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Hey, Answerman! [2009-12-18]

It's not just as easy to have a male do the voice of an effeminate male. One excuse I've heard is there are way more female VA's out there. If the acting slides into romantic scenes surely it's easier for a male/female team to pull it off than 2 guys, although yaoi often employs male actors for such roles because that's what the audience usually wants. Yeah, there's the unfortunate times when the actress doesn't even try to sound masculine that reek, but the ones that work are good. It's really a matter of voice tone. If the character can pass for a chick in looks, particularly if gender confusion is part of the role, casting a guy doesn't always work. spoiler[In Fushigi Yugi Nuriko is a crossdresser & the revelation he's a guy is a surprise]. This wouldn't work as well with a male VA.

ikillchicken wrote:

Charred Knight wrote: You do know that Rurouni Kenshin (or what you call Samurai X) is a shonen series right? It's not seinen. Nobody would deny that the Rurouni Kenshin TV series is a shonen series. However, I think it's pretty clear upon watching Samurai X (the North American name for the Kenshin OVA) that it is intended for more of a seinen audience.

I think it's somewhat difficult to talk about 'intent' when getting into demographics. Most people would probably think that Death Note was aimed at adults, and yet it too was published in Shounen Jump. It's also not as easy to put anime into demographics as it is manga. Whereas a manga could be said 'it's published in x magazine so it's shounen/seinen' for anime, and especially an OVA specific to a series, it's much safer to say 'it's aimed at fans of the series.'

That said, I think it's accurate to say that Tsuiokuhen (or Samurai X) would be for an older audience, becasue by the time it came out, most of the kids who had seen/read kenshin when it was airing/being published would have been in their late teens/early twenties.

I was unimpressed with Read or Die.
It's called acting. An actor can't portray a 90 yr old unless s/he's 90? Can't portray a homosexual unless the actor is homosexual? My daughter can do an incredible baby cry & she's well past that age

Wow more Steven Foster complaints? Will that ever die will it ? Look the guy has directed some truly amazing dubs,

IMO when I look at the Rurouni Kenshin franchise (i.e manga, tv series, ova) it always seem like it skewed towards the younger Japanese audience with the OVA as something made for fans the grew up with the manga.

Does the average person really think reflections is a better ending than the original manga ending? A lof of times people confuse people dying with art. Samurai X does, Code Geass does, as did pretty much a ton of OVAs in the 80's did as well.

Which reminds me, you want Seinan theirs a ton of them released in the 80's and early 90's like Mad Bull 34, Angel Cop (the one that has the evil jews running the USA trying to destroy Japan for no apparent reason), and M.D Geist.

Oh come on. That's such a blatantly flawed comparison. Clearly every genre has plenty of examples of failures. It's much more meaningful to look at the successes. Also from that era there was Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Ninja Scroll. Show me a shonen series nearly as good as those. I this is why I too would love to see more seinen and less shonen. In my experience the latter is on average not nearly as good.

21stcenturydigitalboy wrote:

ikillchicken wrote: Charred Knight wrote: You do know that Rurouni Kenshin (or what you call Samurai X) is a shonen series right? It's not seinen. Nobody would deny that the Rurouni Kenshin TV series is a shonen series. However, I think it's pretty clear upon watching Samurai X (the North American name for the Kenshin OVA) that it is intended for more of a seinen audience. I think it's somewhat difficult to talk about 'intent' when getting into demographics. Most people would probably think that Death Note was aimed at adults, and yet it too was published in Shounen Jump. It's also not as easy to put anime into demographics as it is manga. Whereas a manga could be said 'it's published in x magazine so it's shounen/seinen' for anime, and especially an OVA specific to a series, it's much safer to say 'it's aimed at fans of the series.' That said, I think it's accurate to say that Tsuiokuhen (or Samurai X) would be for an older audience, becasue by the time it came out, most of the kids who had seen/read kenshin when it was airing/being published would have been in their late teens/early twenties.

But here's the thing does that automatically make it a better series?

Does the average person really think reflections is a better ending than the original manga ending? A lof of times people confuse people dying with art. Samurai X does, Code Geass does, as did pretty much a ton of OVAs in the 80's did as well.

Which reminds me, you want Seinan theirs a ton of them released in the 80's and early 90's like Mad Bull 34, Angel Cop (the one that has the evil jews running the USA trying to destroy Japan for no apparent reason), and M.D Geist.

Right off the top of my head

Rurouni Kenshin, GTO, Negima, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, Dragonball, Soul Eater, and Slam Dunk.

I entirely agree, while he was way to liberal at first, I have to agree his newer dubs were fantastic. He made me prefer the English track for Red Garden which I thought would be impossible since I was in love with the Japanese voices. The way he brings out the natural yet raw and powerful voices from the actors really makes me enjoy his titles. He did an impressive job for Le Chevalier as well, he really knows how to cast.

Charred Knight wrote:

Right off the top of my head Rurouni Kenshin, GTO, Negima, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, Dragonball, Soul Eater, and Slam Dunk.

Okay, I already addressed Kenshin. FMA is probably the pinnacle of shonen and I'd agree it's a good series (although I wouldn't say it's better than those others I mentioned). It's more the exception rather than the rule though in any case and as I said, I'm talking about which group is generally superior. As for the rest...well look man. It's pretty evident we have vastly differing opinions as to what constitutes a good series. (I mean Negima? Seriously? The others are maybe decent but Negima?) I really don't agree that any of these titles can be said to be superior to the ones I mentioned and that's just a couple titles from the specific time frame we were talking about. Anyway, unfortunately there's no real way of really debating this issue much further without spiraling into dozens of separate discussions about dozens of different series. So I guess we'll just have to disagree. If you think I'm wrong about seinen generally being better then by all means disagree with the notion that it would be good to see more of it made. There really isn't much more to say though.

This might be a very unpopular opinion but I certainly wouldn't want Disney or even Pixar influencing Studio Ghibli.

The problem I have is when women play older male characters... we have Yuki Souma in Fruits Basket.

So your agreeing to disagree yet still trying to force someone to agree with your point

Ryo Hazuki wrote:

This might be a very unpopular opinion but I certainly wouldn't want Disney or even Pixar influencing Studio Ghibli.

Agreed. I don't know where the concept comes from that Westernizing anime is a good thing other than a sort of cultural imperialism, wanting to influence and take credit for animation made outside the U.S. If you put these two studios together, you'll get Ghibli watered down to political correctness and the standard Disney formula. Every time I've read scholarly works contemplating the appeal of anime outside Japan, that author concluded in one way or another that it was "because of the Japanese story elements". Every time I read or listen to accounts from early fans, I hear the same thing. From the little I've read about it, a big part of Gonzo's demise was their attempt to directly appeal to Western audiences. As soon as they dropped that and did Strike Witches, they had their biggest seller in history.

I'm not a purist of some sort, just also was attracted to anime because it isn't telling the same old Western stories with the same plots and moral beliefs and tropes since Ovid. The Japanese combination of animism and Eastern religion, their social and cultural traditions, plus their own library of history and myth, and often layered with the U.S. occupation and cultural import influence, provides a new and unique entertainment experience. I love it when they thumb their noses at Western beliefs and current social strictures. Nobue smoking in Strawberry Marshmallow is a key character trait, but would never be allowed in a U.S.-financed show, period, because of pure politics, damn the art. Don't even mention xxxHolic, which was politically vilified on this very site in the first review. Believe me, the end of my anime career will come when Hollywood begins writing its stories.

A lof of times people confuse people dying with art. Samurai X does, Code Geass does, as did pretty much a ton of OVAs in the 80's did as well.