Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Don't DVDs Contain Japanese Commentary Tracks Anymore?
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jymmy
 Posts: 1244 |
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I think whether they hold much interest really depends on the viewer and particular commentary. You can't say in general they're interesting or worthless, more than you can generalise pretty much anything. It depends on what the work is, who's speaking, whether you're interested in them or the work personally and obviously the quality of the insights shared or entertainment value, which varies a lot.
I've recently started checking out audio commentaries of some of my favourite shows. When I got the first Kill la Kill Blu-ray in 2014, I tried listening to the commentary track and noped out pretty quickly as my Japanese was not at that level yet, though I could watch the show itself fine. I checked it out earlier this year and could follow it much better... but it wasn't particularly interesting. There were some interesting details about the production sprinkled through, but the commentary itself wasn't that entertaining, and I didn't watch past disc 1. When I rewatched Tesagure! Bukatsumono season 3, I watched with the commentaries (well, the Tesaguri-bu ones) as well afterwards and had a much better time, partly because the show itself largely comprises improvisational voice-over entertainment, and the voice actors essentially had even more freedom and less structure than the show itself to crack jokes, tell bizarre, rambling and gross personal stories, be probably too honest about their experiences working on the show and make stupid noises into the microphone. Very good fun. I've watched all the PriPara episodes with commentaries (two per BD box, but only seasons one and two) along with the third movie and translated the one in the first episode. There were more than twice as many lines in the commentary as the episode itself (though I only reworked an existing translation): the episode was 362 lines and the commentary was 754. I'm quite sad they've stopped including them in season 3 and the fourth movie's Blu-ray, since they're very enjoyable. The TV episodes have the members of idol unit i☆Ris, who play the six main characters, and they're very good at delivering commentary and have a great rapport amongst themselves as well. The movie commentary had the director, deputy director, scriptwriter and leader of i☆Ris and was quite breezy as well but more informative, which made for an interesting change. The Monogatari series ones are a bit of an oddity, being fantastically entertaining and scripted commentaries delivered by the actors as the characters, and often better than the episodes themselves, particularly the more creative ones. Some of my favourites are Bake episode 15 (where Hanekawa goes slightly against her usual personality interacting with the episode's surprise guest) Hachikuji and Shinobu's episodes in Nise (with Hachikuji making some truly incredible puns on the word "loli" to Shinobu's increasing frustration), Koi episode 1 (with Ougi trolling Hanekawa relentlessly) and pretty much any time Tsukihi is hilariously awful to Nadeko, like casually admitting she doesn't really like her, referring to her as trash to her face or in the "reverse commentary" to Nise episode 1 when she forces her to give an embarrassing self-introduction, reassures her that she'll do the same, doesn't, and when Nadeko is upset that she didn't follow through on her word, says that Nadeko's a horrible person and a bad friend for trying to make her do something so embarrassing. It's as brutal as it is hilarious. |
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SailorPluto1313
Posts: 118 |
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I loved the commentary for Hakkenden! It was super entertaining 
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DmonHiro
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Lack of interest from almost everyone involved.
Costs money to license and translate and only very few buyers are interest or will ever listen to them. Hell, they hardly even get PIRATED. There is one exception to this: in character commentary tracks. I LOVE those. Monogatari has great ones. |
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TasteyCookie
 Posts: 421 |
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The Bakemonogatari one is by far the best commentary track I've ever heard. It's a damn shame they didn't include the later ones as it was a highlight of watching the first season again. Those types of scripted character banter would actually be fun in other series as well.
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db999
Posts: 299 |
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I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but Funimation's Blu Ray release of Code Geass and R2 have Japanese audio commentary tracks, and Full Metal Alchemist The Conqueror of Shamballa Blu Ray has two Japanese audio commentaries.
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5526 |
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I would love for this with stuff from people that actually MADE the anime, not actors. I prefer regular interviews, though, rather than commentary tracks. Also got a warning that this article is 5 months old, but it was on the top of the promoted stories on the right side of my screen so w/e,
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11339 |
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Why was this column resurrected from last year? oO
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NJ_
 Posts: 3009 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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IIRC, it was because of clearance issues with one of the seiyuu's talent agency.
The Shamballa commentaries were carried over from their 2006 Special Edition DVD and as for Code Geass, they did get what Bandai's DVDs had but not ALL of them. The FUNi release is missing episode 25's commentary from season 1 (which was on the Bandai DVD) along with certain other Japanese extras, some which Bandai had and others which were exclusive for the Japanese 5.1 Blu-ray boxes. |
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reanimator
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I was surprised by that too. It's a somewhat dated thread, but it doesn't hurt to revisit. About possibility of having regular interviews included in recent anime discs, I don't put high hopes on it. Casual fans don't care about interviews and commentaries. It's pretty much the hardcore fans will pay more for extras. (Slightly off subject: I'm seeing Cowboy Bebop limited anniversary edition Blu Ray advertisement on the web page... is it just me or is ANN testing the water on how popular behind-the-scene extras are as interviews and commentaries are usually associated with collectors box set.... FYI, I've already seen pretty much all of the graphic arts used in this new collector's box sets from various anime magazines and books. It's amusing to see how local publishers are trying to catering to collectors.) Last edited by reanimator on Thu May 03, 2018 10:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1817 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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Anyone who still buys anime on disc probably doesn't count as casual, though. |
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reanimator
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You're right. I'm using casual too lightly...I think it's the old school fan or hardcore fans who still buy anime discs. Collector mentality is so different between western collectors and Japanese collectors. If I'm not mistaken, western fans are about amassing a large library regardless of bonus materials while Japanese fans are treasuring a particular show(s) by paying extra for bonus materials and fit their limited space. |
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jdnation
Posts: 1995 |
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I think an ideal feature is if the English localization branches, go to Japan and interview the director and staff themselves about every/most scenes and learn interesting stuff, then come back and do the commentary themselves providing us only the most interesting details, whether form the director or actors or technical people. This would be compelling and satisfy most fans wanting to know about some of the interesting techniques or anecdotes behind the scenes.
This is of course more work, but would make for a better commentary track, and I think it'd be a good idea for the few major releases, particularly event movies, that come out. |
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