2012-09-04, 07:52 | Link #301 |
Yuki-ist and Hina-geek
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Los Angeles
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If you accept the company's current spin on the event, the one thing that doesn't quite fit neatly in the box is Ichiki's appearance on Sugita's radio show. Because that would mean Ichiki massively played Sugita, or that Sugita knew about the PR nature of the stunt but played along to help manufacture drama.
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2012-09-04, 08:21 | Link #302 |
Awakened One
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Italy
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What, people are actually believing the lies of the Production Committee?
For me it's quite obvious that this is a late attempt at damage control. The producers realized that they went too far with the "prank" and that the only way to sort out this mess was to say that it was all staged and that Ichiki knew everything beforehand. Well, if that's true Ichiki-san deserves an Academy Award because his acting in the Nico Nico video was incredibly realistic. At least I hope that Ichiki actually gets a role in the anime now. It was truly painful to see the hopes and dreams of a B-list seiyuu being shattered like that. Nobody deserves to be humiliated like that. Nobody.
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2012-09-04, 08:29 | Link #303 |
阿賀野型3番艦、矢矧 Lv180
Graphic Designer
Moderator Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Belgium, Brussels
Age: 37
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I can't take this new turn of event seriously either.
If they really intended to back off the whole deal, implying Ichiki and the "new characters" will be in the show, the process and plan themselves went so far in so many lengths it doesn't exactly match the events. In fact, it is yet another statement that provides more solid ground to the "failed prank, attempt tp cover it quickly". All statement given by the actors don't match this new turn of event, and again, the commitee measures applied (radio being cancelled, videos taken down "supposedly" showing different things than intended etc).
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2012-09-04, 09:13 | Link #304 | ||
Senior Member
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But ultimately, I'm not sure how much it matters at this point (presuming that Ichiki does in fact get an actual role in the anime now). One of two things are true here: 1) The current official story is more or less the complete truth. They had a questionable PR plan to begin with, and they botched it horribly. If so, the anime industry has learned that this sort of PR approach won't go over well with anime fans, so in the future they'll hopefully avoid it. So, lesson learned. And now the more controversial possibility... 2) This really was a total prank, but the fallout from it had spiraled completely out of control for the pranksters. It was now at the point that the only way for them to save face and mitigate the damage done was to come up with the official story that we now have, and give Ichiki an actual seiyu role (since that's necessary for the official story to work). If so, the whole prank pulled on Ichiki has been completely turned on its head, and I doubt that the poetic irony of the situation is lost on the perpetrators. So, lesson learned. If you pull a prank like this, and the anime fan community catches wind of it, it's going to backlash badly. So, either way, this story ends on a relatively positive note, imo. And either way, lessons were learned and the KC Production Committee had to make amends/correct itself. It's probably the most we could reasonably hope for. I'm willing to leave it at that, and give the current official story the benefit of the doubt. It may well be true, after all.
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2012-09-04, 09:19 | Link #306 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
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The whole first announcement from the "Staff" reeks of the producers responsible for the idea trying to cover their asses while blaming anyone but themselves. Which failed spectacularly as they were threatening their fans and accusing them of forging the whole thing. Resulting in the second announcement from Production Committee who were unamused that their investment was being threatened and attempting to do some genuine apologizing, damage control, and fixing things. Bottom line is that there are just too many things that don't add up for it to be purely a poorly conceived publicity stunt. |
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2012-09-04, 09:34 | Link #307 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
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I honestly don’t buy this new situation either, call me distrustful or whatever. It seems like after their last “not an apology” didn’t work they came up with this whole it was just a “double joke” thing. And still the whole we were wrong thing is only you misunderstood, not we were wrong for what we did.
I am not watching the series but I would be curious to know how this new character fits into the story. I certainly do hope for the best for Ichiki with this role (however it came about) and future roles and that’s all I can say right now.
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2012-09-04, 11:37 | Link #309 | |
そのおっぱいで13才
Join Date: Dec 2006
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And considering how late this is and how the previous apology was one of the worst "genuine (as some people tried to defend them called it)" apologizes I've seen before, it really does look like a final effort to put out the fire. Because considering the absolute outburst from day 1, any person with the brain size of an ant would know to "spoil" this surprise immediately to calm everything down, not you know, wait a few days after the fire got bigger?
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2012-09-04, 11:43 | Link #310 |
Seishu's Ace
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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If there weren't a victim here, watching the production committee dig themselves deeper and deeper into this hole with their prevarication and non-apologies would be downright hilarious. As is, it just makes the whole thing more pathetically sad.
"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it", indeed. Just own up and pretend you're sincerely sorry, even if you're not - is it really so hard?
