Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Did Anime Companies Start Including "Clean" Openings And Endings?
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Aca Vuksa
Posts: 643 Location: Nis, Serbia |
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That's fine, but can i give some answerman questions about the Japanese Imperial Era system and how does it works?
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4420 |
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I'll definitely agree that some of the recent titles I've purchased felt like they were off somehow when the back of the box didn't say it included clean OP/EDs. When I see that, it does make me wonder of the show did so poorly that it wasn't worth trying to get the clean sequences or going through the effort to include them. Then again, I bought those discs without paying any attention to that, so I suppose it's an example of how little it makes a difference on what I buy.
We've sort of seen that happen with commentaries too. Funimation has said before that the reason they include them is because a lot of shows don't have much in the way of bonus content to include, so they make their own to help it sell. But lately, it has become more common for titles not to have commentaries at all. Some of that is likely because booth time is better used to keep up with the sheer amount of simuldubs, but I suspect they also realized that extra features are nice, but aren't going to convince someone to buy a show they didn't otherwise want. Last edited by Greed1914 on Wed May 01, 2019 12:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Takkun4343
 Posts: 1498 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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I have no problem with the existence of clean openings.
What I do have a problem with, are clean openings of songs whose opening credits are an integral part of the experience. Samurai Champloo, Tatami Galaxy, To Love-Ru... openings like those. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I'd like to add that the "clean" openings and endings are by no means limited to the US or other "foreign" markets.
I own many examples of clean OPs/EDs on Japanese Laserdiscs. They certainly weren't on every disc, or even on most discs, but they do exist. Many normal LDs had various sorts of bonus content after the episode(s) if there was room left. They might contain commercials for the show, preview clips, music videos, advertisements for other products in the franchise, leica reels, and so on. I got the impression they thought to themselves: the disc holds 30 min on a side, and the ep is only 20 minutes, so let's stick whatever else we have on there. The fancy "collector's box sets" of shows very often had them. In some cases there's even a whole disc which is nothing but omake content. I quite often will get out a disc just to play a clean OP if it's a song I really like or if the animation is impressive, just like how people watch music videos of real-life musicians. |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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It seems like clean openings and endings would be at least a little bit useful for people who make AMVs.
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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I just assumed they were an easy extra to throw in to make the DVD/BD sound like it's more than just the show on a disc.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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And animated avatars. I tried making one the other day from the new ED of Gegege no Kitarou, but there was a credit exactly where I didn't want it to be. |
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1113 Location: Puget Sound |
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Seems Google should answer most any question you have. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3644 |
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I'm curious what the problem of having an clean opening/ending as an extra would be? Those three openings you mentioned don't seem to be any different than most others too (character shots, various location scenes, etc) from a generic perspective... |
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melmouth
Posts: 167 |
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The knowledge of the operation, history, and practices of the Japanese anime business and its Western importers that is to be found in this column makes it my favorite feature of ANN.
There's no-where else I could find it all so easily. |
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MoonPhase1
Posts: 492 |
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I’ve seen some older U.S. DVDs that had a Japanese Opening and Closing as an Extra rather than a Clean Open and Closing. Now ironically we will be lucky just to get English Credits at all. Viz Media hardly ever puts English Credits anymore like Sailor Moon doesn’t even have English Credits as an Extra much less in the episode. Sentai Filmworks has the English Credits scroller after each episode but usually only lists just a handful of people and definitely not everyone.
But I think that Extra of having the Japanese Opening and Closing Credits was more of so that you don’t be like Funimation in the old days of having the multiple Angle options on the disc. |
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Usagi-kun
 Posts: 877 Location: Nashville, TN |
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My guess is wrong, it seems. I knew it started in the overseas market, but I figured it became standard practice encouraged by AMVers and certain fansubs. However, clearly much further back, it seems.
Edit: A letter. |
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partially
Posts: 702 Location: Oz |
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I miss animeondvd, fandompost just isn't the same.
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Greboruri
Posts: 374 Location: QBN, NSW, Australia |
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This is odd as many of my Japanese laserdisc boxes do include clean opening and endings. The earliest one I have is the Dirty Pair box set which came out in 1993. That includes the clean opening and endings for the TV series as well as the clean closing for the OVA series. My Macross 7 box sets which out 1997 or 1998 (can't remember) also have clean opening and endings. Been a while since I watched them but pretty sure the extras on the obis of my Wedding Peach laserdisc boxes list clean opening and endings as does my Mospeada box.
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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That jives with my experience too, as I posted above. The list of Japanese titles which included clean OP/EDs is for their domestic releases is certainly not trivial. I have clean OP/ED on Irresponsible Captain Tylor, El-Hazard (OVA and TV), Tenchi Muyo (also OVA and TV), A variety of Gundam series, Vampire Princess Miyu Integral, Fushigi Yuugi, Nadia (clean 2nd opening is a personal favorite), Card Captor Sakura, and many more. I don't have any overlap with the titles you named so I think we can confidently say that this sort of thing was common on LD sets. Honestly, the more I think about it this is a very old idea, and I have a new theory which might help explain it. If you look at older music media like vinyl records or cassette tapes it was very common for there to be multiple versions of a song, or some kind of "bonus". For example, the 7" 45 rpm record "single" came out in 1949. The idea was to sell just one song--usually a big hit--for a lower price than a whole album. However despite the name "single" they didn't have just the main track, they also had the "B-side", which might be a different arrangement or edit of the same song, or it might be a different song. Many singles actually had 4 tracks (two each side), and very often 2 or 3 of those would be different versions of the same piece. The record was advertised for the main title track but since they had space they threw in some alternate versions. The exact same thing happened with cassette tapes--a cassette "single" often contained an alternate arrangement of the same song, and even on CD. How many of us have anime OST CDs that have the OP/ED songs in both their shorter edits as used in the show, and their full-length 'album' versions? Now, why was this uncommon on VHS then, only to make a comeback on LD, DVD, and beyond? I can think of two reasons: 1) commercially produced VHS tapes had varying lengths of tape inside. If you wanted to add content to a VHS cassette you had to pay for a longer length of tape inside it. Compare that to LDs, records, and cassette tapes where you automatically get a free "flipside" you can put content on without increasing the cost of producing the media. DVD and Blu-Ray have such a large capacity that it's no big deal to squeeze in more content either, especially something short like a clean OP or a music video. 2) VHS tapes are well suited for playing a program from beginning to end, like watching a movie from start-to-finish, but the lack of random access makes them a huge pain for anything else. With a vinyl record you can simply move the needle to whatever track you want to play; LD, DVD, and Blu-Ray all let you use your remote or onscreen menu to instantly seek whatever chapter or feature you want. I often do this to watch anime bonus content with LD, DVD, Blu-Ray, but I can't imagine doing it on VHS even if the content was there. It's just too much hassle to RW/FF to the spot you want. ...thus it seems cumbersome and costly to add bonus content to VHS, but it wasn't such a big deal for the other formats. Adding the clean OP/ED to an anime videodisc seems like the modern equivalent of slapping an alternate arrangement of a song on an old vinyl single. |
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