Nope. I've said it before on numerous occasions and I'll reiterate it again here, but while I have a number of pretty firm and intractable disagreements with certain policies on the website including the way some anime are labeled (genre tags), certain forum rules, and so on, this is not one of them. I'm basically fine with MAL's treatment of other non-Japanese northeast Asian anime as anime (and it would be likewise fine even if it were to be expanded further to encompass all of East Asia like Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Burmese, etc. animated media to the extent it exists). And have adopted its usage and incorporated it into my own outlook on what constitutes anime.
Because East Asia is a unique and distinct region of the world (as all are in their own ways to different extents) with a lot of shared cross-cultural influence. The Japanese animation industry has heavily influenced the Chinese and Korean industries and there is huge market share overlap. They've outsourced so much there and are increasingly even collaborating on more and more officially-designated joint productions. Geographically, culturally, historically, this is a region which is very much a world unto itself and the development and advancement of animated film and television as an artform in different parts of it has been closely linked.
And that's true in a way which it simply isn't and cannot be compared to animated works from elsewhere in Asia (South Asia, West Asia/Middle East) or to Europe or North America or anywhere else.
I watch a Chinese or Korean anime (seen very few Korean though due to availability issues for what I most wish to watch) and I feel the same as when I watch a Japanese anime - that I am indeed watching anime, which is something I only feel and receive from East Asian animation and not any Western or other cartoon. Even the art styles are basically shared and have morphed as one (or really, the Japanese heavily determined the evolution of the others as they were by far the largest and most popular/prominent and successful first).
And another reason why I'll always oppose calls for its removal is even more simple and straightfoward than that: It harms absolutely no one whatsoever in any way, shape, or form by allowing it to continue to remain here and be viewed, logged, sorted, treated, discovered, and interacted with as anime by those like myself who wish to consider and include it as such. But removing it does cause that harm. There are people who never would have discovered certain series if they weren't here present on the website. Whereas how is someone who dislikes them, dislikes their inclusion here, and doesn't watch them being harmed by their inclusion in any meaningful tangible way? No one can answer that question with any kind of meaningful answer. At least I've never to date seen anyone answer it with anything logical or coherent. So it remains a silly position.
Just don't watch or list yourself what others choose to. To me it's spiritually akin to and the same line of reasoning which those who oppose lolis and loli fanservice or any other subtype of anime are following when they call for their removal from websites (be it database websites, streaming platforms, or any others). Just don't watch or otherwise deal with what you don't like and aren't interested in and let everyone else do whatever they want. It's petty to try to micromanage this for others because like most issues, it's obviously a completely subjective matter on which they'll never ever be any universal agreement. |