Forum - View topicINTEREST: Under the Dog Producer Hiroaki Yura Also Talks Production Committees, Moe in Reddit's AMA
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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And they took a dig at Trigger's success with Little Witch Academia, which they had to backtrack from. And the $500+ reward level features a figure of said hot chick. By otaku powerhouse Good Smile: 1/8 scale figure of Anthea from Good Smile Co. And hired character designer who among others, designed the virtual idol duo Meaw for Starchild Records. And at the Otakon panel, they mentioned they still plan for outside investors to give them almost $6 million. In other words, a production committee. But I must say, it's probably unfair to criticize everyone involved. Hiroaki Yura, the English speaking producer and PR face probably pandered real hard to the anti-moe/anti-otaku crowd to reach their Kickstarter goal. Ando seems to share some of the sentiment, but likely all the rest can have differing opinions. Maybe they share some of it, but without all the antagonism. |
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Kreion
Posts: 332 |
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I saw this pop up and after watching the trailer could only wonder why it was marketed as being different? Nothing in it jumped out at me - though I was already disinterested by them using only female leads (at least as they've announced). I like a bit of variety in my characters, gender included.
That aside...It's girls shooting shit up for their family...could it get more generically dark? I don't think it's bad to have these sort of shows, but don't market it as something its not. It's not exactly the most original idea we've ever had...it doesn't even have the female lead excuse that lots of western animations use as female leads (...in skin tights suits) aren't that rare in anime. I'm also saying this as someone who watched and enjoyed Psycho-Pass. Which didn't need to have a ott sexy femme fatale lead to market it...of course that had much more money to play with but still. Generally people want something new and original out of indies ( I won't argue about the current anime trends, every genre is there if you look for it) and this just hasn't delivered for me. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13555 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Thank you for fighting the flame/troll empire (which I do find myself part of at times). |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4371 Location: New York |
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Considering the guy's response was part of an AMA, I don't think he has any true superiority complex that people need to be terrified of. What he is saying, at least as far as I can tell, is that the anime that was easy to export, and delved into more universal themes as opposed to Japan specific ones has significantly decreased in favor of random moe show #34345980596506.2 Any medium that turns its gaze completely inwards will eventually cannibalize and starve itself, so yeah, I see exactly why he's concerned.
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kabochaone
Posts: 11 |
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Did you not read the article? Many of the people working on your beloved moe and fanservice anime7manga/games are being forced to do it for your sake and because are they trends tat sell today regrettably, not something they actually want to do in many cases, they have to it eat after all, hence why the team behind this is forced to go to this kind of measures to not feel pressured to do something they dont want/find value/enjoyment in doing and prevent their creative minds to rust any further. The HOT GIRL WITH GUNS is nothing new, it comes down to how it is presented and executed, which we have yet to see. Figures of hot girls are nothing new either. Hopefully its not as shameful as having her in a ridiculously moe pose with a short skirt showing her panties 
Last edited by kabochaone on Fri Sep 05, 2014 10:56 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Bingal
Posts: 95 |
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I personally feel that the overexposure of otaku-pandering shows was way worse several years ago, so I disagree with him on that point. However, leave it to the moe brigade to get their feelings hurt over absolutely nothing.
