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The Secret of One-Punch Man's Success


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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
Posts: 1135
Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:23 am Reply with quote
How is it a success when not one unit of the discs have sold, I haven't seen anything suggesting its getting great ratings, and manga sale increases have occasionally popped up on the oricon 50 but not constantly and consistently like HQ/Shingeki.
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Barbobot



Joined: 06 Feb 2007
Posts: 460
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:44 am Reply with quote
I assume he means critical success for the anime. The manga was already really successful and the critical and fan reaction that I've seen at least has been almost universally good.
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xzy123



Joined: 07 Sep 2015
Posts: 143
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:47 am Reply with quote
wow the picture in one punch man look better then the anime
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Hameyadea



Joined: 23 Jun 2014
Posts: 3679
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:19 am Reply with quote
The show is quite impressive, but some people found that some scenes, like this one, were done in more detail in the manga version compared to the TV one.

Also, the comparison between the key frames and actual animation of this sequence is quite the sight.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:32 am Reply with quote
I recognize that One-Punch Man is a solid anime show, and I really enjoyed a couple of its episodes. But I wouldn't call it a smash hit after 6 episodes. The cynic in me thinks that Japanese otaku are going to give it the cold shoulder, but I hope I am wrong for the sake of the show's fans in N.A. and around the world.

Last edited by Angel M Cazares on Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:35 am; edited 1 time in total
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bobob101



Joined: 28 Jun 2013
Posts: 201
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:35 am Reply with quote
Yeah, makes total sense that the guy who wrote this article also wrote the "Joy of Sakuga" article.

I am totally guilty of saying that the reason One Punch Man looks so good is because it is a Madhouse show. Seeing that the director also worked on shows like Tatami Galaxy is pretty neat, because I honestly think of that show as one birthed from the mind of Masaki Yuasa. It is pretty interesting to learn that OP Man doesn't have that high of a budget. Looking at the art as a whole, it is clear that the background art isn't quite as good as the animation quality. Though seeing Ashura Beetle's face move or all those fancy arm parts on Genos are pretty sweet.

Some of these recent ANN editorial titles are kinda misleading/clickbatey. If you titled this "Making OP Man move" or something that tells me exactly what I'm reading, while the current title makes me think that you would spend time discussing the shows writing as well.
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 2457
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:41 am Reply with quote
bobob101 wrote:
Some of these recent ANN editorial titles are kinda misleading/clickbatey. If you titled this "Making OP Man move" or something that tells me exactly what I'm reading, while the current title makes me think that you would spend time discussing the shows writing as well.


Eh, the side-nav and banner both have the paragraph that makes it clear it's talking about its animation strength
Quote:
If you've been watching this season's smash hit One-Punch Man, you may have asked yourself "how'd they make this show look so good"? It's time to meet the wizards who make this show possible.
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JulieYBM



Joined: 07 Apr 2012
Posts: 209
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:49 am Reply with quote
bobob101 wrote:
while the current title makes me think that you would spend time discussing the shows writing as well.


The fact that you would equate "the secret of [television series/film]'s success" with 'writing' just goes to show how much damage writers have done to the public perception of film and television as works of art.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:55 am Reply with quote
JacobYBM wrote:
bobob101 wrote:
while the current title makes me think that you would spend time discussing the shows writing as well.


The fact that you would equate "the secret of [television series/film]'s success" with 'writing' just goes to show how much damage writers have done to the public perception of film and television as works of art.


Can you elaborate on this a little?
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danilo07



Joined: 25 Dec 2011
Posts: 1580
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:17 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
JacobYBM wrote:
bobob101 wrote:
while the current title makes me think that you would spend time discussing the shows writing as well.


The fact that you would equate "the secret of [television series/film]'s success" with 'writing' just goes to show how much damage writers have done to the public perception of film and television as works of art.


Can you elaborate on this a little?

