Writer calls out Cancel Culture, Immediately proven right

 

The Scene that Caused a Storm in a Teacup

 

So, originally I was gonna go after the whole “Realistic body type” thing that popped up again but due to how this being a more pressing matter....and me getting distracted with a lot of stuff happening (hence why this came out months after the issue went cold) but I also believe covering down while it's already cooled would result in a more calm and level-headed perspective.

For those who don’t know, there was a recent stage audio drama, a follow up of sorts to Digimon Tamers, a quite popular season with the fans of the franchise....for various reasons. But anyways, the audio drama took place 20 years after the series was over with some time travel stuff involved (which thankfully there was like a brief explanation of where things are etc.) and if you don’t know about the series, I’d say watch the show because it has a few callbacks to the series.

So, the play opens up with the opening to the Tamers anime and a brief recap of what happened in the “past” episode (accompanied by some gorgeous art) and with that finished, in walks the cast and an unseen director talks about wanting to do a follow up to the anime with the cast as if they’re talking in the recording studio (by the way, the play already began..this ain’t them shooting the breeze introducing folks before the play starts) and the “real” episode begins, which had a reunion feel as main characters, now older (except one of them due to time travel shenanigans) and then in comes Yamaki (formerly head of NYX, the Japanese department dealing with Digimon attacks) rambling like a madman about the new threat looming overhead, the looming threat of.....EXTREME POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

 

Emphasis on Extreme

Which was treated by the rest of the cast as him being a rambling madman...or at least the rambling madman is a new development for a morally ambiguous character like Yamaki. But anyways, as he’s rambling about it and asking why the heck is NYX doing about it (the reply being “even if it’s true, we only deal with Digimon attacks...kinda not our department”), the unseen director calls for a pause and said he’s going on stage and reveals himself to be Impmon in disguise!

After Impmon mocked the cast (it’s his thing, long story short, he was mistreated by 2 kids and have trouble trusting human ever since but he eased up on it in the series and him being a jerk is just his “I’m a bigshot” attitude still going but more of a front that anything else).

However, the skies darkened as the dreaded enemy that Yamaki mentioned arrives and....uh...just arrives. As it appeared, the Tamers (namely Jian/Henry and Juri/Jeri as Takato and Ruki/Rika don’t have their Digimon with them and Juri has Impmon volunteered to be her partner to atone for his past mistakes in a very heartwarming scene) spring into action, Digivolving to their highest level and attacked the enemy...while they are inside the building, shooting off the roof of the NYX HQ but revealing the enemy overhead who the activates its attack called Cancel Culture.....which does nothing but apparently looks really scary and before the play ends, there was a message directed at Takato from Guilmon, but the message is cut short and then...end credits, song and a “preview” that doesn’t say much about the “next” episode.

So, what’s all the hubbub’s about? Oh right...the enemy being called Political Correctness and the whole Cancel Culture thing that had certain folks’ knickers in a Gordian twist to the point that the folks subtitling the play put a huge disclaimer claiming that the play promotes far-right politics and conspiracy theories right smack dab on center screen (We’ll get to that later) and of course a bunch of folks decided to “cancel” the series writer, Chiaki J. Konaka because of the content involved.

Yeah, this was smack dab in the beginning.

Now the creator actually apologized but only for the fact that he believed he started the divide among fans rather than what he wrote, which in itself not a condemnation of any groups involved nor is he, as claimed by the angry mob and the sub group, of the far-right but rather a condemnation of the act of deplatforming and silencing voices itself whether it is right or wrong as he had condemned the deplatforming of a Youtuber whose opinions he does not completely agree with.

But to the point at hand, the massive outrage emanating from fans outside of Japan, mostly Americans. The outrage, as stated before, stemmed from the name of the villain of the piece and the name of the villain’s attack, Political Correctness and Cancel Culture. Now, these folks claim that they hate that their favorite franchise is used for political messages......ignoring of course that these same folks are the ones OK when comic books, video games, movies et cetera are used to convey policial messages that they approved of by going “Well, everything is political!”

 So when they actually said that, it usually means "everything is political...unless it's against my political beliefs". If we look at the recently released comics, cartoons, films etc., we'd see that it usually have a message that leans on one side of the political spectrum while the other side is often derided or demonized i.e conform to our way or be labelled as everything reprehensible we can think of and we will also ruin your life until you finally conform but what they don't know is that politics isn't a one-sided affair so it stands to reason that if as they say "everything is political", the other side should be able to use any medium as a means to convey their message...but apparently that's wrong and they got angry when fire was returned, so to speak. (As mentioned above, Konaka said that it was meant to be a jab at censorship in general rather than a jab at any group but of course, some people see it as a jab at certain groups)

 

Another argument being “Well, cancel culture is just an alt-right conspiracy theory”....which does not hold water when the folks who got angry about those two particular incident decided to try and “cancel” Konaka, inadvertently proving him correct that “Cancel Culture” does exist and it ain’t just some conspiracy theory. I mean, if you want to prove someone that he or she is wrong...maybe NOT do something to prove him or her right? I mean, these folks even go as far as to dig up his old blog posts and claim that he’s a conspiracy theory nut (with a badly translated image that upon further inspection revealed that while he do enjoy reading about conspiracy theories, he doesn’t believe in them)

 Which I would also like to bring up another thing...see, as I said earlier and as shown above, the sub team immediately condemned this audio play with a huge disclaimer, saying that it contained "far right politics and conspiracy theories", which to me betrays the duties and responsibility of a translation team. Your duty is to translate, that's it. You don't have to agree with the content your working with and the only alteration you should do is on jokes or any kind of word play that doesn't translate well into the language your translating to (see, the Japanese just love their word play and such but it doesn't translate well to other languages for example) but you don't alter it too much that it loses the spirit of what it tries to convey. That's your duty and responsibility.

Like I said before, you don't have to agree with the content of the material your working with and you also should not insert your beliefs, be it political, religious or whatever, into the work nor should you interpret what's the piece is about for the audience. You check your beliefs at the door or you don't translate it at all. If you feel that the material is something you don't agree with, you either suck it up and deal with it..or walk away. Considering that the work in question is an audio play for a show that has ended years later with no plans (for now) for a continuation, you could afford to walk away as you're not under contract to do it (not unless folks actually pay you too and even then you could decline) and as for the latter part, you don't ever interpret for your audience. Your audience should interpret the message of the piece by themselves, let them think for themselves. Your only obligations to the audience is just to provide a translation so they can know what the heck's going on in story.

However, a translation team does have an option to include a disclaimer saying that this is just a translation and not in any reflection of what the team's stance on the matter. Granted, translation team for years had need not say that (I mean, even the translation and dub team of works like say Angel Cop need not say it) but in this recent climate of political tribalism where apparently silence equals agreement to some deranged folks, it needs to be said but what they should have not do on a disclaimer is to create a dichotomy. Just say "this is just a translation" and leave it at that would be a safer option and let the interpretation of the piece left to the audience.

So, that's my take on the brouhaha..a month late, sure but I think it needs to be aired out for what the outrage of the matter truly is. A bunch of folks who got mad at perceived slights based on the translation team's inability to separate their beliefs with the material they are working on and misinterpreting what the message supposed to be and of course, proving the writer to be correct by doing the very thing they said does not exist.

So, my question to you, dear reader...what do you think of this mess?