And reading about his insights into production committees really draws a clear picture of why so many shows have this checklist feel to them. In general I think it's hard as a storyteller to have your creative vision flourish under such stifling conditions. |
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Kreion
Posts: 332 |
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Haha bullshit. The entire point about the big studios is that they don't need to do these things all of the time, they might do the odd fan-pandering series (which actually fail a lot of the time) but they are pretty free to make something of w/e genre if they really want. Plus if the directors are truly good at what they do there's no way the studio will waste them on stuff they're not needed for. Of course this only applies to big studio's with money they can afford to lose if their project fails. Some Studio's take more risks than others too, if they want to make things which might not get a massive appeal then go work for a company which is focused on more niche genre's. As it stands I can think of a couple of big studio's off the top of my head which made series which weren't a guaranteed success - some panned out and some didn't. And a serious Sci-fi anime? Most Sci-fi series ARE serious, it's the least creative concept they could have come up with. Well as I said they already seem to be set on an all female cast - which again is pretty standard for a 'girls with guns' anime. I will wait until it's released to judge the actual show, but if they're going to be all high and mighty about making something interesting that they apparently couldn't make in the market - they damn sure better have some innovation there. Thus far I've seen nothing which couldn't have just as easily been made by a big studio. |
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Fedora-san
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Yeah that does seem to be the main thing I hate about these discussions. People only talk about the same ~10 shows all the time. If you're going to talk about a decade of anime, please use at least 100 titles, averaging about 10 titles per year bare minimum That would be a much better, though still flawed, sample size. Since so much anime comes out each year, using only a handful of shows shows to symbolize a 10 year period is stupidly bias and pointless for discussion. Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop does not represent the 90s any more than Baccano and Black Lagoon represent the 00s. kabochaone and others seem to not know moe was prevalent back in the 80s and 90s as well. Maybe not on the same scale, but that's simply because not as much anime existed back then to begin with. Remember, Newtype magazine came out in 80s. Let's see what they had to say about the best moe waifus of the 80s 1. Nausicaa 2. Lum 3. Lynn Minmay 4. Otonashi Kyoko 5. Sheeta 6. Clarisse 7. Tendo Akane 8. Kiki 9. Sayla Mass 10. Haman Karn 11. Elpeo Ple 12. Maetel 13. Hayase Misa 14. Momo 15. Ayukawa Madoka 16. Asakura Minami 17. Doronjo 18. Four Murasame 19. Ple Two 20. Kisaragi Honey 21. Izumi Noa 22. Takaya Noriko 23. Shinobibe Himiko 24. Lana 25. Christina Mackenzie 26. Lalah Sune 27. Fraw Bow 28. Fa Yuiry 29. Katue Piason 30. Sakura Mami I wonder how many of those characters people who talk about the old days can actually recognize without looking them up on Google. Though if they did, they probably would have realized otaku trends of today existed back in the 80s and 90s as well. The 80s were where moe was first born, after all. Lum is often cited as the birth of moe and waifuism by Japanese otaku, after all. |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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Something like #GamerGate could never happen with anime. Part of the problem with the game industry is it has two fronts, western and eastern. All the corruption and drama is from the western front. Anime only has one front, Japan, and we've seen how blunt and direct Japan can be on how little they care about the kinds of "Shonen Jump Weekly" issues that get brought up here in the west. In general anime can never truly become mainstream. There's too many factors against it, and none of it has to do with actual content. The two biggest hurdles are animation in the west is still seen primarily as children's entertainment, and the fact countries still insist on trying to denounce the Japanese origins of these shows. Virtually every anime which has obtained mainstream status in America did so through either being heavily localized, or already having a western setting to begin with, such as Attack on Titan. This tells me a Japanese medium could never have a main foothold in the American public eye as long as this kind of racial preference exists. Moe is not what holds anime back in some western cultures, it's ethnocentrism. |
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Kikaioh
 Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
