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Anime Editorials

Dear anime industry, think before you tweet

My name is Dengar and I have a problem. My problem has a name, Twitter. Ever since I joined, I’ve been addicted to getting rapid news updates. It’s particularly convenient as a way to track anime news from companies like Funimation, Aniplex and Viz. Most of the tweets from the companies are acceptable, if not exactly groundbreaking. But some (like the one pictured below) are blatantly commercial in a thoughtless way.

How not to tweet

For those of you unfamiliar with Rurouni Kenshin, the OVAs and Movie have absolutely nothing to do with Thanksgiving. Nothing. Maybe there is an anime out there which is tangentially connected with Thanksgiving, but Rurouni Kenshin isn’t it. I expect this kind of blatant commercial appeal from a mindless multinational corporation. But even big businesses seem to know better. I do not see blatant commercials involving Thanksgiving on Disney’s and Microsoft’s twitter feeds. I even tried McDonald’s, I figured that if any company was going to tweet an infomercial about a holiday that revolves around eating it would be the king of the golden arches. But the most I saw there was a sweet note:
Even McDonald's had a more heartfelt tweet

I keep my expectations of corporate tweets low and I understand that corporate twitter feeds are a form of advertising. But I expect more of anime companies. I want tweets that are informative from people who at least pretend to be fans of the material they are promoting.
I’m not against all Thanksgiving themed commercial tweets. In fact, I’m on the look out for tweets that include the words “Black Friday” and “anime”. I’ll happily re-tweet Funimation’s message about Amazon’s anime Lightning deal, which should hopefully price the complete series sets for Trigun and FLCL at about $10. All I want are treats that are moderately relevant. Is that too much to ask?
This is the right balance, commercial yet still informative

But enough about twitter:
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that is celebrating. I know I have a lot to be thankful for this year, and I hope those celebrating Thanksgiving have a great night. And if you are in a country that observes Black Friday, I hope you score some great anime and tech deals!

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