Well I don't about the original poster but it is known fact that modern film/anime reviewers often ignore visual aspects of film/anime, which is weird considering we are discussing visual medium here. If the author here discussed the writing and barely mentioned animation, nobody would really care. That a success of a show is only measured by it's writing is very sad, and it creates a narrow definition of what constitutes film/anime. People have created this artificial hierarchy where by necessity the writing supersedes art, but in reality these elements can't really be divorced from each other.
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Wrangler



Joined: 11 Nov 2007
Posts: 1346
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:24 pm Reply with quote
I've read the manga and I've watched the anime as it's come out.

The effort and passion out into making both stand out. Not everyone going to get some of the cultural differences they show in One-Punch Man, especially from the west. Yet i get it, i think it's funny.

Anime can go so far with plot Manga has put out. There already signs its going some where else little different from the show.

I don't care, animation is on par with the art work done on the Manga. It's gorgeous, the show sucks the viewer in me in while other shows leave me cold. It's funny and amazing.

I'm glad ANN was able to write up a making of OP. I think were lucky these people came together and cared enough put so much effort into what can be seen a thankless/jaded audience. They deserve requisition for their work and passion for what they've done.

This show is example what got me into anime in the first place. Good idea, artists and writers and production people give a gave dang what they were doing. It comes out on top. Not because it's Mad House, though the corporate end of it has to give them money and the free reign to be able to make it.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:27 pm Reply with quote
danilo07 wrote:
Well I don't about the original poster but it is known fact that modern film/anime reviewers often ignore visual aspects of film/anime, which is weird considering we are discussing visual medium here. If the author here discussed the writing and barely mentioned animation, nobody would really care. That a success of a show is only measured by it's writing is very sad, and it creates a narrow definition of what constitutes film/anime. People have created this artificial hierarchy where by necessity the writing supersedes art, but in reality these elements can't really be divorced from each other.

I completely disagree. To put it simply: you can have a good story with really poor animation, and you can have really great animation surrounding a horrible story. That means that you can indeed divorce one from the other and analyze them separately.
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danilo07



Joined: 25 Dec 2011
Posts: 1580
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:54 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I completely disagree. To put it simply: you can have a good story with really poor animation, and you can have really animation surrounding a horrible story. That means that you can indeed divorce one from the other and analyze them separately.

I don't know, how would you treat abstract pieces of filmmaking then? Most of them really don't have any "story" per se, you could say that visuals are the actual story. Regardless, I meant it more in terms of providing emotional impact on viewer, not in terms of having an inability to judge the quality of these elements separately. Your emotional reaction is result of everything on the screen. It would be pretty hard for you to describe how much each individual aspect contributed to the creation of that emotion.
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JulieYBM



Joined: 07 Apr 2012
Posts: 209
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 1:23 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:


Can you elaborate on this a little?


Sure. I have problem with writing too much so I keep trying to be concise, but I can probably squeeze out something else.

What endears folks to One Punch Man as a work, whether it be the comic from Murata or the Natsume-led animated series, isn't the writing. Certainly, there's a good story under it all with Saitama becoming progressively less passionate about life, but the story is just that, a story. If what endeared us to film and television was but story we would all be satisfied reading summaries on Wikipedia.

One Punch Man the animated series--and television and films in general--is not a story. They are storytelling; vessels for the expression of ideas through means other than simple premise or translation of premise into dialogue.

Nobody is sitting through the final fight scene of Episode #1 by Kameda and Kugai and thinking "Boy, it's the wonderful writing that makes this fight scene so good!" The viewer may not even be conscious of it, but what they're really thinking is "this fight scene's directing and animation really communicates the story vividly!" The scene prior to Saitama's battle with the 'true earthlings' uses dialogue to set up the premise of the aforementioned battle: Saitama is looking for a fight that will get him feeling something again. The viewer knows the premise as plainly as they would if they had read it off of the back cover of a Blu-ray. The Saitama who burns with so much passion and feeling again isn't something Suzuki Tomohiro expressed through his dialogue or a simple scene description in his script; it's something Kameda Yoshimichi drew from his mind. This is what the viewer attributes to the success of that scene in their mind, even if they don't have the self-perspective skills to recognize that.

