If you were to check my DVR you'd see four things: Adventure Time, Regular Show and The

Legend of Korra.

(aaaand How I Met Your Mother which my girlfriend records and I pretend to hate but secretly think is

genius SSSHHHHH DONT TELL HER).

ANYWAY, in 2005 Nickelodeon began airing Avatar: The Last Airbender, a story about a world

where magic is as common as war and where a great figure--The Avatar--has the singular

ability to unite both magical and national forces.

Only the avatar can master all four types of elementally themed magic, called bending.

There's only ONE avatar at a time and a new one is born as soon as the old one DIES. Which is

pretty brutal.

And means, as a rule, they experience a kind of coming of age Hero's Journey. With magic. And super-cool

hybrid animals. Which is exactly what we saw happen with Aang, the avatar from the first series...

and Korra, the protagonist of the currently on-going series: The Legend of Korra. Henceforth

collectively referred to as "The Avatars".

What is perhaps most striking about The Avatars, at first, is their style. Both visual and tonal.

It's "for kids" but also ... not really. There are serious themes, political messages, complex

relationships, including one very controversial love triangle.

All packaged up in an animated TV show rated Y7. So. Y'know. FOR kids.

But that doesn't mean that the show's complexity suffers at all. For instance, there are Four

Nations, and they all have their own attitude, history and look.

Show creator Brian Konietzko has listed PLENTY of influences on the show's style: Asian cinema,

Chinese, Indian, and Korean Culture, Harry Potter, Eastern Philosphy, and maybe most

importantly... ANIME.

Specifically Cowboy Beebop, Fooly Cooly, Miyazaki -- though I did recently learn that the famed director might not necessarily

consider his films "anime", strictly speaking.

The fact that Anime is listed amongst those influences makes perfect sense--many people's

first reactions, including my own upon seeing The Avatars is "Oh, is this Anime?"

And what they usually mean is "Is this animated TV show made in Japan?" And in so asking they

are also stubbing their toe on an interesting conundrum:

Because, as far as the West is concerned--and more on that later--The Avatars are definitely NOT anime.

When we say anime we mean Akira, Evangelion, Samurai Champloo, Naruto, Trigun, etc.

And sure, in a visual comparison, there IS a difference between the Avatars and these things,

though... sometimes not a significant one, a point made very handily by Chris

O'Brien over at the Escapist a couple years ago. Link in the doobly-do.

But strictly speaking it's not the subject or tone or STYLE that makes or breaks anime-itude

in the west, it's that the Avatars AREN'T MADE IN JAPAN.

Which is especially interesting given that IN Japan the world "anime" is used to reference ANY animated

work, regardless of nationality.

So! While The Avatars are not animes here... it stands to reason that they ARE. in Japan.

Along with the Simpsons and Boondocks and Archer and ... well you get the point. All

these things might be "foreign anime" or "western anime" but, anime nonetheless.

But The Avatars are, I think, are a much more interesting case given, all things considered,

their resemblance to what many of *us* would call Authentic Anime.

Meaning: if The Avatars were exactly the same, but made in Japan--would they uneqivocally be called

"anime" in the West?

It's that thin line accounting for genre solidity that's really interesting: there's one between

champagne and sparkline wine, Tennessee Whiskey vs Bourbon, Pizza vs. Papa John's, anime vs

cartoon vs animated TV show.

For all intents and purposes these things ARE the things that they, technically, are ... not.

Real talk though, I actually love Papa John's

And it is that "technically" that's really neat - like, by the anime standards we were just discussing

Torkaizer is not an anime because it was made in the Middle East.

But look at it. It's an anime!

The question, I think, is then what is gained by EXCLUDING works that MEET major stylistic

criteria from a genre.

Are we maintaining the usefulness of the word "anime", having it mean a very specific thing?

There is a usefulness in having "anime" communicate a quality or set of qualities--but is a disservice

done when it starts excluding things that admirers of the form might otherwise appreciate

regardless of its "AUTHENTICITY"? Which is...just so many quote fingers. So complicated

Or, speaking of which... maybe it's about protecting the sanctity or quality of the

genre itself?

In classic "thats not punk rock!" fashion, does saying The Avatar's are not Anime somehow

maintain an artistic integrity within the genre?

Are avatar-deniers protecting their own cultural turf from n00bs? Or MAYBE, as animated works continue

their path to legitimacy in the West this'll become a non-question...

...and we'll eventually adopt the Japanese usage. Can

you imagine? Family guy, anime. Adventure time. Anime. Bob's Burgers. Anime

What do you guys think? What does the genre designation "anime" mean?

