VA Hirano Aya Quits Her Management Office and Closes Official Fan Club [Update Aug 21]

ktomow said:
So what now..did she quit being a VA or not? Will she get any new roles? .

Yvese said:
Heck, I'd like a Lucky Star season 2 as well. I don't see anyone else doing those roles tbh.

symbv said:
^ Or to trash the mood by making unfunny jokes that are more sarcastic and mean character assassination than light-hearted and innocuous humor.

Defiance said:
In all fairness, I thought the second question was pretty funny.

symbv said:
Funny if you forget the character assassination meanness of the joke. Imagine you somehow acquired a reputation as a sex-crazed stud on internet and you were made the subject of those Q&A's.

Defiance said:
First off, she went into the idol business knowing who she was pandering to. Creeps who have an unrealistic view on virginity and innocence. I don't like these people, but that's who she was trying to make a buck off of with all her albums, voice acting, etc.

Defiance said:
Second, even if she was a regular singer for a band, her behavior was STILL unacceptable. She was PLACED in that band by her agency, those band members are her coworkers. Anyone who slept around the office is bound to be criticized at any level of society.

Defiance said:
Lastly, if you are public figure, you are up for public scrutiny. Period.

Defiance said:
Especially by long time fans of her work with anime who are watching her shed her anime career for an entirely different thing. Not to mention her reportedly scathing attitude towards said anime fans/otaku that are responsible for her current rise to fame in the first place. Criticizing those who you made a profit off of for so long really puts a sour taste in people's mouths.

Defiance said:
I like how you are denying the fact that she slept with 3 out of the 4 bandmates as tabloid when multiple news sites reported that members of her agency confirmed it was the reason for her getting fired, even the three bandmates who slept with her were fired.

Defiance said:
The moment she decided to criticize fans was the moment she forfeited any sympathy from me.

Defiance said:
Really now? It's pretty interesting that Hirano sought no legal action against ANY organization that made or supported these claims, especially Bubka, who is the main proponent of the story. Is there even any proof that she herself(or her PR team for that matter) denies the allegations?

Defiance said:
To my knowledge, what Bubka reported(in a nutshell) was that an insider from Lantis alleges that Hirano was fired due to sleeping with 3 of 4 bandmates and that the three bandmates were fired as well. Did any of the people that were supposedly fired deny any involvement? If so, I have heard NOTHING of it.

symbv said:
Well, even super-famous or important public figure like some media don or politicians would not make the mistake of launching litigation against tabloids and provide them with free marketing. Besides, Japan is known for being slow in its legal process and so often the cost and trouble is not worth it.

There are reports that the insider may be someone who bears grunges against her. And as I said, there were accounts that contradict that story, including if there was actually "firing" at all.

Defiance said:
So what you are trying to say is no, Hirano never denied the accusations lol. At least not publicly anyways.

symbv said:
And that is what 99% of the victims of the tabloid reports do, and this includes even stories that are proved to be absolutely false later. And this makes sense because to acknowledge such report is basically free marketing for the tabloid.

jmal said:
...Guys. This happened two years ago. It's old news. At what point can we just move on?

If you like Hirano Aya, you can still hear her here and there, but it's obvious she won't be a star seiyuu again any time soon, or likely ever, so give it up. Move on!
If you hate Hirano Aya, well then congrats, you don't need to hear her nearly as often anymore, but two years of schadenfreude should be quite adequate for all but the most pathologically obsessive people. Move on!

Better question, at what point does a thread just need to be locked? Posters are going to necro this thread every few months for the next five years if we let them. And nothing interesting or new or relevant will ever be added.

hentai_proxy said:
On the contrary, I got completely ridiculous flames from people who derided her in the recent Casual Discussion thread for telling them to chill out. And now I get the same treatment from you. Sigh.

symbv said:
If you like her then perhaps you should give some thought at the contents of those jokes. Basically those jokes are based on the premise that she is a slut and the tabloid got everything right about her. Even if you did not mean to be spiteful, your jokes only serve to further the image of her being a slut (which as I said we are not actually certain that the tabloid really provided accurate report). Didn't you notice that everyone who responded positively to your jokes are those who dislike her intensely?

jmal said:

Problem with huge threads is that nobody is going to read these 13 pages of reactions to find a handful of informative posts/clarifications and even if they did they'd probably be more confused than if they hadn't...

hentai_proxy said:
They are premised on the fact that she had sex with her coworkers, nothing more or less.

hentai_proxy said:
The premise is then taken and caricatured in the joke. From British self deprecating humor to cartoonists' caricatures, exaggeration, stereotyping and hyperbole is a common theme in jokes. Are all these to be condemned? Are they all meant to libel and 'assassinate characters'?

symbv said:
So you also buy the allegation that she was slutting around then, as you said they are "facts". As I said time and again, we do not know how much of the tabloid report are "facts". She could have had sex with just one coworker which would make the premises of the joke incorrect already. Or she could have had none. We don't know for sure. And as I said before there are also contradictory reports which did not get circulation because they are not as sensational. So it is questionable that you can just take the tabloid report at face value and say they are "facts".

Now British tabloid is also notorious for their slanderous reporting and they are often condemned. If we are saying the tabloid report about her sex life cannot be taken at face value, then spreading jokes based on that is no better than those slandering seen in British tabloids. And in Britain we can often read news about people who have their personal and private life undermined and strained by this kind of slanders.

