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	Re: Ahahahahaha ladyofviolets 2010-01-30 12:29 pm UTC (link)
	Also, isn't it mentioned somewhere that the IchiHime J-fen sites are often trolled by IchiRuki fanbrats and that's why they're so "secretive"? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Ahahahahaha

kuromitsu
2010-01-30 01:35 pm UTC (link)

I don't know about often, but an IchigoxOrihime fansite I knew was trolled by militant IchigoxRukia fans until the owner closed it down and left a note that basically said "fuck it, I can't take this anymore, I hope you're happy now" (in very polite Japanese). And there's another website who was surprised because she was expected to be trolled but wasn't. And when I still read 2ch IchigoxRukia fangirls used to post random Orihime and IchigoxOrihime bashing comments in general Bleach threads, or threads dedicated to other pairings (like IchigoxIshida, I mean, wtf?).

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	Re: Ahahahahaha kuromitsu 2010-01-30 01:35 pm UTC (link)
	I mean, "whose owner was surprised." Gah. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Ahahahahaha

rowsdower
2010-01-30 03:17 pm UTC (link)

Geez. This actually disappoints me a bit. I had been laboring under the (now clearly baseless) assumption that droves of endlessly intolerant, bugfuck insane IchiRuki fans were more a problem of Western Bleach fandom, and were either not present in Japanese fandom or so minuscule in number as to not be an issue. I guess I was basing this some experiences in other fandoms where ship wars among Western fans were absurdly heated and cruel, while the situation in Japan was more sedate by an order of magnitude.

Sane IchiRuki fans, you have my sympathy. I might not like your ship, but you guys don't deserve having swarms of screeching harpies as shipmates on BOTH sides of the Pacific.

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Re: Ahahahahaha

kuromitsu
2010-01-30 03:37 pm UTC (link)

Nah, Japanese fandoms and especially ship wars can be just as wanky as Western ones, it's just that the wank and batshit craziness happens anonymously and it rarely ever reaches the surface mostly made up of people who are very laid-back about things and generally just don't give a damn.

2ch, being basically the black hole of everything that is wrong with Japan is a hotbed of ship wank and character bashing, and anons trolling websites for whatever reason (ship war, cosplay war, etc.) is also relatively common happens, and can be really vicious (I've heard about people registering the owner's mail address for sex ads/etc.). A girl I knew, an absolute sweetheart who drew awesome Ouran Host Club doujin and fanart was pretty much trolled out of the fandom for no reason at all other than the anons hated her art style and enjoyed bullying her. Another girl I knew had to close her website (and then open it up again after some time, at a different address) because she'd had enough of trolls.

More recently in the Hetalia fandom the ship war between two "rival" pairings reached relatively epic proportions when both parties ended up getting the othes' fan videos deleted from Nicovideo (Japanese youtube, basically). Meanwhile, sane fans on both sides were basically like "GO TO HELL AND TAKE YOUR FUCKING SHIP WAR WITH YOU AND LET US SHIP IN PEACE." (In very polite Japanese.)

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	Re: Ahahahahaha kuromitsu 2010-01-30 03:38 pm UTC (link)
	"is also relatively common ~~happens~~" (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Ahahahahaha schoenschoen 2010-01-30 04:36 pm UTC (link)
	Wow - like the above person, I was also laboring under the assumption that the Japanese were more polite about these things. And I guess they are, but I see they've managed to transmit their problems with school bullies onto the internet, too. Also, hot damn, how can you even have pairing wars for Hetalia? I didn't even think those existed over here! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Ahahahahaha

kuromitsu
2010-01-30 05:16 pm UTC (link)

They seem more polite because they are - wanks and trolling all happen anonymously, under the surface. It's like 4chan and anon memes. But in my experience it's a sort of "underground" phenomenon - most Japanese fans are actually sane and laid-back or at least civil about shipping and all that, and fandom in general is a very nice place as long as you avoid 2ch/mixi and don't catch the trolls' attention. But it may be just the fandoms I've known.

As for ship wars in Hetalia... well, yeah. That particular kerfluffle was about EnglandxJapan and AmericaxEngland - my understanding is that as "rival" ships there was already a tension between them, and rabid fans of EnglandxJapan (that used to be the most popular pairing in the fandom) didn't appreciate AmericaxEngland growing more popular, so they got grouchy and testy, rabid AmericaxEngland fans got cocky, and... boom.

Over here we have PrussiaxGermany vs GermanyxItaly and people who ship either England or America with someone else vs. AmericaxEngland (of course it may be just a coincidence that most people I've seen hating on it happen to ship "rival" pairings). Generally they're not very prominent, though, and they seem to mostly happen in personal journals and the kink/anon memes that I avoid like the plague, and of course fandom!secrets which I don't avoid (but I wish I could).

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Re: Ahahahahaha

schoenschoen
2010-01-30 05:25 pm UTC (link)

Yeah - you can tell through doujin that they don't take pairings seriously at all. (I also find that poll suspect because I can tell you that I've seen many an IchiHime doujin or GrimmHime doujin, but I've never run across an UlquiHime or IshiHime one. There seems to be fanart of it, and maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places, but there doesn't seem to be as much as the other two pairings. It's also funny that the 'most popular' pairings align perfectly with what people on that FC predominantly ship)

And wow - I was always of the impression that Hetalia fandom was dumb but relatively wank-free on the pairing front. Then again, when has there ever been a fandom that was perfectly unwanky about pairings?

