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ANNCast - The League of Extraordinary Supernerds


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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 3:32 am Reply with quote
I don't want to alarm you guys but I think Mike Toole may have been replaced by Soundwave from Transformers.

I agree with Justin. Public execution's are the answer...as they always are.

Yeah, where the hell has Watanabe gone? It's seriously pathetic if he's out there looking for work and not getting any offers. That's just fucked up.
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tuxedocat



Joined: 14 Dec 2009
Posts: 2183
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 3:44 am Reply with quote
I think that piracy (in all its forms) will exist as long as the Internet remains "free". It all comes from the idea of net neutrality, a completely free internet, where all information in whatever from can be "freely" dispersed anywhere, anytime.

The latest insider buzz is as the internet grows, this artificial, inflated concept of freedom is creating a bubble which will ultimately burst. Bandwidth usage is outgrowing capacity, and capitalism exists. period. (even in the few remaining socialist countries). When Net-Neutrality falls, so will much of the piracy. Suddenly, it will cost too much to download the files, since your friendly ISP will be monitoring usage and charging accordingly. They will call it a "tiered billing system". Your invoice will become very complicated, and will probably contain a list of the sites you visited and probably the size of the files you downloaded from them, ...along with your mandatory "rights-to-privacy" statement. My guess is the DVD box set price will not seem so high anymore in comparison to what you will be spending in bandwidth fees by downloading the "free" stuff.

So everybody enjoy the "Free" bubble while you can. It is going away soon. You will know when it is gone when you get the bill (or your parents show you the bill and start yelling at you).
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
Posts: 3085
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 3:49 am Reply with quote
SoandSo wrote:
Quote:
Zac, I should point out that piracy is a huge problem in the video game industry. For all the sales of the Nintendo DS, no one really makes games for it (other than remakes) because it's so heavily pirated.


Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

What?



I think there's a certain percentage of fans who stream and watch a lot of subs, myself included, for a sort of "try before you buy" approach. Walking into a video store's anime section can be overwhelming. There's sooo much product out there, quite a lot of it bad, that people who don't make the greatest incomes want to make informed decisions on what they spend their hard-earned cash on, and with so little anime airing on television, streaming can be one of the only options(shopping smart certainely helps, too). For me, it's proven quite effective; I stumble on something that really resonates with me through online viewing, and in turn, I go out and buy the box set or what have you so I can own and view it as many times as I want. I've watched the entirety of my Rahxephon boxset about nine times now, Escaflowne and Planetes five.


Generally speaking if you have seen the sales of DS games outside of Mario Brothers and Pokemon the sales have not been their. It's a very serious subject.
http://www.joystiq.com/tag/piracy/
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38598/Piracy-accounts-for-dropping-DS-sales

Here's the thing though, how can you support people who decide that they need to sample 200 episodes of Naruto, 400 episodes of One Piece. Yeah, their are people who watch anime to make informed purchases, not everyone has their personal Mike Toole. The problem is that the anime companies are eleviating that problem by offering streaming.

penguintruth wrote:
If I may venture a guess, Charred Knight probably enjoys how relatively straight-forward Gurren Lagann is, very unpretentious, not trying to wring your mind. It has complexities that it doesn't cover in worthless symbols and vague community moralizing, the way Evangelion often does. Again, this is just my guess. Charred Knight and I obviously have different tastes (I do like GL, though.)

To me, Evangelion is the superior show because of how it doesn't pull punches as far as how far it's willing to go to make the audience feel as uncomfortable as its characters, to experience (and quite intentionally, I contend) the same awkward lack of communication Shinji and the others are experiencing. It can get a little too alienating, however, from what I've been told. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

I would argue, however, that while the religious symbols are meaningless in a Christian sense, it doesn't entirely mean they're entirely meaningless within the context of the show. Because you put some being on a cross, doesn't mean they are Jesus, but could mean something other than that (I am not, however, implying Lilith is any such thing, I'm using it as an example).


You nailed it, when I think of substance I think of plot, world building, and character development. That's why I prefer the much more in depth look at Lordgenome then Eva's backstory which I think is kind of Soap Operaish and Second Impact is just ludicrous.
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Snowman 183



Joined: 01 Jul 2010
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:34 am Reply with quote
Penguin_Factory wrote:
Did anyone else see that Mike Tool and Daryl Surat were going to be on this and immediately think "best episode ever" in the Comic Book Guy voice?

