[New Life+] Young Again in Another World Light Novel Shipments Halted
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@fozzedout I would like to point out that while they won that particular battle, they lost the overall war. Another point is that "spoils of war" can not be used as an excuse for "anything goes". Last point, and probably the most contentious.
Between August 6 and August 9 of 1945, the United States of America dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan killing many thousands of Japanese citizens, mostly civilians. I would strongly advise against making light of those event off you ever find yourself in either of those cities.
It's all a matter of perspective. All I know is that I'm probably not going to be able to finish reading a series that I was finding quite enjoyable.
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Looks like Sam was able to get Amazon to allow him to remove the volume 3 preorder without the penalty and that he'll refund the credit to members who preordered it.
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@hyperion said in [New Life+] Young Again in Another World Light Novel Shipments Halted:
Looks like Sam was able to get Amazon to allow him to remove the volume 3 preorder without the penalty and that he'll refund the credit to members who preordered it.
So enjoy this week's last prepub, because that's probably all we're ever going to get?
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I've thought something was off about this whole thing. I think Sam's right in that this escalated way too fast. I don't think it has anything to with racism but instead money. This is my speculation:
If MINE's racism was such a problem to HJ, the actors, animators, and whoever, why did they accept the job in the first place? The controversial content in the story is in the first half of the first volume. Any of the actors could have seen it within a couple hours of preparing for their roles (if they bothered to read the source material).
I don't think anyone in Japan had a problem with the story or tweets. When I studied abroad there, my Japanese history teacher (Danish expat) spent a few classes going over that time period, how the Japanese perceive it, and existing evidence. Generally, there's three camps: The first is that the whole period is controversial, and it's debatable whether the Japanese committed war crimes. The second is that it's all a hoax. The third is that the Japanese didn't commit any war crimes, and the whole thing is anti-Japanese propaganda.
Whenever I asked people I knew about it the responses were between, "It didn't happen" and "Eeeeh, I don't know. Did that really happen?" I interpreted the second as "I don't think it happened" or "I don't want to talk about this." Never was sure which one it was.
As for the racism in the tweets, I haven't read them, but my experience with it in Japan is something like, "Racist toward the people but not the person." So, I don't think anyone in the production committees and editorial department had a problem with the author or the story going into this.
Instead, I think the tweets and content got to someone with a bit of clout in China, and they made a demand - drop your support for this series or you will be blacklisted. I'm using blacklisted a bit loosely here, but the idea is that any company who doesn't disavow the project will not be considered for future Chinese ventures. I can't be sure of the extent.
As for why this pissed off the Chinese so much, I think it has to do what the Chinese call the century of humiliation. The century of humiliation goes from mid-19th century to the mid-20th century where imperial powers had their way with China, a wiki link if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation
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@eins said in [New Life+] Young Again in Another World Light Novel Shipments Halted:
If MINE's racism was such a problem to HJ, the actors, animators, and whoever, why did they accept the job in the first place? The controversial content in the story is in the first half of the first volume.
It's only controversial when you take in MINE's tweets from 2013-2015. The LN itself doesn't explicitly reveal any kind of racist tendencies on the part of the author. There was no story when they signed on, which was probably before the anime was announced anyway.
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@taedirk I'm hoping Sam took it down as a precaution, and he is waiting to see what happens with HJ. And I agree with Sam, this situation escalated rather quickly. I hope HJ doesn't drop the series, if anything a small hiatus while things cool down and then allow the author to resume. He already paid the price with the anime, taking the light novel and manga seems excessive.
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Meh, I think everyone has the right as a reader and customer to give or not his support to an author for whatever reason. The fact that a series than isn't actually that controversial in itself gets cancelled because the author wrote some shit posts years ago on social media scares me a bit. I have already read that people on the net are digging old messages of other authors in search of controversial ones. This time is about racism, and we all think racism is bad...but what could be the next time?
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Saying dumb things, you get dumb prizes, even if it's something you say many years ago (although I also believe the you from back then is not necessarily the same you today). However, somehow I felt that the response to this was a lot harsher than what the author of Rurouni Kenshin got, for possession of child porn.
