They say you can’t have the good without the bad, the light without the dark and so on. Well following our angelic last round, we’re revving the engine back up again; the chainsaw is purring, the gasoline has been spilled and a split grin of knives wink back in the darkness.
Finger on trigger – How a girl figures
Flesh from bone – Gordonator
gauge and puncture – My Secret Otaku Life
strung, sawn and slaughtered – austrian otaku
We’re looking at the list and things are coming to a boiling point. When we update it you should be able to see that at the very maximum we have 4 rounds left. After this round, expect a slow period until we reach our final round, then the vitriol will come out.
If you remember the Meimi incident, you’ve probably got a good idea as to what is in store for ‘Dancing Queen’. We said it before and we’ll say it again, the moment you start making gender, race or any other kind of distinctions in your blog is the moment you are going to piss a lot of people off.
How a girl figures is basically, “A girl’s take on figure collecting”. Now, we could rip you apart or we could ask you calmly. We’ll do both.
Dancing Queen, if you are reading this right now, you MUST answer this question for the sake of everybody else who is wondering the same thing:
When you started your blog, what made you think that anybody would care any more or any less about a girl’s take on figure collecting as opposed to a male’s take? Do you elevate your importance entirely on the basis that you are female?
We’ve got our own theories on this; similarly to meimi, bloggers will follow girls in the hope of getting a girlfriend; yes it seems like a very sweeping judgement to make but it is largely true and hilariously transparent at times. We see people cracking jokes, making them laugh. Others take the passive route of “Nobody would like me”. Hoping for some kind of “Don’t worry, I like you!” fantasy response.
It’s sad. Not so much on the principle (Although that’s pretty painful to watch too), but on just how obvious these people make it. We could pick each individual example out over different blogs in the aniblogsphere but it’d be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Look at the girls at scrumptious, basically annoying like a fly that flew up our nose before we sneezed it out. But even so, an undeniably successful blog that doesn’t get it’s readers by flying the female flag. Persocom-san’s blog, loldebi, Yi (We think), many more. All female, yet somehow manage not to make a big deal of it, and good for them, even if we did eliminate some.
But it doesn’t stop there.
As a blog, How a Girl Figures simply isn’t that good. There are loads of figure sites out there, hundreds. And you would think that when your competition is the likes of alafista that you could pretty much just shit on the page and still end up with a better blog, but oh no, it couldn’t be like that could it?
The reviews are pretty bad, to be blunt. The concept of figure reviews are heavily flawed, much in the same way that music reviews are flawed or any artform for that matter; it’s entirely subjective. Pictures are nice, but other than that it’s up to us to decide if we like it or not, not you.
To add to this, music reviews are usually done by those with some kind of musical experience, but in the case of figures, many reviews have never sculpted a figure, couldn’t name a few figure circles without looking it up online and seem to have this idea that well painted face == highly detailed face, despite the fact that the facial sculpts of most figures nowadays are just smooth plastic with a lump for a nose. It reeks of mass-production and corner cutting, yet people act as if it was hand crafted in the most precise of ways. Skin deep in more ways than one.
Back to the blog, for someone who watches “lots and lots of anime” (Why the fuck do you spend so much time on your blog or twittering or on MAL or commenting on other blogs?) there are rarely any details about the anime itself on there. Would it kill you to give us some background information on the character? Oh that’s right, you lied. You don’t watch enough anime to give us any information. You’re a collector and nothing more.
Not even an embedded video or comparison of the figure and the anime/game/etc. What a fucking disgrace.
Still to be kind, we didn’t see any misuse of otaku. Watch and learn, Meimi. This could have been you if you didn’t talk shit about matters you have no knowledge of.
How A Girl Figures by Dancing Queen – APPROVED
Now, by the name alone we should really getting angry right now. But for a single reason; we can’t. This is not because Hikky agrees with us, but because he’s just so right.
http://austrianotaku.com/2009/11/blogroll-2-0-dannychoo-com-criticism/
It was kind of sad because Hikky tried to take back what he said after some DC followers said some inane bullshit, but the fact it was made is proof enough that something is up. It wasn’t just us after all.
