DeathHammer

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For 600, you could buy a brand new computer. And if you dig around some and find a good deal, it doesn't mean it would be a POS either. And for alot of people, if you look, and not even look that hard, you can find all kinds of PC games, even the newer ones, virtually for free. And PCs do all kinds of other things besides play games.

To me, from my perspective, I'd want to know what would be the upside in getting a PS3 over just getting a new PC if I am going to spend that kind of money. The ability to play movie discs in a format that hasn't proven it's longevity yet? Play a few big ticket titles that I can't get on PC?

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Was surfing through AnimeWorld and found an interesting old article about anime and feminism. Its a bit older, and so you have to wonder if anime is the last artistic medium not hammered to death by hardcore feminists. I say this because I can't watch network TV anymore without being bombarded by pro feminist ideals.

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http://animeworld.com/essays/feminism.html

At first glance, anime looks particularly un-feminist. The female characters are ridiculously proportioned, often portrayed as either vacuous air-heads or shrewish cynics, and compete shamelessly for the attentions of the men they are hopelessly infatuated with. And yet, in spite of all of that, anime and manga attracts a much greater female audience then most American comics and adult animation. While anime does promote many negative stereotypes, to concentrate entirely on these, tells only half of the story, and ignores the reasons many women are drawn to anime.

One aspect of anime rarely seen in American comics is an exaggerated sense of self-parody. In many anime comedy series, the traits of certain characters are amplified for comedic effect. This is as true for male characters as female. For every ditz you’re likely to find some cowardly guy. Anime does employ the same unrealistic female dimensions and skimpy costumes that you can find in American comics. However, most anime are self-deprecating on these counts, and can't resist poking at least a little fun at the stereotypes that exist within themselves. And for every stereotype that persists in anime, two or more are getting twisted and bent.

The prevalent female nudity in most of anime is also an issue. Many women would no doubt argue that the vast disproportion of female to male nudity is deplorable. But if you take the time to do some exploring on the Internet, you’ll find as many web sites created by women dedicated to their favorite male anime character as vice versa. What are the reasons for this? Generally, men find nudity much more arousing than women. But this is not to say that women cannot find male anime characters attractive. They do, but for different reasons. Women tend to find different aspects of a male character, such as personality, appearance, and behaviors, arousing. Mere nudity in itself would not be sufficient for many female fans. When viewed in this light, the large amount of female nudity present in anime can be better understood.

In anime, the hero is most likely not the studly hero type, but rather the shy, awkward, passive, but nice and decent guy. And you just have to take a look at series like Ranma 1/2 or El Hazard to see the bending and playing with of gender roles that occurs in anime. Transvestitism, bisexuality, and even homosexuality are common themes in anime. And while these subjects are not entirely condoned, they are not condemned and are treated with a playful sense of humor.

Many positive role-models for women also exist in anime. There are very few "damsels in distress," and helplessness is often viewed as a negative trait. Most women waiting for their heroes to rescue them end up having to rescue themselves. There are just as many series that feature women in leading roles as series that feature men. And women are rarely presented either as sex objects or as impassive, perfect goddesses, but instead as strong, capable, yet flawed and entirely human women. Ayane's High Kick is essentially the anime version of Rocky, but instead of Sylvester Stallone, we have Ayane, a teen-age girl who trains every day to make it in the world of professional kickboxing. Another reason many women are interested in anime is the humor, wit, silliness, and emotional content found in much of anime and manga. These are qualities unfortunately rarely found in American comics. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. Many low-quality anime series are cheap, sleazy, and demeaning to women. One genre particularly notorious for this is Hentai, or "Perverted" anime. Hentai anime is cartoon pornography, and like most pornography, it can be quite revolting and offensive. However, it would be a disservice to condemn all anime because of these distasteful examples. It is important to remember that despite many of the flaws of anime, the number of female fans should stand as proof that a large part of anime possesses quality and features strong, mature female characters.

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Then I wondered if future anime would reflect certain modern day Japanese cultural/social struggles from a male perspective. Or completely spin it around in reverse since some anime is also popular with young girls as well.

For example -

'Gray Divorce': men must be wrong

In both the United States and Japan, divorce among older couples is on the rise. The American Association of Retired Persons detailed the phenomenon among American seniors in a study last year, and Japan's wave of "gray divorce" is expected to swell into a deluge, since Japanese women will soon be legally able to claim half of their husband's retirement pensions.

There are various explanations for the trend but media commentators agree on one thing -- when the husband divorces his wife, it's hubby's fault. When the wife divorces her husband, well, it's hubby's fault too.

