An American Light not being White would be Alt-Right propaganda

This is a follow up of sorts to my earlier post I'm Fine with a Westernized Adaptation of Death Note.

But there is a second layer to the issue of White Washing Light, which is saying "why does American Light have to be White? not all Americans are White?".

I read a LadyGeekGirl article.  The author seems to think that because Japan isn't as "Racially" diverse as America that it has no concept of some people being more Privileged then others. And I find that offensive.  It doesn't matter how much you think everyone there looks the same, every society has some classes or demographics who are more privileged then others.

Light Yagami is absolutely a privileged person in all Japanese set versions of Death Note.  He's a Police Cheif's son, he's an honor student, he's someone women seem to throw themselves at.  And he absolutely flies under the radar of the police because of that.

So if any Anime character has to be White in an American setting it's Light Yagami.

In fact I will go so far as to say it would be White Nationalist propaganda to have an American Light be a minority.  It will play into their desire to deny White Privilege while delusionally claiming political correctness is allowing minorities to get away with things, to have an Asian American, African American, Latino American or Muslim fly under the police radar the way Light Yagami does.

Light should be an irredeemable villain with no sympathetic qualities.  If he's not that I'll consider it a failure no matter what he looks like, that's my issue with the 2015 series, trying to make Light more sympathetic. So it'd actually be much more problematic for such a character to be a POC.

Some other claims from this article I want to address.

"However, (spoilers for a decade-old manga) L dies. Light outmaneuvers him"

1. We don't know the adaptation will end that way, the first Live Action adaptation in Japan had L win.

2. Light is eventually defeated by Near and Mello, who interestingly were White men in the Manga/Anime but played by a Japanese actress in the 2015 series.  So if this version carries the story to include them, we'll have to wait and see how they're cast.

Aside from the phrasing of “Justice of Kira” not sounding like fluent English, the original Japanese used Kira as Light’s serial killer identity because “kira” (キラー) is how the word “killer” is written/pronounced in Japanese. Why on earth is this white boy from Seattle calling himself that?

Light is not the one who coined the name Kira in the Anime.  Also what country Light is from being known was itself a product of L's deductions.  So we have to wait and see how the name comes about here.

Watari is made Japanese in this even though he was British in the source material.  I'm curious how they're going to make sense of that.

Everything Great about The Star Wars Prequels

I feel bad I didn't watch these videos as soon as they went up.  I got the wrong impression of what this guy thought of the Prequels from his TFA video.  As a long time Prequel defending these videos mentions subtleties even I hadn't noticed yet.

Okay, I can't get the Revenge of the Sith one to show up here the way I could the first too.  If you go watch the videos on YouTube directly you'll find it easily.

He's still more critical of em then I am.  I have a post dedicated to the Taxation Dispute issue.  And Padme is the main character of Episode I as a stand alone film, not Qui-Gon.

But these are good video, a short quick and easy way to start sticking it to Prequel haters.

Sword Art Online was never a Death Game anime

I want to start by saying there are lot of valid reasons to dislike SAO.  I enjoyed the Aincrad arc though it was flawed.  I had a lot of problems with Alfheim and Gungale though there were also good moments.  The two arcs that made up the second half of season 2 were great, Mother's Rosario especially is my favorite so far. I haven't seen Ordinal Scale yet, I will be waiting for the Dubs to watch either it or season 3.

A common theme I've seen among critics of SAO, especially those who hate even the original arc, including Digibro himself in the PCP Podcast on "Plebs", is a notion that it was somehow supposed to be a Death Game Anime, and that the show then ruined it's own sense of urgencey.

Mirai Nikki was a Death Game anime, Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero are Death Game animes.  Magical Girl Raising Project is a Death Game Anime (I just watched it and am still processing my thoughts on it).  It's a genre that has an inherently limited appeal to me.  I watched RP because I'm into Magical Girls, Mirai Nikki for the Yandere and Fate/ because I'm into Arthurian Legend and other mythologies.  But if SAO had been structured like a Death Game then it'd have had almost none of what I like about it.

A Death Game Anime is one where the situation encourages or forces the players of the game to kill each other.   The situation Kiba created encouraged working together and for the most part they did.  The people who became murderers were ones who had those tendencies already.

I don't care that character use the words "Death Game" in universe to describe their situation, that is irrelevant to what it means as an Anime sub genre.

Digibro said in the last episode of the DigiBros Super Mario 64 let's play, when they were speculating on Zelda BotW (it was recorded before the game came out) that he doesn't like when Video Games have a sense of urgency.  I agree with him on that, and that is why I like the very parts of SAO he considered the most useless.  Every Video Game he could praise for not having a sense of urgency still has a theoretical sense of urgency, if Link doesn't get to the end and defeat Ganon eventually then Hyrule is doomed.  And that is all the opening episodes of SAO were meant to do, establish a problem that they need to solve, eventually.

But the appeal to me was always about these character living in a digital fantasy world, not about them getting out of it, it appeals to me in a way that connects to how I feel Caprica was such a missed opportunity.  So my favorite episodes were largely the "Filler" which apparently came from the second Light Novel.

Digibro most hated the Murder Mystery two parter.  I loved those, for the most part.  As a fan of Holmesian stories I enjoyed seeing this speculation on how you'd apply Holmsian deductive reasoning in an MMO world.  And when they figured out the deaths had been faked I was quite satisfied.  Then the story dragged on adding some more twists and I soured on it a little.

I also agree that like in the original web novels Asuna should have killed that one guy.

Mother's Basement did a video on SAO where he said it was ruined by the Yui character turning out to be an AI, which he said destroyed the sense that anyone can die.  I have come to be quite personally annoyed by shows wanting to create that illusion, and viewers who ever buy into it.  If you're paying attention you can easily tell who isn't eligible to die on Game of Thrones, or the books it was based on.  Ned Stark was a character created specifically to die early on creating that illusion, and Mami Tomoe was Ned Stark as a Magical Girl, in more ways then one.