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2012-09-04, 11:50 | Link #311 | ||
Administrator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
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His statement implied that he didn't know at the time that he was being hired for the PR job, but accepted the job subsequent to the offer. But he never said whether or not he knew that he really was going to get a role in the anime in the fourth act, because they were keeping that a secret from the fans (even amidst this controversy) until just now. It's conceivable that what he said before was the truth, but was not the entire truth (because he was ordered to keep certain things a secret to not ruin the surprise). I, for one, still believe that -- if anything is different from the official story -- a more likely explanation all along was that some people weren't given all the details of the plan (whether rightly or wrongly), as I can think of no credible motivation on the production committee level to do this unless it's part of the PR master plan -- however inadvisable that PR plan was. Just making fun of someone by itself makes no sense, but tying to a revelation later that the PR lead was actually getting a job after all make sense (spurned -> hard work -> reward). But in either case, it's not like anything I or anyone says at this point is going to change people's minds. If people believe there was a conspiracy of legitimate wrongdoing here, everything said is just going to seem like one more layer in the cover-up. Quote:
But like I said, nothing anyone can say...
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2012-09-04, 12:18 | Link #312 |
Seishu's Ace
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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No, they're not owing up and apologizing. They're still effectively making excuses - only this time, they're saying Ichiki knew all along - something he's already contradicted, and his interaction with Sugita certainly suggests he was telling the truth.
If this latest cock and bull story was the truth they'd have said so from the beginning, since it paints themselves in a better light than the first cock and bull story they tried on Sunday.
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2012-09-04, 12:48 | Link #313 |
Administrator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
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...There's nothing in this "new story" that contradicts the first one at all. The only thing that's different is the tone and the amount of details provided. The first level was the staff response, and the second level was the Production Committee response after it got elevated further (because the first response wasn't complete enough and the tone caused more problems than it solved -- and they apologized for that in the second response). This is definitely not a case of changing stories, but just changing their communication strategy once the issue got elevated. That's the way it works in most any business; the higher up an issue gets elevated, the more thorough an investigation and response you'll get.
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2012-09-04, 12:53 | Link #314 | |
Member
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Norway
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Some of the exaggerations are quite frankly unbelievable (Twitter spam, etc.), you'd actually think that it has personally affected some people or even made it sound like they were the victims themselves. Conclusions were also drawn way too early, and the "false" report here and there didn't really help either (e.g. fake character created that the victim was supposed to voice for). The off-air comments or whatever, try to put it into context. Something along the lines of "haha, it was great fun to watch a human break blabla", but it actually ended well for the VA. It's like pulling a prank on a friend or whatever, a real bad one. The initial response is happiness, then hearts broken, crying and all that (equals breaking down) and in the end it's all smiles. The boycotting and the 150 one-star reviews on Amazon.jp is absurd. If what I'm thinking about this is true, this is actually a "good-ending" prank, it's just the bandwagon thing that ruined any potential Japanese sales numbers. Not everyone likes or feels comfortable going against the public opinion of matters so they jump on the wagon and on it grows. With that said, no one related to the show should have put themselves in a position where it could be potentially end with a shitstorm in the first place, but I don't think that they even for one second thought about any consequences as it was most likely not meant to offend anyone anyway. Also the way other VA's came to the defense of Ichiki is also suspicious, but I don't know. Not cancelling my pre-order over this. All talk about a second season (I asked a question about it myself in the main KC thread) is just speculation as no one knows if one was planned anyway. From what I've gathered in the main thread, there isn't any need for a second season. I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone in any way, it's not my intention at all. This post isn't particularly aimed at anyone on this forum. Last edited by Nico87; 2012-09-04 at 13:18. |
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2012-09-04, 13:27 | Link #315 |
Seishu's Ace
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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We're degrading into trench warfare here, with the studio's defenders just digging in deeper and deeper, so I'm not sure any good can possibly come out of this debate.
Rule of thumb: when you have to apologize for your apology, your PR campaign is in pretty bad shape.
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2012-09-04, 15:43 | Link #316 | ||
He Without a Title
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The land of tempura
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But what really gets me, and that's valid whether this was a stunt or not, is that anyone actually thought they could get away with this? If it was a true case of bullying then were probably out of their minds to drag something so far along and if it was a PR stunt gone wrong the one's responsible should have their careers severely damaged for thinking that something like this wouldn't go wrong. Bullying is a hot topic. It's a particularly hot issue in Japan in general and amongst the DVD buying Otaku crowd in particular given how, and forgive me for pushing the stereotype here, this particular type of person tends to end up on the wrong end of this kind of stuff way too many times. It's like mocking God inside a church: you won't get out particularly respected afterwards. And do the PR guys think their promoting Kokoro Connect or Haruhi? Heck, not even Kadokawa would try a stunt like this I suppose.
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2012-09-04, 16:44 | Link #317 | |
Administrator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
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Maybe we should channel all this frustration and find an appropriate anti-bullying charity to donate money to instead of all this wailing over one voice actor who was ostensibly spurned. At least then all this raw emotion will have a lasting impact beyond just adding more posts to this thread. (Seriously, if anyone knows of an appropriate charity, please propose it.)
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