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Hey, Answerman! - Das Bootleg


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here-and-faraway



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 1528
Location: Sunny California
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:03 pm Reply with quote
There are a lot of Chihayafuru fans here. I have a question for them. I watched the first 7 episodes or so of season one, and while there was a lot I liked about the show, what I couldn't stand was the Taichi/Arata/Chihaya love triangle. Taichi obviously cares a lot about Chihaya, but, if this is like most shojo anime, Chihaya won't end up with him at all, but rather the "under-dog/bad boy" Arata.

Does it look like Taichi even has a chance or is it a typical shojo where it's pretty obvious that Arata will "get the girl"?

I'm not trying to bash shojo stories nor Chihayfuru fans. Once again, I think the show has a lot of strengths. It's just that we all have cliches that we can tolerate and those that we cannot. (A girl blowing up water when she's cooking is pretty much a deal breaker for me too Anime smile.)
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:25 pm Reply with quote
Here you go Brian:

animenewsnetwork.com/review/galaxy-angel-rune/sub.dvd-1

You're welcome.

----------

here-and-faraway, we're in season two and there still hasn't been a resolution to the love triangle. In fact, calling it a "love triangle" is kind of inaccurate, since although it matters a lot to Taichi it hasn't affected Arata or Chihaya, neither of whom have love on their brains.

But why don't you just watch the show? Chihayafuru is an amazing series and to not watch it just because of one little thing that is actually handled very well is crazy.

Oh, and the show is Josei, not Shoujo, which is why it hasn't fallen into the usual Shoujo pitfalls yet.


Last edited by dtm42 on Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Saturn



Joined: 08 Aug 2002
Posts: 513
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:30 pm Reply with quote
not a single damn thing from the winter season appealed to me in the least :\ I had TWO free months on Crunchyroll and both expired without my ever even watching an episode of anything new. I'm ready for the spring season already!
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:33 pm Reply with quote
^
Well that's funny, because there are a lot of good shows on. I'm still watching close to twenty shows, over half of which are perfectly fine. And the variety is definitely there, so if you'd looked closer you definitely would have found something worth watching.
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TitanXL



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 4036
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:35 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
The first is Pokémon. Its first season was animated beautifully, with dynamic battles and interstitial sequences that were a joy to watch.


Someone needs to take off their nostalgia goggles. The first series was animated pretty poorly. The battles in Diamond & Pearl and Best Wishes are a lot better. Once the animation studio switched at the end of Jouto, the animation got so much better. Just try to watch Goukazaru VS Elekible and tell me the first series had anything remotely close to that. One of the best things about Diamond & Pearl were the contest battle. Hikari had some amazing fights. (Amazing for Pocket Monsters, I mean. Not like sakuga or anything)

Same thing with Digimon. Xros Wars is way better animated than the first series. The first series had tons of stock footage abuse. It also doesn't hurt Xros Wars was done in HD in the modern era. It di dhave some sakuga moments but those were usually saved for Nene's and Mervamon's breasts, legs, and other lady bits. Not that I mind.

I wonder if anyone's going to say "Man the 90s Sailor Moon had way better animation than this new piece of crap". Granted, we haven't seen the new one yet, but it can't be that hard to have better animation than Sailor Moon.

For the record, the reason Transformers Armada looked so bad was because apparently the Japanese version Micron Legend, wasn't finished yet. They were halfway through production when Hasbro demanded the series to air because they were impatient. So America saw the incomplete version. When Micron Legend aired in Japan it was noticeably improved. Though still not amazing or anything.


Last edited by TitanXL on Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Asterisk-CGY



Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 398
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:36 pm Reply with quote
Course note that Maou is a 2ch collab story while Spice is a light novel.
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Sheleigha



Joined: 09 May 2008
Posts: 1671
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:41 pm Reply with quote
I'd just like to touch on a couple things here.

Bootlegged merch: Here's the thing, when it comes to figures and plush, some of the stuff on eBay is legit, HOWEVER, they are considered as "factory rejects". With a certain standard of quality involved, not all the plush (in this example) are up to par. They either have bad stitching, missing pieces, or appeared deformed in shape. Many of these get smuggled out of the factories by workers and get sold on eBay, when they are supposed to be disposed of. So, every time you see a Pokemon plush on eBay, that is located outside in a little garden setting with ivy, those are all rejects. I'm not sure if it's one seller that does it, or ones that share those same photos, but they are well known. Bootlegs are often just stock photos at cheap prices. (However, some sellers DO sell authentic merch along with bootlegs).
There is a bigger warning about bootlegged anime plush though: not only are they faked, but they are cheaply made to the point where I have heard of plush having sewing needles still inside the plush. In the case of Pokemon, an entire line of plush ended up being recalled because of this issue (I guess there was a bad quality check with them). I've heard other stories where plush makers buy fakes for patterns, and found that they were stuffed with things like bandages (and who knows if they were used). So, safety/health risks are another issue!


