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Hey, Answerman! [2008-03-14]


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AuraShadow



Joined: 06 Jan 2004
Posts: 242
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:21 pm Reply with quote
Lain=amazing...that is all
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OnanRulz



Joined: 13 Mar 2008
Posts: 132
Location: The MPLS
PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:24 pm Reply with quote
Almost a clean Yoko Kanno sweep.

One of my new favorites is Maaya Sakamoto's "Hemisphere", which I believe is also written by Yoko Kanno.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 9902
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:25 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
whether or not Kirk or Picard was the better Enterprise captain (It was Kirk, by the way)

No wonder we've argued oh so many times. Razz Twisted Evil
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Akukaze



Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 185
Location: Stony Brook, NY
PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:27 pm Reply with quote
OnanRulz wrote:

One of my new favorites is Maaya Sakamoto's "Hemisphere", which I believe is also written by Yoko Kanno.


That was my first thought too. As for some more recent series, Aquarion's opening is one of the best I've heard in a while -- yet another Kanno piece.

I could not agree more about "Duvet" and "Yakusoku wa Iranai". Another of my all-time favorites would have to be "Yuudachi" by Suga Shikao from Boogiepop Phantom. I don't think there's any other song ever written that could have set the mood for that show better.


Last edited by Akukaze on Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Murasakisuishou



Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 1469
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:29 pm Reply with quote
Wow, Zac, you've got excellent taste in OPs Cool And I agree: Rise > Inner Universe, but just barely.

I think most of the arguments you see on message boards really do come down to the differences between the two main groups of anime fandom; the people who've been into it longer and the people who think stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Revolutionary Girl Utena is 'old school'. The generational gap is actually rather frightening; we've got tons of kids running around who think they're entitled to steal just because no one will do anything about it. In my mind, this goes beyond the state of the anime industry. It's a huge social problem that I'm not looking forward to seeing the aftereffects of. It is my generation, after all.
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minakichan





PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:55 pm Reply with quote
Yes yes yes, and the old guard types are right and ne'er do a nary thing wrong while these young whippersnappers are all a-downloadin' their fansubs without a care in the world, with their porno and their ipods and their booze and their color TVs...

Just because Zac is absolutely blameless and happens to be old doesn't mean that old = good and young = bad. Ever considered that a ton of those people buying those DVDs and manga are actually the demographic these products were intended for? Shocking, I know, but considering that the Big Companies haven't been targeting and reeling in those over-30 veterans, I don't really understand why there's this insistence to the contrary. Of course young people and downloaders buy crap; sure, not as much as they should, but we wouldn't have an industry otherwise.

It would be more fair to point out a rift between law-abiding R1-supporters and rampant fansub-supporting downloaders, while pointing out that there are PLENTY of people that fall in between, quite possibly a majority (I say this admitting that I have no numbers to back it up and that it is an estimation. At least I will admit it.) considering that even fansub downloaders buy merchandise, DVDs, manga, etc. What's not fair is to pin it pretty hard to a specific age demographic, make blanket statements, fail to consider the middle ground, and deliberately use language suggesting praise for the former and condemnation for the latter, all of which is quite blatantly veiled to sound fair-minded.

I don't disagree with your actual OPINION at all, at it's most basic; I just think the generalizations you use to support them are at least 50% unfair and untrue. It's not the one-or-two-fan minority that are an exception to these generalizations; it's almost certainly a huge portion of fans that fall in a middle ground.
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irishninja



Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 344
Location: Seattle-ish
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:01 am Reply with quote
Whoa. I actually knew all series for those OPs. For some reason I was expecting Zac to answer with something really obscure. Laughing I agree that "Rise" is better than "Inner Universe," and the actual opening animation montage is much cooler as well. I love the scene where they're all standing in a line in trenchcoats looking hardcore. Very Happy

I like the Answerfans question for this week. It doesn't seem like it should be all that contentious, and I might actually toss out an answer to it. Wink

Lastly, that bunny is totally going to pwn that cat.
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MetatronM



Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 281
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:02 am Reply with quote
You picked a BAD analogy with the Star Trek thing, I have to say. I don't know how many Trek fans I've seen who absolutely HATE how the series is handled and the direction it has taken in recent years, and, yes, they certainly do discuss the business side of it. Hell, Berman and Braga are probably discussed far far far more than most (and possibly even all) actual characters in the series.

I mean, I don't even particularly care about Star Trek, and I still see this kind of crap a lot.

The fact is, where there are fanboys, there is animosity. Pretty plain and simple. That the anime community is basically nothing more than an affiliation of cartoon fanboys of various stripes simply exacerbates that fact.
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Calathan
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Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 9113
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:08 am Reply with quote
I didn't like Lain, but the opening song was good. The Vision of Escaflowne opening is one of my all-time favorites. Maaya Sakamoto is my favorite singer, and I think that is one of her best songs. Your other choices are good too.

