Prior to keepsakes., Jay Agonoy has led Deremoe to be a talked-about website serving thought-provoking opinion on the anime and cosplay community in the Philippines. These are the remnants of the now-defunct website.
I’ve had my experience with Anime Listing websites like MyAnimeList and Anime-Planet but there will be another one soon, and this one is different — it uses a binary (YES/NO) system rather then the common decimal format.
It’s called Hummingbird.
The concept started from the question “what’s the difference between a 3.5-star series and a 4-star series?,” and using the binary system for anime recommendations is one feat to fulfill.
I already have requested invites through their website (http://hummingbird.ly) and is now on the waiting list. For those who are on MAL, they will provide an import tool, which I am a bit skeptical — will they round off the numbers or do something else? Too early to tell, but there is a possibility of this startup to win over MAL over the course of five to ten months for its simple usability.
My next concern is that they are on the Libyan domain (.ly), and therearesituations that involved this simple TLD, like the time when a .ly domain failed to comply with the local laws and gets removed without notice. We might have NSFW titles on their list so I’d like them to take this into consideration if necessary.
With these things in mind, I hope this breakaway site makes big waves in the community. Here is a press release if you need more information in regards to this upcoming service.
I’ve heard about the third Madoka Magica movie. I’ve read the synopsis. I even went too far by obtaining the so-called “camrip”. Then it all ends in one conclusion — “I don’t even…”
I’ve heard about the third Madoka Magica movie. I’ve read the synopsis. I even went too far by obtaining the so-called “camrip”. Then it all ends in one conclusion — “I don’t even…”
Sure, I’ve seen the transcripts and accounts of those who have watched the movie firsthand. Sure, some of them can’t even believe that that moment was in the plot. Sure, Chiwa Saito warned us during an interview about the movie…
…but I want to see why those who have seen the movie had a new monicker for our Homerun-chan.
For the record, based on the sources from the internet that I forgot to take note of, the series’ writer and all-around butcher Gen Urobochi was being nagged by the production committee to write another script after the success of the first two movies, then mentioned that this will be the last; that it should have ended with the former two. This means that the third movie is just an extra route.
But as I write this piece, I still believe that there should be a conclusion to this madness. I am still badly butthurt with what I’ve saw — although what I’ve seen can be applied to real life, since we just can’t accept bad things easily, the feeling just can’t get off me.
Madoka Magica should have Madoka Kaname on the spotlight, but even dating back to the TV series, I felt that she’s a main character that will turn into a supplementary characer because Homura’s on the spotlight — that’s probably the same case here.
The production committee just pointed the spotlight to Madoka for how many times only to be focused more on Homura. It’s like they’re using her more as a plot device rather than a main character.
We should’ve called this Homura Magica then.
But as I share a piece of my mind to them, do they have a better alternative? Can they do a plot in which the ending wouldn’t be that gloomy? I can’t say.
I’ve said all of these things to you, implying that this is enough; but I say unto you: We need another movie to fix the mess.
I’m sick of these guys giving more emphasis to Homura when the series is called “Puella Magi Madoka Magica.” Is it possible that we can have a “good route” story similar to what OreImo did?
Can Madoka win, this time, against Homura? She has won once, and that was a great spectacle.
Either way, I presume that Madoka and Homura can’t be together — Urobochi has sealed the story to that of a yin-yang, so it’ll still be gloomy. Nevertheless, I am rooting for Team Madoka once a plan for a fourth movie became a reality.
“We aim to be a destination for opinion on the Otaku community in the Philippines.”
This is our vision for Deremoe, and the reason why “We don’t just share the news, we talk about it.” If we don’t mind the community, we won’t be transitioning at a point where you mostly see Cosplay and Event-related posts on the front page of our website; you’ll just see us discuss the latest Anime that we have watched recently.
But no, we do care about the community.
The question is, do we still have a “community” that we can share our voices to?
I’ll whip up stories so that we can understand this better.
Alice wants to Cosplay, but she does not know where to go to first. She joined a Cosplay group she just found on Facebook and befriended the members online.
One day, the group set up an offline meeting — of course, Alice went there as well; and as with most members who went there, she dressed as her favorite character. It was not that good, and so the members were turned off.
“’Wag ka na mag-Cosplay, di bagây sa iyo.” (Don’t Cosplay anymore, it’s not for you.)
She left the group in trauma.
Disappointing. Again, the reason why she joined a Cosplay group is to learn Cosplay — not to be humiliated by someone.
Here’s another one.
A top Cosplay group has been running with high, flying colors at almost every competition they joined, impressing every spectator with their strut.
The problem is that they’re toppling over other Cosplay groups, and these guys are jealous of them, resulting to their determination to pull them down the ranks.
So, when everything went to place, the other groups despised them — and if they win, they will cry “wolf!” and say that thing is cooked.
This is how crab mentality works — “If we can’t win, you can’t.”
There’s more, by the way.
