REDLINE is an anime movie that came out in Japan, and will be coming out in the UK and US eventually. It’s coming out in the UK in November of this year, and in the US sometime in 2012. REDLINE is a very good movie, so there has been a lot of twitter chatter about it. A lot of people, myself included, impatiently imported the Japanese blu-ray, because North America shares the same Blu-ray region coding as Japan does.

For the longest time, the UK has had to wait much longer for anime to come over than us Americans do. So an Englishman tweeted that FINALLY we had to wait and not them. I responded in kind.

http://twitter.com/#!/hammoo/status/103484079965614080

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103484425853075457

If you can’t tell, I was joking. About an hour later, this series of responses showed up from @MangaUK. They’re the British company that licensed REDLINE for UK distrubution.

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103500475537694720

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103500819789385728

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103500977973374976

Life will occasionally present you with weird catty emotional things that come out of nowhere. I have no idea what the hell @MangaUK is talking about. I have no problems with dubs, the idea of dubbing, or dubs making anime take longer to come out. I don’t think I’m cool for liking subs. I’m not cool. If I was cool, it wouldn’t be for my position on anime subtitles, for god’s sake.

Not only was I already aware that MangaUK got their HD tape late, but I learned this by asking them directly weeks before, and retweeted their response for the sake of anyone following me. I read all of @MangaUK’s tweets.

I think @MangaUK was feeling flustered at the impatience a bunch of people were expressing at getting REDLINE in their regions, so that emotion had to be expressed somehow. Or at someone. Lucky me! No big deal, this happens in life. There are several ways you can respond. At first, I shrugged it off as funny, and felt it was an honor to receive a response from someone so high-profile, even if they didn’t understand I wasn’t criticizing them at all.

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103500712746565632

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103501048165040128

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103502106769625088

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103503087330799616

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103503949205737472

Eventually, however, I realized @MangaUK was being rude to me, which rarely, if ever, happens on Twitter. Seriously, people are pretty damn polite! So I tweeted a few responses to demonstrate to @MangaUK far more effective ways of being rude. In retrospect, I probably wouldn’t have bothered, if @MangaUK was being rude for an opinion I actually held, rather than some mistaken assumption.

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103508398460510208

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103509477604593664

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103510064219951105

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103510933116170241

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103512702617526272

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103512762478637056

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103512958235185154

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103513527553245184

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103514502733107200

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103514787849310208

Most of this is just oblique impolitness. I don’t like Highschool of the Dead or Sekirei, but I don’t hate anyone for liking them. I have no idea how self-congratulatory MangaUK is about Akira. I respect and sympathize with the business side of anime.

I was enjoying myself tremendously, though.

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103515306475003904

http://twitter.com/#!/northstarblog/status/103515537581162498

At this point, I was just cursing. A sure sign to myself that I was losing steam. So I gave up, and tried to be explain everything, while @MangaUK used insincere and distancing language to try and save face, and be above it all. It’s boring, but you can read it if you scroll through @MangaUK’s tweets and mine.

So yeah, sorry @MangaUK. I don’t really understand why you got mad at me in the first place, I just returned fire. I’m glad REDLINE got licensed, I’m glad that you make yourselves so available to fans on Twitter, and I really appreciated the Toyoo Ashida obituary on your blog. I’ll say it again: no beef, honest.

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103515975881728000

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103517293337780224

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103517888874418176

Oh, well. I’ll agree I’m a dick, but no points to you for saying I have “fanspergers.” I have a relative who was clinically diagnosed with Asperger’s. It’s a disorder that’s certainly put limitations on what he can do in his life, but he still manages not to be a massive prick like I’ll readily agree I am. So maybe drop the phrase from your vocabulary.

UPDATE: It’s all good folks. I think.

http://twitter.com/#!/MangaUK/status/103555087418408961

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