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Presentation PA #83Welcome to the second issue of Anime News Network's Protoculture Addicts. It seems like it was just yesterday when I wrote the presentation for issue #82, but it has indeed been two full months. We're very happy with the reactions to our first issue; we've received a lot of positive feedback, some constructive criticism and a few complaints. Every single bit of feedback, be it positive or negative, helps us improve the magazine, so please let us know by filling out our survey, sending us letters, or visiting us on Anime News Network's forums. We have a bit less news to report on this issue, after all, we had 6 months of news to catch up on in the previous issue, and only two months of news for this issue. But there are still interesting things going on in anime fandom every day. Earlier today I was writing about a very interesting exhibit taking place in Tokyo. It's an exhibit about anime otaku called, "OTAKU: persona=space=city." As the name implies, the exhibit looks at the persona, space and city of the otaku. Displays take a look at the otaku's home, Akihabara and Tokyo (their city), Comiket, their collections, and their passion. The exhibit really focuses on one word, though, "persona." It's a look at the otaku's consciousness, desires and motivations through images related to their hobby. The exhibit recently caught Tokyo's attention when it was featured on television, and since then it has been so popular that the museum is now making people wait outside for hours before they can get in. I really wish I could visit the exhibit, which is on display at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. Unfortunately, it only runs until March 13th and I won't be in Tokyo until March 28th. (If you're reading this and end up attending the exhibit, please, send me some pictures!) Undoubtedly, the biggest news of these past two months is the news that Viz/ShoPro has licensed the anime fan-favorite Naruto. In the wake of this, it's interesting to see how little some anime fans actually know about the anime industry. After posting the news about the license acquisition, Anime News Network actually received e-mail from some anime fans who were livid that we had licensed Naruto, and demanded that we unlicense it so that they could continue to watch their free fansubs. That's the internet for you, though. Fansubs, of course, remain fandom's biggest ongoing discussion. Even among the staff of Anime News Network, our opinions range from very pro-fansub to very anti-fansub. But all of us, on both sides of the discussion, are fed up with the way some anime fans that think fansubs are a god-given right. Later in this issue you'll read a news item about the shrinking North American anime home video market. While the reasons behind the slow down in home video sales are numerous and complicated, some industry experts point to fansubs as a possible contributor to the market's decline. While they're quick to agree that fansubs are doing a lot for the popularity of anime, it's hard to argue with the simple fact that, according to the bittorrent trackers, over a hundred thousand people download Naruto every week, and there's no way that Viz can expect to sell a hundred thousand copies of every volume of the DVD. While some people undoubtedly watch fansubs and then buy the DVDs, there are others who aren't particularly interested in paying for something they already watched for free. After all, Japanese people get to watch Naruto for free every week, why shouldn't North American fans, right? On the other hand, fansubs and their manga counterpart, scanlations, sometimes offer the only method to view anime and manga un-tainted by edits and censorship. Occasionally a North American company will do something to a title that fans don't particularly approve of. Most recently, manga new-comer CMX (owned by DC, which is owned by Warner Bros), published a heavily censored North American adaptation of Tenjho Tenge. For the most part, these edits don't have any real affect on the Tenjho Tenge story, but in a few cases they do diminish the intensity of certain scenes. Some readers may be blissfully unaware of these changes, others may be aware but unperturbed, but others certainly are disappointed. What is the unhappy fan to do: boycott the product, live with what he considers an inferior version, or import the original Japanese version and laboriously translate it? Perhaps in situations like these, while not necessarily ethical, fansubs and scanlations are a good incentive to distributors to put out a better product, whatever that might be. Christopher Macdonald |