Forum - View topicAnswerman - The Virtue of Curiosity
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Tempest_Wing
Posts: 305 |
|
|||||
A Certain Scientific Index and Railgun also had shorts called Index-Tan and MMR Railgun where similarly the characters mess around or make references to other animes or shows, fortunately in those, there actually were some blooper-esque stuff added like the VAs singing and then laughing because they're shit at singing. |
||||||
|
||||||
invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2455 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
|
|||||
|
I don't think any kind of bloopers or other DVD bonus extra with voice actors will ever top the profound weirdness of the Club Escaflowne segments, where the VAs are served drinks by the voice actor for lead hero guy Van, decked out in hokey bartender regalia, who then chats them up for five minutes and mugs to the camera.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
|
|||||
|
I forget where it exists on the set, but Ah My Goddess had a bit where they editted and redubbed part of the anime to have a different goofier story than what it actually is. But I think "blooper" reels are less common on the Japanese versions because the Japanese are (for lack of a better way to say it) "more professional". You go in, you do your job to the best of your abilities and then you thank everyone and go home. So people don't "ad-lib" for fun and (no doubt partly because it is done in a group instead of individually) they probably get embarrassed if they mess up a take for everyone else.
Also, I think the "goofy" stuff is more on the production side, they just make "wink-&-a-nod" stuff like Lucky Channel so that we all are in on the joke. With the TIGHT production schedules, I'm sure they don't really WANT "goofing around" on a given show, unless it is ENTIRELY planned. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
kameoosama
Posts: 48 |
|
|||||
I do agree with him a bit though, except for the part where he bashes YA adaptations. The majority of the superhero films have had some substance lately. To go back to Iñárritu's food metaphor they're still hamburgers, but instead of fast food I'd put them more like a decent burger from a local place. I mean sure they're still action blockbusters, but there's always at least a character arc where the hero has their views or methods or ethics challenged alongside the usual bad guys to punch. Of course, not every big budget explosion-fest fares as well, and often the only difference between an action movie hero and an actual superhero is the lack of a flashy costume. If we broaden definitions like that then I think the picture gets a lot less rosy and Iñárritu's comments definitely start to make some sense. And of course, even expensive, well-made hamburgers will clog your arteries if you eat too many. This applies both to the movie industry's over-reliance on summer tentpoles because they also do well overseas in way a lot of classic hollywood staples don't, and to moviegoers who start to lose the ability to "read" any other kind of movie, and even start to miss the more interesting themes of the movies they do go to see. |
||||||
|
||||||
crosswithyou
 Posts: 2892 Location: California |
|
|||||
|
A note about why bloopers are not included on Japanese releases, the agencies the actors work for do not want the general public to see their actors making mistakes. From an audience POV, it might be funny but for the agency, it just looks unprofessional. That isn't to say that they never release any footage of seiyuu messing up, but it isn't as common as in the U.S., and you can bet that they choose the scenes very carefully.
As far as I know, Japanese voice actors are paid the same amount no matter how many lines they have. They could have just one line in an episode and they would be paid the same amount as if they had a hundred lines. If they had two roles in the series, they would be paid the same as if they had one. That said, I don't think it's really about higher end actors being paid more, but more because of the reason I stated above about the agency wanting to project professionalism and also the time they have in the recording studio. They're on the clock when they use a studio so if they had to stay longer to records extra stuff for on-disc bonuses, it would cost them more in studio rental fees. We might get to see footage of the seiyuu at work in the studio because that can be recorded as they are actually working, but it's not really worth it for the producers to go out of their way to pay more for studio rental fees just to put a few minutes of extras which may or may not have an affect on disc sales. EDIT: Didn't realize HeeroTX said something similar.
Actually ad-libs are quite common and sometimes encouraged by the director, but while the people around might not know exactly what the actor will say, to a point it is somewhat planned because, as you said, they don't want to mess up the take for everyone. I know Inoue Kazuhiko's performance of Nyanko Sensei in Natsume Yuujinchou was full of ad-libs, and sometimes what he said during the test run would be different than the actual recording take. Ono Daisuke's curry song from Minami-ke was also ad-libbed and something he came up on the spot, though no doubt he was given directions to make something up. I suppose ad-libs during Japanese recordings are different than those in English ones. I haven't seen or heard any on U.S. releases (not really interested in English VAs) but my impression is that they do them to basically fool around, and maybe to have something to add on as extras on the disc release. Japanese ad-libs are done in a manner where they still can and will use the take in the final product. Btw, you generally get to see and hear the ad-libs where they're consciously being silly and joking around at seiyuu events when they do live readings of scenes from a series. Ad-libs are actually pretty much expected during these event segments. (The ones at last week's Kuroshitsuji event were hilarious!) |
||||||
|
||||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||
|
I think I stand in contrast to most of the people here at Anime News Network in that I am more a fan of western animation than anime. But I like both, which is why I'm here.