“I visited DC.com daily since mid 2007 and registered over there in early 2008. Looks like this was the peak of the awesomeness on that site unfortunately.”
We weren’t there at that time, it was early ’09 that we found out that the guy in the stormtrooper outfit was some kind of internet sensation, we looked and saw a lot of bullshit regarding ‘Otaku’ and some severe misuse, then we found the aniblogosphere as a whole doing the same thing and thus with a dash of anger and a pinch of rage, the OEG was born.
“There were also articles (believe it or not) with a lot of TEXT which where really useful! Now most of the content is user generated from Danny’s live bloggers and via figure.fm articles. Yus, DC.com also featured user generated content before at the “Member News” section, which was later transformed into “Member stuff” (or something like that) as it’s topics weren’t any longer only news, but also random stuffs no one cared about. (Don’t get me wrong there were lots of interesting news entries and weekly series too.)”
Because DC has turned his blog into some kind of web 2.0 mess. Web 2.0 is basically user generated content, if you’re smart you may realise that completely conflicts with the concept of a blog, but there you go. DC is lazy and doesn’t like to write anything, he just wants the fame and his name in lights.
“Folks hanging out at DC.com should realise that Danny is a businessman first, who works also for GSC.”
Absolutely. Think about this from a business point of view. Look at all the “Samples” Danny gets. Does he get them because he translates the GSC pages to english? No. He’s an advertiser, a simple businessman trying to sell you what he can. Look at all the bloggers out there, look at all the websites that ship GSC figures outside of Japan and tell us there isn’t an international market. Danny is driving that thing, and he doesn’t give a fuck about whether or not the goods are of any quality. Ever heard Danny say “Well, the face is a bit off…actually I’m glad I got this figure free, GSC could do better.”? No, he will sell you the tackiest shit if asked to. Then he demands you all put an RSS feed on your site and for what? A possible mention at the very bottom of the page. Honestly it is sickening, this guy pretends to be your friend.
“72% of Danny’s readers voted for GSC!
What the hell? What about ALTER, Kotobuikiya, eh? Maybe I’m an weird idiot but in my opinion ALTER pawns GSC quality wise or plays at least in the same league. Maybe he should divide business content from personal content a little bit more? But Danny teams up with other companies too to do stuff like Otacool. Wondering since when “otaku” are cool (besides imaginary in the fucked up minds of some random weeaboos). Yes, it’s just name and it’s hard to come up with something that doesn’t sound wacky but in my opinion it shows the wrong image. Featured inside this book are DC community members, showing of there collection. (Great advertisement for your blog and no offense against those featured.) Unfortunately even those featured inside have to pay for the book. o_O”
Now this is very important. Hikky, we agree 100% ALTER is much better than GSC, and as stupid as they may be we don’t think that /that many/ people voted for GSC. It just helps business for Danny Choo for him to report back and say “Look, GSC is loved by many! Operation DC.com is going well.”
Otacool really pisses us off, and we’re sure it pissed off those who featured in it too. Aside from the fact there were very few real otaku in the book, anyone featured in the book were not given a free copy. So hold on a minute, Danny Reaps the rewards for a book that he didn’t do anything for, simply stick photographs together, and even those featured didn’t even get a free copy? What kind of bullshit is this? Fuck, they should have gotten a percentage, let alone a free copy.
Wanna know why they didn’t get one? Well here’s an OEG secret for you, a few of us were going to attend the Otacool signing to meet Danny Choo, but the turnout was horrible. It was a tiny stall with stacks of unsold books despite the hype Danny surrounded it with. we didn’t even want to go there and pretend to be interested. Hey, our image matters to us, and Danny would only have tainted it. Poor show. Didn’t you wonder why Danny took such few pictures and quickly moved on to Otacool 2? What a joke.
