Once upon a time, a long time ago, a friend and I were watching Sailor Moon. Every episode, in order, at the rate of about one a week. Real-time. It was quite the experience, really. Sometimes we had to re-watch episodes, having been too drunk to comprehend the plot the first time through. (Sailor Moon. Too complicated. And I wonder why people call me a drunk.)
Anyway, these were the ADV DVDs (for the original series and R, anyway,) and every time we put the disc in, we'd be greeted by the ADV logo and a voice asking, "What is anime?" There would be a mad scramble to hit the menu button, or mute, or skip forward, or pretty much anything at all that would keep us from finding out what anime was.
I just didn't want to know. I think it was really that I already know what anime is -- it's a pretty simple concept -- and that listening to ADV define it in terms of secondary qualities would only diminish my enjoyment.
It goes further than that, I suppose, in that I especially did not want to hear anime defined by ADV. I've heard their comments on us, the consumers. I feel that they hold us in contempt, and that their marketing deliberately presents anime at its most reductive. I didn't see any reason to expose myself to it, and still don't.
So I'm proud to say that I never found out what anime was, despite having watched two full seasons of Sailor Moon (minus an episode) on DVDs that would have eagerly defined it. Take that, ADV.
words from chris, 2009-02-11 02:31:45, los angeles
