Japanese artist Keiko Moritsugu, who has worked on character designs for the Pokemon games as well as a CG artist for Doraemon, has been virtue signaling online in hopes of getting the attention of Social Justice Warriors to signal boost her message that condemns sexy fan-service in animes, and props up the sociopolitical messaging that runs rampant in Western animation and live-action film.
[Correction:] Keiko Moritsugu reached out via e-mail to state that her work consists of being a concept artist and character designer, not an illustrator or character artist, writing…
“This account is mine, but I AM NOT A TRADING CARDS ARTIST. I have drawn one, but I am a concept artist and character designer.”
[…] I have never done illustration work and I will not do it from now on.
Sankaku Complex did a story about Moritsugu’s Twitter thread that was originally published on April 25th, 2019. The thread received more than a thousand likes from the Japanese section of Twitter.
ディズニーやマーベルの映画が、毎年のようにクオリティを更新出来るのは、実際の社会の中で争点になっている事をきちんと脚本に織り込んでいくからなんだよ。日本のアニメはもうそれが出来ないのよ。「エロを混ぜればオタクを騙せるんでしょ？」という方法論で作ってるから。
— Moritsugu Keiko 森次慶子 (@W_Fei_hung) April 25, 2019
Moritsugu states…
“Disney and Marvel films are in a position where each year they improve their quality, because they take actual societal issues and incorporate them into the middle of the script while interweaving them into difficult criticisms of the world.
“Japanese animated films are not capable of doing that at this time.
“How do we blend in erotic fan-service to swindle otaku out of their money?’ seems to be the current methodology to produce content in Japan.”
This is an attitude that has already been adopted by some Japanese studios.
Dead or Alive 6 producer Yohei Shimbori openly stated that they “toned down” the female character designs to look more “cool” and less “sexy” in order to match the sort of costumes featured in the Marvel comic book movies. This obviously didn’t go over well with fans, and — compounded with other issues — it led to the game tanking on the market compared to previous outings. And that’s not even discussing Sony’s censorship policies, which has negatively impacted plenty of Japanese studios, especially the Senran Kagura series.
Some of the responses from the Japanese were pretty clever, with some of them saying that Star Wars is no longer any good and that Marvel has become lapdogs for Disney, which is why we likely won’t get a proper Punisher depiction. They also joke that maybe Avengers: Endgame would have been better if they had Elsa singing a song.
日本のアニメが既に手遅れぎみなのは認めるとして、
ディズニーはダメです。
くっだんない思想盛り込んでスターウォーズはダメにするわ、ディズニーの犬になったマーベルはパニッシャーもう作れなさそうだわ。
エンドゲームでアベンジャーズとエルザ達でレリゴー歌わせるつもりなのですかね
？— ｱ ﾗ亻さんを保護・社会貢献させたいdot(口シ) (@rossiyahei) April 26, 2019
Others were a lot less accommodating to Moritsugu’s comments, with another industry professional hopping in to tell Moritsugu to take their SJW agenda back to America.
Ah shut up. Nobody wants to watch anime and be reminded of social problems and crap. We want to see bigtiddy schoolgirls blow robots up with tanks while wearing cat ears.
Take your SJW agenda back to America!
— Yabai★Kankei (@YabaiKankei) April 30, 2019
Of course, there were white knights and other Social Justice Warriors that came to Moritsugu’s aid, championing that anime had declined due to fan-service and moe.
@W_Fei_hung Moritsugu-san I mostly agree with your assessment of Anime these days has declined. I’m not sure I agree that following the Disney and Marvel approach would be better, But all the ridiculous Fan Service and Moe Nonsense certainly needs to go. Ganbatte 🙂
— Orion Wüthrich (@Daishikaze) April 30, 2019
Moritsugu went on to criticize the culture, stating that if something like Zootopia was made today in Japan it would be criticized for being too feminist and aimed at minorities.
