Bugshrugs: Crunchyroll Expo is Already a Shitshow

For better or worse, Crunchyroll is perhaps the biggest face of anime fandom in the English-speaking world. They currently have the largest catalogue of streaming anime, they provide news articles and blog features, and they have a heavy social media presence, to the point you could argue it’s much too heavy. They have their detractors, sure, but they’re unarguably one of the biggest players in the game. So when they announced they’d be holding their own convention, it was a logical step that plenty of people were excited about. But as I look through the guests they’ve announced to this point (the morning of August 8th), I’m worried that it’s going to be, as the title of this post implies, a fucking shitshow.

Bugshrugs: My Thoughts on Piracy

Boy, piracy sure has been a hot topic in the anime community lately, hasn’t it? Hulu has removed their free subscription option and removed much of the anime from their back catalogue. Anime Strike’s double paywall and inaccessibility in regions outside of America causes controversy. Many people were forced to actually confront Netflix’s model of only releasing airing anime after the series has finished when they got the rights to the highly anticipated Little Witch Academia. Crunchyroll came under fire for quietly lowering the video quality on much of their back catalogue.  And most recently, the most well-known and popular anime torrent site has shut down. So the conversation has become incredibly relevant again. Which of course means it’s time for me to weigh in.

Short answer? I’m not anti-piracy.

Bugshrugs: Anime is not Anime

Fairly recently, a debate broke out in the anime community after moderators on Reddit’s r/anime board banned discussion of the music video for Porter Robinson’s “Shelter” on the grounds that, despite being animated by a Japanese studio (A-1 Pictures), it’s “not anime” because of an American creator’s involvement. This upset many people who saw no reason not to define it as anime, and the whole “what exactly is anime” argument broke out again.

I think I’ve come to a pretty clear stance on where I draw the line that everyone’s trying to discuss (anime is an animated product in which culturally Japanese creators have the biggest influence), but I’m actually going to take another stance in addition to this: anime is not just anime.

Bugshrugs: So Why Anime, Then?

In the anime Twitter sphere I’m a part of, there’s been a lot of discussion lately about animation. More specifically, about the role animation should play in the evaluation of anime. Some people whose opinions I respect have posited that, since it is the element that separates anime from other media, it is inherently the most valuable. And honestly, I don’t personally value it all that much. It’s not that I think it’s valueless. It’s just that how well something is animated isn’t often primary, secondary, or even tertiary to me. And yet anime is still my favorite medium, which forces me to confront an important question:

“So why anime, then?”

For me, what makes anime good isn’t the elements that are exclusive to it. It’s elements that aren’t exclusive to anime combined or executed in ways that are nearly exclusive to the medium. I don’t think “anime” as we define it can simply boiled down to one or two elements, so it’s not just one or two elements of anime that I love.

So why anime? I guess this is as good a time as any to break out listicle format. But don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to call this post “The Top 5 Reasons I Love Anime (Number 4 Will Blow Your Mind)” or anything.