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...But this is just ridiculous.

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Seriously, this guy made an entire article about how "teh bad anim00z is destroying ur socyitee!!!"

Let's take a look at some of the finer points.

It wasn't until around the fifth grade that I began to think something was wrong. That year, a strange new cartoon worked its way into the social lexicon of coolness. It was called "Dragon Ball Z" and, for reasons my 10-year-old mind could not articulate, it was making me nervous. Ten years later, I can't help thinking that I could have done something, anything, to stop the tsunami of anime that was to come.

Translation by Ace's Babelfish: "There was a new show in town that became insanely popular while I was a child. Personally, I didn't care for it. Instead of just ignoring it, however, I decided to wage a war against the entire genre."

In a society dominated by excess and two-second attention spans, cartoons play a significant role in preparing us for the world. Each can be thought of as a 30-minute babysitter, instilling the kids who watch them with certain values and life lessons. But the landscape has changed.

This guy's either sadly mistaken as to the purpose of entertainment or he has the laziest parents ever.

Before I go any further, I should state the following: No matter who you are - whether you're black, white, Asian, Latino, even Canadian - I don't judge you by the color of your skin. I say this because I direct my comments to the media elites, in Japan and elsewhere, who have taken it upon themselves to flood the airwaves with shows like "Pokemon," "Digimon," and "Yugio" - sorry, "Yu-Gi-Oh!" They all started as card trading games, and should have ended there as well. Instead they've jumped to the mass media, where they're slowly chipping away at our collective moral fiber.

1: The first few lines reek of BS, since he's attacking anime as a genre, which is all made in Japan.
2: Did he seriously just lump Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh! together under a collective umbrella? Maybe if he actually watched what he was dissing, he'd realize how foolish he looks right now.
3: Chipping away at our moral fiber... with the same morals that make it up? Tell me, what important, life-altering messages has Spongebob instilled recently?

It's not a conspiracy. A conspiracy, by definition, requires that multiple parties are working together to achieve some sort of goal. None of the shows I've seen make nearly enough sense to be working toward anything other than a lackluster battle between Bulbasaur and Charmander and the next commercial break.

Again, see how he elegantly judges all anime based on this one scene from this one show he saw this one time.

Don't believe the threat's real? A report from CNN's Tokyo affiliate in December 1997 documented an incident in which "More than 700 people, mainly school children, were rushed to hospitals Tuesday after suffering convulsions, vomiting, irritated eyes and other symptoms." Was it a gas leak at the local school? No. Were the kids breathing glue out of brown paper bags? No. Were they watching "Pokemon"? You bet your authentic Squirtle trading card they were.

Yes, they were, they were watching one small scene from one episode which was never aired outside of Japan because it caused a very small population sample to go into convulsions. But of course bright flashing colors only exist in Japan.

Remember the cartoons you watched as a child, like "Rugrats"? Everyone watched "Rugrats." With his toothless grin and indomitable spirit, Tommy Pickles represented the very best in all of us. He was like a Che Guevara for the MTV generation. Sure, when he and the rest of the Rugrats "grew up" I died a little inside. But still, not a day goes by where I don't take a moment and thank Tommy for the life lessons he taught me. So what is Pokemon teaching the next generation of kids? The virtues of capturing exotic animals and making them fight for your amusement? I already learned that from Michael Vick.

Again, one anime. And lumping Pokemon with Michael Vick is just wrong.

Some of you may be thinking, "That's all well and good, but what about all of the mindless American television?" After all, this country invented mindless television. And networks like VH1 are keeping that proud tradition alive. But the difference here lies in the target audience: Shows like "Flavor of Love" and "Hogan Knows Best" are watched by people who have already been stupid for years, even decades. There's nothing we can do but make them as comfortable as possible.

Patriotism: save the kiddies, give up on everyone else.

