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Sakura-Con: Hiroshi Nagahama & The Reflection




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Lemonchest



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 1771
PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 3:04 pm Reply with quote
Good luck to him, though after Heroman I won't be holding my breath.
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Animechic420



Joined: 25 Sep 2012
Posts: 1724
Location: A Cave Filled With Riches
PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 4:38 pm Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:
Good luck to him, though after Heroman I won't be holding my breath.

Yeah, at first I thought Heroman was great, but than it kinda lost me at some point. I'm just glad it didn't get that second season.

The Reflection anime though might be good. Gotta check it out.
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Lynx Amali





PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 8:16 pm Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:
Good luck to him, though after Heroman I won't be holding my breath.


If you mind me asking; why? I thought Heroman was great. It felt like a Saturday morning cartoon, just animated in Japan.
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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 10:35 pm Reply with quote
I tried both the Heroman and Ultimo manga and wasn't a big fan of either, making me question whether Stan Lee is really cut out for this method of story-telling. I'll still give this a chance though.
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GeorgeC



Joined: 22 Nov 2008
Posts: 795
PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 11:22 pm Reply with quote
I've always felt that the Japanese really don't handle superheroes very well in a serious manner -- with possible exceptions like Gatchaman but even that really isn't a traditional superhero series. It's more a commando series in many respects and even more outrageous than X-Men or Fantastic Four.

The better Japanese superhero stuff have been the parodies like Moldiver... That was a show that was begging to be longer than 6 OVA episodes.

There are cultural differences. You couldn't do superheroes in Europe, either, and they've tried... The attitude/mentality for it just isn't there outside of the US.

As for Stan Lee? I don't think he's created or written anything since the 1960s that I've cared for. I understand the recognition, cache his name has but that doesn't mean there's been anything great to associate with him outside of what he did at Marvel Comics as the line editor in the 1960s. (Yeah, we should ALL wish for being a "one-hit" wonder like that but the fact was that there was a virtual ten-year WINNING STREAK at Marvel between 1961 and 1970 and there were very few titles/characters that didn't work out during that era!!!) Before we bash on Stan, it SHOULD BE POINTED OUT that most of his co-creators worked at OTHER companies before or after their runs at Marvel and they were NEVER able to replicate the success they had at Marvel in the 1960s, either! The non-Marvel creations were blander and lacked the spark their Marvel years had. I've seen this again and again and again -- whether it was Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and number of other persons... Stan DIDN'T do everything but he was a great sounding board/editor/co-writter/co-plotter and what he brought made a huge difference in making those projects stand out but make no mistake about it -- these were ALL collaborations, not the result of one person's work!

It just got announced that a Chinese company bought out his POW Entertainment to "create a new Marvel" in Asia but I think this is another situation of buying something American because they have the money! (=> and that really worked out for the Japanese when they went on a real-estate buying spree in the 1980s... Those companies lost their shirts!!!) [Yeah, somebody flushed their dollars down the toilet there! AGAIN!]

They don't seem to understand that most of what he was involved/created at Marvel were co-creations. Two main names come to mind -- Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko -- but there were many, many other hands involved with a lot of those characters, too. It was a matter of timing and having the right talent being there in the right place at the right time! It's extremely difficult to replicate success like that without understanding the situation involved and somehow I think in their headiness to "buy into success" that the Chinese company involved doesn't understand this!
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2017 4:29 am Reply with quote
GeorgeC wrote:
I've always felt that the Japanese really don't handle superheroes very well in a serious manner -- with possible exceptions like Gatchaman but even that really isn't a traditional superhero series. It's more a commando series in many respects and even more outrageous than X-Men or Fantastic Four.

The better Japanese superhero stuff have been the parodies like Moldiver. That was a show that was begging to be longer than 6 OVA episodes.

There are cultural differences. You couldn't do superheroes in Europe, either, and they've tried... The attitude/mentality for it just isn't there outside of the US.


Just out of Curiosity, have you seen Tiger & Bunny? Because that show is definitive proof that Japan can do good superheroes. Like anything, it comes down to writers. If you're throwing someone on something just to pander to the west, it's obviously not gonna feel authentic. Watching Tiger & Bunny, you can tell the person making it had a love for western comics just by all the obvious tropes and references. Witch the exception of a few cultural things, that show felt like something you'd find over here.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13540
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2017 9:08 pm Reply with quote
The "Tiger & Bunny" dub is considered really good. Heck, the 4/20/13 CR article called "Japanese Fans React To The 'Tiger & Bunny' English Dub" mentioned that same day @11PM, the Bandai Channel site aired the 1st Eng. dubbed with Japanese subs and about 5000 tuned in. While it's anybodies guess as to how well those 5000 understood English, the article lists 24 comments the viewers made.

An example of a viewer having a possible dislike was "They could have kept the conversation between Kotesu and Kaede in Japanese and have English subtitles since they are supposed to be Japanese". My favorite comment was ""I can see that they paid extra attention to preserve the feel of Japanese original script and I really appreciate it".

Another thing is that the lead guy, Kotetsu, is a 30-something who is a dedicated yet somewhat bumbling father (lead guy being a guy that age and a father are both rare in anime). Finally, there was a YT video of a summer 2011 anime con panel, the producer said something to to the effect of the show's city was based off of NYC.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 3:12 am Reply with quote
Laughing I always chuckle whenever I see that cheery old man on screen. He seems like the most adorable guy ever. That being said, I feel like he would call literally anything fun, interesting, exciting, or cool. Like, literally anything. I hope this is good, but I also hope Nagahama and crew aren't taking Lee's overly generous adjectives to heart too much and are working to create something a little bit more interesting than the premise let's on.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13540
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 8:00 am Reply with quote
Let's not forget that Stan is among the few (if only) surviving comic professionals (writer, artist, editor, etc.) from the Golden Age of Comics. So, this could be his last work.
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DangerMouse



Joined: 25 Mar 2009
Posts: 3980
PostPosted: Sat May 13, 2017 4:00 pm Reply with quote
I'm looking forward to this.

v1cious wrote:
Just out of Curiosity, have you seen Tiger & Bunny? Because that show is definitive proof that Japan can do good superheroes. Like anything, it comes down to writers. If you're throwing someone on something just to pander to the west, it's obviously not gonna feel authentic. Watching Tiger & Bunny, you can tell the person making it had a love for western comics just by all the obvious tropes and references. Witch the exception of a few cultural things, that show felt like something you'd find over here.


Agreed, what a fantastic show.

And yeah, the dub was great too.
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