A very long rant

[savvyliterate]

I think one of the dangers about enjoying an animated series that is enjoyed by a wide range of people is that you have a mix of older people, who see more out of the series and have the maturity and educational base to construct a coherent arguement and back up there points; or you have the fanboy/fangirl "OMG, tehse R SO kewl! If U don't agree w/ m, u sux!"

The first anime I ever got into was Sailor Moon, which has two sets of fans. The first set watched the original DiC dub when it was in syndication when they were in elementary/junior high school. Later on, as high school/college students, they discovered the original episodes, subtitled, available by fansub. Fansubbed tapes were hard to get ahold of, and they took a long time to do. There was one page out there that had the episodes available for download (anyone remember Senshi TV?), but it took a long time as DSL/cable was only starting to become popular.

As these older fans (where I fall into) rediscovered the series in its original form, Cartoon Network picked up the S and SuperS series and dubbed them. So, you had a while where the Sailor Moon fans were older and had more intelligent discussions about the series, produced some terrific fanfiction, etc. But, once the new generation of fans came about because of the Cartoon Network dub, you had a crop of very young teenagers running into college students. Strife ensues. Now, a lot of that initial older generation has moved away from Sailor Moon, other than a nostalgia hit.

But, despite the two age groups clashing about the series, there was always an agreement on one thing: The lead couple being Usagi and Mamoru. Yes, there were fans for Usagi/Seiya and other pairings, but they weren't as vocal as the support for the canon lead couple. A large part of it, for me, was probably because I spent so long on SMRFF - a fanfiction group for Usagi/Mamoru. Even so, when talking about it in other forums, I don't recall fights being that bitter over the subject. There were fans for and fans against, but a good 85-90 percent of the fandom - old and young - just didn't touch Usa/Mamo.

Then, I moved into Rurouni Kenshin. When I got into the series, it was coming out on DVD and not shown on Cartoon Network yet. So, you still had a lot of older fans rather than very young teenagers. But, you have the emergence of the lead male - Kenshin - a widower who gets a new love interest. His first wife, Tomoe, plays a very prominent role in the first OVA series and the Jinchuu arc of the manga. His second, Kaoru, plays a very prominent role in the TV series, movie, second OVA series and the entire manga (with the exception of the flashbacks to the Bakumatsu). Out of this, you developed two fandoms - Kenshin/Kaoru and Kenshin/Tomoe. Oh, and there were the YAOI fans who want Kenshin/anyone with a member, but....

Again, there is a general consensus. Considering that Tomoe died, Kenshin doesn't have to actively choose between her and Kaoru. He just needs to let her memory go. There are fans who don't like Kaoru and there are others who don't like Tomoe. But, the Kenshin series shows him going through these relationships at such different periods of his life that it's easier to say that each one plays a role at those stages in his life. When arguing over who is the better wife, both sides usually listen - at least in the forums I've been on. It's not devolved into hatred, bitterness and denouncing people's intelligence simply because they prefer Tomoe over Kaoru.

Which brings us down to Inuyasha.

One of the problems that the Inuyasha fandom has is the influx of the younger viewers from the dub - the ones who introduce themselves on LJ and don't seem to have a brain in their skulls or the ability to utilize the English language properly. Those fans I mainly ignore. You're not going to gain my respect if you can't use the word "you" instead of "u."

The biggest problem is the continuing fights over Kikyo/Inuyasha/Kagome. Each time the discussion comes up, the same arguments are brought up and nothing is resolved among the fans. Because some people choose one over the other, there are certain people who do everything that they can to denounce and slander that person on the other end - not thinking that the person with the random screen name might have feelings and is hurt by said statement.

Inuyasha is my second favorite series because, despite it being geared to young people, is extremely complex. The characters are multi-faceted, and it is because of this that people tend to argue against them. For example, Kagome is often picked on because she "osuwari"s Inuyasha for going to see Kikyo. If Kagome blindly accepted this, she would be a perfect character and everyone would hate her for being such a ditz about the situation. Again, if she gave her full blessing, people would think Kagome is insanely naive. When she calls Inuyasha out on it though, suddenly she's become a bitch.

And the same thing goes with Kikyo. Some people think that because Kikyo died tragically and she's a more powerful miko that she is perfect. She can walk on water. But, Kikyo isn't perfect. She is a tragically flawed character, and that flaw caused her downfall 50 years before the series began. When she came back to life, she tried to kill both Inuyasha and Kagome. While her character has progressed since that point, she is far from perfect. If she was perfect, there would be no reason to have her around.

Inuyasha is a body of literature. Even though it's a manga, it's still a published body of work that will be discussed by fans for the next few years, if not decades. Those discussions lead to debate and differing opinions. The biggest problem with a lot of the rabid fans in Inuyasha is the inability to see the other side in the issue. So, it leads to the same argument occuring over and over again. As the same points are rehashed, feelings grow more bitter. Some of them are causing fans who have loved the series for a long time to abandon it. It's caused others to make these horrible attacks on a person's character through LiveJournals and chats, not realizing that it is damaging that other person's self-esteem.

I respect people's opinions. That's why we have differing opinions, to get a new view on an issue. But, there is a difference between acting like a child and acting like an adult. There are several adults in this fandom that act like the very young teenagers who have flooded the fandom. There are some teens out there with the maturity of those a couple decades older than them.

As for what I feel about the issue, Kikyo once played a major role in Inuyasha's life. Now, that time has past for her, and it is Kagome's turn now. This story is the love story of Higurashi Kagome and the hanyou Inuyasha. As one of the side plots, you have the miko Kikyo discovering life as her own person as she travels the road in vengeance of her death. Kikyo is finding out how powerful she is and how she can stand on her own.

There are people who will disagree with me. That's absolutely fine. There's a difference between disagreeing with me and humiliating and slandering me as a person because my opinion doesn't match with yours. But, I will not allow these people to turn me away from this series. Because, then, those folks have won.