Forum - View topicInterview: Akiyuki Simbo
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Surrender Artist
Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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シンボウ しんぼう 新房 (I used IPA in this post; I hope that it renders correctly) Kana might be more phonemic than English spelling, but it’s still no more of a phonetic transcription system. Written language is still an abstract representation of speech. The director’s name is no more pronounced in kana than any of ours are in Latin letters. I’m not an expert in Japanese phonology, but going by what I can suss out of the Wikipedia article on Japanese phonology and filter through my admittedly creaky memories of phonology classes, it’s probably something like [ɕimboː]. (SAMPA s\imbo:] The first sound is a voiceless alveopalatal fricative; which is something like the sound English speakers pronounce for <sh>. The Japanese nasal is homorganic, meaning that it assimilates to the point of articulation of the consonant it precedes. Which is to say that since [b] is articulated with the lips, the nasal becomes so to, thus [m] (there should be a marker indicating the the [m] is syllabic, but that doesn't seem to display properly). The underlying phoneme is probably /s/, but Japanese has a phonological rule that /s/ becomes /ɕ/ before an /i/. (I always here the vowel in these contexts as lax, but nothing I’ve found on short noticed indicates that this happens, so pfui) As alluded to above, Hepburn Romanization renders this sequence as <shi> because that represents the closest approximation of its actual pronunciation in Japanese, but Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki render it as <si>, which represents the underlying phonology of Japanese. The phonemic versus phonetic distinction is tricky to get despite being fairly simple once understood, but Hepburn is a little like if we wrote English <pan> as <ph>, with the <h> encoding the aspiration of initial consonant, the doubling of the vowel indicating how vowels are lengthened before voiced consonants and the tildes indicating how vowels are nasalized before nasal consonants. That represents how the word is actually pronounced in most English dialects, but that information is unnecessary for English speakers because the processes that apply those sounds happen automatically. (To illustrate from the Japanese side, if you listen to many Japanese speakers trying to speak English, the word sit often gets rendered unfortunately as shit because they automatically apply the /s/ -> /ɕ/ before /i/ rule) (This, of course, represents a generative phonology perspective; I'll be damned if I know what optimality theory would say) Last edited by Surrender Artist on Fri Feb 08, 2013 6:27 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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Well, if it were that easy, people wouldn't be discussing it so much From those commonly used the spelling "Shimbō" is the closest.
Simbo really looks like Simba ... or Limbo ... but if that's what he prefers.
Oh, that seems to be a very common mind-set for people involved with animes ... and actually it's kind of sad. Adolescence is just the beginning and a very brief period of your life. Lots of people "shine brighter" or at least just as bright during adulthood. The anime medium kind of lacks this way of thinking ... as if your life ends with high school graduation ... |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 7578 Location: Wales |
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"we pay close attention to the quality early on in a project"
If I was being uncharitable I could say that explains why they tend to fall apart towards the end... |
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enurtsol
Posts: 14746 |
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Sometimes, people in limbo just need an intervention.
That's like saying people watch The Walking Dead TV series with the comic books on hand!
But in Japan, it pretty much is. Once ya start working, your identity becomes the property of the company you work for, and your life just disappears. No wonder there grown the phenomenon of NEETs and freeters to avoid an ignominious fate. Ever hear of many cool Japanese adults working their age? |
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stardf29
Posts: 171 |
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I so hope this means they're going to do a second season. |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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It's true that their working schedule is often very hardcore, but it's still not all there is to being an adult in Japan (even less if you're a woman). There are other choices apart from these two extremes of being a company slave or a shut-in, and especially a medium like animes could explore many different aspects of life (f.ex. like Hatarakiman or Space Brothers or even Bunny Drop) or at least offer some other perspective to the viewer apart from the glorification of adolescence and recently the semi-glorification of being a neet / shut-in / otaku. But well, I suppose it all comes down to the niche audience and the fact that many of the anime creators themselves identify with this way of thinking. |
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Anime World Order
Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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God. It's rather demoralizing to know that all of these statements which I consider just fundamentally short-sighted came from one of anime's most prolific and [in the relative sense] popular directors. I mean, it explains why I don't really care for most any of the many things he does, but talk about poisoning the well from the get-go. As a guy over 30, I really don't want to accept that adolescence was the peak of my life. One of the biggest problems I have with so many anime, to the point where I rarely watch series as they air, is that they start off with promise and then fizzle out at the end. And the notion of making an adaptation for the primary benefit of people who already know the source material front to back, even if that comes at the expense of everybody else, is simply not sustainable. Man. This dude and everyone on board with him have got to be stopped. |
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Mikeski
Posts: 608 Location: Minneapolis, MN |
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It is the part where we change the most. I doubt you'll find someone who'll say they changed more from 32-37 than from 12-17; I know I didn't. (Assuming their 30s didn't include something like "beating cancer" or "recovering from drug addiction", anyway.)