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Re: Ahahahahaha

kuromitsu
2010-01-30 06:03 pm UTC (link)

UlquiorraxOrihime is actually quite popular in Japan... as far as I know, anyway, I don't ship it so I don't hang around in UlqHime hubs, but the last time I looked there were quite a few fansites and whatnot. I don't know about IshidaxOrihime, from what I can tell it was somewhat popular once but I haven't seen lot of it lately. But yeah, that poll is a bit fishy - it's definitely not official and the crack pairings make me think it may have come from 2ch, and if so then... yeah. (2ch is basically 4ch, only worse.)

As for Hetalia fandom, I don't think that it's any dumber than other huge fandoms, really. (Compared to Bleach or Naruto it's positively peaceful and intelligent.) It has its share of idiots, wankers, rabid shippers and young and exciteable fangirls, but there are a lot of normal people, let alone some really awesome ones. The pairing wars are a relatively recent development (at least these strong anti-AmericaxEngland sentiments - lol this sounded weird :D), and people tend to keep it out of the main comm, except for some trolls.

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Re: Ahahahahaha

schoenschoen
2010-01-30 06:14 pm UTC (link)

Huh - I don't know very many Japanese fansites, so that's probably why. The ones I know are doujin circles, Tanabata Days, and Blast. I AM LE SHELTERED. I have heard that yaoi doujin for Bleach outnumber het doujin by several factors of order in Japan, though. Which should surprise absolutely no one.

I am generally skeptical when I see polls that perfect with no sources other than "It came from Japan!", especially when they're very atypical of the magazine the official canon comes from. And even if it was an official Shounen Jump poll (hahahaha what, I can't even wrap my brain around that), who the hell cares? I'm amused at the notion that being Japanese is like a stat bonus that increases your ability to predict Which Pairings Will Be Canon.

Oh, definitely - I've hung out in the Hetalia comm a few times, and the fandom doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets IMO. Which is why I was surprised that they were having ship wars. Glad they aren't causing that much trouble in the main comm, though - that would make me sad.

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Re: Ahahahahaha

kuromitsu
2010-01-30 07:01 pm UTC (link)

I don't really get this fixation on popularity either. It's like a ship can only be "valid" (or hell, canon) if it's sufficiently popular. Wtf? And if their ship is TOTALLY CANON GAIZ and THE MOST POPULAR LIEK EVAR then why the hell do they care about those sad and deluded people who ship totally insignificant and hopelessly doomed ships? o_o (I know, I know, it was a rhetorical question.)

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	Re: Ahahahahaha schoenschoen 2010-01-30 07:17 pm UTC (link)
	It couldn't be because they feel threatened at all! That's unpossible! And I'm sure Kubo is refreshing 2ch obsessively and going "OKAY GUYS TELL ME WHAT I DO NEXT", just to be sure he's writing the most popular pairing he can get. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Ahahahahaha

kuromitsu
2010-01-30 07:28 pm UTC (link)

Well of course! Since, as we already know, he totally ships [insert pairing of your choice here] anyway.

That said, Kubo can pretty much only write stuff that gets past his editor who is responsible for the popularity of the manga, and editors telling mangaka to change plot lines, kill off characters, etc. happen all the time. So frankly, if the editor thought that shippers' opinion was important we would've already seen signs of it. But as it seems this only affects the anime which is driven by merchandise sales, so yeah.

(Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if Kubo, along with other Jump mangaka, wasn't allowed anywhere near 2ch and fan sites.)

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Re: Ahahahahaha

schoenschoen
2010-01-30 07:48 pm UTC (link)

Kubo totally agrees with us! IT IS JUST AS PLANNED!

And even in the anime, when they stick to the manga-based stuff, you see it start to lean more towards IchiHime than IchiRuki during the Hueco Mundo arc. I've noticed the fillers tend to lean more towards IchiRuki or just Rukia in general, I'm guessing to tide her fans over until she gets more screentime in the manga.

I'm thinking that the amount of time dedicated to each character in the latest arc is kind of telling, though, so far as editorial decisions go.

(As part of their contracts? It wouldn't surprise me - creators mixing with their fandoms seems like a good idea in theory, but then again, so does communism)

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	Re: Ahahahahaha argylespy 2010-01-30 06:41 pm UTC (link)
	[ ... ] I've heard about people registering the owner's mail address for sex ads/etc. [ ... ] [ ... ] was pretty much trolled out of the fandom for no reason at all other than the anons hated her art style and enjoyed bullying her. Wow. Just ... wow. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Ahahahahaha kuromitsu 2010-01-30 07:09 pm UTC (link)
	oops, grammar fail. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Ahahahahaha kari_izumi 2010-01-31 09:53 am UTC (link)
	Considering Japan's "tolerance" for anything out of the ordinary, that doesn't surprise me. I've kind of always wondered if that were the case. Sadly, I'm proven right. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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