Which is where we come back to my original statement: writers [and certainly producers] have elevated writing above all other manners of expression in film to the point that any film that pays little mind to story is primitive. That's not to say if you cannot devise a 'good story' your film will still be good anyway, but story is never quite the sole object of one's enjoyment of a film. What the viewer enjoys is everything that comes after the premise. Conversely, acting has also become something of a problem in this respect where actors have to be the center of a project despite them being in no way the only artists who work on a film. A lead actor would probably balk at the idea of the center of a work’s mood being dictated not by their performance, but by a director, like in [url=http://imgur.com/a/u0gBd ]Yuu Yuu Hakusho Episode #68[/url].

One Punch Man is one of the best examples of a 'director-led' work. Natsume Shingo isn't a writer by trade; he's just an animator and more recently a director. He doesn't prioritize writing over any other aspect. As much as I absolutely love, love, love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for its writing and acting, the series fails as an overall work of television because that is all it focuses on. Writing is all its core staff understands because its core staff is merely a bunch of writers (and a former TV executive) who have now been promoted to running an entire production that requires roles and artists they've never had to train in or consider.

Natsume, as a director, has to pay mind to every aspect of filmmaking and for it is in a much better position to lead. Head writers in Japanese cartoons tend to be little more than team captains, overseeing the freelance writers they assign scripts to and making sure there is at least a workable script. They work closely with the director--who isn't a writer--and translate his ideas into a workable story and scripts. The director then translates those scripts into storyboards, effectively able to add or remove dialogue that hampers the effect of the other artists (sound effects, music, actors, animators or their own storyboard as a blueprint for cinematography).

Of course, not every director is a good director, either. Natsume's biggest failing is in how One Punch Man uses music. He and the sound director really ought to pay more attention to the use of silence, especially with how bland Miyazaki's score is. No music is better than the bland background guitars that plague this series’ dialogue scenes and battles.

I suspect the overreliance on writers in Hollywood productions is tied back to the early days of filmmaking. Just as there was once no ‘film actors’ or ‘television actors’ but theater actors suddenly working on film and television there were no ‘film directors’ or ‘film writers’ who could craft a story and film. The obvious choice of action to remedy this would be the hiring of outside talent, like authors of novels, to write screenplays. The 1966 television program Star Trek would court popular science fiction writers to develop stories and screenplays for the series, which I suspect is a consequence of having such a limited talent pool within the filmmaking industry proper. The two situations seem related in that respect, although in the case of the latter one can easily blame Gene Roddenberry for first and foremost thinking only as a writer himself, rather than a leader that has to cater and command the skills of the other creators working on the series.

I feel like I’m forgetting a few things I wanted to mention so I’m going to cut things off here.

So much for being concise.

Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:

I completely disagree. To put it simply: you can have a good story with really poor animation, and you can have really great animation surrounding a horrible story. That means that you can indeed divorce one from the other and analyze them separately.


This is the problem I was getting at: you are confusing a television series for a story. You can have a good story but that doesn't mean you have a good television series or film. Conversely, a good movie or television series can have a bad (or very weak) story. The Princess Bride has a weak, plain story. The story isn't what draws folks to it, though, it's the dialogue, the acting, the music, the sets, and the battles. Love Lab has a weak, plain story, too. You can take Love Lab and put it in the hands of a bad director and animator like Yamamuro Tadayoshi and get nowhere near the quality of television it is now.
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Saffire



Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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Location: Iowa, USA
PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 1:54 pm Reply with quote
JacobYBM wrote:
What endears folks to One Punch Man as a work, whether it be the comic from Murata or the Natsume-led animated series, isn't the writing. Certainly, there's a good story under it all with Saitama becoming progressively less passionate about life, but the story is just that, a story. If what endeared us to film and television was but story we would all be satisfied reading summaries on Wikipedia.
I...what? There's absolutely no way you can honestly consider reading a summary of a story to be equivalent to reading the story itself.
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