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Hey, Answerman! - For Anime's Sake


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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15298
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 4:42 am Reply with quote
Well, if we're really that close to where OP is at in Japan, I can sort of understand its lower ranking. It seems to be falling victim to other shonen manga I liked[*cough* Claymore and Kurohime *cough*], which is that the manga-ka starts believing his/her own hype and makes his/her title more serious[read: epic] than it needs to be, rather than keeping it within the confines of its world. So they move it in a direction no one needed or wanted, and it ends up dragging more than usual as a result.

As for OP being canceled, well that isn't impossible. Look at Shaman King. Sure, OP is > SK, but even hit-makers can be the victims of their own success. After all, Avatar and Tim Burton's Alice have actually convinced people that they don't really like 3D, because it's not actually delivering on the "next level" hype they were expecting, and it's just a giant cash-grab. Likewise, OP might be raising readers' expectations in a way which Oda can't deliver.
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shamisen the great



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 658
Location: Oregon, USA
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 5:31 am Reply with quote
To the person who said he didn't plan on see Toy Story 3 because it was a "kids" movie, you're missing out. I'm 29 and enjoyed the movie immensely and am not too proud to say I was crying by the end. I think you're doing it a disservice by writing it off as just a kids movie. Sorry for the off topic rant.

Also, all I need for the summer movie season to be considered a success is Scott Pilgrim vs the World
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RainbowCookie



Joined: 03 Dec 2008
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:01 am Reply with quote
Issue #35
Sket Dance (Lead Color)
Toriko (Cover)
Naruto
Nurarihyon no Mago
One Piece
etc.

I'd hardly say that OP is doing bad. Yes, it's not in it's usual #1 spot but it's still in TOP 5 out of 21.
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ninjaclown



Joined: 17 Dec 2008
Posts: 199
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:45 am Reply with quote
No offense to that guy who said he wasn't going to see Toy Story 3, but he's an idiot. If he bothered giving it a chance, he would see it was written for people who grew up watching the first 2 movies.
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The King of Harts



Joined: 05 May 2009
Posts: 6712
Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:07 am Reply with quote
Answerman wrote:
To the meat of this whole deal, though - Cartoon Network still acquires anime because, honestly, they do like it. It helps to diversify their lineup, sure, and there's still the hope that perhaps one of their anime acquisitions could reach the stratospheric ratings highs of InuYasha or Naruto or whatever.

If they wanted stratospheric ratings, why don't they have Dragon Ball Kai or Shippuden, two shows based off other shows that did phenomenal for them? If they want to diversify their line-up with anime, why is that the only three anime shows they have are nearly identical in that they're soley merchandise pushers (Pokemon, Yugi-oh, Bakugan)?

I'm not the kind of guy that's mad at CN for not airing anime, but don't try telling us that they do like it. No they don't, because it doesn't make them a lot of money, and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

Now, Adult Swim likes anime since they've taken chances on all kinds of shows in the past (Moribito, Code Geass, and Kekkaishi are all different kinds of shows), but, unfortunately, they keep getting burned. However, that doesn't deter them from still picking up anime. Personally, I think AS gets way more crap than it should since they're the only ones willing to branch away from top tier shounen/kids merchandising shows.
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Vent



Joined: 22 Aug 2009
Posts: 318
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:21 am Reply with quote
GATSU wrote:
Well, if we're really that close to where OP is at in Japan, I can sort of understand its lower ranking. It seems to be falling victim to other shonen manga I liked[*cough* Claymore and Kurohime *cough*], which is that the manga-ka starts believing his/her own hype and makes his/her title more serious[read: epic] than it needs to be, rather than keeping it within the confines of its world. So they move it in a direction no one needed or wanted, and it ends up dragging more than usual as a result.

As for OP being canceled, well that isn't impossible. Look at Shaman King. Sure, OP is > SK, but even hit-makers can be the victims of their own success. After all, Avatar and Tim Burton's Alice have actually convinced people that they don't really like 3D, because it's not actually delivering on the "next level" hype they were expecting, and it's just a giant cash-grab. Likewise, OP might be raising readers' expectations in a way which Oda can't deliver.


