AKB0048: Madison and Vine, Love Marks, and Narrow Casting

When I first stumbled on this anime, the synopsis was so ridiculous that I had to watch it. It is about a world where entertainment is banned and there are idols that perform guerrilla performances in order to bring their fans entertainment. It is based off a real and popular idol group, AKB48. It may have been a surprise to some as Kawamori Shouji was the main writer and director for the series.

Throughout the series, there were constant references to the real idol group. There were songs from the group. This is an example of Madison and Vine. They mixed entertainment with advertising. With anime being such an effective medium to reach their audience and the strong pathos that they conveyed, this is considered both love marks and narrow casting.
Even so, I don't might the native advertising at all because it fits perfectly with the entertainment. They belong perfectly with each other. By having them both in there, people will have a more positive mindset towards the real group and will have a higher chance in buying their products.

Many techniques are being employed in order to attract the audience's attention. As I have said earlier, the silly plot would already attract people, people that are already fans of the group, and fans of anime. There are more.

As you can see from the video, the lady says, "AKB has evolved from idols you go to see into idols who come to see you." The first part is referring to the real group and the second part is referring to the anime. The is not only advertising but it is also creating a need for affiliation. People really feel a connection and is why the pathos is so strong. People connect themselves with it because people would not want their entertainment to be taken away. It is inevitable that people will do entertainment but entertainment is banned. The main characters are the ones that are against the entertainment ban which makes the audience feel a stronger and more positive connection with them.  They used the medium that is anime which is the perfect audience for people who like entertainment. Words with positive connotations are used like "legendary," "reborn," "hope," "miraculous," "never stop," "speedy," "cute," etc.

With their hard work and dedication shown, we associate them with extreme emotion. We associate certain bonds with them. In effect, "They didn't like them, they didn't admire them, they didn't respect them, they didn't use them. None of that wimpy-wompy stuff. They loved them."

The whole series was actually very entertaining. Were the different marketing techniques successful? Yes, it even made me want to check out the real group because of the more positive emotion it made me feel. This was quite a common reaction in the anime community. Although I may not be a fan of the real group, this was a perfect combination of advertising and entertainment.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Bonds Beyond Time: An Analysis

This is a movie I enjoyed and have watched about 3 times. To many people, fans of Yu-Gi-Oh may mean kids or people without other things to do. For the people unfamiliar with the movie, I will break it up.

The movie starts out with Yusei who has a nightmare about an incident his father created and his friends decide to cheer him up through a duel. However, a mysterious foe appears and duels Yusei instead. He ends up taking his Stardust Dragon and tells him to fall along with his era.

Through the power of the power of his friends, he is able to use the Crimson Dragon's power to travel to the past. He meets with Judai and Yugi from another era and they are determined to defeat the person who took Yusei's card, Paradox. They end up defeating him and peace returns.







The creator created this with the purpose of boosting the sales but also to convey certain thematic ideas. Some of those thematic ideas include friendship, love, and perseverance. Paradox's ideology stems from the fact that his future was destroyed by human contradiction. His solution is to go back in time in order to destroy the game of Duel Monsters. In order to do so, destruction must happen. However, he is defeated with the very game that he was aiming to destroy. The characters are able to cooperate together with their bonds and monsters to overcome Paradox who carried with him a message of fear. Duel Monsters and friends represent hope. Instead of dwelling on the past, they overcome obstacles and move towards a better future. In this case, this message was quite literal as they really did travel through time. This message is really easy for people to project their own meaning on to it. This was done on purpose to appeal to more of an audience and to apply this insight to life to be more motivational to more people. 

Let's look at the back story for each character. Yusei was born into an unfair caste system and was able to overcome that. Judai fell to the desire of power, but he was able to overcome that. Yugi was involved in magical items that caused death, but he was able to overcome that. Even if you are born in the wrong family, even if you fall to power, and even if there is death, you can overcome it. This is a more detailed version of the previous insight and is, again, vague which allows for the viewer to project their own meaning on to it which makes it more comforting to the viewer. In our society, many of us are born into a family that is not very successful, but we can overcome that. The same applies for power and death. The creator is clearly trying to make his audience live the life you have and make it a happy one. This is a good way of appealing to the reader as these are common situations people find themselves in. 