Quote:
The next is Digimon. How can the same studio be responsible for the gorgeous first four Digimon movies (which, incidentally, made me fall hopelessly in love with animation) as the TV show it's based on? Again, the evolution scenes are nice, and some of the attacks are passable, but here again is a show that obviously has its good weeks and its bad weeks; abusing freeze frame and repeated sequences. Now, one of the most incredibly animated episodes I've ever seen is episode 21, "Home Away from Home", but no other episode since has measure up in any season ever.


Ok, now there is one key thing missing out: it's not the animation, as it was the director. Not many people realize, that Mamoru Hosoda of Summer Wars, The Girl Who Lept Through Time, and Wolf Children Ame and Yuki, directed the first two movies and that one episode of Adventure. It's his style, which is why they are so much more different from Toei's norm.
Movies 3 and 4 I once heard when done by a director who did some Gundam, but apparently they were both done by 2 different directors, who worked on various non-Gundam productions.
Essentially, it's STYLE. Movies will always have a bigger budget too. Another good example is comparing Inuyasha TV to its movies. The art style were completely different on both, and it was one guy who directed all the movies, not even working on the show.



TitanXL wrote:
Quote:
The first is Pokémon. Its first season was animated beautifully, with dynamic battles and interstitial sequences that were a joy to watch.


Someone needs to take off their nostalgia goggles.


As someone watching the original in between of the recent episodes, I agree completely. The first season's animation was really quite terrible. I mean, it was 90's animation and all, but a lot of it was pretty bad :p Not to say I still can't enjoy it! Also: stock footage. So much stock footage reused over and over...
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doc-watson42
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 10 Feb 2003
Posts: 1708
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:57 pm Reply with quote
Here's my list of anti-bootleg resources:

General guides:

The Piracte Anime FAQ—Otaku News
Bootlegs—Anime-Wiki.org
Bootleg FAQ—JazzMess.com
Robert's Anime Corner Store bootleg mini-FAQ (especially useful for CDs)
Bootleg FAQs—Australian Anime Shopping Guide (via the Wayback Machine)

On CDs:

Chudah's Corner - Reference: Bootleg {CD} Info (via the Wayback Machine)
• ANIMEfringe Cover Story: "Made in Taiwan: Son May CDs versus Original Japanese CDs" (via the Wayback Machine)

On plushies:

Buying Authentic Japanese UFO Catcher Plush on eBay
UFO BBS4 / Bootleg Plush Toys Gallery Update May 14 (via the Wayback Machine)

On action figures:

Guide to Anime PVC figures on Ebay—A Wayback Machine copy of the eBay UK FAQ pulsedemon mentioned
Anatomy of a Bootleg 101—[Zero-Type] Forums
Counterfeit & Bootleg Anime Figures: How to Tell Fakes From the Genuine Licensed Products—Nuts for Anime Figures

Discussion:

Anime Fans Against Bootlegs—Facebook

Information (on what has been licensed):

Anime License List—Mania.com/Anime on DVD (1997–2011)
AnimeMania—Anime and Manga Commercially Available In English [in North America] (through November 2006)

I assume that The Fandom Post has a similar list, but I have yet to check, partly because it's a resource intensive site, and I have an old computer.
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tangytangerine



Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 439
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:16 pm Reply with quote
Brian pretty much summed why I don't get into anime figures. It's too hard to tell what is bootleg and what isn't sometimes. Much easier to just stick to buying anime DVDs, which is relatively easy to tell bootlegs from the real thing.

Besides Maoyu, Pet Girl of Sakurasou & Haganai Next, nothing really seemed to interest me this season. Two of those are either a new season of an existing series or just continuing from the fall season. While probably watching Maoyu just because it feels similar to Spice & Wolf and it's been awhile since a show like that. Seems like they're holding onto the good stuff until Spring.

Quote:
I wish the show hadn't gotten negative feedback in Japan over that ridiculous Korean hot pot controversy.


Huh? Why was it getting negative feedback over that? I haven't heard about that.
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littlegreenwolf



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 4796
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:43 pm Reply with quote
I bought a DVD for Miyuki-chan in Wonderland when ADV originally released it. The OVA was about 30 minutes and void of any extras... and I don't think it had a dub either. I believe it was around 20 bucks.

