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ANNCast - I Think We're Alone Now

Zac, may I suggest Ben Ettinger of Anipage Daily for another try? His opinion on anime isn't what you're looking for, but he has the eye for art that puts anime fans to shame. Come on, he analyzed Dir. Mamoru Hosoda's directorial style in 2004 on his blog. That's years before anyone else.

I consider him as Giorgio Vasari of Japanese animation because he introduced history of Japanese animation from biographical standing to us westerners.

When Daryl Surat starts to talk about Sakuga fans and Ichiro Itano, you can tell that he was influenced by the blog.

Yeah, the one area that this podcast has yet to really explore is the vast area of animation itself. There's an extreme wealth of discussion to be had about animation in multiple facets, and the show hasn't really gone there yet.

It depends what you consider good animation: Good choreography and cinematography, or a baseline of high frames-per-second? I've seen instances of that latter which don't impress because of how static and boring the shots were. Vice-versa; a show with not that big of a budget can make up for it with it's cinematography and choreography and push it above.

I wish I were one of those "sakuga" guys who can tell the key animator of a scene just by looking at it, but my eyes aren't quite there yet. (I'm working on it! I've been able to pick out Yoshihiko Umakoshi a couple of times!) It'd be awesome if Ettinger could come onto the show and tell us his secrets!

It depends what you consider good animation: Good choreography and cinematography, or a baseline of high frames-per-second? I've seen instances of that latter which don't impress because of how static and boring the shots were. Vice-versa; a show with not that big of a budget can make up for it with it's cinematography and choreography and push it above.

reanimator wrote:

When Daryl Surat starts to talk about Sakuga fans and Ichiro Itano, you can tell that he was influenced by the blog.

Bit of an aside, as the rest of my comment is largely unrelated to the topics of this ANNCast: although it's true that I do think Ben Ettinger is awesome for doing the kind of legwork that can only really be done if you can actually read Japanese, Ben tends to like a lot of things I don't care about for reasons I generally place little emphasis upon (and vice versa). His approach to watching things and writing about them is more or less alien to me, so while I do try to remember to read Anipages--his coverage of Masaaki Yuasa is particularly excellent--I don't think I'd say I'm "influenced" by his stuff.


Ichiro Itano is on my radar for two reasons. One, because I've been a Macross fan for...hmm, I guess it's "decades" now! Two, Itano has directed several of the legendary "bad" anime titles I happen to have a soft spot for, such as Angel Cop and Violence Jack, so when he makes something I generally have to look at it.

I don't really know the whole sakuga scene much other than noticing how lately, people get angry at me when I say Birth totally sucks. I figure it must be that more people know who Yoshinori Kanada is after having found out that Gurren Lagann/Panty and Stocking's Hiroyuki Imaishi named him as a big influence. Being into key animation requires a certain personality type that I don't really have. So I'll watch the Youtube compilations and read the writeups, but that's the extent of it for me.

Galap wrote:

Yeah, the one area that this podcast has yet to really explore is the vast area of animation itself. There's an extreme wealth of discussion to be had about animation in multiple facets, and the show hasn't really gone there yet.

Personally, I prefer that ANNCast stick to covering the anime and manga industry rather than turn into another critics' podcast. The latter are a dime a dozen while the former is critically scarce. RightStuf Anime Today was the only other podcast that covered the industry (mostly in the form of interviews with VAs) but it is defunct now.

DmonHiro wrote:

Oh for the love of GOD!!!! Just sit the hell down and watch Tiger & Bunny!!!! You want to know why you keep getting distracted? Easy? You like it, and you're afraid it's going to shit the bed, and you're going to get disappointed. Well, it's not. Lunatic has a back story you're not going to guess. Anyway, if you drop it, it's your loss. I'll see you in 2 years when you say "Damn, why didn't I watch this earlier?!", like you did with Redline.

Well, at least you're being totally reasonable about it.

Yep, s'why I like Alfred Hitchcock films. The guy didn't need modern production tech to do what he did.

More recently, a show that combined good animation, choreography, cinematography, fps, etc. is The Legend of Korra. Particularly impressive for an action show for not cutting much corners.

enurtsol wrote:

Yep, s'why I like Alfred Hitchcock films. The guy didn't need modern production tech to do what he did. More recently, a show that combined good animation, choreography, cinematography, fps, etc. is The Legend of Korra. Particularly impressive for an action show for not cutting much corners.

The Avatar series is always an example I see people use as an example of good framerate but terrible cinematography and choreography, and I would be hard pressed to disagree with them.

The simplest way to keep Japanese releases from having to compete against American releases, is to jack up the American price. I know some people will bitch and moan, but who really cares? If a show is good I will happily dump $200 on it once I have the money. If I don't like a show I simply don't want to dump my money on it at all.

The simplest way to keep Japanese releases from having to compete against American releases, is to jack up the American price. I know some people will bitch and moan, but who really cares? If a show is good I will happily dump $200 on it once I have the money. If I don't like a show I simply don't want to dump my money on it at all.

The simplest way to keep Japanese releases from having to compete against American releases, is to jack up the American price. I know some people will bitch and moan, but who really cares? If a show is good I will happily dump $200 on it once I have the money. If I don't like a show I simply don't want to dump my money on it at all.

If a show is good I will happily dump $200 on it once I have the money. If I don't like a show I simply don't want to dump my money on it at all.