As for movies, the reason I don't go to watch them much is because I don't feel like paying that much for movie tickets. I work in the morning, so I can't go to matinees, and the discount theater nearby has an odd schedule if you're even one week late, and there's no guarantee a movie will pop up there. I don't know if it's because I live so close to Hollywood and Burbank, but theater ticket prices here begin at $12 (some Regency Theaters and locally-owned joints) and go up to $22 (Pacific Theaters is like this). Why should I pay that much when I can just Redbox them? I watched about 15 movies over 2012 because of easy access to Redbox machines, but I'm a bit more apprehensive about Redbox rentals now, because of a couple of near-misses of returning the disc on time. (There was one time that I literally returned it at 8:59 PM.) Though mostly, I now just forget certain things come out on home video.
Kids can sense quality too though; they just like more things than an adult would. Sesame Street takes pains to find established directors, artists, animators, and writers in order to produce something good, for instance. The key to Sesame Street's enduring success is making sure it remains the highest quality program that teaches letters, numbers, and such. That other paragraph is a good point: Now that we've had shows like Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead, anime's novelty in the serial format is gone. Heck, you could say that it started at least as early as 24. And now you have western animation having higher levels of continuity too, most notably with Adventure Time and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I remember a time when, in The Simpsons, the Van Houtens split apart and remained divorced to the end of the episode and all subsequent episodes, and this was considered a new and shocking thing. They even mentioned it on the commentary that they wanted to do something jarring and unexpected. It annoys me whenever I see The Simpsons used as an example of a show that covets the status quo, when in fact it's a product of its age and was one of the first mainstream western animated series to attempt continuity. Remember that when The Simpsons was new, other western animation of its time included Tiny Toon Adventures, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the first series), and The Ren and Stimpy Show, shows that had either maximum-strength reset buttons or even negative continuity. Heck, the people behind The Angry Beavers got in trouble with Nickelodeon for inserting continuity into their show.
In addition to Adventure Time and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, you are seeing a gradual increase in continuity in western animation now, to where series like The Amazing World of Gumball stands out for NOT having any bonus for watching them all in order. Off the top of my head, other recent and/or current series that are either serial or serial-episodic hybrids include South Park (Season 5 and onwards, especially Season 18), Regular Show, Gravity Falls, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Littlest Pet Shop (2012), Thundercats (2011), Sym-Bionic Titan, Futurama, Rick and Morty, The Boondocks, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Book of Korra, Clarence, Over the Garden Wall, Steven Universe, Young Justice, Beware the Batman, and Wander Over Yonder. Granted, most of those have standalone episodes that can be viewed in any order, but they will frequently make references to previous episodes, or characters will undergo permanent development and other changes that stick with later episodes. I think the real obstacle to western animation and having no continuity prior was that channels would rerun episodes in random order. Now that TV can be easily streamed, and if not, then viewed on home video, even children can access episodes in order. In fact, most kids I encounter nowadays, when I ask about shows they watch, will invariably binge-watch shows online (whether anime or western entertainment). Hence, I think the networks and writing teams alike have caught on to this trend and are now rewarding attentive viewers who watch the episodes in order. That being said, we do have examples that predate the rise of Internet streaming though, but they were more the exception than the norm, and they tended to flop. Some of the shows I listed above flopped too, but they gained a larger cult following than The Pirates of Dark Water or post-revival ReBoot ever did. (Kim Possible seems to be the exception though.)
Heh, I always wondered if non-anime people had that sort of thoughts about anime, considering sexualized characters in western media tend to be at least look like they're in their 20s and up to their 50s, whereas Japanese media tends to skew young. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
gloverrandal
Posts: 406 Location: Oita |
|
|||||
Callbacks or references to past events isn't really the same thing as actual serial storytelling, though, or why people gravitate towards anime. Even the most continuity heavy show on that list, Avatar, is still extremely episodic to the point where the episodes that do flow into the next one are labeled as two-parters and usually only happen in the season finales. Instances where each episode overflows into the next and starts right where the last one left off is extremely rare, but in anime it can be common practice, especially in children's shows like shounen action where an entire arc could be one continuous string of dozens of episodes where battles and events are constantly flowing into one another and the narrative jumps between multiple characters. A comedy show like Futurama or the Simpsons which acknowledges a past event like Farnsworth making a clone of himself of Maude dying isn't really comparable to the kind of continuity and serial stories some people get into anime for. It's also unfortunate that Avatar is one of the only American cartoons in general that got a real ending. Thundercats, Sym-Bionic Titan, Young Justice, and most superhero shows end up abruptly cancelled with no ending. The benefit of anime is it's either made with a set episode count in mind, or it's based on a long-running popular manga so they can almost guarantee as many episodes as it takes. In general, American networks frown upon acknowledging a show ends or writing a show in a way that new comers can't watch every episode and get hooked. They like things to be accessible. Perhaps that's why every few years a new version of show comes out to wipe the slate clean for people, like a new Batman cartoon every few years rather than having just one definitive Batman cartoon Japanese networks seem to be the opposite, by the time one series is about to end they have the next one lined up and ready to go like a well oiled machine, and have no problem expecting people to go back and watch the first 600 episodes of One Piece or Detective Conan, and they still do well in the ratings over there. |