日本で今、ズートピアみたいなアニメを作ったら「フェミニストを殺せー！」「いやこれはマイノリティのための映画だー！」と、ネットでは大騒ぎになると思うんだけど、それで良いのにね。それでこそ社会性のある作品だと思う。
— Moritsugu Keiko 森次慶子 (@W_Fei_hung) April 25, 2019
Sankaku provided a translation where Moritsugu states…
“These days, if you made a movie like Zootopia in Japan, I think people would get all worked up about it online, and say things like ‘Kill the feminists!’ and ‘Wait, this movie was only made to please minorities.’ But there’s nothing wrong with that happening. That shows that a movie has social relevance.”
She also goes on to criticize today’s anime for its jiggly bits, where the females have boob physics, noting that the animation of the female characters is made to be eye-catching for men, which she believes is deceiving because the anime refuses to dive deeper into gendered relationships because they might see it as “exhausting”.
女がキャッキャするだけのアニメを見て、男は癒されるのかもしれないけど、女の場合は女に癒しを求めすぎてる男達を見て、精神的に疲れ果てるんだよ、、、。
— Moritsugu Keiko 森次慶子 (@W_Fei_hung) April 26, 2019
Moritsugu also criticized Violet Evergarden because she notes that it’s all about the animation and not about the meaning.
コメントの中に「ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデンを見ろ！」という意見があったけど、私はあの作画が大嫌い。髪の毛がフニャフニャ動いているだけで何の意味も描けてないと思う。私が京アニに期待してたのは「らき☆すた」まで。それ以降どんどん絵が細かくダサくなって見る気が失せた。
— Moritsugu Keiko 森次慶子 (@W_Fei_hung) April 27, 2019
About the only thing that she says that’s somewhat correct is that anime isn’t as influential on Hollywood today as it was back in the 1980s and 1990s, where there were a lot of groundbreaking projects that went on to become iconic timepieces in pop-culture.
多くの若者が「予算が違うからハリウッドに劣るのは当たり前。」と考えてることが分かった。予算は昔から違ったけど、昔のアニメはハリウッドにも影響力を持ってたんやで、、、。
— Moritsugu Keiko 森次慶子 (@W_Fei_hung) April 27, 2019
Moritsugu explains…
“Many young people say ‘But the budget for anime is different from Hollywood’s budget so it will commonly be inferior!’ when they think about the situation.
“However, the estimated budgets in the olden days always varied from Hollywood’s budget. But in the olden days anime leveraged more clout, influencing Hollywood…”
Of course, the comments from Moritsugu were caustic, since she is basically angling to promote the typical sex-negative, anti-fan-service rhetoric that has taken over the entertainment industry in the West. Most fans of anime were not at all pleased with her comments, calling her out for attempting to foist the SJW agenda onto the Japanese anime community.
*Checks her work history in the industry*
1 CG animation job, 5 character concept art jobs, nothing for years.
Explains a lot. Same shit as we have here in the US, failures raise a stink hoping someone will hire them for virtue signal points. https://t.co/OHfE8pzulN— 🤡Always-Helpful RGE🌎 (@RageGoldenEagle) May 3, 2019
While it’s easy to say that she may not have much clout in the industry as far as her pedigree is concerned, it doesn’t mean anything if she can get to the ears of the right kind of media propagandists that will take those comments and attempt to turn them into a vehicle for cultural change. We’ve seen this happen time and time again, especially with individuals like Anita Sarkeesian – who has zero skill or qualifications within the entertainment industry – pushing forward her toxic viewpoints that ended up destroying all sexy and feminine depictions of female characters in Western gaming culture.
The main thing is that fans push back against ideological toxicity from Social Justice Warriors. Once they take an inch or get their foot in the door, the entire culture will be destroyed. It happens 100% of the time, every single time.
Japanese anime fans and otaku definitely need to make it known that political correctness has no place in anime, lest it burn to the ground like the American comic book industry.
(Thanks for the news tip Narmy and Animatic)
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