Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="trollwad" data-source="post: 3745076" data-attributes="member: 19187">Anime, Degrees of Freedom, Warrior Culture LegacyAnother poster commented that I was off topic.  Judge for yourself, but I don't think so.  I believe the topic is something like why do grognards have a bias against anime?  First, I point out that anime has many degrees of freedom (a lot of creative license) around an art form (kung fu) that was not realistic (in the sense of actually being useful in a fight).  Second, I point out that many other martial arts and wargaming have less creative license around real fighting or war and I noted how much the Prussian general staff loved to war game.  Third, I point out that D&D clearly grew out of wargaming.  Note Gygax has designed a number of war games apart from D&D and is clearly fairly knowledgeable about the history of real warfare.  The original d&d was an effort to import fantasy archetypes from a warrior western culture into traditional war gaming.  Perhaps a stereotypical grognard understands that at a psychological level even if he doesn't remember the facts.  This may explain why he is opposed to anime rather than mere accusations of "prejudice."Fourth, I point out that D&D is clearly not realistic (with dragons and magic etc), but a grognard often revels in the mythological outgrowth of a western warrior culture (tolkien knew horrible real war, the ring saga and beowulf are outgrowths of germanic culture that reveled in war, howard grew up in small town great depression oil boom and bust texas reading classic pulp archetypes) that is utterly apart from anime.  This grognard may shake his head at the very elements of modern d&d that are like anime - i.e. how many times have you heard grognards complain that it is too hard to die in 3.5 as opposed to old d&d?  This doesn't mean that 3.5e is bad (I play it as well as older forms) but it is an effort to analyze why different generations of gamers feel what they do when they look at a game.  Why did Gygax name his primary character Mordenkainen instead of some anime name?  Thats because the name is obviously Finnish (ask Gygax), and Gygax knows his fantasy; the Finns preserved their western cultural warrior legacy in the Kalevala as well as anyone in the West.  Tolkein obviously drew on this western warrior legacy as well.Thus, I believe that many grognards will often (but certainly not always) look at anime and shake their heads much like a gracie or a serious wrestler will look at kung fu and shake his head and chuckle.  It simply is alien to the warrior culture ideal that you read in Beowulf and the Kalevala and it has too many degrees of freedom even in the aerial kung fu that it purports to represent to be interesting to some.  Note I am NOT trying to put down anime (watch whatever you enjoy, why would anyone's viewing preferences matter to me!).  I am just trying to verbalize why at the subconscious level anime may seem offputting or silly to grognards (this is the topic of the thread after all) without simply using the easy politically correct phrases that westerners often use like "trope" or  "prejudice" to avoid actually analyzing things.One military scholar referred to war as the continuation of culture.  I consider games to be a continuation of culture and they are often a "practice" or more often a lighter-hearted "release" of aggressive impulses - whether an intentional preparation for such like the Prussian General Staff or something as simple as releasing aggressive impulses in a closely controlled environment (Bob in the KODT comics slicing up orcs or charging a swack iron dragon with his hackmaster +5).  Henry the moderator, please reread my original post, I absolutely never called ALL ASIAN Martial Arts ineffective - far from it, since I've spent years in Judo and Brazilian Jiujitsu.  I called the martial arts from which anime seems to spring (aerial kung fu I guess) ineffective.  From the bit Ive seen of anime and a fair amount of kung fu movies in my youth, the characters don't throw someone to the ground and break their arm (judo, jiujitsu), they leap hundreds of feet in their air and spring around in battle with androgynous foes and wield weapons that look nothing like real versions of the practical but painful-looking sticks and rubber knives I've seen practicioners of filipino martial arts use.  Again, Henry please note that in my original post, I put Judo, Jiujitsu, Kendo in the category of more realistic martial arts with the western martial arts (wrestling, boxing, pancration) and if I was being more detailed, I'd put Escrima, pencak silat and other se asian forms in there as well.  These martial arts are various degrees of refinement for warrior cultures (I mean my god the samurai are the archetypal warrior aristocrats and they refined kendo and jiujitsu and their imperial japanese progeny later codified a more practiceable form of jiujitsu into judo).  1950s japanese filmmaking produced Kurasawa and the Seven Samurai.  Modern Japan by contrast is possibly the most pacifistic society on earth (this isn't to denigrate it since I generally love Japan and have visited numerous times).  It should be no surprise that a culture that is 70 years removed from real conflict with a constitution that bans war and whose last war ended in an epic disaster is starting to tend towards art forms (anime) that are utterly unrelated to real fighting.  War (and art) are cultural expressions based on what people know.  Most Japanese (who I guess produce most of the anime) don't know war anymore -- though there are exceptions and some of the combative sports (judo and PRIDE/SHOOTO) are still quite popular.  Seriously, I challenge anyone on this list to watch Kurasawa and anime back to back and not get an inkling of my point of the cultural difference between 1950s or 1960s Japan (people with a live memory of a proud warrior culture) and 2007 Japan (people who haven't known war in 70 years).  A grognard can watch Kurasawa - it isn't simple cultural "bias" against Asia.Someone else posted something to the effect of them seeing kung fu fighters win some, lose some -- this is patently absurd.  Look at the record of the UFC, which is certainly NOT real combat (it has some rules, referees, etc), but its as close to combat as I know and we've seen perhaps a thousand individual matches so there is a ton of data.  To the best of my knowledge, no karate or kung fu practicioner ever beat anyone who was not a karate or kung fu practioner.  Virtually all of the early matches were won by grappling/submission types and lately boxer/thai boxers who can wrestle defensively have done well also.</blockquote>

Verification