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Brian Hanson (Hey, Answerman) wrote:

(since nearly all anime shows record their dialog After... The Animationis done...

Nice... accidental link Wink

Brian wrote:

As a side note, I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of old cartoons. I can't watch an old Disney movie or a Looney Tunes cartoon without pointing out to my friends that Milt Kahl hated drawing that character, or that Ken Harris animated the entire thing, and stuff like that. If you ever want to have a conversation about which Bill Tytla scene is the best, I am that guy.

Folks at "Anipage Daily" would love to have you.

I would say my interest in anime lately has been waning, but it seems that's more due to the anime available now. OAVs of a single movie or a few episodes use to be the main influence in anime fandom, but now it's regular TV series of 13, 26 or more episodes. It's like comparing movies to TV. The stories in movies and OAVs are compressed and condensed, while the TV stories (and sometimes the animation) are watered down.

One might be an anime OAV fan without being much of an anime TV fan. Yet it's the TV shows that have lately been the primary anime available. So in a sense it's not so much that one has lost interest in anime as much as the anime one's intrested in not being as available.

on the dub and mouth movement thing... You should remember that VA's don't work in a vacuum. There is a director. Somebody who may make them go back and do a line 5 different ways before they will accept it. That is the person who essentially "buys off" on the final work. So? if that work sucks, you can lay the blame there first, and then on the VA's if they aren't up to the work.

On the unfortunate tendancy for female American VA's to sound like squeaky teenager's... I don't think it's that as much as differentiation. I recently rewatched VanDread, and I usually give a dub a chance even when I prefer subs... but the mostly female cast sounded so similar to each other, it was annoying. Some of that can be laid at the feet of the Voice Director. This is the difference usually between dub and sub to me, assuming the translations work. There are times when American VA's just don't sound enough different from each other. Having watched some backstory pieces with Wendy Lee or Kari Wahlgren in them, they have tremendous range. But it is the director that brings that forth.

People who say hikikomori isn't a real disease are like people who make fun of Asperger's. If you aren't being edgy on the Internet just because you want to be a jerk, you need to stop.

For visual novel releases, let's not forget MangaGamer. (some parts of the site are NSFW) They are European based, but their download only releases are available to U.S. customers. I haven't tried any myself (yet; I am interested in a few I just don't have the time or spare cash yet) but I hear the translations are at least acceptable. All of there titles are uncut as well, which is understandable as some of their titles are the kind for which you would have nothing left if you edited out the porn.

Anyone interested in visual novels should also check out Katawa Shoujo, which was mentioned before. A preview of the first act is now available and its completely free.

vashfanatic wrote:

Quote:

(Re: Adachi) Has the taste of today's youth drifted towards flashy art with shallow storytelling?

So am I the only person who thought the first episode of Cross Game was embodiment of "shallow storytelling"? Throw in a bunch of characters, don't bother really developing them, spoiler[kill one them off], then expect us to tune in next week? Maybe some of his other stuff was better, but I was completely unimpressed with how utterly bland it was. Maybe if it had been hyped less...

To be fair to Adachi though, the first episode of the anime covered the entire first volume of the manga (or so I hear). Perhaps your criticisms would still apply to the manga, but condensing 200+ pages into ~20 minutes sounds like a recipe for lost character development. I've heard that one very important element was lost, but it also sounds like they are using flashbacks to cover the material the first episode cut out.

Hentai_JP wrote:

Brian Hanson (Hey, Answerman) wrote:

(since nearly all anime shows record their dialog After... The Animationis done...

Nice... accidental link Wink

I noticed that as well. Nice indeed. I might have heard of this before but I never took note of it. Which is unfortunate, as it has Tony Taka character designs but all the torrents seem to be dead and there is no R1 release. Sad

HitokiriShadow wrote:

To be fair to Adachi though, the first episode of the anime covered the entire first volume of the manga (or so I hear). Perhaps your criticisms would still apply to the manga, but condensing 200+ pages into ~20 minutes sounds like a recipe for lost character development. I've heard that one very important element was lost, but it also sounds like they are using flashbacks to cover the material the first episode cut out.

That would actually explain a lot! It felt like an entire movie's worth of plot was crammed hastily into a single episode, which left me wondering what was worth coming back for a second episode. If it's spread out over a full volume of manga, that would actually be worth taking a look at. It seemed like it had the potential to be a very sweet series for older kids.

reanimator wrote:

Brian wrote:

As a side note, I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of old cartoons. I can't watch an old Disney movie or a Looney Tunes cartoon without pointing out to my friends that Milt Kahl hated drawing that character, or that Ken Harris animated the entire thing, and stuff like that. If you ever want to have a conversation about which Bill Tytla scene is the best, I am that guy.