And is it changing? Does Avatar have anything to do with it?

Let us know in the comments and subscribe out of pity because of how bad you feel

that I have a cold.

Trolololololololololololo Hahahahaha Remember this week we're gonna be

responding to comments from two videos: surveillance and reality TV and trolls. And we're going

to do it in that order. MythicAlexthinks and

Benjamin Chi have pointed out my mispronunciation of Jyfe. Thank you.

JanettCilene points out that another example of a kind of media which might

transgress some privacy boundaries is vlogging and yeah I think you know the

tension between those two things is that reality TV seems to me that it's

a lot like "I can't believe these people are like this!" whereas in vlogging it's someone welcoming

you into their life I guess? But yeah I wonder you know which

one is a more constructed experience if that's even a fair thing to ask. June Bendich

and Joe Betzle both asked whether or not if you claim that

reality TV is changing people's ideas about privacy do you then also have to agree that violent

video games make people violent and other kinds of media affect people

in different ways. And I think there's a lot to this question

there's questions about the general audience of both those things

the cultural pervasiveness of all them but yeah this is a really great and

I think very complicated question to ask. Bill Bird says that it's not reality TV

that affects our ideas about surveillance but rather our pre-existing

ideas about surveillance make reality TV seem normal and this makes

me think about Josh Harris's project that was documented in

that movie We Live in Public which if you haven't seen it, it's awesome as a kind of like older

"older", what thirty years, example

of something where you know for art's sake people

were forced to live under surveillance and yeah

it was edgy but kinda seemed timely and expected and maybe normal. I dunno. Hat

Person provides some insight into actually being on a reality TV show which he

was so I'll just leave this. You should just read this cuz its

interesting and a little scary towards the end. To

Mimimarcus I have absolutely no idea what my IQ is and I forget my SAT score but

it was not good. I remember being very upset and that's, I mean I'm

terrible at taking tests and also like those numbers don't really

tell you how smart anyone is, like I know people with very high IQ's who are in certain situations

not the smartest people and people who did worse on their SAT

than if they were to just fill in random boxes who are some of the smartest

people that I know so, you know, smartness is a

whole, whole lotta stuff. And just as a point of

clarification and maybe pride. Matthieu Rheaume who's responding to

Mimimarcus: I wish I had a team of writers. That

would be awesome. It's just me. While I totally agree with

Shin Garugamesh I can't shake the feeling that they're just trying to

hurt my feelings. And it is on that note that we

transition to: Trolls. So instead of responding to specific comments I'm just gonna talk for a second

and we're just gonna throw some comments down at the

bottom that illustrate what I think were the

largest and most frequently made comments and responses. One of the most

common responses was people saying I unfairly lumped trolls and harassers

together into one group of people. However I think for a

lot of people their experience of the Internet is that

trolls to them are only harassers that they might not

even know that this other group of people exists or they

don't see a distinction between them; they see all these people as there to harass them.

Which is exactly why I became uncomfortable saying that there's a

good side to trolling because to a lot of people trolls just are people who threaten

and harass them. Knowing and being able to make a distinction

between funny waste-your-time troll and death threats troll is itself a kind of privilege.

Which really makes me wonder what percentage of the group of people saying

that there is a clear difference between funny waste-your-time troll and death threats

troll are straight white guys like me. I mean I did it and then

I tried really hard to see it from another perspective.

And it was scary. And finally to everybody saying

that trolling makes you a better, stronger, or smarter

person I think this is the position that the episode

started out in that I revised because it becomes very complicated to say that

when you realize that trolling is not the exact same thing for every person

who experiences it. And furthermore to everybody who thinks

that someone becomes a stronger or better person because they know how to

deal with rape or death threats: I don't know what

world you live in but it's nothing like mine...What?? This week's episode was brought

to you by the hard work of these very reasonable

people you'll notice there's only one writer. We have an IRC a facebook

and a subreddit, links in the description. And the tweet

of the week comes from Thomas Hatter who asks whether or not it's okay that he had an

epiphany while playing an RPG. I say you can have

epiphanies while reading novels, maybe while watching YouTube shows, why

not an RPG? Seems fine to me.

And of course we have to switch out a record. I know I said we weren't

gonna be doing any more record swaps of things that

were already on the wall but in observance of Pete Seeger's recent

passing I would feel much better about keeping

him on the wall. So we're gonna give him a place, little bit more visibility.

Again we'll eventually replace Johnny Cash, but welcome Pete Seeger: America's balladeer.