Separation of rich and poor

Many techniques are being used to attract people's attention. For example, there is a need for affiliation as friendship is strongly emphasized. The fact that combined all three main characters together in one movie is enough to appeal to a certain audience. When I saw the trailer for this movie, I could not wait for it to come out because I always wanted to see see all the characters in one movie. The trailer contained words of positive and exciting connotation to make the viewer want to watch the movie. 
Different people might understand this message differently than me as they have grown up with a series in a different light, watching the dubbed version. Someone else watching this might think it is just a card game. Some people might think it means something else. Some people might think it was just pretty. To me, this movie was something I had always dreamed about even before the trailer was released. 

Keystone Pipeline

There have been numerous debates and discussions to whether the Keystone pipeline is good or bad. Sen. John Hoeven wrote here supporting it and Brendan Smith wrote here arguing against it. They both employ the power of language to support their claim. John uses many words with positive connotations like "big," "finally within reach," "focused," "win-win," "good," etc. Even though these words are a bit vague, he does not simply move on with the next topic. Instead, he explains those words throughout his text so that his choice of words are clear. He establishes good ethos by connecting himself through the topic. He talks about his involvement in this project as a senator and Governor and addresses some other people's point of views on the topic. 

Brenden starts out with a picture with fire burning. It evokes a feeling of negativity when looked at. He tries to establish his ethos by throwing out random statistics. This is just jargon and would be confusing to the average layman. However, this does in fact boost his ethos as they come from credible sources. He brings out these statistics, and then he goes on to call the reader to take action. Establishing that the average layman may not understand what he is saying, all he will understand is the call and be under the impression that the argument was really well made. He turns every statistic into a big deal. He associates the pipeline with words with a negative connotation like "threat," "extreme," "floods," "bad," etc. 

Both of them do a good job establishing their point through a clear thesis and provide evidence to back that up in an understandable order. As I have mentioned, the argument against provided an emotion evoking picture. It also appeals to reader, just in a confusing way. The argument does the same, just in a more understandable way. Both of them establish pathos by ending their text with a call to action regarding the future which makes the reader feel a feeling of action and motivation. 

Even though I have not properly researched this subject and do not know a lot about it, from just these two articles, the first is more convincing as it was more clear. Although this was the case for me, it is understandable that other people would fall under the power of the second article's pathos. 

My Relationship With Media

Our world is filled with media and we are all constantly exposed to it.

We are exposed to ads constantly whether we realize it or not. We see people showing off products and we see products which makes us, in effect, want the product. I am not invulnerable from that exposure as I constantly feel like my life would be better if I owned this or that.

However, unlike probably many of my peers, I am unfamiliar with much of American commercials, music videos, songs, TV shows, etc as the media I am most influenced by is the internet I visit. Living in America, I know these things are inescapable, but most of the time, I only seem to know the names of these media through other people talking about it on reddit.

Reddit is one type of social media. There are many other popular ones including Facebook, Twitter, instagram, etc. However, I only find myself using reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and other forum sites for my current interests. I use reddit the most because it is the most interesting. I do check Facebook everyday, but I find that the more I scroll down, the more click bait articles I see that a lot of my friends click on. I also see an increasingly amount of click bait videos on YouTube and the rise of bad quality content, but I still continue to use it. My peers usually possess a phone in which they can access some of these media when they aren't at home, but I don't possess one that can do so. I find that my peers are constantly on their phone, whether it's playing a game or checking their whatever.

Although I am unfamiliar with American television shows, I am familiar with Japanese anime. I never voluntarily consume American television shows, but I will do the same with anime through a streaming site or a torrent site like Nyaa or BakaBT. I usually get my music from the same sources I get my anime, but sometimes If I'm lazy, I will use YouTube, but it is very frustrating if the content is blocked in my country. I play games from all sorts of places including America.

Again, even if I only browse media that interests me, I am exposed to all sorts of media out there. Media is very important to my life and I couldn't think about living without it. I use the internet everyday from the moment I get home and I just cannot escape the impact of it as I am very reliant on it. That is not bad because media has allowed for us to be exposed to more and more new things and ideas. 

Isn't it cool?