Folks at "Anipage Daily" would love to have you.

I freakin' love anipages daily! but even with all my self-ascribed knowledge of cartoons, they are... scarily well-informed.

Being a hardcore Gundam fan, I've enjoyed pretty much every gundam series from the beginning, although I did force myself to watch G Gundam at first. This was mainly because of the super robot element, which I was not a huge fan of. The first five episodes introduced the characters, but I really had no idea if there was anything to the plot besides the point of the gundam tournament. Then episode 6 introduced some major plot points and it became interesting, but then the main plot kinda of took a back seat. What kept me mildly interested were the fights and the main character, Domon. Then the Japan arc came around and continued the main plot. The best parts of the series finally came around during the second half. It's here that all the pieces of the main plot come together, the character receive the best of their development, and IMO it contains some of the most emotional and moving scenes in the Gundam franchise. G Gundam is chessy and ridiculous at times, but if you stay with it long enough, you'll be treated to a surprisingly good anime.

On a side note, I also forced myself to watch Gundam Seed Destiny, but it was the opposite of G Gundam ( found Destiny interesting at first then dropped it) so technically this one doesn't count.

Shii wrote:

People who say hikikomori isn't a real disease are like people who make fun of Asperger's. If you aren't being edgy on the Internet just because you want to be a jerk, you need to stop.

Did they finally actually get it classed as such? Last I saw (about a year ago) some were trying to get it classed as a disorder, but hadn't managed to convince the powers that be in the medical world.

The general tendency in the West seems to be to see hikikomori as nothing more than our 40 yr old geeks living in mom's basement (as Kevin Smith played in the 4th Die Hard movie), but there does seem to be a real difference. I've been surprised they can't class it as a mental condition.

It is a recognised mental disorder in Japan. In the West it's known as acute social withdrawal. There are nearly three quarter of a million in Tokyo alone. (no pun intended)

Quote:

As much as visual novels and the anime thereof are completely uninteresting to me...

Wot, no Higurashi?

I've actually got a reply to Cynthia's final comment regarding Dante in Devil May Cry.

Ever since DMC3, the game that really kick-started the series' rise to fame after DMC2 totally flopped, Reuben Langdon's been voicing (and doing the mo-cap) for Dante. In my mind, at least, and hopefully in many others' minds (it is a popular series, so I doubt the fanbase is filled with as many voice actor-philes such as myself) Reuben MADE Dante the smartass bastard he is. The first game was infamous for its terrible acting, yet badass main character. The second was infamous for its badass main character now so focused on brooding we had thought Capcom had lost its touch. The third gave us the character we've seen from then on; it wasn't just a return to form, but almost a reboot.

The games have always used English acting even in Japan, so the anime was the first time we got a Japanese actor (Toshiyuki Morikawa) to voice Dante. To this day I think back and wonder why I watched the entire thing in Japanese; they were delivering it like a generic hardass role. Then I remember how impressed I was with Reuben's first foray into anime and how he totally knocked it out of the park, and totally made the series worth watching despite its many flaws.

If you haven't experienced DMC3 and 4 and are just walking into Devil May Cry's anime with no prior knowledge of the series, I can understand why you might think he doesn't fit the character; the anime's characterization of Dante isn't really similar to either 3 or 4's evolution of the character, but I guarantee that if you're familiar with the character on those two counts, you wouldn't be able to imagine anyone else delivering those lines.

Now that I think about it, I probably should've wrote in about Reuben. I've experienced the same sort of disconnect in the Street Fighter IV community; I've never paid much attention to Ken, and I don't use him, but every time he speaks in the game, I can't help but crack a smile hearing his magnificent work. Nobody else really seems to be commending the game's vocal talent though, and at that I am completely stumped.

I could go on about the rest of said casts and even otherwise, but I'll probably save further comment in the hopes that this kind of question pops up again.

One thing I do hope though, is that Patrick Seitz starts getting some more exposure. He's easily one of the most amusing people in the voice acting industry in my opinion, and I can't help but enjoy all of his work.

Last edited by ParagonDoD on Sat May 09, 2009 6:11 pm; edited 1 time in total

samuelp wrote:

Also, if I might be a bit crude here: What possible reason do you have for only importing the "clean" versions of games?
Do you realize why that market exists in Japan in the first place? It's not because of the engaging stories, let me tell you.
Sure, there are a number of great, non-ero games or games where the ero-content is secondary, but that's not what created the market in the first place.
So if you are talking about creating a similar market in the west for visual-novels, censoring out any ero-content or limiting yourself to "clean" ones is going to do nothing but doom you to failure.
Porn will sell. And if you are lucky, you can slip in a good story here and there. That's the winning strategy; not some sanitized white-washing of what the ero-game industry is.