Hikky, we appreciate your blog and we appreciate your post on DC.com that was incredibly true, and a real eyeopener on just how many people feel the same way. You call your blog “austrian otaku” yet you’re not otaku. But with that, you were almost spot on in the DC post. All we can say is take a look at that definition, take a look at yourself and realise something isn’t matching up. Adjust accordingly, be it removing the word or being more otaku. We’re fine with either. This is not an elimination out of hate.
Austrian Otaku by Hikky – ELIMINATED
AKA “My Secret life as an otaku”. Well, no prizes for guessing what you were going to score here. You’re a fucking disgrace, one way or another. You started blogging back in 2008 right? So it’s taken you 2 whole fucking years to pre-order a single figure? Even the singapore guys are doing better than you and they suck, they’re so far from otaku it hurts. You’re not otaku, you’re shit. Your blog is shit, and uninteresting, you know what would liven it up? Fire.
We can rant about the misuse of ‘otaku’ until we go blue in the face, it doesn’t bother us. But fucking hell do you try to make your blog this boring really?
We watched your video ‘Figure review’. Are you related to Ray from Tsunderebanana? Are you in fact, Ray himself? Why didn’t you just stop the video at 0:27? That’s all you needed to say. “Here’s the box, here’s the figure. Make your own damn minds up”.
The misuse of otaku is still out there, and it’s still at large. We saw the #otakumanup hash tag on twitter, funny idea, but fundamentally flawed that none of the people who used it were otaku at all, so it fell flat on its face. Hopefully it was just a parody.
We smacked Actar down, yet he still continues to bullshit about being otaku. Have you not learned anything? Let’s clear this up once and for all:
Being otaku is not the same as being an anime fan. Being otaku is a large, unhealthy obsession with something, in this case it’s anime. In case you were too stupid to know, your mild interest that you claim to be an ‘unhealthy obsession’ is weak, and it’s not otaku. Money spent? Irrelevant. Number of figures? Irrelevant. Number of blog posts? Irrelevant.
We are otaku. We have the right to dictate who is and who isn’t. We sleep with dakimakura, we’re not interested in 3D girls. When we’re not posting, we’re watching anime. We’re reading manga on the train, we’re playing eroge on our PSPs or reading graphic novels on our cell phones when we should be working. We queue at midnight for the latest releases, we queued for days at wonfes before they banned it. Like many others, we skipped work when DQ9 was released. We’re hopelessly addicted, what’s your excuse?
There are levels of otaku, we’re not saying you have to match us to join us, but there’s a difference between otaku and an enthusiast or otaku and a collector, and that line is heavily blurred.
My Secret Otaku Life by Hiroshi – ELIMINATED
The moment our cursors homed in on poor Gordon, we began to rip it apart. Writing, writing, finding more things to say, writing more. It’s not unfair to say he set himself up for this.
Gordonator is the owner of the vainly titled Gordonator.com; another wordpress blog with a customised domain. We’ve seen some real copycats of Danny Choo, but out of them all Gordinator takes the cake for being completely devoid of any kind of originality by dancing around in a stormtrooper outfit. Sound familiar? Gordon is so similar to Danny Choo that we’re certain he stars in a number of the ‘Tokyo Trooper’ videos when danny choo is too lazy to dance or is otherwise blogging on his iPhone about a leaf that blew past him seconds ago (The article was probably called “Tokyo leaves” or “Foilage in Japan”).
Danny has Mirai, Gordon has Gordenette.
Danny parades around in Stormtrooper armour, Gordon parades around in Stormtrooper armour.
Danny has fan art, Gordon has fan art.
Danny wrongly calls himself otaku, Gordon wrongly calls himself otaku.
Danny has flickr, Gordon has flickr
And so on..
Of course you can see a pattern emerging here; whatever danny does, gordon does. Only Gordon doesn’t quite have the same merits as danny and can only provide a ‘Danny Choo-lite’ experience. Quite why he won the Singapore Blog Awards is beyond us, but you can bet your last figma we will never hear the end of it. Oh and if you’re looking for some good softcore BL fanfiction, you can find it here: http://gordonator.com/about/ Turns out Danny influenced Gordon SO much that he [Gordon] had to imitate just about everything of his.
