Hey, another blog from yours truly!

So I’ve been vocal about a ton of things on my socials, one pertaining to my feelings for the popular crazed Japanese anime, Demon Slayer. I didn’t get around to watching it when it was releasing its episodes due to just not being into it at the time and am currently just now finishing the Entertainment District Arc. I’m gonna say this now, which is probably going to run people away from my blog so let me put this before the jump:

I do not think Demon Slayer is all that good.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love the colors and graphic jumps of the 3D assets they have on a 2D plane as well as some of the combat designs and pacing. However, it struggles to engage me with some of their character motives. (This is a Zenitsu hate blog and a Inosuke love blog. Don’t come for me).

But this isn’t the type of blog, a review will come later possibly.

A few days ago I tweeted that Demon Slayer wasn’t as good as I was told and another Twitter user responded with “Welcome to the old anime community destroyed by tiktokers, culture vultures and normies“.

Now mind you, I don’t know this individual nor how they found my tweet to respond to.

But my disdain for the anime didn’t meet their disdain for it.

I don’t agree here. I think the term “normies” being used is what urked me here. This would insinuate that anime watchers are of a specific class vs people who don’t normally follow it and I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment.

This idea of “normies” is terrible to see and its too commonplace in the anime community when discussing whos a “real fan” or not, mainly when women watchers are brought up. It’s sickening to attempt to have the authority to rule each other as “real fans” when you’re introduction into anime was probably Toonami and not the three decades of anime that was accessible on television. Anime is one thing and one thing only: a Japanese entertainment medium. Does that mean you can’t also enjoy it?

No.

But it means you can’t dictate who can and cannot. I don’t care if you got made fun of in middle school for watching anime, which you did not. You got made fun of for shouting “Believe it!” during a math test and wouldn’t stop Naruto-running down the gym during Dodgeball. You enveloped anime away from what it was supposed to be enjoyed as and got ridiculed for it. You can’t be mad at others for watching it and disassociating from it when it was over. You can talk about it like a human being, not reenact it and wonder why people didn’t jump on “your” bandwagon”.

In short: NO to gatekeeping something you do not necessarily have the culture access to begin with. With that being said…

I’m going to go with YES to gatekeeping black culture.

And yes, it’s different than your Japanese cartoons that a majority of the country doesn’t even bother with.

We’ve seen black culture copied time and time again and resold to us at an alarming rate since the beginning of time and it’s time to define how much “gatekeeping” we need. It used to be something harmless like copying dance moves or even songs, until money and fame came with it. If there is a marketplace, gatekeeping needs to be the norm.

Elvis is a fine example of someone we needed to gatekeep, and I’m so sure we need that movie to flop. I’m not one to educate anyone any further from my keyboard so if you want to take that plunge into looking into his false legacy, as well as the black country artists who have been stripped of their heritage (No, I don’t mean Darius Rucker. Don’t try me.), I’d suggest Google.

Til next time, ya’ll! Thanks for keeping up with me for all these…five days!