ANN just promoted a Happy Science movie

[Chapinator_X]

Apparently, a paid ad showed up on ANN showing an advert for The Laws of the Universe Part I. The catch is that it was created and funded by the Happy Science cult.

The article (It's gone now, but still exists in the changelog): https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/advertorial/2019-01-03/the-box-office-hit-movie-the-laws-of-the-universe-part-i-is-more-than-just-a-sci-fi-anime-adventure/.141313

An old article by Mike Toole from 2015 was republished to make amends for the snafu, but it's always amusing to poke fun at PR mistakes this messy.

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by imchapp.in

[Jman]

They really need to get their house in order.  All the whining about stuff like Back Street Girls, but this is apparently Ok.

[Blatch]

Eh... this isn't a good look for ANN in particular, but I also question how a film with the backing of a cult was licensed over here to begin with. Eleven Arts should take some blame on that end.

[PokeNirvash]

I don't mind cults, just so long as I don't get involved with them. Thus, general indifference outside of interest in the Toole Show article. (I'm surprised no one in the comments for that brought up the Aum Shinrikyo incident forcing the removal of plot elements from Evangelion's second half.)

[Chapinator_X]

5 hours ago, PokeNirvash said:

I don't mind cults, just so long as I don't get involved with them. Thus, general indifference outside of interest in the Toole Show article. (I'm surprised no one in the comments for that brought up the Aum Shinrikyo incident forcing the removal of plot elements from Evangelion's second half.)

I thought for a second that the cult from Penguindrum referenced Happy Science, but it was actually Aum Shinrikyo. Same with the cult from Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. In the process of trying to connect the dots, I also learned that it wasn't until just this past July that their leader and some of his followers were executed by hanging for their 1995 terrorist attack at the Tokyo subway. 

The difference between Happy Science and Aum Shinrikyo, however, would be that Aum has more references made about them while Happy Science has enough influence to make the references themselves. Like the difference between Scientology and Heaven's Gate where it's clear the latter was never going to make big budget productions about their ideology.

Edited January 4, 2019 by imchapp.in

[The1gairon]

... the article is GONE??? THAT certainly makes me feel better. *_*

[Gina Szanboti]

Macdonald's response to the dust up:

"I've removed the advertorial from ANN. The advertorial was purchased by a regular client and our sales team was not informed that it was for a religious propaganda movie. Only the team member who received the advertorial from the client and uploaded it became aware of its content. This team member was not aware of the history or controversy surrounding the content and had never been made aware of ANN's position on not promoting religious or political propaganda.

"I personally apologize for this last bit. It had never occurred to me while training this new team member (it's something that comes up extremely rarely) when they took these duties over from me. This was a mistake on my part, and I will address it by updating our long out of date written advertising policy in the coming months."

I can see how that could happen. It doesn't seem far-fetched that knowledge of Happy Science could fly under the radar of someone on the sales side. I appreciate that he took responsibility and didn't offer a "sorry if anyone was offended" non-apology.

[The1gairon]

My workplace has tons of miscommunication happening every day, all the time.  I understand how that would slip up.