Danny of course laps this up, and is BEST BUDS with Gordon. We don’t like 4chan or any of the stupid jokes they create, but we sincerely call for rule 34 on Gordon and Danny, just to fuck shit up. Best art we see gets a guest part in the OEG ripping a blog they particularly hate.
It’s not so much the blatant copycatting that annoys us about Gordon, but how much blind sheeping Gordon does. We were incredibly shocked to see Gordon using Windows XP in his profile picture. We bet Danny never lays off about it. As always, this goes for everyone else too, we’ve seen countless Danny Choo ripoffs (But none quite as obvious about it as Gordon is) and we have to ask “Why?” we recommend you ask the same too, and maybe we can start clearing this scene up.
We think Gordon will be one of the first in line to use Mirai Gaia, but hey, it’s better than wordpress. They say if you try to access the mobile version of Danny Choo’s site 3 times in succession using Google’s Android OS, you get redirected to Gordonator…
Look Gordon, we’ll go easy on you. We know you’re a sheep and you can’t think for yourself, many people are like that too. But if you’re going to blindly follow someone, follow someone who isn’t just a useless corporate tool. It won’t make you any richer or more popular, we just think you’re more of an idiot for doing so. Danny is playing you like a deck of cards, just like he does everyone. Don’t take it personally, he can’t help being manipulative, just move away before you get hurt.
Oh and while you’re about it, you’re not otaku. You can tell all of your friends that and get them to stop misusing the word too, it would really help us. “Otaku pride” is such a fucking facade. It’s like saying “I’ve given up smoking” when you never smoked in the first place. It’s just a cry for attention as if people are going to hate you because you “like anime”. You get it easy, Gordon. Stop trying to act like some kind of fucking savior, you weren’t otaku to begin with, the only pride you have is on your ego. Lame.
Gordonator.com by Gordonator – ELIMINATED
And that’s that, boys and girls. It’s amazing, the higher profile bloggers are the ones that talk the most shit about “otaku” and yet they’re the farthest from it. We have real otaku still growing in the darkness of the underground of the aniblogosphere, they’re the ones who should be running this joint, not the fakers we’ve seen so far.
Phase 1 is almost over, we have a couple more rounds and then it’s onto phase 2, where we can finally leave those morons behind. This is the true otaku revolution.
See you in Round 12!
The 'Otaku' Elimination Game 
“How A Girl Figures”…well, the name says it all doesn’t it? Another anime blogger case of GAMER GRRRLLLL. Not that I like to talk shit about other bloggers but it’s just that obvious.
Actually a lot of people seem to think I’m female based on reading my site. Maybe I should start marketing myself like this too. Hurr. Noba-tan’s Girly Animu Blog ^^.
So to be an otaku it is compulsory that you have interest figurenes and daikimuras. It doesn’t matter how obsessed you are with the anime itself, unless you go out and buy figurenes and are obsessed with stupid anime spin-off products then you’re not otaku. Being otaku has nothing to do with liking the actual anime product itself. It means you are obsessed with the idea of anime. You like 2D girls and so on.
At least, that’s what you lot have been saying recently.
Hmm…I have heard that otaku in Japan tend to be a lot less picky and critical about anime than in the West. Though that’s just something I’ve heard.
I’d say it’s a simple matter of terms.
In the West the word “otaku” has blandened to mean more or less any person who watches anime non-casually, so it’s only natural that the people who call themselves Western otaku would have vastly greater spectrum of tastes than the Japanese otaku. Thus it’s no surprise that there’s relatively more trolling and drama between fans of different genres.
Naturally there are oldskool fans who hate think that all new anime is shitty in Japan too, and the gap between “anime otaku who like animation” and “anime otaku who like characters” that Sankaku posted about some time ago certainly exists. But as the definition of otaku is tighter there the masses are indeed more homogenous.
I think as long as you can demonstrate that level of obsession, it’s all good. Buying figurines and dakimakuras are just examples of showing how obsessed you are. In other words, interact with the medium in as many ways as you can.
