around that unless there’s no worldview presented at all. For me the point when it would become propaganda is if the mangaka included misinformation or skewed facts in a deliberate attempt to manipulate people.
» Sugarshark on December 20th, 2021, 12:29pm
likely, as there were persons taking questions before and presumably afterwards but I left halfway through.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/13439/Shinpi_no_Hou/
not sure if hyper Christian or actual cult
morality messages delivered with a sledgehammer don't work for me; lacking nuance and persuasion
I'd much prefer to find the message, as it whispers to my own core morality.
» Ceiye on December 20th, 2021, 8:57pm
Or a more digestable 10 minute video, but Ryuho Okawa doesn't deserve actual documentation
» residentgrigo on December 20th, 2021, 12:58pm
Resident Evil's Netflix show asked reviewers not to mention politics:
https://www.pcgamer.com/resident-evils-netflix-show-asked -reviewers-not-to-mention-politics/
Imagine 24 meets zombies and you are set. Capcom really went out there and said to professional critics that they need to stay away from any ideological analysis, they couldn´t even mention any political or moral level, if they wanted to get access to the screeners. Remind me of all these "non-politcal" Tom Clancy games by UbiSoft. If Clancy was alive to see this... He had a bad case of Japanophobia btw. The economic bubble collapsed 2 years before this (hilariously) racist mess released in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor
He was barking at a corpse. A rogue Japan Airlines pilot pulls a 9/11 on the US with a greater success than even Al-Qaeda and only days after Japan nearly tanks the US economy beyond the breaking point. Wild wild stuff.
» alidan on December 24th, 2021, 1:01am
tldr, I get where companies are coming from barring political discussion in a review, you can easily call something crap without going into real world politics.
» SilverStorm on December 22nd, 2021, 10:16am
» TUnicorn on December 22nd, 2021, 1:35pm
» wotonito on December 22nd, 2021, 6:57pm
For example, Brandon Sanderson; a famous Fantasy/Scifi novelist; is very much Christian, but actually takes the care to understand Atheists and those of conflicting religious views when writing characters who are not modeled on Christians. Atheistic characters feel like actual people with real views; not just stupid children who aren't yet enlightened on the way things Really are.
On the other hand, Karen F. Williams; a minor lesbian-romance novelist; forced her Christian views into her novel Coyote Blues to the point that maybe 1/10th of the novel is a character explaining what her view of "Real Christianity" is and how "Real Christianity accepts LGBT" and such. I don't need to hear this, I just want to read the damn story. An otherwise good novel became something I can't recommend to my friends because of the Author's obnoxious self-injection.
So, to summarize: If the author can reign in their morals like Brandon Sanderson; the author's morals do not matter. If the author self-injects too much, it matters.
» ZiBaXn on December 23rd, 2021, 2:12pm
» Plumpuppeach on December 23rd, 2021, 3:02pm
Like you said it really depends, if I have already read it I'll probably continue but if I haven't I probably wouldn't start it
» alidan on December 24th, 2021, 12:41am
there is one other time... the director Victor Salva, not knowing his history, I could watch his movies and largely not care, but holy shit, the person is a monster who is unrepentant. Real hard to seperate the art and artist in this case where after he was let go he went on to film what he did.
» Akatsubaki on December 24th, 2021, 10:27am
» Bog Initiate on December 24th, 2021, 4:10pm
Even if they try, a piece of work will always include elements that reflect the author in one way or another. Even if he creates characters entirely to himself or his own thinking, the author will always have something to say about them. Especially in the world of manga or light novels, chances are that sooner or later you'll end up finding out something the author said and then you'll be certain that his or her views were undoubtedly reflected in his or her work.
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