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Yamakan Angrily Blames Otaku, China for [New Life]+ Anime Cancellation

Outspoken anime director Yutaka Yamamoto (Wake Up, Girls!, Kannagi) took to Twitter again with a tirade against a new target: the cancellation of the [New Life+] Young Again in Another World anime following the original author's discriminatory remarks against China and Korea. "I'm mad at the cancellation," he said, and added, "Now all it would take is one blow to destroy anime."

Yamakan said several times on Twitter, and in an blog post on Thursday, that he thinks otaku are to blame for "ruining" anime. When the cancellation news broke, he tweeted the hashtag "The Day Otaku Ruined Anime." He claims this is as he predicted, and he further predicted that the industry will fall to disorder because otaku have too much power over the industry.

He characterized otaku as being too flippant about the state of the industry and unable to realize that it affects them. He mentions that even when there were directors leaving projects last year, and now series getting cancelled, otaku don't realize what the issues are because they only look to anime as a form of escapism and don't care about it as a medium.

Yamakan also said that he wants "to go to China and have a talk with people there," but he was quick to try to clarify this statement in a blog post.

"Honestly, I have resentment against (some) Chinese people," he said, and claimed he got in an argument with a "Chinese extremist" and ended up banned from entering China. "But at the same time there are lots of people from China who understand, and there are lot of fans."

He lamented that he was being attacked by Chinese people, stating that all he was trying to do was criticize otaku nationalists for spreading hate against China and Korea. He blames both Japanese otaku nationalists (netouyo) and "Chinese extremists" for the series' cancellation, and imagines himself as "in the middle" of both groups and subject to both sides' ire.

"If I'm criticizing the neo-nationalist otaku who are spreading hate, I get attacked from behind by Chinese people. It happened again today. It's really terrible. But it's not tied to my resentment towards all Chinese people," he wrote. "Is it so hard to have these discussions with common sense and reason but no hysterics?"

In the post he referred back to a previous blog entry from May 30, where he'd posted a reply he'd received that parodied Martin Niemöller's poem "First they came for..." about Germans not recognizing the Nazi's rise to power. The poem was rewritten to to begin with "First otaku attacked Yamakan..."

Yamakan's other tweets suggest he believes the cancellation is in part related to business interests of the production committee, a system he is critical of.

Yamakan has previously made discriminatory remarks, some he has apologized for. He characterized older otaku as disabled in September. He publicly characterized Fullmetal Alchemist director Seiji Mizushima as "childishly emotional," lashed out at the cast of the Wake Up, Girls! cast members, and partially blamed idol Mayu Tomita for being violently attacked by a fan in March 2017. In 2016, he declared moe as 'fascist' and anime is 'dead'.

Yamakan crowdfunded his in-progress anime film Hakubo (Twilight) and it is slated to open in theaters this year.