||||||
|
||||||
Knoepfchen
 Posts: 698 |
|
|||||
To be fair, the 90's already had Twin Peaks, Babylon 5, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer who did pretty great at serial storytelling and/or character development and probably had a huge influence on the evolution of quality TV since the 00's. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
kameoosama
Posts: 48 |
|
|||||
You're right, but there's definitely some western animation that keeps a mostly episodic setup but still have deep overarcing storylines going on at the same time. Adventure Time has done a wonderful job at this, and Steven Universe has several character arcs going on at once. Gravity falls also does this pretty well. Generally around season finales or midseason breaks all the chickens come home to roost (except for Adventure Time, which does this but also at this point seems to be having a serious revelation or character development like every 3rd episode, and then they pull something like "Jake the Brick" which wrings more meaning out of a silly throwaway episode than some shows have in major plot arcs. And that's not counting the time they gave Masaaki Yuasa more or less complete control for one episode. ) I don't have any illusions of any of these shows having proper endings, but that's what happens when you set up something to go indefinitely until the ratings disappear. Best you can hope for is that you get proper season finale that ties up most of the loose ends and gives you a more or less clean slate for the next season. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Animegomaniac
Posts: 4099 |
|
|||||
|
TV's "Let keep this going as long as we can" serial format is not even close to anime's classic "We got 26 episodes, let's tell a story" serial format. It's more like WSJ's long runners with a lot less creative oversight and an even more forgiving fanbase.
Not to say there haven't been near hits. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes came close in the first season undone by one producer who thought the idea of the serial show was wrong. Season 2? Stand alone episodes! Spectacular Spider-man: Near perfect balance between stand alone and serial stories killed by a network that just wanted to get rid of the show- for a new series with same character but comprised of simple stand alone episodes! There's a pattern here, I think. Honestly, it's a lot easier to schedule reruns when you don't have to worry about episode order. Also, they really had no respect for their audience. Live action serial TV? Too easily undone by aging actors and real life situations but Angel and Fringe came to closest to actually doing something with it. I've hated Game of Thrones right from the first season {and the book series since Feast for Crows} and I only made it through the first season of Walking Dead. Hey, guess where that story will go? People, zombies, locations... ha, wait. Vampires? Aliens? Come on, surprise me. Dragons. Ben Linus from Lost. Anything. Something. And this is from a fan of George Romero zombie films but he had brains, I mean, wit. |
||||||
|
||||||
Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
|
|||||
|
I think that one possible solution (albeit, admittedly, not an optimal one) to the digital distribution question is if the publishers (FUNi, Sentai and the likes) would offer the episodes for download - behind the Paid Subscription wall, of course) - encoded for a one-transfer only. As in from the hosting site to the client's device of choice (PC, portable media player, mobile), and any attempt to duplicate to move the file from it assigned location would fail.
Yes, I know that level for DRM is highly expensive to write, quite heavy addition to the file, and will probably more-often-then-not bait the hand of the legal users than those of the illegal ones. But, hey, at least there won't be those "why isn't it on MY favorite service?!?!?!?1111 *roar*" |
||||||
|
||||||
|
SilverTalon01
Posts: 2404 |
|
|||||
I'm pretty sure everyone already knew that. This has to do with price elasticity of demand and anime discs being relatively inelastic. Everyone knows they could put more on a disc and sell at a lower price, but they would have to sell enough additional copies to justify that which they found out won't happen. I think that they do use the space on the disc to use ridiculous bit rates. However, I honestly can't tell when watching... though it isn't like I own the same series on JP discs and a higher ep per disc count US release. The first prints do often come with some really cool stuff. Each Index BD (maybe DVD too?) has 1/8th of a novel with it that you can't get any other way. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
SheRrIs
|
|
|||||
It's really strange though. When you type サイコパス in Japanese Amazon one of the first results is Funimation's release. There is surely a demand for cheaper, 'bonusless' foreign releases. What would be interesting is to see how well they do in terms of sales over there. |
||||||
Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
|
|||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||
|
Cartoon Network aired its reruns in order until around 2011 or so, when it became random again, with the confusing exception of Courage the Cowardly Dog. Hence, Justice League/Unlimited was able to work, especially the Cadmus and Darkseid arcs, which were full serial.
As it stands, Discovery Kids is the only channel showing western animation that airs reruns in order, never random. Even then, with its more popular shows, it shows them at so many times of the day that it can appear to be random, as different times are at different points in the series. Airing reruns in random order has always been confusing to me, as it sounds like it's more work to produce less. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group