That's an immensely silly leap of logic and the whole 3D movie comparison has nothing to do with anything!

Shaman King didn't make a fraction of the money OP does right now at its peak, so that's another weak comparison.

And the whole thing is just a massive overreaction. OH NO ONE PIECE IS SLIGHTLY LESS POPULAR BECAUSE OF AN ARBITRARY POLL IT IS DOOMED
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RestLessone



Joined: 02 Aug 2009
Posts: 1426
Location: New York
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:32 am Reply with quote
shamisen the great wrote:
To the person who said he didn't plan on see Toy Story 3 because it was a "kids" movie, you're missing out. I'm 29 and enjoyed the movie immensely and am not too proud to say I was crying by the end. I think you're doing it a disservice by writing it off as just a kids movie.

Agreed. And I was crying at the end, too. I honestly was surprised at how dark and emotional it was, but I'm really happy about it. Besides, adults go to see G/PG animated films all the time (especially when it's Pixar). They can be awesome as long as the crew knows they're making something for everyone, not just kiddie fodder.

I doubt One Piece will be ending anytime soon. It's really big now, despite the poll, and has raked in sales better than its Mag-Mates.

As for treating manga or anime like a piece of art/literature/etc...I'm not above that. Some series are supposed to be fun, and that's alright. But no one should try and act like like they have some huge literary value, with twists and turns and everything else. Something can be fun with endearing characters. For other series, you can tell they are deep and on par with several novels: it's great, and one can analyze it. Then...Then there are the series that try to be deep, but everyone except the die-hard fans says it's not and is failing because of it. Some authors just can't make it work like a novel, but keep trying to, and the story ends up reeking of "LOOK IT HOW MATURE AND AWESOME THIS IS JUST LIKE A NOVEL". Personally, I'm one for manga with some well-executed literary value.
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neocloud9



Joined: 06 Oct 2008
Posts: 1178
Location: Atlanta, GA
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:44 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Remember when Adult Swim aired the second season of Big O at 11pm on Sunday nights? No? That's right - because nobody freakin' watched it. (The "quality" of Big O II notwithstanding.)


Yeah, I didn't like it either. The original series was awesome, though.
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ljaesch



Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 299
Location: Enumclaw, WA
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:45 am Reply with quote
Brian, I feel for you in regards to the Flake of the Week.

I've mentioned in the forums before that I write about anime at a different website. I got an e-mail kind of like that one the other week. However, the e-mail I got was at least written more coherently, and the person was asking my permission to post Bakugan Battle Brawlers AMVs they have made onto YouTube.

I wrote them a polite response back, explaining that I couldn't give them those rights, because I'm not a rights holder. I provided names and websites for the rights holders and said there should be e-mail addresses at those sites they could use to contact and ask permission.

I got another e-mail back, saying they had already contacted those companies, but they hadn't heard anything back, so they were trying to find some other way to gain permission to post on YouTube.

*facepalm*
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angieness



Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 162
Location: Columbus, OH
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:56 am Reply with quote
I'm surprised to see someone on an anime website saying they're too old for Toy Story 3. After all the years of us anime fans having to tell people adults can watch animation too. You're never too old for animation if it's good.
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MarthaC



Joined: 20 May 2006
Posts: 35
Location: U.S.A.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 11:57 am Reply with quote
To me it makes no difference what time AS airs anime- my DVR is ready to go any time, any where.
But, I just don't understand what they are trying to do here. No real ads. The anime is only in the wee hours of Sunday and kids anime at that! SyFy is currently showing tougher stuff for sure, much more adult than Adult Swim!
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:12 pm Reply with quote
Brian wrote:
Of course they should be considered and analyzed. They invite it.

As somebody untrained in your field of expertise, might I inquire into the formal conditions a work must meet for it to be appropriate for analysis? The examples you cite — examples in which creative directorial skills are applied in ways that cannot be fully comprehended immediately — intuitively meet such a condition, although your outlining of their merits does not alone suffice for a criterion of appropriateness to be inferred without vagueness.