Also found this comment:
https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/8nsmz7/anime_starring_a_japanese_who_massacred_3000/dzy1ruz/EDIT:
https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/8p0nx7/after_all_the_controversy_surrounding_the_project/e07ks4h/
So it seems like the author really, really messed up. Ooh boy. He... pretty much got what he deserved. But damn, I still want to read it, though. Is that wrong of me? -
@paul-nebeling said in [New Life+] Young Again in Another World Light Novel Shipments Halted:
@fozzedout I would like to point out that while they won that particular battle, they lost the overall war. Another point is that "spoils of war" can not be used as an excuse for "anything goes". Last point, and probably the most contentious.
Indeed, I absolutely agree. As an aside, I really like Master of Ragnarok for implementing and enforcing by death a rule to stop horrendous "anything goes".
It's all a matter of perspective.
Exactly, and it's why I mentioned it'll be an uphill battle as the views (especially taught) are from opposite sides of the same thing.
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@lex is
It's why I don't post on social media.
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Whenever I asked people I knew about it the responses were between, "It didn't happen" and "Eeeeh, I don't know. Did that really happen?" I interpreted the second as "I don't think it happened" or "I don't want to talk about this." Never was sure which one it was.
Japan has some real problems and one of them is not acknowledging the dark stains in their History, such as the R***ing of Nanking or how POWs were treated. I know in Germany they teach about the Holocaust and when someone or some group pretty much said that it was a Hoax or it did not happen the German Government were one of the very first to tell them that it did happen and pretty much said that it is very important for them to teach this at their schools. I am Canadien and I have learned the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of our History like how the First Nations were treated and how Japanese Citizens were treated during WWII. My History teacher pretty much has a Catchphrase: "There is no such thing as a perfect country" and he would tell us how he had some students that came from countries with a "perfect History" and " nothing bad has ever happened in their country." I had some idea which countries these students may have come from but yeah it bothers me that there are ignorant people out there and it is not their fault.
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@taedirk We still don't even know if it's actually cancelled do we? People are just inferring due to the shipments being halted.
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@emperorcrimson Sam said "halting shipments" is code for "yeah, this is totally canceled."
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Someone mentioned how weird it was for the issue to become so overblown so fast. Is it possible that it was brought to serious light because of the VA walk-offs? I imagine they'd be more susceptible to the drama and their walk-off itself would shine a lot more light on the issue than was expected.
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@aruseus493 said in [New Life+] Young Again in Another World Light Novel Shipments Halted:
Someone mentioned how weird it was for the issue to become so overblown so fast. Is it possible that it was brought to serious light because of the VA walk-offs? I imagine they'd be more susceptible to the drama and their walk-off itself would shine a lot more light on the issue than was expected.
Popular theory is that there was some kind of political/diplomatic pressure that forced the agencies to pull out, taking the VAs with them.
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@aruseus493 Apparently, the Chinese edition had entirely removed the subtle Nanking references. But then, this blew up after the anime greenlit. And when the author was questioned for clarification, there are rumors that he didn't respond amicably at first.
In other words, it's possible someone in charge was actually pissed off with his behavior, then decided to bring him down. That's why it spiraled so fast.
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Honestly, the LN doesn't have anything innately racist in it. But... the WN has some references to Nanking, and when you put that together with the 3712 kills reference, it's really kind of creepy.
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Wait, so was Sam forced to take down volume 3 by Hobby Japan, or did he do it out of concern for the future or something? If they were going to cancel the translation, at least finish after volume 3 is published.
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Is there anywhere good to go to for a recap of the author's tweets and plot stuff, with explanations of their potential racist intentions and denialist nature? The initial ANN articles weren't very enlightening (especially when it came to the Tweets).
I found a few of the posts from the poster credited on ANN's first article. This being one of the most major ones since it has a screen cap with some of the author's Tweets:
https://twitter.com/SonmiChina/status/1002050115031392256?s=20
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@Terrence --> see enternal's links
@enternal said in [[New Life+] Young Again in Another World]
Also found this comment:
https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/8nsmz7/anime_starring_a_japanese_who_massacred_3000/dzy1ruz/EDIT:
https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/8p0nx7/after_all_the_controversy_surrounding_the_project/e07ks4h/
So it seems like the author really, really messed up. Ooh boy. He... pretty much got what he deserved. But damn, I still want to read it, though. Is that wrong of me?
