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NEWS: Tokyo Babylon 2021 Anime's Staff Apologizes for Referencing Costume Designs Without Permission




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overlordrae



Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 89
PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 1:39 pm Reply with quote
I really don't understand why they do this when they have CLAMP's designs right there.
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tintor2



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Posts: 1817
PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 1:48 pm Reply with quote
overlordrae wrote:
I really don't understand why they do this when they have CLAMP's designs right there.
I guess they were trying more modern looks since the manga was from the early 90s. However, I wonder why they simply didn't ask for Clamp's help since they love for unique clothing is insane
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Watanabefan



Joined: 02 Oct 2017
Posts: 152
PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 2:04 pm Reply with quote
Funny how this has gone out of favor when it used to be fairly common. The fact that some of the costumes in Sailor Moon were straight up lifted from real world runway designs has been known for years.

Last edited by Watanabefan on Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
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overlordrae



Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 89
PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 2:15 pm Reply with quote
tintor2 wrote:
I guess they were trying more modern looks since the manga was from the early 90s. However, I wonder why they simply didn't ask for Clamp's help since they love for unique clothing is insane
Yeah, I can understand Hokuto's design(though like you, I wonder why they just didn't have CLAMP design it). Subaru's onmyouji design, though...there's really only so many way to design that outfit, I don't see why they had to take from a Volks outfit.

Also, re: taking from photos. Just because it is/was common doesn't mean it can't land you in trouble. It's not bad to take inspiration, but mixing it up enough to make it unique is generally the best idea.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 2:24 pm Reply with quote
Watanabefan wrote:
Funny how this has gone out of favor when it used to be fairly common. The fact that some of the costume designs in Sailor Moon were straight up lifted from real world runway designs has been known for years.

I remember Weiss Kreuz artwork that was pretty much tracing photos of JRock bands, right down to the costumes, it was straight-up plagiarism. I suppose it was too small/niche for the photos' copyright holders to care about.

I don't think it was ever something people approved of, though, which is likely why it ultimately fell out of favor. Such blatant tracing/copying reflects really badly on the artist, which in turn reflects badly on the product itself.
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 2:42 pm Reply with quote
Well, at least they owned up to it.

overlordrae wrote:
I really don't understand why they do this when they have CLAMP's designs right there.

I was wondering the same, though I had a thought: perhaps they don't have the legal rights to do so? For example, in the early 2000s there were reboots of AD Police Files and Bubblegum Crisis. They had the rights to the name of the the show and the names of its characters, but they did not have the rights for the character designs. Thus the reboot shows--AD Police Protect And Serve and Bubblegum Crisis 2040--have characters which are named the same as the original shows but they look nothing alike. I'm just spitballing here since I don't know a thing about the legal situation, but perhaps it's a similar thing where they honestly aren't allowed to use the CLAMP designs? I can't think of any other reason.


SHD wrote:
I remember Weiss Kreuz artwork that was pretty much tracing photos of JRock bands, right down to the costumes, it was straight-up plagiarism. I suppose it was too small/niche for the photos' copyright holders to care about.

I think that came out at a time when the internet/fan community wasn't as well organized as it is today and news spread a lot slower. And like you said it's also a very niche title which was largely ignored outside of its fanbase. I remember hearing about it when it came out but it was a tiny flash in the pan, at least within the fan circles I knew. I think the tracing largely flew under the radar. Had Weiss Kreuz came out as a new title today I think people would have been all over the plagiarism.
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Green Luthor



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 27
PostPosted: Sat Dec 05, 2020 2:08 pm Reply with quote
AkumaChef wrote:
Well, at least they owned up to it.

overlordrae wrote:
I really don't understand why they do this when they have CLAMP's designs right there.

I was wondering the same, though I had a thought: perhaps they don't have the legal rights to do so? For example, in the early 2000s there were reboots of AD Police Files and Bubblegum Crisis. They had the rights to the name of the the show and the names of its characters, but they did not have the rights for the character designs. Thus the reboot shows--AD Police Protect And Serve and Bubblegum Crisis 2040--have characters which are named the same as the original shows but they look nothing alike. I'm just spitballing here since I don't know a thing about the legal situation, but perhaps it's a similar thing where they honestly aren't allowed to use the CLAMP designs? I can't think of any other reason.

I think the AD Police TV show has completely different characters than the OVA, but I could be mistaken. (I can't really see any circumstances under which I'd ever watch the TV show ever again.) Not that that's really important.

But with Bubblegum Crisis, it's a different situation than Tokyo Babylon. The character designs were by Kenichi Sonoda, but other than that, Sonoda didn't work on the show at all. Tokyo Babylon, on the other hand, has character designs by CLAMP because the original manga was by CLAMP. I can't really see how one could get the license to adapt a CLAMP manga without also getting the CLAMP designs. (Plus, it's not even the characters that are at issue here; it's just the costume design. The characters still look (mostly) the same, so I can't really see why they wouldn't be able to use the same clothes as from the manga.)

If it were, say, Code Geass, I could see it being possible to not have the rights to the CLAMP designs, but not for a series that CLAMP themselves created. (I mean, it's probably possible, but it would seem really, really odd for that to be the case.) (Not that I have any better explanation, though.)
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4817
PostPosted: Sat Dec 05, 2020 6:02 pm Reply with quote
Watanabefan wrote:
Funny how this has gone out of favor when it used to be fairly common. The fact that some of the costumes in Sailor Moon were straight up lifted from real world runway designs has been known for years.
I think in Sailor Moon's case they mainly got away with it because outside of Japan the 90s anime was a lot more popular than the original manga. And while some famous fashion designs carried over into the anime like Princess Serenity's dress or Koan's outfit, for the most part the 90s anime went with their own character designs. So internationally at least it pretty much flew under the radar outside of the hardcore fandom until Crystal came out and by now it's probably too late for them to do anything about it to make it worth spending a lot of money on a lawsuit. And it's not like they can do anything to change the artwork now whereas Tokyo Babylon's anime is still in production.
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