Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2006-11-24]
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ManOfRust
 Posts: 1935 Location: Seattle, WA |
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As I was reading the flake of the week, I was thinking that over in the Identifying Anime thread in the anime forum people have been figuring out shows based on less information than that. Sure enough, by the end of the first page of responses here, it had been identified! That request is unusually well written, though.
I don't think the rant author reads the forums here either. Lots of titles from different genres get plenty of attention. For example, she/he could check out the current 46-post long thread on Kino's Journey. |
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musashi1600
 Posts: 198 Location: Hawaii |
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For the guy looking for more of what he found in GitS: SAC, here's my personal shortlist:
Kino's Journey: It's basically 13 episodes of hypothetical social scenarios, with varying degrees of realism. Each scenario usually focuses on a given aspect of society, and you take what you will from it. Tokyo Godfathers: 3 homeless people find an abandoned baby Christmas Eve in Tokyo. Need I say more? 
Paranoia Agent: I watched part of it on AS, and I think it has what he wants, although I make no guarantees or promises. From what I saw, it tends to look at the various pressures society puts on people to hold certain standards. Haibane Renmei: It's more of a character study than a social commentary, but I think it's worth mentioning nonetheless. 
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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"As for your second question, personally, I don't think there is a "difference". They're both comic books. Manga are graphic novels from Japan. That's pretty much it."
God Bless You Answerman. May you never run out of photos of Kittens. Now you just have to convert the heathens. The large, neverending mass of heathens.... I just had to stop reading, and post this once I read that.
A lot of manga has been released as comic books. And most manga has 16-64 page chapters, serialized in weekly to monthly installemtns.....which is the exact same as north american comics. It's just that they tend to collect them in books afterwards more often. But US publishers have gotten better at that in the past 2 decades. Just throwing that in as an additional comment..... you do pretty much get the current definitions spot on though. But the vast majority of manga do start out as comic books, in the sense that they're originally serialized. |
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halochief_90
 Posts: 466 Location: Canada |
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A few less posts than I was expecting... I guess I'll give my input this week. Actually, there are quite a few interesting (and controversial) topics covered, so I'm not missing this.
Ok, I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica (okay, maybe that's not enough for a full run-down, but I'll say what I can), it seems rather ironic that for anime like Princess Mononoke, it was completely opposite for me. Princess Mononoke does repeat its message a lot, but it gets deeper and more interesting as it goes along. I know BSG is a TV show and not a movie, but with the episode I watched, it pounded this message about how "the love between robots and humans, and how it was bad" (it was a long time ago, sorry). Regardless, I don't remember being engaged much at all (yes, I'm trying to watch more, but I just...can't). Yeah Zac, I know you hate whining, but calling manga "Japanese graphic novels" is like anime as "Japanese animated show." Yes, that's accurate (actually it's true) but anime should have a different name because I enjoy it for a much different reason than an animated show (and I'm not just talking about kids "cartoons"). As with manga and graphic novels. The rant: I think a more appropriate name for the fighting anime the ranter talks about would be better called shounen (almost all are played here now right and usually involve fighting?). Yes, there are a lot of good (no, great), non-shounen shows out there, but I really don't think they would do very well. These popular fighting anime are some of the easiest to watch on TV. The other non-shounen are usually much shorter, and more obscure; definitely less likely hits. And looking at the top 50... fighting anime seems to be widely considered the highest regarded (though, those obscure ones are coming in more now though...) |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Actually calling manga "Japanese graphic novels" would be like calling anime "Japanese DVDs". "Graphic novel" is a term for a collection of comics in a book format. It is the term for a specific format or presentation, not the "genre" (for lack of a better term) of manga as a whole. In fact, it doesn't even refer specifically to manga and was originally used for American comics before manga was ever on the scene in the U.S. Anyone who uses "graphic novels" to refer to manga as a whole is using the term wrong. It would be like refering to all TV shows as DVDs. A comparison to anime would be: Anime/TV------Manga/Comics Episode--------Chapter/Issue DVD-----------Graphic Novel For a more in depth look, check out Wikipedia on Graphic Novels |
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mistress_reebi
Posts: 735 Location: Canada |
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I agree with the rant. There are way too many shounen/action and adventure on the airwaves. It does seem that people tend to hope on the bandwagon of whatever anime is popular at the time, usually shounen, and really great anime is undiscovered.
[quote=halochief_90] The other non-shounen are usually much shorter, and more obscure;[/quote] Agreed. Look at Ranma 1/2; I think they are still making the manga. I guess the more episodes it has the longer it stays on the air, which boosts the shows popularity. |
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Ceru
Posts: 44 |
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That rant verged on incomprehensible-- there was no real argument there, and clearly no real research was done on the topic (as pointed out, Trigun, Bebop, FMA and Kenshin offer WAYYYY more depth than fighting). In addition, there is no such company as Nevanna. The REAL word you're looking for is NELVANA-- they are a Toronto-based animation company whose focus is primarily on traditional and flash-animated cartoon series-- they took on a couple of anime projects however, such as "Cardcaptors", which generated quite the love-hate fandom.