In a recent New York Times article Terry Martin Hekker, whose husband of 40 years divorced her, criticizes what she and others in the media are calling a trend: selfish older men dumping their wives for younger women. In Japan, a popular book is "Why Are Retired Husbands Such a Nuisance?" -- and one of Japan's most-watched television dramas is "Jukunen Rikon" ("Mature Divorce").

One Japanese newspaper says "some Japanese women see their husbands as an obstacle to enjoying their sunset years. With few hobbies or friends to turn to, many Japanese retirees, often nicknamed 'wet leaves' for their tendency to cling to their wives, spend their time at home." These "wet leaves" are increasingly being swept aside by their newly independent wives.

In both countries this "Pin the Blame on the Husband" is unfair. For one, the stereotype of the husband trading in his wife for a younger model is by and large a myth. The women in the AARP study were 60 percent more likely to claim that they ended their marriages than the men were, and men were almost twice as likely as women to say that they never saw their divorces coming. In contrast to the Porsche and trophy wife stereotype, the AARP study found that these divorced men had many serious concerns, high among them their fear of losing touch with their children after a divorce.

Many of these men would see their fears in Hekker's description of her divorce. Hekker likens her anger to that of the jilted bride Miss Haversham in Dickens' "Great Expectations" who "spent decades ... consumed with plotting revenge." She says that at a family baby shower recently, her niece said, "I don't want to end up like Aunt Terry."

In other words, Hekker plays the victim and the family has been instructed to feel pity for her and outrage at her ex-husband. What a nice reward for the 40 years he worked to provide his wife and children with a comfortable standard of living.

Japanese women -- who enjoy one of the longest life expectancies in the world -- are apparently similarly ungrateful. Is it so surprising and contemptible that after four decades of work, work, work, retired Japanese men don't know what to do with themselves? They've never known the freedoms and unsupervised days that their homemaker wives have enjoyed.

This is not to say that there's no validity to women's complaints. Radio host Howard Stern recently interviewed television commentator Geraldo Rivera, who in 2003 married a woman less than half his age. Stern was only half-joking when he asked, "Aren't you worried about your future? Think of it -- when you're 75, you're going to be stuck married to a 45 year-old woman."

Yet marriages break up for a variety of reasons, most of them having little to do with male perfidy. There's a big distinction between dumping your wife for a younger woman, and pursuing a relationship with a younger woman after your marriage has ended.

Though nobody says it, "dumped for a younger woman" is sometimes just a woman's cop-out for not taking responsibility for her own contribution to the marital breakdown. Hekker says her ex-husband spent 16 pages of his divorce papers "meticulously detailing my faults and flaws." Yet the New York Times' editors didn't ask her to devote a single one of her 1,600-plus words towards giving the reader a clue as to what her ex-husband's feelings and complaints might be.

Given the way the media is portraying gray divorce on both sides of the Pacific, this is no surprise.

Jeffery M. Leving is a family law attorney and author of the book "Fathers' Rights: Hard-hitting and Fair Advice for Every Father Involved in a Custody Dispute." Glenn Sacks is a columnist.

© 2006 The Cincinnati Post. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved

Then you question if Western ideals and influences are changing Japanese values and subsequently their creativity and arts and subsequently the kind of anime we will see in the future. As such -

A 'marriage strike' emerges as men decide not to risk loss

July 5, 2002

by Dianna Thompson and Glenn Sacks

Listen to Thompson & Sacks Tuesday, July 9 at 6PM Pacific Time on MND Radio as they ask 'Have American Men Declared a Marriage Strike?'

Katherine is attractive, successful, witty, and educated. She also can't find a husband. Why? Because most of the men this thirtysomething software analyst dates do not want to get married. These men have Peter Pan syndrome: They refuse to commit, refuse to settle down, and refuse to "grow up."

However, given the family court policies and divorce trends of today, Peter Pan is no naive boy, but instead a wise man.

"Why should I get married and have kids when I could lose those kids and most of what I've worked for at a moment's notice?" asks Dan, a 31-year-old power plant technician who says he will never marry. "I've seen it happen to many of my friends. I know guys who came home one day to an empty house or apartment - wife gone, kids gone. They never saw it coming. Some of them were never able to see their kids regularly again."

Census figures suggest that the marriage rate in the United States has dipped 40 percent during the last four decades to its lowest point since the rate was measured. There are many plausible explanations for this trend, but one of the least mentioned is that American men, in the face of a family court system hopelessly stacked against them, have subconsciously launched a "marriage strike."