But why do you need to show how obsessed you are? Why do people feel the urge to go out a buy related products? Are people not capable of containing their obsession within themselves and inside the actual product itself?
Maybe this is just me but no matter how obsessed I get with anything I never feel the urge to get anything and everything related to it.
With regard to the third question, I’d say yes, it can be contained within that product. What I’m saying is that it is just one of the criteria they’re using to judge. You don’t need to be able to check all of the boxes to qualify, in other words. Some boxes are weighted more highly than the others, of course, but once you get past that line they’ve drawn in the sand, you are officially through.
“Why do people feel the urge to go out a buy related products? […]Maybe this is just me but no matter how obsessed I get with anything I never feel the urge to get anything and everything related to it.”
Maybe some of us would rather not be fucking leeches off of a culture that isn’t our own? But please. Keep watching anime for free on the internet and never buy anything. Then, of course, bitch on your blog about most anime sucking since the industry isn’t only making anime you want to watch (I wonder why…). It gives my dollars and yen more influence, after all.
If someone never spend a dime on something you profess to love, I would seriously question whether or not they truly love it. Same thing with time (just buying stuff and never experiencing it also raises questions). I’m not saying anyone needs to spend $20,000 a year on anime related goods to be “uber anime fan”, but at least spend what you can. If all of your discretionary funds are going towards fancy clothing, leet computer equipment, and digital cameras, you’re probably not an anime otaku. Someone who only has $100 and buys a R1 boxset of their favorite show is a better fan.
I buy the dvds and the manga. Nothing more, nothing less. Now calm down and stop looking for the OEG to praise you again
Actually, I just hate Western fandom. But since you buy DVDs, I apologize for the miss fire.
I think what it really boils down to, is an otaku should have at least an equal or greater obsessive behaviour toward their hobby as say, a hardcore Trekkie or Star Wars geek. While buying DVDs and manga show support for something you like, it’s the “live, breathe, eat and sleep your hobby” factor that makes or breaks an otaku. I guess it’d be like how someone who enjoys Batman movies might buy the DVDs and soundtrack and maybe even a poster, but a Batman nerd would own the comic book collection as well as the full animated series’ and any memorabilia associated with Batman.
Although this leads me to think that an otaku is someone with an obsessive-compulsive addiction. Does that mean all real otaku have some level of mental health issues? Can you then also say that a drug addict or an alcoholic is an otaku? Perhaps I’m thinking in too far of an extreme but that’s always been my impression of otaku in Japan.
Well, I’m not a figure fan so this round doesn’t give me much impact. Though I have to agree with some of OEG’s take on Gordonator, the blog doesn’t feel like anything high profile or award winning. But that’s just me, of course.
I’m just going to say, sometimes the obvious is blind to those no longer sensitive.
The coagulation of positive and negative has overall dampened spirits and thinking power; insensitivity is only bound to show up.
Austian Otaku review was a little confusing due the massive amount of space busting Danny Cho’s chops. Not that it doesn’t need to be done but that left a paragraph why Austian Otaku should be eliminated?
Kind of takes some of the anticipation out of what may be in the future.
I do agree that it is annoying and not cool the number of blogs that use other people’s work to make themselves look better.
I skipped straight to Austrian Otaku and Gordonator.
I like Austrian Otaku and I really liked that post especially. However, under the premise of this game, he didn’t pass… So that’s unfortunate.
As for Gordonator, no surprises there. We all get influences from else where, but at the very least, change a little bit to make it somewhat your own. Take off that stormtrooper outfit and wear something else.
This was a great round, fun to read. Yes, it’s true that Danny Choo’s site actually used to be good, and remember it’s been around since 2000. Danny blogged a lot of insightful things about how he learned Japanese, how he got overseas, the general way that things happened and how he was treated in Japan, etc. and it was all quite interesting. I will admit, he was one of the first anime blogs I learned about, and I even had him as a home page for a while because he seemed to be the sort of ‘pulse’ of the blogosphere.