Quote:
It's impossible for any rational human being to look at those and simply walk away with little more to say than either "it's good" or "it sucked."

I am averse to the notion that commonplace rationality, whatsoever it actually is, demands of the viewer the undertaking of some sort of cognitive enterprise when engaging in anime. Far from it: since anime are primarily works of entertainment, something you yourself admit, it seems uncontroversial that a person could watch an anime, partake in no analysis of its content, and then summarise their passive reaction to it in a trite phrase, all without having failed to do anything expected of them. This is because no deliberate action is expected at all: to be entertained, within this context, is to be engaged in a passive state and not necassarily a motivational one. (If an anime was intended to be an argument or an intellectual puzzle however, this would obviously not apply, though we both agree that anime is not primarily intended to be such.)

Of course, scholarly analysis is nonetheless quite evidently possible, but to echo your words, such analysis would be merely icing on the cake. By being entertained, the viewer does everything hoped of them.

The matter of whether such analysis is "deserved" presumably rests upon whether the work in question meets the conditions I earlier asked about — conditions which, whatever they are, are separate from the issue of whether a work entertains.
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Kirlios



Joined: 19 Jul 2010
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:12 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
If they wanted stratospheric ratings, why don't they have Dragon Ball Kai or Shippuden, two shows based off other shows that did phenomenal for them?

Well, Disney XD has Shippuden, and 4Kids has Dragon Ball Kai. Maybe CN was just too slow/low on money to snatch up those two? Considering that they already had Naruto, which was incredibly successful, there must have been a really good reason why they didn't get Shippuden.
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LagannImpact



Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 574
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:06 pm Reply with quote
neocloud9 wrote:
Quote:
Remember when Adult Swim aired the second season of Big O at 11pm on Sunday nights? No? That's right - because nobody freakin' watched it. (The "quality" of Big O II notwithstanding.)


Yeah, I didn't like it either. The original series was awesome, though.


Wait, what?? Did I miss something here? The 2nd season of The Big O did over 800k in the ratings, if I remember correctly. Compare that with languishing older episodes of Family Guy which got their butts kicked by Boondocks premieres and you've got a "huh?" reaction going. And don't even get me started on the Squidbillies. Like #3 and 615k on a Sunday night is ratings success. But then again, you've gotta call a spade a spade, and regardless of their insistence that Boondocks is an [as] "original", it's actually their most successful non-Fox acquisition ever.

It really makes me wonder how well Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Kekkaishi would have done on Sunday nights this summer instead of, or perhaps in addition to, Saturday nights. Boondocks -> FMA:B -> Kekkaishi -> Venture Brothers would have made for a nice mixed action/comedy progression. Problem is what to do with the [as] premieres? 2 words: MONDAY NIGHT. Bet the anime premieres would have outdone the comedy premieres following Boondocks, at least in the 700-800k range that Big O II was getting back in the day.

And I disagree about the negativity toward the quality of the second season. Big O II was a completely awesome mindscrew that is unparalleled in modern anime. Big O I? A bit of a Batman ripoff! spoiler[The question is, however, did Roger Smith do something "wrong" with the conclusion of Season 2 that he would have done "right" in season 3? I guess we'll never know...]
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LagannImpact



Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 574
PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:13 pm Reply with quote
MarthaC wrote:
To me it makes no difference what time AS airs anime- my DVR is ready to go any time, any where.
But, I just don't understand what they are trying to do here. No real ads. The anime is only in the wee hours of Sunday and kids anime at that! SyFy is currently showing tougher stuff for sure, much more adult than Adult Swim!


I agree with this. Requiem from the Darkness may be 7 years old, with the dub 3 years old, but it IS in fact a United States Cable TV Premiere. The dub got shown in Canada 3 years ago, but NEVER in the lower 48. And it is much more mature than Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, with adult themes that make Brotherhood's childish by comparison. Maybe [as] should have gotten something really extreme for the 12:30 a.m. Saturday timeslot instead of Kekkaishi, which is really cool, but I'll admit not as "mature" as RftD, or even Gundam 00, for that matter.
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