The next generations of kids aren't even getting a chance. Unless something is done to reverse this trend, we're going to be looking at millions of high school dropouts who don't see the point in going to college unless it teaches them to capture magic crystals. No one wants to see that day. This issue transcends politics, even religion. It's the ethical dilemma of our day and age, one that makes me want to throw my hands in the air, and yell, "Will someone think of the children?"

That's right, folks. All anime is supernatural and teh devulz. Even Lucky Star and Haruhi. Moreover, there's no possible way for a fantasy to instill values in a person. Guy might as well be dissing Spider-Man for climbing walls when he could be out having problems like ordinary humans (oh, wait.)

Anyway, How does everyone else feel? How wrong is he? Is it beyond help? When did obvious troll become obvious?

As I have written in my blog:

I have been forwarded to what could only be described as an "interesting" opinion editorial, in which the author's opinions on anime can summed up in these few words: 'Anime is stupid. Thus, it is making kids stupid. We are doomed.'

Now, when I read the title, "Japanese anime destroying American society", I was already a little distraught. Anime is a subject that is of importance to the article, and thus, the title itself. It goes without saying that it should be capitalized. When Mr. Glucklich did not do so, I only assumed he just did not have enough care to proofread his own article.

Already he was off to a bad start.

The University of Oregon junior goes on to say things that are described as being truly foolish, ignorant, and shows he did not even do his research on the subject matter. He grouped shows like "Pokemon" and "Yu-Gi-Oh!" in the same group. True, they share similarities, but they are not of the same genre. He says that Pokemon was the cause of widespread seizures.

The thing is, that case happened almost ten years ago, to only 100 children, in Japan. The way he had written it, it was very recent, was widespread, and the cases occurred in America. If I am not mistaken, that is on a very similar level as propaganda - over exaggerating the facts to meet your goals.

The article goes on to show how anime is a worthless medium, but the only anime titles listed are the big, mainstream ones. He dosen't state those that have an actual storyline, or even better, those with a storyline that has some relevance in today's day. "Gundam 00" comes to mind. The story has a very post-9/11 feel to it, and you can relate to most of the political conflicts that are occurring in the world.

In the end, the article just reeked of foolishness and short sightedness. I am sure Mr. Glucklich is a very intelligent individual, who knows a good deal of foreign cultures or other matters of interest. But in this regard, he has acted very foolish.

I have to laugh hard at that. Especially the fact that when he says pokemon is only about capturing exotic animals the first thing that came to my mind was rugrats was about a bunch of babies getting into way too much trouble, and angry beavers (god bless that show) is about some crazy beavers who never had a message to tell.

For one he definitely doesn't know his literature (for one literature encompasses more then books to clarify this point I'm making) as he is only scratching the bare surface of these shows he's dissing. He's not looking beyond the general basic storyline. Ok DBZ might have been your average heroes saving the day like say batman or spiderman, but something like pokemon actually teaches children that friendship is a good thing, and that we should have equality between people, races, species, etc.

Ok I'll stop before someone says that I'm reading too much into things. lol, well I am a lit student :P

Originally Posted by Meggido

Ok I'll stop before someone says that I'm reading too much into things. lol, well I am a lit student :P

You are reading too much into things. It had to be said.

But yes, it just seems that ever since World War II, America seems to be getting stupider with every generation. Compare the fluid language of our Founding Fathers to what we hear today. You'll see what I mean.

This guys brain is made of earwax. He clearly has no understanding of anime at all. What he is doing is the equivalent of reading a cat and the hat book and saying all books are for children.

What's really entertaining is the replies that silly article got. Now as for my opinion on the nonsense they posted. This reply here says it all so check it out.

WHAT? JAPANESE ANIME DESTORYING AMERICAN SOCIETY - NOT BY A LONG SHOT

My favorite part is where they pointed out that his silly claims over children being affected: "school children, were rushed to hospitals Tuesday after suffering convulsions, vomiting, irritated eyes and other symptoms" was due to a medical condition and not the actual content of the show.

