Forum - View topicStrange text as a graphic element.
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ailblentyn
 Posts: 1688 Location: body in Ohio, heart in Sydney |
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I am watching Sailor Moon R --- embarrassingly enough, for the first time. And I'm struck by the page of text used as a background graphic in the credit sequence. I'm sure this is all well-known to each and every Sailor Moon fan, but my Google Book search of some of the snippets that are legible (such as "For Linda and me the coast is a cultural shock") showed that the text comes from a 1977 copy of National Geographic.
It made me wonder whether anyone else remembered examples of text popping up in their anime whose source was identifiable and equally random. 
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EricDent
 Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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In the show Paniponi Dash! there is a ton of random stuff on the chalkboard in the classroom. It changes quite frequently, and has a ton of pop culture & anime references.
In the older ADV release (not on the Funimation SAVE version) there is a "Pop Up Video" type subtitle track that tells you stuff about the messages on the chalkboard. It is pretty hard to follow (unless you pause) since it's rather rapid fire. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18211 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Although I won't cite specific examples, this is actually a very common phenomenon in anime; any time you see text on screen that's meant more as a background element than something to actually be read, there's a good chance that it was borrowed from some random source. In my experience, excerpts from technical manuals seem to be most commonly-used for this. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4613 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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I've never looked closely but I think the background in the end credits for Tiger and Bunny is at least partially accurate to the characters. I tend to skip them but one of the last shots before the post-credits bit or next episode preview is of Dragon Kid and at one point I spied something like "a gift from her parents" in the text and realized someone put some thought into what was said there.
I usually get more of a kick out of Engrish used in episodes. Such as the "Rord of the Rings" book that a couple characters are seen reading a few times during the early episodes of Saki. |
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EricDent
Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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Another example of the book thing is Larry Botter (or something like that) from Strawberry Marshmallow.
Another example of the stuff the TC is looking for is in Super Atragon when they show the technical readouts of the Ra. They also do this in Full Metal Panic as well. Especially during the "Whispered" stuff. |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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And Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Negima!? as well. |
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vashna
Posts: 1313 |
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I've actually always wondered why that was. In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, there are excerpts from a very old text-based Star Trek game that was popular with MS-DOS based computers, but actually predates the MS-DOS operating system. There was also what appeared to be data from real-world international weather radio beacons. Both of these fit the high-brow technical manual bit quite nicely.
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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I've seen random text a fair few times - commonly text files that come with whatever software they are using (there was a lot of this in Gasaraki for example. A lot). On a re-watch of Kiddy Grade I paused on a screen of text and was surprised to discover it was about weapons inspections in Iraq and someone on Twitter identified text in Kiddy GiRL-and as being from Lightwave.
OTOH, the French text that appears in the opening for Nijuu Mensou is actually relevant to the story. Paniponi Dash is different - all that text is put there on purpose and does have meaning, albeit often being rather obscure. |
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vashna
Posts: 1313 |
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One of the real memorable examples for me that came from a technical manual was in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. Text on several computer consoles came from content on how to program driver files for TWAIN compatible computer printers. I recognized it really well because I had actually seen the text before, in its original context as a computer handbook. I wonder why, though, that anime directors choose such content to work with.
The Big O's opening sequence included newspaper clippings from both English and German language papers as well. That was rather unique. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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If the text is a digital element then it is simple - they need a block of ascii text and rather pay someone to write it when it isn't meant to be read anyway, they grab a handy text file present on the PCs they are using. |
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vashna
Posts: 1313 |
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They don't have to pay some kind of license fee for doing that?
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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Possibly. I don't know where copyright law stands on excerpts from manuals.
I do remember hearing a tale of a guy who was watching a film and suddenly said "hey, that's my code!" - it was something like the OS code for an 8-bit computer, and as the tale went the movie people got the rights to it cheap or something. Of course, if I try to track it down online I just get stuff about some film called "Source Code". |
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