Joris is a top-notch Cosplayer, and the Cosplay group he is into strives to win the notable Cosplay competitions — and most of the time, they win.
One day, a new member joined Joris’ group — she’s an upcoming Cosplayer, and she has been winning Cosplay competitions as well. Joris trained her to utilize her skills in her motive to become a pro.
Now, the said Cosplayer becomes a pro — and unfortunately, she became arrogant of her actions. Worse, Joris did not see this well until it was too late.
The girl flew — and she never placed her feet in the ground for too long. Poor girl.
I have one last story to share.
There is a big Cosplay group, but due to unforeseen circumstances — including internal strives — the said group split into two.
These groups didn’t have any arrangements afterwards.
Now, after reading the stories above, can you relate to these situations? Do you still think that we have a community?
The community is getting bigger, we’re accommodating other media, like the idiot box — and to note that some people who have been part of the creation of this community are either retired or nowhere to see, it makes me want to go back to the basics.
Looking back to the stories I made up above, I don’t see anything either positive or educational… and mind you, I don’t simply make up stories like this because I want to — I’ve heard this from my friends, who are Cosplayers as well.
With all these said, as well as Cosplay in the Philippines becoming more of a serious business rather than self-fulfillment; and the loss of camaraderie between most organizations are escalating slowly to the worst levels imagined, where are we now?
If there is no community, we’ll just go back to be a simple Anime blog, and remember Philippine Cosplay as a wasteland. I don’t want to see that happen as well.
I’m hoping that these stories finish in a positive light — even if those hopes are as small as dots.
(Originally published at Deremoe on November 20, 2013.)
Let me be frank. Just now, what was supposed to be one of the happiest moments in my life has been cancelled. One last shining piece of hope in the midst of the troubles I am having now, gone in an instant.
Animax Philippines has announced that the Animax Carnival Philippines 2013 has been cancelled, and according to them, the cancellation was made by the higher-ups at Sony Pictures Television Networks — Asia.
Sony Pictures Television Networks, Asia, which owns and operates Animax, made the decision out of respect for the nation as it grieves the devastating losses resulting from typhoon Yolanda. The company wishes to express our heartfelt sympathy to all Filipinos affected by this natural disaster.
Let’s look at this announcement from different perspectives, shall we? I have a set of thoughts that ran in my mind.
“I felt like a child who has his candy taken away from him, and I am trembling in tantrums.”
“Why Haiyan must do this to us? Why does it have to take away even our happiness? Screw you, Haiyan.”
“I prepared myself for this, damn it.”
“The chances of AFA having its local version are delayed until further notice. Sh*t.”
“We need to have happiness in these times. Why you have to cancel this, Sony?”
“It can’t be helped.”
“At least there’s next year.”
From the expressions of anger and frustration that mark insensitivity, loss of respect, and selfishness; to expressions of acceptance which means that we are willing to wait; one of these expressions might be yours as well. I can feel you. If you went to the five stages of grief, I can feel what you are going through.
It feels very bad that this kind of event has to be cancelled, but we have to respect our fellows who have been ravaged in the biggest storm recorded in world history. Not to mention, those who have participated in the relief efforts who was supposed to be at the said event may have to take their time in their mission to restore the affected areas back to normal.
As much as I would like to get mad at the storm, I can’t. It’s a natural calamity: merciless and does not have a human face. As much as I would like to get mad at Animax, I can’t. They did this decision “in respect for the nation”, with “the nation” being the Philippines under recovery.
There are still lots of events that we can spend our time with so that we can end this year still fulfilled. Let’s hope for the Carnival to get rescheduled by early 2014, January at best, and then we can get back to our jolly selves.
I was supposed to participate in the latest episode of Radyo Pirata’s program #MuchMoreRANDOM but I didn’t even make it no thanks to the mobile internet connection infrastructure that I had, thus ending with me as a freaking nuisance.
The topic on their latest episode is about the topic of “Weeaboos,” non-Japanese people who has a mindset that being Japanese is the best thing ever, and the roundtable include RP’s station manager Pat (@qbmanx) and his circle of friends, including people from Local Otaku Media Anime Pilipinas.
The discussion started with an Editorial on AniPinas mentioning a new segment on the three-decade long noontime show Eat Bulaga! called “You’re My Foreignoy,” wherein full-blooded male foreigners participate by testing how Filipino they are, from speaking words to practicing traditional Filipino ways on Philippine television. Even Japanese people situated in the country participated in this competition.
The post is directed at Filipino weeaboos asking them not to forget the culture they grew up to, which is the Filipino culture. Just because that you’re prioritizing everything Japan doesn’t mean you can forget about our ways and means as Filipinos.
The discussion then transitioned to defining the border between the Otaku and the Weeaboo and Anime-related merchandise, indirectly mentioning the recent tarpaulin auctions at Otaku Expo 2014.
I’ve paused the podcast halfway to write this post.