However, in early 08, he seemed to basically abandon the site and leave more and more of it in the hands of the readers, and was posting less interesting things and more… crap. And the people who read him mostly tend to be relative newbies in the anime fandom. The kind of people who maybe know about one or two current shows, post on Anime Suki, and know the Popular KyoAni Show of the Now, but know jack shit beyond that. Nothing necessarily wrong with these people but, uh, not the crowd you want thinking they are ‘otaku.’
1. Yes, I still remember those decent, interesting days of his. I think the most almost-precise downhill point started with the very first Tenga sample he got.
Or maybe when he decided to start sanitizing the posts.
2. As for pimping GSC figures, I grew a sore spot over that when Danny pimped out GSC’s booth on WF2009 and just did one hell of a watering-down.
In that event though, I did catch wind of a busou shinki mini-event where some of the actual designers(CHOCO, Mercy Rabbit) showed up to do pageant judging.
Do the math? I suspected from that point that maybe, he has a binding contract with GSC.
It kind of amuses that people claim that girls, etc, are trying to elevate themselves to a status better than others by saying they are female. Just because a lot of girl bloggers admit they are female doesn’t mean they are trying to be “better.”
Of course I realize the irony of people like some of you guys who judge others complaining about people “acting like they are better” when you yourselves are doing the exact same thing.
Just my take, I can’t really judge other otakus because I am not one (and I thank the maker every day that I’m not.)
Go ahead, flame me. I won’t come back to read it…I just felt like expressing my opinion unless that’s not allowed or something.
It’s more just that they are pushing the fact that they are female in your face. ‘How a Girl Figures’ – you’ve never seen a blog called ‘How a Guy Figures’, have you? Or one that describes itself as ‘a guy’s opinions on X’? It doesn’t matter what gender you are, just that you are a fan.
Haha, I love it !!
Guys, I’ve just found this
http://thecoolestgames.net
They have many cool games there. Check it out!
I have heard there was something about releasing any Dragon Quest games only on the weekends because there were a lot of people skipping work on release day in Japan. Or did you work on Saturday for the release of DQ9?
Pingback: Extremist otaku group suddenly becomes unfunny, resorts to lying to bring back their mojo « orz – I Will Show You Terror in a Handful of Flans
I’m glad to see that How a Girl Figures has passed on…..oh wait I mean advanced (otherwise it sounds like she’s died or something).
I would advance her through every round based on her blog name alone. Double entendres are absolutely my bag of chips.
Hey OEG, something that may interest you: The mouth-breathers down at ANN having a crack at the “state of the anime union”. Hee.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2010-02-05
Gah so much reading!
Well, at least it ain’t Shakespeare.
“How a girl figures”
Cute title. Based on the description, I won’t be checking out the blog.
That said; an intelligent and thinking woman who is aware–from a feminist perspective–of the ramifications of consumer culture and who still critically collects figures? Extremely relevant to my interests, that.
By stating membership in any of what we lately call minorities, a blog’s author is making a tacit promise to give us responses from that point of view. Does a minority perspective make a blog better? Well, it makes it rarer. And there are few geeks who don’t understand that sometimes rarer is worth more (I paid over two hundred dollars for my not-so-attractive Ayukawa/Hikaru figure display, and lived on Cheerios and ramen for two weeks, merely because they were too rare to let slip.)
spells will bring them back.
Pingback: Free Music Downloads for iPods
Note: this episode was recorded on 12/4/12 Can’t use the player, just download it Sites mentioned in the episode: The crappy winter season chart We are also available on iTunes . We started to add bonus content and it’s only available on iTunes. O-Talk RSS Feed Send us feed back at danielmer@otakudan.com You can also find us on Twitter at Otakudan , The_Patches , studyofanime , and carouselcarouse .
I’ve noticed that fixing credit activity must be conducted with techniques.
If not, it’s possible you’ll find yourself destroying your
position. In order to reach your goals in fixing your credit ranking you have to make sure that from this moment in time you pay all your monthly expenses promptly prior to
their scheduled date. It is definitely significant given that by not really accomplishing that, all other activities that you will take to improve
your credit rank will not be efficient. Thanks for revealing your tips.