All jokes aside, after this long comment section I discovered I was wrong!

But yeah, they shouldn’t care about race relations, but race relations are going to be inextricably entwined with people no matter what, or so I’m inclined to say.

Depicting our world as we know it or knew it is more easily recognizable as Japanocentric (or Nippocentric, if you will) than completely fictive universes like Kaiba, Diary of Tortov Roddle (although the rabbit on the moon suggests otherwise), GunxSword, Last Exile, etc. High fantasy akin to Seirei no Moribito I haven’t watched much of though. Kaiba, depending on how we see the themes, may or may not be japanocentric, nor would Diary of Tortov Roddle. Actually, I don’t know what the hell to think of that show.

adoggz: AS as Hollywood flick steeped in anime as opposed to AS as anime steeped in Hollywood. There’s a fine line to the distinction, but I still don’t know which one is “correct”. Which influence is greater? – the origin or the conditioning?

blissmo: Hahaahah, that would be really awkward. I thought the sex scene was terrible, at least the moaning was fake as hell. The most hilarious part of this episode was like, around 20min or something when one the monks impales Otsuru through the roof with some pike and is like “you fuckin’ whore. THIS IS THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR YOUR BETRAYAL!” It was just really funny.

And I don’t think there were any original Japanese VA’s to go with this (not that that’s what you were implying or anything).

Just as a parting question, what is your opinion of of Japanocentrism in meat of manga and anime that do not offer environments so analogous to various Japanese periods, feudal or modern? For example, Berserk, which takes place in a painstakingly (I’m giving up my love for it here, aren’t I?) constructed world that closly resembles 13th century Europe?

Halcyon: Perhaps this may sound contradictory, but I’m more concerned with the means of cultural production than the ends. The “finalized product” is secondary to the places its been and mediums and hands it has transversed. But in any case, you’re right; I should go and read the doujinshi.

Hence the irreconcilable difference: imo, this is a more cultural issue than business one.

Beck was a really fun show. If you’ve got time, watch it. I ended up marathoning it since I was so drawn in.

skoll: I like the distinction between Japanocentric and Nippophilia. That’s pretty incisive in itself.

Maybe we’re running into a semantic issue. Perhaps, to an extent, catering to demographics can be considered ethnocentric (…probably not), but, again, I’m thinking of Japanocentrism as an inherently ingrained world view, both on part of author, audience and the buoyant “ether” of culture.

I should probably have posted the first part to this article, since, while things are Japanocentric, I don’t necessarily think AS deserves unmerited attention simply because he’s a black samurai. It’s more about Japanocentrism (in contrast to the Nippocentrism you demarcated) within the Western discourse on Orientalism – it’s more about learning the Western representations on which AS is based, hence the reason why I think a Japanese doujinshi “processed” via an American company (or what have you) presents a very interesting cross-cultural case.

No, AS doesn’t intend to be innocent – it doesn’t even consider authorial innocence a part of anything. As you said, it’s simply a guy drawing to his heart’s content. But that’s exactly why its unintended innocence portrays such a blatant case of pure, innocent feelings influenced by X, Y & Z. At heart, AS has no complex, bizarre metaphorical connotations. It is just a revenge story. However, the superficiality of the story is superfluous to the behind-the-scenes cultural influence – even though it’s just a revenge story doesn’t mean there’s a greater macroscopic element to it.

Call me a dirty liar but the first time I saw it I watched it for fun. Later on when I thought about Japanocentrism I thought “wow, Afro Samurai is a good case in point.” Hence.

Impz: OK OK OK. Wow, ok, now I see where I went wrong. I completely forgot to consider the position that the anime itself as a product speaks in. And so, as you put it, it speaks in the West. Maybe that’s what everyone was getting at before, whereas I was saying in my head “the clientele is irrelevant to the discourse” but not the position in which the product acts. Ok. So turns out AS is more so a Hollywood flick influenced by and based on a Japanese work than a Japanese work transmutated by an American cultural process. I couldn’t tell which force was “stronger”.

In any case there’s 3300 something words in these comments total. =p