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A Look Back At 2010 (Part I: January to March)
This week, I’m going to start a 4-part series of articles focusing on interesting happenings involving Japanese pop culture in 2010. A lot of things happened in from moe to scanlation wars to Japanese bands performing in America. You name it, it happened.
So, let’s take a look back, shall we? Here’s Part I detailing January 2010 to March 2010!
January 2010
The year started off with a wide variety of announcements. Crunchyroll & FUNimation made a variety of announcements regarding new anime series they acquired & are planning to simulcast. Winners of the 55th Annual Shogakukan Awards were announced. Kenta Shinohara’s Sket Dance (published in Weekly Shonen JUMP) took the award for best shonen manga. I always wanted to check out Sket Dance, since I been hearing about it a lot and I think the series would work well in America. Come on, VIZ Media. Bring the series here!
Another story is a record 450,000 people visiting the Washinoyima Shrine in Tokyo, Japan on New Year’s Day. Yes, the same shrine focused in the series, Lucky Star, where the Hiiragi sisters work as miko (maidens). Got to love those otaku and their lolicon tendencies.
The 9th Annual Japan Otaku Awards took place as well. Here’s a list of the winners.
Anime culture took over the U.S. when American Idol had a crazy otaku girl named Mere Doyle audition for the competition. I still remember her scary weeaboo-ish behavior & the part where she shows off her Naruto jacket just made me sigh. The Emmy award-winning comedy series, 30 Rock, had an episode featuring James Franco dating an anime body pillow. TV series, Archer & Scrubs, made references to cosplay & anime pornography respectively.
Durarara!! premieres on Japanese TV (& Crunchyroll) and takes the anime world by storm. Hey, Japan can have an anime series that is smart & doesn’t focus on little girls! Fujoshi (female otaku) are happy there’s another series with hot guys they can pair up for amusement.
One Piece Volume 56 sells 2 million copies in 6 weeks. Pirates seriously trump ninjas & Shinigami.
February 2010
The Japan Foundation announced a website that teaches people how to speak & read Japanese through anime & manga. It’s nothing really special. The site just teaches you what phrases certain Japanese archetypes (ninja, samurai, school students, etc.) say. Though the fact that it’s interactive and visual means it’s more fun to learn the language. An idea I hope the site should incorporate is teaching the Japanese alphabet. It’s important people understand the alphabet of a language before going further.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood would make its way to U.S. television shores amidst huge fanfare. EdxAl fangirls squeal in unison.
Nick Simmons’ comic book series, BLEA…I mean, Incarnate, had its production & distribution halted. Tite Kubo comments on how he’s more worried about Nick being a mangaka. Somewhere, Gene Simmons is proud that his son is on his way to being a bigger douchebag than he is.
Christopher Handley, the Iowa man who pleaded guilty to having a variety of obscene manga involving children being sexually abused, was sentenced to prison for 6 months. Apparently, he might have some psychological issues that he hasn’t fully disclosed. Why would you order books of that nature and have them shipped through the United States Postal Service? Can we blame the government for not being clear about certain laws? Then again, sex is “evil” in America, even more evil than violence. For a great analysis of the case & other related cases, please read Lawrence A. Stanley’s entry on the problems of the U.S. government & its views on censoring art.
March 2010
Japanese girl rock band, Chatmonchy, hit the U.S. and wins fans (& media publications) over with their catchy tunes & energy. For those who don’t know, they did the song “Daidai”, which was an ending theme to BLEACH. I got a chance to interview the group when they were here in New York. An amazing group to listen to.
Yen Press publishes Twilight: The Graphic Novel, which is what it sounds like. Cue rabid bishonen-vampire fangirls running to stores to get the book, which actually happened. 66,000 copies were sold in the first week, despite receiving many bad reviews. This book broke records in terms of first printing copies (350,000) and copies sold in the first week. I can see why Hollywood macho men are complaining about movies these days.
Final Fantasy XIII finally hit American and European shores for both the PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360. While the battle system was praised, the game was heavily criticized for being extremely linear for a majority of the game. Some Final Fantasy fans proclaim their hate for the 360. Most Final Fantasy fans don’t care as they are happy to find new & pretty characters to cosplay. (I played FFIV-XII and never bothered to play FFXIII. Atlus stole my heart away with Persona 3 & 4.)
Anime gets mentioned in U.S. culture again, in the form of insensitive comment stupidity, when New Hampshire Democratic State Representative Nickolas Levasseur wrote on his Facebook page, “Anime is a prime example of why two nukes wasn’t enough….”. He later apologized for what he said. Was he watching a lot of moe anime one drunken night? Who knows. Also, why is it when “famous people” have Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, they tend to self-destruct their reputations & lives in the process? The Internet could be secretly Satan in disguise.
One Piece Volume 57 sells 2 million copies in 2 weeks. Gum Gum Fruit > Sage Mode > Tensa Zangetsu. That is all.
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If you have any other interesting Japanese pop culture moments from the first three months of 2010 to share, feel free to comment on the comments section below!
Part II: April to June can be read here.
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