Tuesday January 24, 2006
Anything but sex
By ROYCE CHEAH and MICHAEL CHEANG
Will the crusades against pop culture ever cease? First, an indie music gig was raided because it was supposedly a black metal gathering sacrificing goats to Satan. Then, anime was generalised as “animation with sex”.
Would the next call be to ban Discovery Channel and National Geographic documentaries because they supposedly feature animal fornication?
For those in the dark, let us recap the issue. Recently, a Bahasa Malaysia daily front-paged a story about anime, generalising animation with sex as anime.
Unsurprisingly, the article caused a furore among anime fans, many of whom thought the generalisation of the word anime was a gross injustice to their passion.
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STOP GENERALISING: Wholesome and entertaining anime shows like the critically-acclaimed Spirited Away (above) and My Neighbour Totoro (bottom) are far from being pornographic. |
Christina Saw, retail supervisor of anime retailers Anime Tech, stressed that it is inaccurate and unacceptable to say that “animation with sex is more popularly known as anime”, and that the writer of the article should have been more careful with the words used.
“There are lots of explanations and history that define anime, although it is generally accepted worldwide to simply mean Japanese animation,” she said. “In Japan, it basically means anything that is animated, whether it is in Japanese, English or French.
“Outside Japan, however, anime is widely accepted to mean Japanese animation.”
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“There are many terms being used to describe animation with sexual elements, depending on the type of sexual content and fantasies involved.”
Saw stressed that Anime Tech stores would not sell any sexual-oriented material, and neither would any other legitimate anime retailers.
With five retail outlets in Malaysia, Anime Tech is the largest retail chain store specialising in anime related merchandise. Their products range from anime DVDs, CDs, magazines and manga (Japanese comics) as well as anime-related toys and accessories.
And based on their success so far, it is perhaps safe to say that anime has a huge following in Malaysia. In fact, when the first ever Anime Festival was held in Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur, in 2003, anime fans turned up in droves, with more than 70,000 people packing the exhibition hall. The 25-year-old Saw has been a die-hard anime fan for five years now. “Anime is creative and challenges the mind. It opens our minds to whole new worlds and to different possibilities and it is entertaining as well,” she said. “To put it simply, when you fall in love with anime, there is no turning back.”
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