I’ve seen the “You’re My Foreignoy” segment a few times, and I am very much aware of the concept that they’re doing. For starters, all of these things happened when the noontime show’s concept of showing the beauty of the ugly was denied by the local television board. At that time, they had a game called “Trip na Trip” where, to be blunt, select females from the audience gets to have fun with full-blooded foreign guys by doing minigames on the stage. That’s the idea behind “Foreignoy”.
I wonder if I said that right, considering that we all have minds prone to assumption and implications.
Now, there have been reactions about this, some agreed with their editorial and some didn’t. Reactions such as “I’d rather be a weeaboo than be a part of this stupid culture,” or “I do not care since both cultures have their lapses” appeared. Some even thanked them for stating the point.
From what I see, I am guilty of being a weeaboo as well. If you are an avid listener of the Roundtable Otakus podcast (or even RadyoPi’s tech show Tech Rant, in I co-produced with Al), you’ll hear me spew things out of nowhere such as “Eeeeeehhh, so~na…” (What? No way…) or even the simple “desu” (with a silent ‘u’). I do that off the air as well.
I’ve been doing it for a while to a point that I got accustomed, and come to think of it, I was awkward. Very awkward.
On the other hand, there are people online that are far worse than me; so regardless of how bad it is, I still think I’m fortunate that I’m not as weeaboo as others. It might take time for me to get rid of that mannerism I have, but hopefully, I will be able to draw the line between being an Otaku and being a weeaboo.
I still do think that measuring how Otaku are you is always not an option. Those images and stuff you see on Facebook telling you how Otaku are you are so bad in its concept that I can consider those who made it as elitists. Why? Here’s a story.
I had online friends who watch the more notable, mainstream Anime such as One Piece, Naruto, Fairy Tail, Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online, and they love each series so much they are willing to Cosplay the characters. Isn’t this enough to call them Otaku?
Considering that SAO and AOT are recent Anime that went into the mainstream to the levels of the former three and started in the time where the word “Otaku” is prevalent, they’ve had all the guts to watch each and every episode of the series regardless of how they were able to do so.
“If you’re an Otaku, name […]” “If you’re an Otaku, do you […]”
They’re actually doing it wrong. It’s like shoving your dominance over others. It’s like saying “Hey, I’ve watched 154 Anime series including Evangelion and you only watched a couple of shows recently, so you’re a n00b” to beginners. There might be people who watched Anime for the rest of their lives and still not show their dominance around the community.
Also, you can even use Evangelion to draw a border to who is the real Otaku and who are the pretentious weeaboos. I can’t be wrong with this.
I also want to hurt the guys behind those “What is your Japanese name?” web apps because they’re not even helping at all. Making a shortcut as an answer to this question is just a lame excuse. You can ask your friends who passed the Japan Language Proficiency Tests (JLPT) to translate your name to Kanji or Katakana or Hiragana, but it’s much better if you can ask them to actually teach you so that you can pass the test as well.
One does not simply show off. Being a weeaboo means you’re showing off your /mad skillz as a Japanophile of some sort with little to no effort, and that pisses off those who took their time and effort to hone those skills while being shy or a bit hostile about it.
This is what I think of Otakus: They’re saying that they’re Otakus and just move on. They have too much time on gushing over their favorite character / series / game / wut not that they have little time to show off. They don’t try to show dominance by means of words as they really do it. Walking the talk. This may be hypocritical of me and I might be wrong with what I think, but it took me a while to know where I am.
The bottomline here is to restrain from abusing the word. It is also worthy to note that the community we are into lacks the emotion to be concerned with things like these so much that we have lots of time to show off.
In a social context, Filipinos know how to brag a lot, and I feel that if someone from another country sees our shining pride, they’ll be turned off instantly. That’s hostility to me. If we were the proudest mob of weeaboos and we’re facing the beginners who want to know more about the culture we are into, chances are we’d be hostile against them.
I have been guilty of committing such hostility as well. I get pissed off when anyone doesn’t give justice to the character/series that I love the most, thus I react badly. I get to interact with people who understand why they love a character/series the most. Can you even blame me if this is happening? No.
This is why being an Otaku is connected to sharing information to others. I do believe we have an obligation to share this information to others so that justice is served. We can get rid of the weeaboo culture by sharing them information about their interest as much as we can handle. We don’t need to get hostile either — As much as I can, I try not to diss off anybody who lacks detail in their Cosplay; or anybody who missed a plot hole in our favorite series.
At least you can motivate them to research more (and never stop). To interact on non-vulgar discussions. To continue that specific detail in their costume so it will look like the one you see on the screen. To be concerned. The keys here are information, motivation, empathy and understanding.
Inform those who need to learn. Motivate them to strive hard. As you understand their struggle between fantasy and reality, empathize with them.
Apparently, most of what I’ve said here are also mentioned after I played the podcast, but either way, you need to know that there are people concerned about this.
