W.C. Fields once gave the sage advice “never play pool with a man who owns his own table.” Similarly I would say that adage extends to “never argue anime with a man who used to have his own anime podcast.” One of our co-hosts (He is on almost every time but still prefers to think of himself as a “regular contributor”) used to have a podcast called “2Lazy2BOtaku”. My first question, upon meeting Chris Dodson and finding out about his podcast was, of course, what in the world does “Otaku” Mean. Let me enlighten those of you who are also not enlightened as Chris is on the subject
O-ta-ku : (in Japan) a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills
My foray into cartoons, like many people my age, began with Saturday morning cartoons. My parents would find me chained to the television set (when glueing no longer worked) until roughly noon or until either mom or biological functions dragged me away. In college my exposure was limited to the likes of Disney – back then one of my favorite short films was “Bambi versus Godzilla”.
For those keeping score, the results were “Godzilla 1/Bambi 0”. As an adult my tastes in animiation change: The Simpsons, Futurama and Bob’s Burgers. Still, at the time at least, caroons always carried that same mental image (or should I say “stigma”) as being for kids. I had, of course, heard of Anime but my interest in read subtitled videos rarely extended past Ingmar Bergman films.
The arguement over whether or not something is “anime” can start with Pokemon. The cartoons and then the games were the first thing that caught my attention. Then one day Pikachu whispered in my ear “Hey. How about these? Ghost in the Shell and Spirited Away). Both dubbed. Both masterpieces of animation.
Recently our household started watching Netflix’s “The Last Airbender”. I made the mistake of calling it “anime” during out last recording session. Then, Chris Dodson came down on me like a virtual Godilla…alright a funny one…schooling me as to where cartoons end and anime begins. What is the difference?
Listen to our next podcast.