"Screw the first six episodes, as long as we end big." "Screw the first half of the movie, as long as we end big." ...things never said by successful directors, whether of late-night anime or Hollywood blockbusters.
And the ones who don't follow the source material get shouted down by ten thousand angry fans.
And if you think these three statements are signs of failure, why are Shaft/Simbo products so "prolific" and "popular"? The fanbase is stupid or brainwashed?
If you're in your 30s (as I am...for a very short while more) and you haven't improved on your life since you were 14, you may need some introspection. Anger about the success of others is probably not going to help, though it seems to be in vogue in the USA lately.
I'm one of the oddball anime fans who doesn't read light novels or manga, nor play the games the shows are based on. I haven't watched anything that left me so lost that I felt I needed the source material to make sense of things, so I think you're tilting at windmills here. Simbo didn't say "people must have read the source material in order to like the show, or they failed". He said "people who read the source material must like the show, or I failed."
Because success is horrible? I can understand people not liking the rather-distinctive Shaft/Simbo style (de gustibus non est disputandum), but the quotes above aren't signs of things that are wrong with the industry overall, nor with Simbo's work specifically... |
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danilo07
Posts: 1580 |
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Oh stop it,the irony is killing me. |
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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With how well the Nisemonogatari anime sold, I have to assume so. |
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Surrender Artist
Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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This is one of the most depressing and hatefully misanthropic sentences that I have ever read. |
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relentlessflame
Posts: 188 |
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Keep in mind that the context for this was how to ensure consistency and quality when working with many animation companies. So by working intensely with companies at the beginning of the project to set the tone for how things should look (i.e. establishing a strong standard), it helps keep a consistent level of quality visually throughout the show (because the other companies know what they're shooting for). This is not about the quality of the story or the premise or whatever else, which -- as he goes on to say -- is trying to be faithful to the original work.
I don't think he implied this was to the exclusion or "at the expense" of everyone else. In fact, there is no reason at all that you'd have to read the books to enjoy or follow this particular show. But people were attracted to the original work for a reason, and if you can play on that same merit, chances are you'll find an audience the same way the source did. This doesn't come at the expense of creating a good anime in its own right, obviously. And again, the context of the quote was talking about choosing what scenes to leave in and which to take out from the original source, and he's just pointing out that additional scenes were added on the Blu-Ray/DVD, so people familiar with the books can compare. He's not saying that you need to have novel in hand to enjoy the show. This is basically take quotes out of context, apply spin generously, and conclude it's evil and "must be stopped" (which you believed coming into it anyway). |
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Mikeski
Posts: 608 Location: Minneapolis, MN |
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Considering the source, I'd just say it's one of the more lolicon sentences that I have ever read. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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From what I understand this is an extremely common belief among Japanese people. As a culture they are fairly obsessed with youth. |
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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When in actuality, medically and psychologically we are at our dullest as the brain of the child de-rigs itself to the bear minimum of comprehension that it can barely focus on learning and development whilst it is being re-rigged for becoming an adult. This process can and does cause either an autistic like reaction of reclusion or outside rejection, or a raging storm of confused and mixed emotions with daily mood swings. Also the worship of youth, though almost religious there, is not solely restricted to the Japanese. It's a global enterprise worth biliions in cosmetics of one sort, or another.
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