Generally the best-selling and most well-liked visual novels are ether:

1) completely clean; or
2) have clean versions created for the console ports; and
3) have a great emphasis on the story (which is basically all the games are in the first place, is narrative) and very little on the pornographic aspects.

See: Clannad, Ever 17, Higurashi, Umineko, chaos;head, Fate/Stay Night, Tsukihime, Kanon,

Out of all the VNs I ever see discussed by western fans, only one has a strong emphasis on porn (Yume Miru Kusuri).

There's also the fact that people in general see animated porn as weird and creepy, so starting out with clean stuff would make it easier for people to dabble in.

Good show this week. I've especially liked that the forums have not erupted into a fireball of napalm tag, thanks to the guest from the past couple weeks.

@VN Licensure: This is probably one of the better "how does I get in industry" questions, probably because it is the most well thought out. Brian's sending out some good advice for presenting your idea to investors and other people you'll have to work with. I'd also recommend looking up other independent video game publishers who already work with the console makers and get some tips from them about what to do and most importantly, what not to do. I'd imagine localizing video games like this means you're essentially going to have octopus-like tentacle flow charts for business relationships and continuity.

Which actually flows into the "Professional of the Week" (as Amy seems to be no flake). I know the anime fandom attracts a lot of the aspiring artist types but I'd have to say that at the more general level, Amy's points 2, 3 and 4 are indispensable, especially for recent college/university graduates. I'd dare say that extracurricular reading lists relevant to either A - your degree/career path or B - the position for which you are applying is overlooked far too often. Internships and networking are a must for any career.

@Harem shows selling: Brian makes a great point about the target audience lapping up the product but I think there's one point about the bigger picture. When the harem boom really took off in a period between 1998 and 2003, they were about the only shows really profiting. During that time, Japan was still in its "Lost Decade" and while spending and economic growth were declining in practically all sectors of the economy, this population subset was able to still spend. Yes, harem shows appeal to a specific demographic but that demographic, through some sort of monetary witchcraft, was able to cough up large amounts of cash for expensive DVDs, plastic figures, comics, body pillows and every other bizarre product the Japanese could dream up when other otaku groups could not. Japanese animation is still a business and like any other business, they're going to go where the cash is.

@Burn-Out - I think it happens to most everyone; I know I feel like I've had several burn out periods over the past fifteen years. What's important is to either find something to still keep you interested or you just move on. A very close friend of mine from high school used to be into anime just as much as I was - we were officers in the anime club, went to the same cons, studied Japanese, etc. etc. - and about his second year of college he really just didn't like it anymore and he'd taken up his first love to a new level: video games. I had given up video gaming for my first love: anime. But when we would hang out, if the topic turned to video games, I could always talk about the business side or "nostalgic" games and usually a mention of something like Giant Robo or Macross: Do You Remember Love would bring a nostalgic smile to his face. Eh, kind of a rambling story but the moral is: it's okay to not like anime as much anymore and it's even okay to replace it with something else.

@AnswerFans - I'd thought about writing something but then tossed the idea away. I figured no one would want to hear me ramble on about Adachi Mitsuru. I'm glad that there were a couple of people who wrote in about his work and that he's getting a substantial buzz on the forums. I swear that Adachi is one of two mangaka that I will buy books solely on his name being on it.

Joshua wrote:

Is he being marketed to the wrong audience? (Perhaps he should be targeted towards seinen audiences rather than shounen, even though most of his stories deal with shounen themes. I se! e him as catering to the same audience as the ARIA / AQUA franchise... older males who want the nostalgia of youthful dreams and a relaxing journey with characters they care about.)

I'm not quite sure how you mean? Marketed towards the wrong audience here in the States? Maybe, a lot of Adachi fans I know personally are older but then again, I don't hang out with anyone who fits the shounen or shoujo demographic. I know those are the primary demographics he writes for in Japan and considering they are the larger demographics represented in North America, I think it's just an idea his stuff won't sell. But maybe you're on to something - I never recalled Short Program flying off the shelves; I've only read a chapter or two out of Animerica EXTRA!; when I was fourteen or fifteen I liked it but I went back and re-read them when I was twenty-one or twenty-two after getting my hands on the first digital subs of Touch and absolutely loved it.

Also, Kurumada Masami: I'm down with people liking Saint Seiya and I've heard nothing but good things about Ring ni Kakero but am I the only person who thinks that B'tX was developed by a re-re?

Brian wrote:

One of these days I will subject the masses to the original Japanese version of his animated Cleopatra epic,

Ironically, the night before this article was published, I stumbled upon a clip of the opening of Cleopatra... and I must say that I've not had quite a unique Japanese animation experience in quite a while. I believe I need to look up and see how much a DVD copy will run me.

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