Nerd News: Funimation and Animegate
We called it before it happened.
Animegate is here in it’s first incarnation. Many of us will remember the early days of Anime and the formation of our opinions on the talent behind the characters we love. Funimation has been there for most of it. Localizing Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT, Fullmetal Alchemist, and dozens of other titles. The month of February, however, seems to be quite the month when it comes to people touching too much…
Twitter caught fire as Vic Mignoga was accused of “Unprofessional behavior” by “fans” from conventions. What that constitutes we can only guess because we have not seen any public records of the following:
-Police Reports
-Civil Law Suits against Vic
-Complaint Records from said conventions
Which leads us to state the following:
“If you feel violated at any time, say something and report it immediately!”
That being said, without evidence and witnesses all we can say and see is a lot of people vaguely saying “something happened” or “It happened to #metoo!”
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“Witch Hunts” are what we normally call what’s happening here. Without proof beyond hearsay we can’t go carrying torches and pitchforks around screaming about how he’s a monster. However, other Voice Actors have come to give their own accounts and “encounters” with Vic…
Monica Rial is a major “accuser” out of Vic’s colleagues which she seems to be taking the whole situation in a stride. Concerning the subject she seems to have a large focus, almost obsessive, on Mr. Mignoga after having “Disclosed” his “Creepy Behavior” which she has “Forgiven despite him not asking for it” and even has gone as far as to say her “Lawyer advises her to stay off twitter”, only to continue talking about it.
Another one of Vic’s former associates was Jamie Marchi whom disclosed:
The Following
The above Tweet covered her experiences far less vaguely than Monica did. She mentions how Funimation, like Vic’s Fans, was caught up in hero worship and that the whole thing was brushed off. Her experience was horrible, tragic, and despite it she persisted, marched forward, and continues to be an exemplary actor.
As you saw in the first paragraph, Funimation has taken the first steps to blacklist and assure Vic Mignoga is no longer on the convention scene. In addition to that, Vic, will most likely need to find a “Change of Venue” as an actor. It’s not a far-fetched concern but a serious one to consider. However, we can only guess what kind of permissive atmosphere and culture lead the accused to think that this was standard if it really happened. The consideration that it’s real leads to a whole can of worms. What IS the culture of Voice Actors? Where do Production Clearing Houses, Dubbers, and Subtitlers fall into when it comes to liability of the staff? Who is shaping the narrative of the industry and shouldn’t the COMPANY be held accountable? Funimation does have a statement to make following all of this:
We wen’t a few days back in Jamie’s twitter just to be sure of it and we found a little more than disturbing reaction:
In this case it looks like there is no common ground or healing. We can’t condone accused acts or the subsequent harassment of anyone. However, we can say that things have gone a little overboard. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written books about my abusers but I didn’t get them fired or publicly humiliated…
-R. Rankin