Pretty much. That really was a great podcast, with a couple of excellent guests. It's impressive that they managed to shed new light on some rather well-worn topics.
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PBsallad



Joined: 19 Dec 2009
Posts: 338
Location: Phoenix
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:44 am Reply with quote
One of the things I was hoping that they would discuss, but they didn't and I should have tweeted the question in, was the fans that watch or read a show illegally then later buy a legitimate copy later.

I would have loved to your guys' opinions on this morally gray issue.


But other then that, great podcast. As always. Smile
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15279
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:55 am Reply with quote
Zac: "It's not that hot here."

Only if you're not comparing yourself to what Japan's gone through over the last few daYs. Rolling Eyes

"The money goes to all the corporate fat-cats."

It's even worse in the music industry. Oh, and I just love how the Hollywood movie studios were asking consumers not to pirate movies out of respect for the artists, and then tried to screw the writers out of residuals for legal downloads.

Justin: "He's French."

Well, the closest we've had to one was The Fifth Element, which is actually appropriate, given that Besson posed with Terasawa at a film fest thing in Japan.

"Hard sci-fi is tough to produce."

Well, we'll probably know about the genre's prospects based on how well the Tron reboot-quel does.

"quit her job @ Tokyo Disneyland."

Wow, she must really love the genre, 'cus I hear any non-sweatshop Disney work pays better than average.

"Fist fell on its face for Manga Video."

Well, the problem with the show is it's less violent than the movie, which came first, and pretty tame by current anime content standards. So yeah, of course it was going to bomb. But CR's managed to give it a new life here by promoting it as something casual fans can watch, too.

Mike: "If Sea Prince came out on DVD 9 or 10 years ago, I think it'd be a minor success story."

I doubt it. The market for the old-school stuff wasn't really there back then. After all, look how fast Neo Tokyo came and went. Meanwhile, Bandai's only managed to get out the Silent Mobius films on R1 recently. So while I don't think the old school stuff will "boost" the DVD market, it'll save it from the cookie-cutter crap killing the market.

"break even or slightly better"

Well, the beauty of the whole thing is, since it's already subbed, DT doesn't have to lose money translating it. And since those first 36 eps are dubbed, it makes it easier for fans who don't watch subbed anime to get into it. So the first box should at least be somewhat profitable, if not hugely so.

Charred: I do blame Eva for the worst aspects of anime story-telling today, but I consider everything else which predates it is fine.

rhetorical: Well, Metallica came off hypocritical, because they started out as a garage band themselves, and they were allegedly giving away recordings to promote themselves. And frankly, the music industry was ripping consumers off by then, if not sooner. You only had one song off a $20+ CD which you wanted to hear. Or current rip-offs like this.

penguin: Actually, the problem with Eva is it does pull punches. For example, Shinji never does anything really rebellious until it's convenient. And Misato never calls Gendo out on his parenting skills(or lack thereof).

As for my $0.02 on fan-subbing, I used to think it was ok, as long as it helped boost interest for certain titles. But when they started going after shit which was likely to be licensed anyway, I kind of cut my ties with that sub-culture. I also had an aversion to companies charging more for sub-only tapes, and I didn't like that I was playing roulette on whether or not I had a good translation.

But DVD made that whole issue moot. And, when I think about it, it was getting tough keeping up with this stuff in general when I had other things to do. So I had to be pickier by default, anyway. I think Escaflowne and Eva were the only shows I ever marathoned, and I haven't had that kind of time since then. Plus, getting official sample discs for reviews and as giveaways admittedly made me feel guiltier about that era of my life.

As for this generation of viewers, they do have a point that, in this economy, the last thing you can afford is to be "niche". But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be discrete about it, either. OTOH, they'll probably "get" it when they have to work for a living, too.


Last edited by GATSU on Fri Aug 20, 2010 4:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Fellistowe





PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:58 am Reply with quote
rhetoricalnoise wrote:
So I'm going to argue that *age* is the biggest factor in the behavior and attitudes we're seeing. It's no secret that the average age of the Western anime fan has dropped significantly in the last ten years. We have a lot of teenagers getting into this hobby. I'm not sure if yelling at them will change anything. Hopefully with time they will also naturally develop into rational human beings.