It is not difficult to see why. Let's say that Dan defies Peter Pan, marries Katherine, and has two children. There is a 50 percent likelihood that this marriage will end in divorce within eight years, and if it does, the odds are 2-1 it will be Katherine, not Dan, who initiates the divorce. It may not matter that Dan was a decent husband. Studies show that few divorces are initiated over abuse or because the man has already abandoned the family. Nor is adultery cited as a factor by divorcing women appreciably more than by divorcing men.

While the courts may grant Dan and Katherine joint legal custody, the odds are overwhelming that it is Katherine, not Dan, who will win physical custody. Overnight, Dan, accustomed to seeing his kids every day and being an integral part of their lives, will become a "14 percent dad" - a father who is allowed to spend only one out of every seven days with his own children.

Once Katherine and Dan are divorced, odds are at least even that Katherine will interfere with Dan's visitation rights. Three-quarters of divorced men surveyed say their ex-wives have interfered with their visitation, and 40 percent of mothers studied admitted that they had done so, and that they had generally acted out of spite or in order to punish their exes.

Katherine will keep the house and most of the couple's assets. Dan will need to set up a new residence and pay at least a third of his take-home pay to Katherine in child support.

As bad as all of this is, it would still make Dan one of the lucky ones. After all, he could be one of those fathers who cannot see his children at all because his ex has made a false accusation of domestic violence, child abuse, or child molestation. Or a father who can only see his own children under supervised visitation or in nightmarish visitation centers where dads are treated like criminals.

He could be one of those fathers whose ex has moved their children hundreds or thousands of miles away, in violation of court orders, which courts often do not enforce. He could be one of those fathers who tears up his life and career again and again in order to follow his children, only to have his ex-wife continually move them.

He could be one of the fathers who has lost his job, seen his income drop, or suffered a disabling injury, only to have child support arrearages and interest pile up to create a mountain of debt which he could never hope to pay off. Or a father who is forced to pay 70 percent or 80 percent of his income in child support because the court has imputed an unrealistic income to him. Or a dad who suffers from one of the child support enforcement system's endless and difficult to correct errors, or who is jailed because he cannot keep up with his payments. Or a dad who reaches old age impoverished because he lost everything he had in a divorce when he was middle-aged and did not have the time and the opportunity to earn it back.

"It's a shame," Dan says. "I always wanted to be a father and have a family. But unless the laws change and give fathers the same right to be a part of their children's lives as mothers have, it just isn't worth the risk."

I have to admit, I'm curious. I've always felt SDF Macross was partly a commentary on war from a Japanese perspective. Western artistic mediums are often used to grind axes about social issues, will that trend or has that trend already happened in Japan? Will it bleed into our anime? Or certain segments of anime in the future?

Curious what the guys overseas from Japan on the board have to say about this, if anything at all.

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Misa Hayase. Beautiful, smart, strong, and yet very feminine and insecure when letting her guard down. I think of her as a very Hemingway-esque character. She puts up a stoic demeanor yet very torn inside.

Honestly, I think most of the women in the Macross universe, outside of Claudia and Lucy from Macross Plus, were all kind of screwed up.

Misa had many nice qualities. But she had - lots of angst, lots of unresolved Daddy issues, lots of maintenance quirks.

Millia was hot, odd green hair aside, but she couldn't cook and she appeared to lack any type of social grace. That kind of bluntness is refreshing in short controlled bursts but long term exposure is rough. (The only thing I can compare it to is watching several episodes of Six Feet Under in a row. Once a week is ok, the dark brooding nature of the show is interesting in spots. But run through a full DVD in one sitting and you just get tired of well to do white people with their pretentious imaginary problems )

Minmei was a codependent classic.

Actually, besides the tentacle rape that came from completely out of nowhere, Urotsukidôji/Legend Of The Overfiend, at least the section about the star basketball player in the beginning, was fairly realistic about women. Much moreso than alot of anime I've seen. It was all about who much fame or money do you have and what can you do for me. The main male character in the series wasn't some lovable Han Solo style rebel with a conscience. He was a loser who couldn't get laid and the chicks ignored him. He only scores because the girl of his dreams has a mental breakdown after being tentacled. Then later main character guy goes to battle, in like the third episode, with some other loser who goes into a wild psychotic break because his parents kick the crap out of him and he can't get laid either. I guess Overfiend showed a little more 'Freaks and Geeks' kind of youth experiences, where things are simply painful and awkward and more people don't fit in than do. I guess in most other animes, the brutal cruelty of the world is focused into a few antagonist characters who seem evil for the sake of being evil because the good guys need somebody to cap every 25 minutes. Rarely, like Overfiend, do you see a world where evil happens simply because its the way the world works (i.e. horrible catastrophic things happen for no reason at all) .

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