Forum - View topicThings anime should borrow from American TV or vice versa.
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I personally think the spoiler[poppy-field] ending to Blackadder Goes Forth was a very inappropriate way to conclude such a good franchise. Such a serious note works wonders in a serious drama, but a serious drama this was not. At least they found their feet for the special millennium episode 11 years later. I shall admit that I find the best western comedy far funnier than that to be found within anime, but in this day and age there's an endless supply of internet clips that keep me laughing far more than television did back when I had access to it. |
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infinitebeauty
Posts: 75 |
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Seriously? I couldn't think of a more appopriate way to end it. Blackadder ends one of two ways: everyone dies, or Edmund becomes king. Seeing as this took place in WW1, it was fairly obvious that spoiler[they were going to go over the top.] The poppies scene was a mark of respect to all those who had done the same thing. Comedy is allowed to have deeper themes and some gravitas. Keeping things on topic- I agree with those who have said that American comedy seems to be better than comedy anime. There isn't the threat of things getting lost in translation, and since comedy is such a cultural thing, things tend to be funnier when playing to something you've grown up with. (I grew up with both American and British comedy, so I enjoy both) |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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When a show does that, I would wholeheartedly say it stops being a comedy. The episode in question could have been ended by means bearing greater similarity to the rest of the show (i.e. humorous means) without it being disrespectful. spoiler[Depicting the fates of the main characters, although they were indeed inevitable within a realistic context,] was not fully necessary; a less conclusive finale would not have harmed the show's appeal within the Blackadder franchise. I shall admit though that I know of nobody who agrees with me on this. I apologise for my stance, however in school we were forced to watch that episode every November the 11th, and eventually my opinion of the device deteriorated. I suppose I can tolerate a show gradually transitioning away from a humorous environment, but the only examples of such shows are within anime (Chobits, GunBuster etc), and I didn't watch them for their comedy. Their jokes were somewhat amusing, but alone insufficient to draw me in. What was important to me was the slow, albeit sometimes flawed move from one genre to the other, and that it was through serious drama that a plotline would be established and maintained. |
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ManOfRust
 Posts: 1935 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I can't tell if you are serious or not, but the whole series is a remake/revisioning of the classic late 70s TV series. The original series may seem kind of cheesy now, but for those of us that were enthralled as kids when Star Wars first came out in theaters, Galactica was like nothing we had ever seen on TV before. Sure, there had been stuff like Star Trek and Space: 1999, but the original Galactica was really slick for its time. It was also really expensive to make, which ultimately led to its downfall. There's a lot of stuff in the new series that is a nod to the original, like the casting of Richard Hatch who was the original Apollo. American TV has evolved a lot over the years. It used to be that only soap operas had ongoing story lines. Prime time TV was pretty much all self contained episodes, so you could jump in and out whenever without really missing anything important. Of course, that was back before VCRs, so there was no way to tape something if you weren't going to be around to see it. You just had to wait for it come around again in reruns. Now we get many series that have a continuity and some that almost require you to catch every episode or risk not knowing what is going on. This is one thing where American TV has become more like anime over the years, although I don't think that anime was the direct influence. I remember being frustrated with Star Blazers when I was a kid because I couldn't watch it every time it was on and it was a continuing story line so missing episodes made it hard to follow what was going on. Now, with things like DVRs and the internet to catch missed episodes, and with almost everything coming out on DVD eventually, missing an episode here and there is not as big of a deal and it's easier to follow a story with a continuous story line. I do agree that it would be nice to see more self contained stories on American TV like we get with anime. It has been done before on American television in the form of mini-series. We don't see as many mini-series shows now as there used to be, but it seems like twenty or thirty years ago that they were a lot more common, and some of them like Roots and Shogun were hugely popular. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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^ Oh, it was remake of a previous show. Kay. I thought the statement was referring to a remake of the new Battlestar Galactica, which I thought was recent enough not to merit another rehash. -.-'
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yojimboray
Posts: 108 |
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[quote="Mushi-Man"]Only one thing comes to mind when I think of what anime could take from American tv. That would be advertising. I think that one of the reasons that anime isn't as big as it should be is because the only anime that most people know about is stuff like Pokemon and Dragon Ball. It seems that most people don;t realize that there is a wide variety of anime to choose from (something for everyone). I think if companies would just try to push their products a little harder they could see good results. i always see adds for a new show on abc or the newest DVD of Scrubs. But I hardly ever see commercials for anime.
Agree 100%. I'm glad that American fans are posting about how to improve the presentation of the product and not how, "the Japanese can be more like us." One of the things I most enjoy about anime and manga is the differing points of view and culture coming from that side of the Pacific. |
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mangalore
Posts: 20 |
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For something Anime could try to mix in more from western TV is imo that Anime (esspecially in certain genres) is still very formulistic in its plots. Western shows were that way, too (just different formulas), but have loosened up quite a bit over the recent decade or so. Someone e.g. mentioned that there seem hardly any real friend talk among Anime characters and the "teen saves the world" plot is wearing thin though that staple might be because of target audiences.
Selfcontained story arcs in short shows instead of neverending runs are probably what western TV should do more. What western shows now do is kind of a mix of using an overreaching arc while keep the door open to run the show forever by artifcially extending the narration. Imo Heroes suffers from this. The twists and turns in this seasons were stupid in their complexity and seemed like standard gimmicks to keep the story arc rolling over one season without progressing in any meaningful way. Western TV also can learn from Anime that the audience has little problem accepting a completely new world/universe. The west is stuck with Star Trek and Star wars (and maybe Dr Who) while in Anime many one season fantasy/SciFi shows do not shy away to introduce their (sometimes cool wicked or weird) ideas to the audience and tell the story in it. |
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Animastryfe
 Posts: 152 Location: Vancouver |
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I think that has to do more with cost: Anime, being animation, does not cost appreciatively more for being a scifi/fantasy story. However, live action shows would require CG, costumes and other such things that would be more expensive than just setting it in contemporary times. |
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infinitebeauty
Posts: 75 |
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Re: arcs and continuous plots- Doctor Who has managed to pull this off since the reboot, with 'arc words' and seemingly unconnected things adding up to the big finale (Bad Wolf, Vote Saxon, the bees disappearing, and perhaps the Mr Copper Foundation). I agree that it would be fun for more this sort of thing to happen in more shows. Re: alternate universes- Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon Five, Red Dwarf, Stargate, Farscape, Firefly, Futurama, H2G2, Tin Man, Andromeda, Lost in Space, War of the Worlds...the west has a fondness for weird, alternate universes. They also have a fondness for live action, which greatly limits them in terms of what is feasible. The great part of animated shows is that if you can draw it and animate it, you can have it in your show. Whereas in live action series, if you can imagine it, you have to sketch it, make models of it, figure out what the budget will be, actually make the thing, and hope that it works. There's a lot less room in live action for everything they may want to do. |
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