This theme is also what jumped out at me most in this podcast.
It reminded me of an article I read recently (similar themed older one here on the BBC, but I'm sure I've read more recent research on this, just can't put my hands on it at the moment).
Basic gist of it: we don't really start using the 'socially conscious' part of our brain (near the front) until mid to late 20's. Instead we use the 'I'm a selfish little s**t' bit (located at the back). Stack a big mess of our western 'Me' culture on top of that, and you can get a good idea what you end up with.
As rhetoricalnoise has noted, guess where the age range of most anime fans falls nowadays Confused

Educating the kiddies will always be an uphill struggle, and quite a thankless task with results only evident after many years.
Guess we have to keep trying though if we want this lil old hobby of ours to stay alive...

p.s. Thank you Mike, Daryl, Zac and Justin for yet another great podcast.


Last edited by Fellistowe on Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:34 am; edited 1 time in total
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Ranma824



Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 456
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:26 am Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
I was never impressed by Evangelion, it was incredibly hypocritical, Gunbuster's first episode was a cheesy 80's sports movie with tits...Gurren Lagann is probably one of the greatest super robot anime of all times


I'm with you on Eva, but please tell me you saw more then one episode of Gunbuster. TTGL owes almost everything it is to Gunbuster and Diebuster.

Charred Knight wrote:
Generally speaking if you have seen the sales of DS games outside of Mario Brothers and Pokemon the sales have not been their. It's a very serious subject.
http://www.joystiq.com/tag/piracy/
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38598/Piracy-accounts-for-dropping-DS-sales


Not to say that piracy isn't a big deal; but I thought that Europe was always third (or worse) in sales compared to US and Japan. And hasn't Europe always been a hot-bed of piracy?
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
Posts: 3085
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 7:17 am Reply with quote
Ranma824 wrote:
Charred Knight wrote:
I was never impressed by Evangelion, it was incredibly hypocritical, Gunbuster's first episode was a cheesy 80's sports movie with tits...Gurren Lagann is probably one of the greatest super robot anime of all times


I'm with you on Eva, but please tell me you saw more then one episode of Gunbuster. TTGL owes almost everything it is to Gunbuster and Diebuster.

Charred Knight wrote:
Generally speaking if you have seen the sales of DS games outside of Mario Brothers and Pokemon the sales have not been their. It's a very serious subject.
http://www.joystiq.com/tag/piracy/
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38598/Piracy-accounts-for-dropping-DS-sales


Not to say that piracy isn't a big deal; but I thought that Europe was always third (or worse) in sales compared to US and Japan. And hasn't Europe always been a hot-bed of piracy?



I totally forgot how many episodes of Gunbuster I saw on Manga's old SPutnik website, I remember feeling it was good but nothing about it made me want to buy it. Though that might have to do with the fact that the website also had Giant Robo for viewing, and that's my favorite anime of all times.

Due to the drop in sales in Japan Europe is a fairly major player in video game sales.
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varmintx



Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1197
Location: Covington, KY
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 7:32 am Reply with quote
Quote:
As long as I'm alive, they'll be at least one media hoarder.
I know there are a lot people, myself included, who share this sentiment. I hate it now that I'm forced to buy games like Flower and Limbo only in digital form; and yes, I hate it despite the fact I know it's the only economically feasible way I'd ever get them. The thought of not being able to put in a tape, disc, crystal...whatever to watch Apocalypse Now horrifies me.

The horror...the horror...
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Fallen Wings



Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 160
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 8:03 am Reply with quote
Just to clarify ...

Quote:

... it is a strange sort of franchise that started in the early 80's and just made a short string of OVAs ever since ...


Locke the Superman manga was actually started in the late 60's.

Though really they looked like a bunch of squiggles ... no where near his level of drawing today.

But seriously? You liked Locke?

Well then again when I was watching the movie I stop watching when they had an explosion scene and it just had an image of Locke and this video recording of fire over the image.

It didn't even look real - it was meant to be showing this destruction around him and there was like this repeating of explosions and this flame that looked like someone taped a video of their fireplace. I couldn't help but laugh.

I was staring at this image for ages and this fire and kinda went - "You know what ... I wasn't liking this in the first place ..."

Though the predictable story line and lack of proper supporting characters also made me stop.

Maybe give it another shot perhaps ... after all I didn't see it all the way to the end ...

Quote:

... if I was still writing buried treasure this would be a buried treasure ...


It seems like my dreams keep getting mention in reality ... only if X3
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fuuma_monou



Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 1816
Location: Quezon City, Philippines
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 8:48 am Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
I totally forgot how many episodes of Gunbuster I saw on Manga's old SPutnik website, I remember feeling it was good but nothing about it made me want to buy it.