I mean, talk about the author being ignorant. Confusing a medical condition/reaction with corruption. That sort of reaction is true for a lot of things, not just a television program. lol

This guy is wrong. Anime, exspecially teenage+ genre's offer a place to vent out a lot of the stresses that we have to deal with that western cartoons and shows just dont touch. we need more anime in the west...

To be honest I loved how the article starts off trying to show how anime is ruining the world. But then, he has like no proof that it is, besides that case of kids being rushed to the hospital, if that was even true. But I loved how he moved on to diss TV channels like VH1 and all that. I'm not a fan of VH1, and have infact never watched I don't think, but if you're going to name your article "Japanese Anime Destroying American Society" please stick to anime. I hope someone noticed that as well x.x

Oh my... XD That was so stupid that it was actually funny! I kept waiting for something in there to back their claims but the moment they attributed Photosensitive epilepsy (I think that's what it's called) to watching Pokemon... *laughs wildly* That was so dumb that it was almost painful.

This has to be a troll looking for attention or a college student who hasn't figured out how to do research so they don't sound like a complete idiot. The comments on the article were kind of funny, well some of them that is. XP

Originally Posted by Sabrina

Oh my... XD That was so stupid that it was actually funny! I kept waiting for something in there to back their claims but the moment they attributed Photosensitive epilepsy (I think that's what it's called) to watching Pokemon... *laughs wildly* That was so dumb that it was almost painful.

That's an actual true incident, though.

Electric Soldier Porygon

The trick is he took it out of contest to illustrate how evil, evil, evil anime is. It has nothing to do with defacing moral values, it's a medical condition that a small sample of the Japanese Pokemon audience happened to have, combined with watching the show in a poorly lit room close to the television.

As for morals:

Digimon teaches the importance of friendship, teamwork, perserverence, facing hardships, being courageous (I could go through all the crests here, but I won't,) fighting for what you think is right, accepting help when you need it and even dealing with death.

Pokemon teaches friendship, following your dreams, standing up to bullies and prevention of cruelty to animals.

Yu-Gi-Oh! teaches friendship, dealing with death, playing fair and pacifism at times.

Rugrats teaches us to crap our pants and speak broken English.


EDIT: for more laughs, check out the rest of this guy's editorials. They're all terrible, ignorant pieces of crap, but they make it through because apparently he's the editor.

Originally Posted by Aceburner

That's an actual true incident, though.

The point though is that Photosensitive epilepsy is a well documented medical condition that has nothing to do with watching Pokemon. The same can happen from strobe lights, video games, etc. The author of the article was dramatizing it as if what happened to those children was caused solely by the anime or rather the content of said anime.

They were conveniently glossing over the fact that what affected the children was a medical condition and not what was portrayed in the show. And yes like you said he took it out of context since anyone who suffers from that would have the same reaction to watching. Or rather there is a high probability of such a reaction occurring.

You know maybe I should go to this guy and pull out the stick that's shoved firmly up his ***, and put it into his mouth. Anime, bad for america? Anime has values deep down inside, and I have to say this guy has the mind of a girl putting a baby in a dumspter durning Prom. In fact, this guy is treating anime as an abomination, as the Catholic church thinks of Abortion as an abomination.

This guy probably think Death Metal is about killing people too >_>

As if this article needed to be farther discredited, neither Pokémon, Digimon, nor Yu-Gi-Oh! started out as a trading card game. And I know that at least Pokémon's anime started before its TCG was released, both in Japan and the US.

I would've thought a junior in college, majoring in journalism no less, would've known what this thing called "research" is, but I guess there are always exceptions.

I'd love to believe that this is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but... I guess not, huh.

~Dagger~

At the end of the day, it is best to simply say that the article is just, simply put, utter foolishness, and we would all do ourselves a great service to put it out of our minds and memories as quickly as it entered them.