I totally dug that fanservice DVD. Cool And then I loaned it out to someone and never got the damn thing back. Now the manga goes nowhere.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2532
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:48 pm Reply with quote
In regards to "cheap" animation, the simple ideas of "time & money" are part of the reason why I can be pretty forgiving of shows that feature limited animation. People can complain that some shows look "cheap", and therefore aren't good shows in their mind, but usually that's simply the case of the animation budget being more limited than some other shows. Yeah, there are animes with animation that even I have to only shake my head in disappoint at, like Gundoh Musashi (which was downright horrifying-looking at times) or Souten no Ken (which was obviously a victim of being rushed out after years in development hell, and I saw the DVD version), but at the same time simply having little to no animation isn't exactly a sin.

People poke fun at a show like Zaizen Jotaro for its barely-there animation (and an absolutely pathetic first episode, but I'm focusing on the animation here), but I fully understood that a show like that didn't need constantly-moving animation to tell its story (there's very little action in the show, which episode 1 went completely against), and I was even surprised at the ingenuity behind some of the various cut-in transitions the show used; for example, one of the last episodes featured a cut-in where the shot opened up like a door because the next shot started with a door opening, which I found really clever. Hell, the original Eat-Man anime is one of the very first "modern-day" late-night anime, and therefore features extremely-limited animation in general, but the actual content is what makes the show amazing to watch. And even though the Violinist of Hameln is so infamous for having little-to-no animation that it's nicknamed "The Slideshow of Hameln" I still am really interested in checking that show out one day.

Can there be exquisitely-animated weekly-aired anime? Yes, but I think too many people look at those at what should be the norm when, in reality, they are the exceptional exceptions to the rule. Of course, I am one of those people who follow the idea of "gameplay over graphics" (or, in this case, "content over visuals"), so I can't really speak for those who love looking at pretty images. Anyway, I do think there is a tendency from fans to put what they want over what to expect, and that leads to a lot of putting down of animation that, while not amazing-looking, still isn't bad on its own right or simply manages to work within its limitations.

Finally, I find it funny that Brian mentioned episode 4 of Lost Universe, because my friend noticed that there seems to be a "curse" on episode 4's, because Samurai 7's ep 4 was infamous for having a completely odd style & cheap animation to it when it aired and Gurren Lagann's ep 4 was so downright infamous to the point that the first movie ignored what happened in it.
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invalidname
Contributor



Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2434
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:56 pm Reply with quote
Brian, if it were still in print, I would send you the DVD box of the 1979 Flash Gordon series, and you would take back the mean thing you said about Funimation. It's deep as a napkin, but it's still gorgeous for 70's SatAM animation.

Oh, wait, you were talking about the Filmation that made Tarzan and the Super 7, Archie's TV Funnies, and Mission: Magic? Oh yeah, that's garbage. Come to Grand Rapids sometime, we'll drink some Founders IPA and marthon Ark II.
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:01 pm Reply with quote
here-and-faraway wrote:

Does it look like Taichi even has a chance or is it a typical shojo where it's pretty obvious that Arata will "get the girl"?

This is not a shoujo. This is josei.

Romance is as far in the back as possible. The show puts 99% of its focus on karuta and the characters getting better at karuta (and also overcoming certain character flaws). Personally, I haven't seen an inkling of any romance involving Chihaya/Taichi/Arata in the second season.

Please, watch it as a sports anime. Because that is what it is. It's just a josei sports anime instead of a shounen one. And it is absolutely terrific.
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Sheleigha



Joined: 09 May 2008
Posts: 1671
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:02 pm Reply with quote
Lord Geo wrote:
In regards to "cheap" animation, the simple ideas of "time & money" are part of the reason why I can be pretty forgiving of shows that feature limited animation.


Thinking of this, I'm STILL curious as to what happened with the American/Japanese collaboration of the Street Fighter cartoon series. Watched it recently for laughs, and when I looked it up, I had NO IDEA that Madhouse/Sunrise were the ones that worked on it! In the case of this show though, I'm convinced they were only given a $5 budget to work with. Most scenes show are evident that they cheapened out on in-between artists too! And yet, when you get to the second season, the art looks slightly different in some episodes, showing Madhouse's signature thick and darker outlining.

Still, I continue to scratch my head with what went on there. Of course, we all know it was cheap on the American end (let's insert dialogue when the character clearing has their mouth shut!) and just oh the under enthusiastic voice acting... Just the icing on the cake to the show Smile Ryu's bored sounding VA is amazing next to the overemphasis of Ken's.
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littlegreenwolf



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 4796
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:22 pm Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
Personally, I haven't seen an inkling of any romance involving Chihaya/Taichi/Arata in the second season.


I haven't watched any of the 2nd season of the anime, but it is totally there in the manga.
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