Please, do your research. It's boring when people just rant about things they made up. |
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mistress_reebi
Posts: 735 Location: Canada |
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A rant doesn't have to be arguementable. His thesis was TV mostly airs shounen/action/adventure anime, which makes that genre popular, while other genres are ignored. |
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5466 |
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Now since we got that cleared up, let's see if we can determine why we aren't showing more "daring" titles so the common viewers get exposed to more variety of genres. Of course for me, determining that will only make me a bit more depressed because those non-action genres don't really make the ratings (though Adult Swim is planning to show Crayon Shin-chan, but of course that series has really wonky designs similar to those AS original shows). |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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Action and violence is popular and something that has lots of it regularly is a pretty safe bet. Something that doesn't have action and violence in most of its episodes is pretty risky. The only possible exception to this is comedy, but even that has been rare on CN/AS. All we've really had was FLCL (which still had some action in it) and Crayon Shin-chan. TV networks are about bringing in the ratings and if action and violence brings in the ratings, that's what they will continue to show. If all of their action-oriented shows did poorly, maybe they would try something different. But at this point, the only ones that seem to be doing poorly are mecha series, so the only message they are getting is "mecha doesn't do well but non-mecha action anime do good." So guess what they are going to show more of? If they had something bringin in huge ratings (like DBZ probably did on Toonami) then maybe they would be willing to experiment with some more 'daring' anime. Maybe if Bleach brings in consistently high ratings, they will stick something more 'daring' in Adult Swim. Maybe not. Part of the problem may be their target audience or at least their perception of the audience. Isn't the stereotypical Adult Swim target audience the "drunk (or just bored) college students"? That's my impression from reading various threads here and from seeing some of the stupid commercials for some of the non-anime stuff they show. If that really is their perception of their target audience, its no wonder they aren't showing more stuff that requires thinking (which they either don't want to do after doing enough of it in college or are too drunk or stoned to do it) or lacks action and wierd humor to draw them in. As for the Toonami audience... well, their target audience includes middle schoolers, maybe even younger, so its little wonder why they stick with things typical shonen fair there. |
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Dante80
 Posts: 218 Location: Athens Greece |
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GITS SAC II, right? If the friend in the collumn liked it, here are some titles for him...
Ima Soko ni Iru boku Saikano Zipang Hotaru no haka Serial Experiments Lain Key the metal idol Tenshii no Tamago Jin Roh the Wolf Brigade Memories Most of Studio 4c works Gunslinger girl Hotori - Tada Saiwai wo Koinegau Kino no Tabi Mind game Texhnolyze Ergo Proxy All Shatoshi Kon works Salutations from Sunny Greece... 
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whoisfriend
Posts: 369 |
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Shadow Star Narutaru has a great deal of subtext, especially with children, ESPECIALLY in the last three episodes. Just be prepared for the anime to only go halfway through the manga, though you can find detailed summaries of the secong half here: http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=491. Dark Horse has only released to the anime eqivalent of the manga and has no intention of continuing. A spokesperson said something along the lines of "I know there's a small dedicated group of fans, and they'll do what they need to." Take that as you will (nothing has come of it yet)
Bokurano is also from the same mangaka and also has a good ammount of subtext. |
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Turkishproverb
Posts: 43 Location: Pergatorio. |
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[quote="jgreen"]
Recently, a term was coined in the advertisements for the Dark Tower comic work's that had a phrase I prefer myself: Graphic Fiction. |
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mewtwo
 Posts: 63 |
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"Graphic fiction"... I think that's a pretty good compromise.
As for "comic book", consider the etymology of "comic". Comedy is not the same as humor, contrary to what many believe; in general, it refers to a dramatic plot structure in which the protagonist ends up in a better position than he/she was in at the beginning. So maybe the "graphic novel" crowd has a point somewhere. Besides, what would you call a drawn adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet? "Tragic book"? |
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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Personally, I think the anime is being watched by a different group entirely with very little cross-over.
Additionally, the majority of females in both target groups don't watch anime or at least are not believed to by the networks. They don't buy as much merchandise either and programmers don't believe they want to watch the same things as the more numerous males so, again correctly or not, they believe that the female audience should be all but ignored in the equation. Worst of all, those who are fans don't watch the series when they come on TV because "dubs suck" and "the fansubs are better." Not to mention that the schedules suck horribly and are only now appearing to show any signs of getting better ([adult swim] moved it's anime block forward by a half hour.) Factor in the large number of people who refuse to give anime a chance because it's animation that isn't comedy and you've got a headache for anyone who wants to see more diversity in the broadcast programing. Personally, I think the more unusual series can be very successful if given a proper chance. Decent advertising would help tremendously as would the people who claim to want to see such series actually tuning in. Plenty of people talk about wanting something but when the time comes to actually put down money or invest time, they vanish. I know everyone wants to save money but when you're dealing with a non-mega hit release, buy it immediatly if you want to see more like it. Don't wait for the boxset because if you do it's easily possible that there will not be one. Save your money somewhere else. Cut back on fast food maybe (eating out is a lot more expensive than buying ingredients and cooking them.) |
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