You have to watch all the way to episode 6 (the B&W one). The ending is what makes it great.
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
Posts: 3085
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:01 am Reply with quote
fuuma_monou wrote:
Charred Knight wrote:
I totally forgot how many episodes of Gunbuster I saw on Manga's old SPutnik website, I remember feeling it was good but nothing about it made me want to buy it.


You have to watch all the way to episode 6 (the B&W one). The ending is what makes it great.


I know it's only 6 episodes but I frankly don't plan to buy a series for the ending. When I buy an OVA I want something with the Quality of Gundam 0080, FLCL or Giant Robo, a short but exciting series that's great from the very first episode.
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Anime World Order



Joined: 05 May 2006
Posts: 389
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:04 am Reply with quote
The topic of the fandom divide/"con culture" was touched upon as well in our latest podcast, where we discussed Otakon 2010 and gave a more or less spoiler-free review of the film Welcome to the Space Show. You can listen here if you want to hear my thoughts on the situation shortly after it had occurred.

Charred Knight wrote:
Personally I think Surat has said some things I really questioned like how Gundam 00 (a mediocre series) had above average ratings because a series made 4 years before by completely different people was bad.


I would certainly really question that too...if it was anything close to what I had said. What I said, presumably during our decade in review, was that Gundam 00 (which I'll agree wasn't spectacular overall) had BELOW average ratings for a Gundam series in that timeslot compared to its direct predecessors in said timeslot. Gunota doesn't update anymore, but here was their listing of the viewership ratings for every Gundam television series which backs up my claim. My speculation was that this was because Gundam SEED Destiny--which was not made four years before; if memory serves, its final compilation movie came out only a couple months before 00 started airing--was such a letdown that mecha otaku lost faith in that approach to Gundam in general. 00 may not have been Fukuda's work, but it was quite clearly patterned after the Wing/SEED template that sought to appeal to both mecha fanatics and fujoshi. I believe the mere existence of Gundam Unicorn, as well as its justified positive reception, is indicative of a growing (albeit not majority; there are still additional 00 anime planned) fan backlash against that Wing/SEED style in favor of the traditional UC model.

Other people already elaborated on the nature of Gainax's change over the years.

v1cious wrote:
I doubt Bittorrent numbers are down, because of streaming content. The reason is because everyone uses IRC now.


IRC, like Usenet, is/has been/will continue to be quite difficult for the average person to use such that it is primarily the domain of the most hardcore only. IRC is what I had to use back in the early 90s just to find other anime fans because message board software like what we're posting on now didn't exist.

PBsallad wrote:
One of the things I was hoping that they would discuss, but they didn't and I should have tweeted the question in, was the fans that watch or read a show illegally then later buy a legitimate copy later.

I would have loved to your guys' opinions on this morally gray issue.


I can answer it here: I'm all for that happening, but it doesn't happen nearly as often as people claim it does partially as a result of the aforementioned quality issue. That behavior is anomalous, not the norm.
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rabrek



Joined: 06 Apr 2009
Posts: 188
PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:46 am Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
I doubt Bittorrent numbers are down, because of streaming content. The reason is because everyone uses IRC now.

On the contrary, for every person I know of who uses IRC, there are 20+ who can't be bothered to learn a specialty environment (for much the same reason that Windows, despite all of the complaining it generates, has a huge market share compared to Linux, which is free). IRC's reputation for banning clumsy newbies certainly hasn't helped attract new users, either.

The podcast discussion seemed to suggest that viewing anime happens primarily via torrent downloads or streaming. In the forums I travel, the pattern is for one or two users to download a torrent of a new release, then upload it to a file-sharing host (often MegaUpload). Other users then download from MUL and reup to other hosts and post those links for forum members who have access issues in their country or a preference based on how their local system behaves. Some users reencode to other video formats or downconvert HD releases to accommodate forum members with bandwidth issues. A very few individuals play DMCA roulette, and a lot of people point, click, and view. There's little need to mess around with torrents these days, let alone IRC.

To use Zac's college gaming experience as an analogy, one person downloads the torrent ("buys the game"), then distributes a download link to their friends ("burns CDs for all their friends").

I'd also note that, just as some people get cranky because someone has "stolen" the AMV or scanlation or fansub that they "worked so hard on", some uploaders go ballistic if their links are posted elsewhere without crediting them.
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