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That's funny, because I do recognize a lot of the names on that list, enough that I started to question whether you had seen any of the series yourself, as well as the entire premise that it was some sort of "moe waifu" poll in the first place. And so I found the Newtype 2010 issue that features these names, and discovered that it was just a popular character ranking list for various decades (covering both male and female characters). Were you trying to intentionally twist your wording to bolster your point of view? I mean really, "moe" detractors don't consider Gundam, Ranma 1/2 and Galaxy Express "moe" series, let alone Cutie Honey and Doronjo as "moe" characters. Even if you don't agree with the detractors' definition of 'moe', you should at least counter their beliefs based on what they perceive 'moe' shows to be --- that is, shows primarily composed of cute, doe-eyed school age girls designed specifically to appeal to the male otaku demographic. Shows like "Is the Order a Rabbit?", "Non Non Biyori", and the various idol shows fit into that mold. Maison Ikkoku, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Patlabor don't. TBH, I'm curious what shows from the 80's/90's you're thinking of that would fall under the 'moe' category. It's one thing to have a show with a character who could be considered moe in retrospect, and something else altogether to have a show people would standalone consider 'moe'. And I'd like to understand where the idea that 'moe' was born in the 80's comes from. The most I've ever heard is a Comiket Organizer retrospectively considering Lum as the birth of 'moe', but not the term itself in-so-much as the feeling of passion towards anime characters. Most sources I've read point to Sailor Saturn as being the original source of the term, or at least being part of the popularization of the term in the latter half of the 90's. Even then, most commentators I've heard consider the moe industry trend as having started in the early 2000's, with proto-moe shows like Azumanga Daioh and Galaxy Angel. |
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Selipse
Posts: 216 |
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Yup, that's pretty much the problem. I think the western animation industry needs Under the Dog waaay more than Japan. By that I mean that we need a creator to come up with this "serious and edgy sci-fi project" trying to change the actual trends in the west and denouncing all the kids cartoons. I'm sure it would have great success at a Kickstarter, but I'm also completely positive that it would have no success whatsoever afterwards and would end like that. It's really sad. Just imagine the west actually coming up with 30-so new series every season with as much variety as anime is doing right now. But then again, so many productions would be impossible with the current american system, and the japanese one isn't exactly sustainable. Still, I hope the day that something like Breaking Bad is be produced as an original animated series and it's met with the same success comes sometime in the future. I wonder what would be needed to actually make the west change its opinion on animation. |
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Parse Error
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That's not possible with most of them because they play a shell game with their personal definition, moving the goalpost back, forth, and in endless self-contradictory circles to continuously exclude examples as they are mentioned. To them: When the topic is its current prevalence, moe is anything that isn't gritty science fiction with a predominantly male cast and no side characters with noticeable otaku appeal. When the topic is why it is bad, moe is a type of anime where cute young female characters defined entirely by one or two traits sit around and do nothing. When the topic is its origins or historical examples of traits, behaviors, characters, or shows similar to those the term is applied to in the present, moe is separate from the actual content of an anime altogether, and becomes the phenomenon of marketing mass-manufactured character goods to the otaku demographic. Thus, if one shows them a clip of a young, doe-eyed, clumsy girl with a verbal tic, that is from before whatever arbitrary date they believe moe killed the anime industry, it is most certainly "not moe" because they received no commercially produced merchandise aimed specifically at anime otaku. However, if one then brings up characters such as Rei or Asuka in response to that definition, then they definitely can't be moe either, because they didn't just sit around drinking tea and eating cake. It always transforms into whatever is required to make all things they like "not moe" and all things they dislike "moe," even in cases where it creates a paradox wherein the definition they are operating with at the moment to argue one thing is "not moe" would make the example they refuted mere seconds ago "moe." Of course, in the context of vintage anime, any definition that intrinsically links it to otaku is a disingenuous attempt to stack the deck. It favors a predetermined conclusion because there wasn't a clearly delineated space for exclusively otaku-oriented anime until the modern late-night anime era. Therefore, it rather conveniently allows one to refute examples from television series by claiming those were aimed only at children, or dismiss OVA ones because anyone could have been renting them. It also makes no sense as a requirement, because it's designed to treat the exact same content differently based solely on who happens to watch it. Is K-ON! no longer moe since it caught on with young girls and got on Disney Channel Japan? The only discernible reason to add such an otherwise meaningless stipulation is that it automatically limits acceptable examples of moe to those from relatively recent anime. In any case, one can observe a slight variation on this same trick when people complain about fanservice in contemporary anime. At first, they will readily include even mild instances such as cleavage or bathing suits, in order to establish how pervasive it is. The moment anyone raises the defense that there is nothing new about this, suddenly the relatively rare cases of borderline hentai become the defining examples of modern fanservice. They don't want to admit they loathe something that's either a long-established anime staple, or far too uncommon to claim has a stranglehold over the entire industry, so they start substituting Seikon no Qwaser or Yosuga no Sora in place of shows more like Locodol and GochiUsa midway through the discussion.
