Forum - View topicTales Of The Industry - The Disastrous Premiere of Tokyo Godfathers
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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That's the one I attended, my first attending at an anime convention. I saw the Cowboy Bebop movie English dub premiere and got a movie poster signed by Watanabe, Kawamoto, and Kanno, which hangs on my wall to this day. One of the best experiences in my anime fandom. I regret not getting Yoshiyuki Tomino's autograph, though, since he was there for the US release of Char's Counterattack. And I believe Mayumi Tanaka was at the AX thing. But I was still new to cons back then and had little patience for waiting for things. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Although Dreamworks literally didn't know what they had or how to sell it-- Dreamworks snapped up the latest critically-acclaimed Kon film very, very, very QUICKLY after Disney got their Oscar for Spirited Away, and tried to create a new arthouse sub-label for it and other future import-animation acquisitions, until they came up against the two-ten elephant in the room: How do you actually SELL a Kon film to a public expecting coherent audience-friendly genre anime films, as it's a little harder than Disney selling a Miyazaki? Needless to say, it wasn't a question that kept them up nights, as the whole point was getting one in the first place to compete, and when it didn't do its job, they moved on to something that did. One would be wise not to expect subtlety or insight. |
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Animerican14
 Posts: 963 Location: Saint Louis, MO |
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That was really informative! I already knew about Satoshi kin's disdain for Millennium Actress's DVD/poster art, but I didn't consider at all how it may have affected his mood even at the Big Apple Anime Fest. (Was it from this point on that word spread that Kon hated that art in the first place?)
It actually encouraged me to dig up my December 2003 Newtype USA issue (which thankfully took no time at all), and sure enough, there was an article in there on Tokyo Godfathers' NYC Premiere, just as I remembered. It even had an interview that Newtype (Japan) conducted with Kon, which included some talk on the premiere itself.
Didn't sound like too big of a deal in the interview, by the sounds of it!  Wonder how long it took for Kon to get over it, if he hadn't tried to forgive and forget already by that point. If he had forgiven it, maybe it wouldn't have done too much harm to bring that back up. (Then again, maybe he was shooting daggers with his eyes at the NT interviewer while calmly and smilingly saying what he did, who knows?)
And thinking of Big Apple Anime Fest…. woah, 2003's was the last one? (And only the third one!?) Haha, I remember actually wanting to go there while in Middle School and marking it in my calendar, maybe even for the one that apparently didn't exist in 2004. Think it was thanks to the CPM DVDs that I owned that I was even aware of it in the first place! |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6253 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Wow, this is a very interesting story I've heard. I'm sorry about what happen back then.
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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... Well now I know why you hate film as a project format. (not being serious).
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belvadeer
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Justin, you poor soul, I'm so sorry you went through that. That must have been a horrid experience. D:
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chito895
 Posts: 512 Location: Lima, Peru |
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I know it isn't at the same level, but this reminds of all the group projects that I've had. I can't remember a single time that it was perfect or at least with few problems.
I'm really looking forward to reading this column next time, it will be very interesting as this! |
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SaiyamanMS
Posts: 302 |
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Certainly not a disaster on this level, but this story reminds me of the Sydney screening of the first two Madoka Magica movies I went to in... I believe December 2012? They were apparently playing the films from a Blu-Ray disc which apparently had some issues with it leading to the films cutting out several times. (I believe they even ended up switching to a different Blu-Ray player.) It was quite the unique experience though and the crowd kept itself entertained in the dark by creating shadow puppets with Kyubey plushes and various jokes and comments.
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roxybudgy
Posts: 129 Location: Western Australia |
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Reminds me of the time I went to watch Avatar at the cinema. There was a blackout halfway through the movie, which lasted 10-15 minutes before they were able to resume the movie.
Back on the topic of anime and conventions, I'm usually assigned to supervise screenings when I volunteer for the local con. One year, we had an issue were the distributors had not yet provided the DVDs required for the scheduled screenings. So for the first screening of the day, instead of the scheduled series, I was told to show the first 2 episodes of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai. After my first shift, I had some free time to wander around. My next shift a few hours later was when Higurashi was meant to be screened according to the schedule, so again I sat through the first two episodes of Higurashi. My third and last shift for the day, we still had DVDs missing for scheduled screenings, so I was told we had to show something else, and one of my fellow volunteers who was unaware of what had happened throughout the day said, "Hey, why don't we show Higurashi?", and I'm like... oh gawd, just how many times do I have to watch this today? The next year, to avoid the missing DVD debacle, they decided to have all screenings ready to go on a hard drive. Prior to the start of the first screening, I tested to make sure that everything was working. But I soon found that the files on the hard drive were dubbed, with no subtitle option (screenings were supposed to be Japanese audio with subs), and some of the files were Japanese audio with no subs. We ended up sceening the dubbed files until someone was able to run around to the traders area and grab DVDs from the anime distributors. |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1747 |
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I'm glad to see a column like this on ANN; This is perhaps one of a couple columns on this site that doesn't completely feel like an ad. One suggestion though - It would also be nice if this column or something similar could also include stories that ANN members have had with industry guests as well. I'm sure there are many members who have had interesting experiences with guests who might like to anonymously talk about it.
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ShaolinWolf
Posts: 96 |
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Until reading this article, I'd always wondered why Otakon and Anime Expo don't have more film premieres, especially since it's the only way left of drumming up interest in video rooms. But considering all the potential mishaps during the projection stage - not to mention the inherent risk with shipping film prints across the globe - and it's simply less distressing to show whatever DVDs/Blu-rays the NA Distributors offer up instead.
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jdnation
Posts: 1998 |
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Was that the cover Kon didn't like? Someone else drew it? So was this the original Japanese cover? I guess it's all in the expression and much more lively and artistic... 
This reminds me that I have to buy Tokyo Godfathers. Was hoping for a blu-ray release, but I guess that's never happening... |
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taster of pork
 Posts: 594 Location: My House |
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Great story. I would love to see Miyazaki react to a situation like this.
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kevinx59
 Posts: 959 Location: In sunny California |
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That was a really interesting story, a shame about the projector stuff though. And for the autographs, what else could the attendees have brought since he refused to sign Millennium Actress? Perfect Blue or the Japanese release of Actress? Weren't those the only things of his available at the time? If so, your choices were super limited. Was Memories on dvd yet?
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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IIRC, AX was considering expanding East, so they teamed up with BAAF to see what it's like in NY. I think it was in one of those con special promo DVDs that they used to give away. |
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