Blonde jokes are dumb, but at least it is directed against a large group of people not to a single person.

hentai_proxy said:
[For Christ's sake, I am not reporting, I am making a fucking joke! I don't care about the truth of the premise, I am taking a story and caricaturing it in a joke!

symbv said:
A joke based on a possibly false premise. How about substituting your name into that joke then if you don't care about the truth of the premise?

symbv said:
Besides for people who did not read about the original tabloid reports but only read your jokes, your jokes would still be understood to contain certain amount of truth in it, even if it may be, as you said, exaggerated.

hentai_proxy said:
I am sorry, but if people who made jokes were held responsible when people took the jokes seriously and constructed opinions out of them, 90% of all comedians would be in jail. I am quite offended by the suggestion that I should refrain from making humor in case somebody takes it seriously and acts as if it is the truth.

hentai_proxy said:
I do often joke about myself in real life, in fact I like self deprecating humor. If you are asking me to put my real name here, please understand that you are asking something very inappropriate.

hentai_proxy said:

As for the truth of the premise, I do not see what it has to do with making a joke or not. You have a story, you make a joke out of it, people laugh or not, according to the quality of the joke.

symbv said:
Well, comedians also need to be careful whether their jokes are based on something that at least has some element of truth, and particularly when it comes to private sex life, comedians walk a fine line. Some personalities are fine game like those who work in the glamor industry, sure, but most are not, and I am not sure if Hirano Aya belongs to the former group. Your basing a joke on premise with questionable truth at best makes it a joke of bad taste, at worst it is no better than slanderous reports in tabloid. Now there is no law forbidding those tabloids from making those slanderous reports and those tabloids are clearly not going to refrain from doing so. I guess this means that you can just follow their example and continue to make this kind of jokes. But then we all know in what regard those tabloids are being held by the public.

hentai_proxy said:
However, I absolutely cannot accept your constant comparison between a joke and slanderous tabloid stories. It is extremely offensive, and highly inappropriate: jokes are meant to release tension in a story, as I said above, tabloid slanders are meant to create tension. Please reconsider.

symbv said:
Well, just imagine you are the subject of a "story" spread by some people that you are a sex maniac. OK, the story is false, but then some other people decide to base some jokes on that story and caricature it for "humor" purpose and spread it around the internet. What do you think? This is why I asked you to put your name there and give it a thought.

hentai_proxy said:
This question is very simple to answer, because it has happened and in much worse effect: not on the internet, but in my professional life. And the answer is simple: I have very little respect for the people who take the joke seriously. The joke itself and the person who made it? Fine (in fact, more than fine, but there is no point mentioning more details).

symbv said:


I see, because you are ok with yourself being a target of a joke based on a slanderous rumor about you, so you think everybody should follow your example to not take any joke seriously? Your sense of humor may know no depth, but in this case you should have the sense of humor to shrug off any comparison of your jokes to the jokes of those tabloid reports. While some people may take those tabloid reports as "facts", personally I have very little respect for the people who take those reports seriously.

hentai_proxy said:
You were not making a joke in comparing mine to tabloid reports, I don't see how my sense of humor should have prevented me from being offended about a dead serious allegation.

symbv said:
Of course I am not making a joke, but my point is that if you claim that any joke should not be taken seriously, then perhaps we can also treat those tabloid reports as some jokes and not to be taken seriously. In which case, comparing your jokes to those tabloid reports should not be something that you should get upset about.

hentai_proxy said:
"Perhaps we can also treat tabloid reports as some jokes"? How? I mean, they are not. They are written deceptively matter-of-factly and with malicious intent aiming for profit. They are not jokes.

symbv said:
How to tell? We have seen tabloids putting alien abduction and lake monster on front page. I mean your freewheeling attitude to jokes can sound dangerously close to those tabloid reports: Anything goes as long as it gets the circulation and truth of the premise be damned since it should not be taken seriously (tabloids often claim that readers take their story too seriously, which of course is a way for them to hide their slanderous intent as if to say since it should not be taken so seriously I can write anything I want).

hentai_proxy said:
Besides, you've been comparing my joke to slanderous reports that damage people, NOT to alien abductions, symbv!

symbv said:
Well, should we treat those alien abduction report seriously then? You are acting as if just because it is a joke anything can go as long as it is funny. My point is that the line between a joke and a report can be not that clear-cut. As I said, if a person who did not know anything about the tabloid report heard your jokes, he is likely to form certain opinion about Hirano and most likely it will be one that is close to what the tabloid report wrote. You are saying nobody should take a joke seriously, but does it mean that people will not form some opinion, consciously or not, about the subject of the joke even if they say they are not really taking a joke seriously? By this view, your jokes that are based on some slanderous tabloid reports in fact are having similar effect like those reports have.

symbv said:
^ Then I guess I don't need to repeat myself that your jokes can also serve the same effect as those tabloid report on which your jokes are based.

symbv said:
You can say whatever you like about people should not take a joke seriously but the reality is joke can influence people's opinion too. In cold war there were Russian jokes that portrayed America as hell on Earth and this actually served as propaganda tools to get people to believe that America is an evil place. Should we blame those people who heard this joke and started to think America is a bad place? The fact is, people are constantly being influenced by stream of information they heard. Even though they may claim that they do not take jokes seriously, consciously or unconsciously their view may be shaped by what they heard. This is why jokes have been used in propaganda, insinuation and subtle marketing purpose. And even if a listener managed to indeed reject being influenced by the subject of your jokes, he may still get curious about the backstory of your jokes and check about it later, thus exposing himself to the slanderous material. Even if your jokes are not a tabloid report, the end effect could be similar.