That accurately describes about two shows on average, out of several dozen per season. It's hardly anything worth noticing, let alone "almost too big a bite" out of the industry as you stated earlier. Here is the shell game I described, already underway. Last edited by Parse Error on Sat Sep 06, 2014 1:39 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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animefanworried
Posts: 126 |
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I really wish people would stop with the "The industry today is dead because it forces artists to work on stuff they don't like!" Do you seriously expect committee backers to invest millions on a director's pet project with none of their goals met or any benefit as a return? Do you expect studios to sink themselves into oblivion by funding shows that won't make enough of a return just so their artists can have "Artistic freedom"? How privileged do you think artists should be exactly? It'd be nice if people were willing to pay them whatever they want with no agenda of their own just so these few artists can explore their artistic visions but its not happening. It never was like that either. In the good old days, merchandising was also a thing. Artist also had restrictions and didn't get to work on whatever pet project they happened to have. So please, enough of the fallacy where you mention they no longer have freedom and imply they somehow ever had it. Some artists are big and can do their own project because studios know they'll get a return on it. Sometimes they'll experiment as well, but that's about it. If the artistic vision of the artists was truly so golden, studios would jump on funding them because people would be buying them. The fact that studios are not taking this route indicates giving artists complete freedom is apparently not such a good idea. Apparently, they aren't that many people who wish to see the artist's true vision. |
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kabochaone
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So in short you are giving us reason as your argument can be resume as such: Modern day otaku´s taste is... questionable lets say, to not be so hard in the hordes os susceptible people to the issue. Evidently you have are moe-fanservice insatiable, of course investors wont risk money in anything else with is another issue we and many dont like, including creators as you can see. To the people what they want and deserve! You are fine with works made by people that probably dont feel any real incentive to give their all, so there, its what you are getting and you are happy. GOOD FOR YOU. Its what we all are getting anyway, this is probably the golden age of anime for modern otaku. GOOD for them, enjoy it. You are nuts to think anime became what it was without artistic and creative freedom seriously. Hard denial mode, its artists themselves TELLING YOU they are forced, in the words of this guy, to create MOE CHARACTERS, in the example he gives (and yea, for the moe fanatic he says MOE CHARACTERS, something you deny many times, I take anyday, anytime, his word over yours) that they dont want to, but they have to anyway, so you are telling us we should take your word, some total random forum user with 0 ties to the creative work behind anime here over HIM? NUTS. If so many creatives mind have brought up this modern day constraints, its because in the past if not total freedom they still have much liberty in the work itself at the least. Its amazing for people to think that creativity can flourish when artists are forced to do something they dont want or are not given creative liberty over a work, one thing is discussing aspects and reaching an understanding over something and other one sided saying you must do this, do it, end of story, no wonder the sorry state of anime today, bland generic anime one after the other, bland anime, bland characters, bland stories rule today. Artists are not employes of a company to just follow rules one sided, they are creative minds, they need to exercise some of that creativity and be allowed some room to do a variety of things, I wonder how they feel to be asked to the do the same thing over and over and over again?... The truth hurts but its there. When its the creative minds themselves telling you it must hurt even harder, with all the hard denial mode so many went into. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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Lot of people here make good points on all sides.
Seems like Yura's someone who got disillusioned with production committee shenanigans. Happens in Western animation too - like the case with Invader Zim's Jhonen Vasquez. Any artist would dream of retaining as much control of their baby, whatever it is. Naoko Takeuchi is living her dream now. Any writers in this group? Obviously Yura wants to give more people a seat at the table. 2.9k Manabi Line at the table is fine, but he would like anime produced for others too who are not the same Manabi people. He'd prefer to avoid going thru production committee that would force him to go thru a set of checklists trying to get to that Manabi Line. Greater variety can truly be achieved by targeting more different people. Dunno if ya guys were familiar with this news story, but last summer there was a back-and-forth among Western film animators about how animated films are gaining some variety - but there are also opposing viewpoints who point out that the films essentially target the same people (families), so is that truly variety. But yeah, that's kinda the problem, isn't it - that anime is having trouble attracting more different people - and that's intrinsically limiting its variety. For instance, anime needs to reclaim some of the timeslots it had in the past but now mainly lost - one of the most prominent being the primetime evening and shoujo hours. (These would not be replacements but in addition to what anime has now.) More different timeslots --> more different target people. Still, Yura really should tone down his rhetoric. Save it; not until he's a made man. Then ya could say whatever ya want.
Too much of a good thing can be bad. I don't like when it seemed that anime in the early 90s were all for people looking for Xtreme (ergo Manga Ent.'s mascot "Manga Man"). It's fine with animated musicals of the 90s revival too; it's just when everything else became feature musicals. Better more different stuffs for different folks.
Trends come and go - been in the fandom long enough to notice several. It's just when a trend overtakes or overwhelms an industry. Late 2000s was during the Great Recession, when many businesses played it ultra-safe, including the anime industry, just churning out as many "whatever's the in-thing" as possible. Now that economy has recovered, people are more willing to take risks again, and things more opening up since then (like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, that wouldn't have been made in the late 2000s). It'd be interesting to see how many fans stay in a "post-moe" generation, like how many fans stay in the "post-Xtreme" generation in the 90s.
That's part of it (but it's not all of one and none of the other - it's always a combination). Kinda how ethnocentrism also held Western gaming back in Japan ("yo-ge, kuso-ge"), so they missed out many good games (especially PC games) around the turn of the century.
Cardcaptor Sakura was also the biggest anime at the turn of the century. |
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