And I'm annoyed by the people who want a show where anyone can die.  Whenever I'm watching something and a character death happens that did not feel sufficiently built up to, it simply comes off as bad writing to me, even when it's a character I didn't much care for.  This is part of what slowly soured me to The Vampire Diaries, a show I loved at first.  And when it's done to a character I love, like my Waifu Anna (played by Malese Jow), it just enrages me.  I hate when shows do things just for shock value, and plenty of my favorite moments have been completely predictable ones.  And that is Why I Like Prequels.

As a Christian I like Adoption themes in my fiction, something I talked about in a Force Awakens post last year "Rey is a Skywalker but not by Blood".  So in this setting I quite like the idea of our protagonists adopting an AI character.  So Mother's Basement desire to say Yui ruined SAO by being an AI offends me, just as it offends me when people say Dawn (also my Waifu) ruined Buffy.

That is all for this post.  Expect maybe something in the future about SAO as a Gnostic Allegory, the first two arcs anyway.

Well I just watched The Force Awakens for the third time.

I was listneing to Digibro say how sometimes it takes three viewing to fully gauge your opinion on something.  Or atleast that if you find yourself liking something less the second time to try the a third.

On my second viewing TFA did hold as well I'd hoped it would.  But on this third viewing it was pretty fun again.

I still don't like it as much as the Prequels, but I can say I like it about the same as the original Trilogy.

Also, this was my first time watching it since I got into Lucky Star and Haruhi.  So when we learn BB-8 had answered Rei's question with "Classified" I couldn't help but giggle.

Zelda BotW also kept popping into my head.  Because that Game managed to make it's Landscapes just as awesome as anything in a film that was filmed at real locations.

Also this time when Han fell after being stabbed I thought "is he falling into a Mako reactor".

I hope a Fantastical Alternate History version of WWI or WWII is a staple of every Anime season now

Last season we had Izetta The Last Witch, which gave us basically WWII, but with a lot of cosmetic influence from WWI.

This season we have Tanya The Evil.  People have had a lot fun calling it a show about a "Loli Nazi", but really the War we're currently watching is more of a delayed WWI.

But.... a theory I've seen presented in the comments section of the site I've been streaming the Dub on is that basically Tanya will be the Hitler of this alternate history.

Imagine it, this season ends with the Empire being defeated, lots of climatic stuff happens.  Then the final after credits scene is a jump several years in the future, an teen Tanya gives a rousing speech to disillusioned veterans.  And it ends with them raising their hands saying "Hail Tanya".

That would be chilling.

I am fine with a Westernized adaptation of Death Note

There is nothing wrong with retelling a story in a different cultural context.  We've seen Anime based on stories of Western origin, and I'd like to see more.  I'd like to see Annie on My Mind re-imagined as a Yuri Anime or Manga, replace the role played by the Egyptian section of the Museum with a Shinto Shrine.

My problem with White Washing in Anime adaptations is when that seems likely to be the only Live Action version that property will have since Japan's film industry can't afford to do justice to many of these stories.

Death Note however has had two Live Action adaptations made in Japan with mostly Japanese casts.  Including characters who were heavily implied to be White in the Anime, like the clearly British Watari, or Near and Mello who seemed to be Germanic.  L himself is more controversial as some think he may have been part Japanese, but the name usually revealed to be his real name is a European one.

This Death Note adaptation has some diversity to it, with L being African American.

So I really don't have a problem with the ultimate privileged entitled misogynist douche who thinks he deserves to decide who lives and dies being White.

And I frankly would have liked Misa to be able to Blonde in live action for once, but instead we're still not getting that.

There are other issues I may have this show.  Mainly I'm really annoyed it's going be on Netflix.  But I'll have to wait till I know more. 

I'd like to see the BBC do a Live Action Hellsing

So we've seen Anime adapted into Live Action in it's home country of Japan with varying degrees of success.  And We've seen it adapted into Live Action by Hollywood with so far no undeniable success.

But what about giving the BBC a shot? Looking at some of the the shows they've had including SciFi ones they have the means.  And You'll be surprised how many Anime YouTubers have British accents, so there is an Otaku audience there.

Hellsing would be my first choice for this.  It's set in London, and inspired by a classic work of British poplar fiction.

I'm of a course a Hellsing fan who hasn't read the manga, but really liked the first Anime yet totally hates the art style of Ultimate.  It bums me out that the original Anime didn't get a second season as there was clearly more story to tell.

Hellsing has the potential to fit in right alongside Doctor Who and maybe even fill the void left by Sherlock.

After Hellsing the next Anime franchise that involves a lot of British characters is Fate/Stay Night, especially in Fate/Zero.  But that's still mainly set in Japan.  Maybe I could be okay with a Localized adaptation, it's not nearly as Shinto driven as something like Higurashi, another Anime adapted from a Visual Novel.  But you'd have to be very careful about it.  Or they could make like a Fate/ spin off, just depicting the Mages Academy and other Nasuverse drama.

So Hellsing is definitely the best bet for giving the BBC a shot at adapting Anime/Manga.

Update August 31st 2017:

Thanks to Princess Principal we now have another Anime sorta set in London, an alternate history London.  I like it, but it's still airing so who knows how it'll turn out.

The BBC isn't likely to do something with an all female cast, yes they just finally committed to a female Doctor Who, but that will still have male characters.

And it's best not to adapt something till it's stood the test of time somewhat.  If I revisit Princess Principal in 5 years and still care about it, and others do too.  Then we'll see.

But for now Hellsing is still the best bet.