Anyway, how can anyone not like the pictures of cats and rabbits? We need more cats and rabbits!
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Vortextk



Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 892
Location: Orlando, Fl
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:08 am Reply with quote
I probably skip almost all opening sequences and even moreso ending ones. I definitely agree with these five however. Watched Lain once, Escaflowne twice, GiTS twice with the second time being recent in preperation for me just finishing 2nd gig yesterday, and bebop numerous times between adult swim and on my own. Other than cliff hangers or "I have 20 minutes before work to watch this episode, bye bye op/ed", I never skip through any of these opening themes. I can see I'm in the majority here.

GiTS 2nd Gig caught me off guard seeing as I liked the first season's OP so much. I had to come here quickly to look up the artist and sure enough it was the same one.

Where do you get all those animal pictures from? Do you run an anime news site online and a farm/petshop at home?
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:12 am Reply with quote
I have to disagree with the notion that Anime fans can be lumped together into two groups. There is simply too much diversity. I buy all the Anime DVDs I can, spending a huge amount of my disposable income. But I only got into Anime in the last 2 and-a-half years, well inside most peoples' definitions of a "new breed of fan".

So please, do not lump fans into two groups. THAT is what is divisive. Instantly classifying people into one of two groups is mere stereotyping, divisive and harmful. George Walker Bush does it, Hitler did it (and please, do not quote Godwin's Law to me), and groups on both sides of the abortion divide do nothing else.

"Pro Choice or Pro Life" does not imply that there are other viewpoints in between. "Old Fan or New Breed" attempts to place me into one group, even though I possess aspects of both.

Zac wrote:
I submit that the divisiveness and anger and backbiting will eventually pretty much kill off anime fandom as it exists today.


And yet, you add to the backstabbing by claiming that there are only two groups, two sides to the debate. And when there are only two sides, it is inevitable that they will argue. People need to realise that there are MANY viewpoints, not just a convenient few, and that all views should be equally looked at and respected.

On another note, I have to say that you have good taste in Anime openings. None of the five that you put up deserve to be out of my personal top ten. It is nice that we can agree on something.
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britannicamoore



Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2618
Location: Out.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:13 am Reply with quote
the AAAs. I think I watched the web brodcast. It was ok.

As for themes, the orginal Pokemon theme was the best. That guy, whoever he was sang that song like it was his last. I mean the english version btw. The gutair in that song also was great. For all the crap 4kids does, the Pokemon 1st Moive OST was one of the best cds ever.

I wonder why i can't get into GitS. The moive the series. None of it really hits me. Maybe now that i'm older i'll try the moive again.


As for the hating, well. It seems like the industry is a huge part of the anime fandom. Other fandoms don't have to think of their industry as much as we do.

I'm hoping things do change. If things go as they should, then soon there won't have to be arguements anymore.

As for the Answerfans question: I got into anime via Sailor Moon. It was on tv, and I grew to love it. The internet was just making the world a bigger place, and I learned that the show wasn't just a cartoon. I digged deeper, finding that there were episodes that weren't shown, how a lot was cut out of each show.

So then I bought the tapes. I ended up with the same thing. I kept watching on tv, and asked the peole at Media Play about other shows like it. They molded me like a puppet. Chris, he got me into anime. My dad would take me every week to buy these things, because he was glad I was doing something besides reading. Confused

I tried the shows Chris suggested, and I found a small shelf at Blockbuster that had a few shows. I was around 8-10 at the time. Then Pokemon came on tv, and well. The rest is history. Pokemon is one of the few shows I would like to import, with the orginal Japanese language.

Anyway, these shows were different than Tom and Jerry, Earthworm Jim, and Street Sharks. The shows were more adult. People died on screen, people cursed. People had the most amazing powers. Chris also told me about the Sailor Moon pocket manga. I picked those up too. Slayers was the first vhs I bought, and picked up 3 episodes from Slayers try because I thought each episode was stand alone.

That another thing about anime it was one of the first cartoons I saw were episodes linked to the previous ones.

*sigh* I miss Chris and the old days.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:18 am Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:

So please, do not lump fans into two groups. THAT is what is divisive. Instantly classifying people into one of two groups is mere stereotyping, divisive and harmful.


I said vocal groups. Vocal. Key word. Vocal. People who argue so vehemently on both sides. Those two sides dominate the culture right now. There are a zillion shades of gray, naturally.
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Goodpenguin



Joined: 02 Jul 2007
Posts: 457
Location: Hunt Valley, MD
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:19 am Reply with quote
Quote:
I firmly believe anime fandom is slowly eating itself alive.


Deep down, I think everybody always realized it would go out like Pizza the Hut.

I think you sum up the shift in old and new pretty succinctly and fairly. I'll also add as a bit of a greybeard, that at an earlier point anime was wrapped into a general entertainment spectrum, more then just being a destination in and of itself. I and my anime watching friends of the time started out from niche/cult/extreme style movie fandom (Italian splat, Japanese horror/samurai films) in the early/mid-nineties, and watching the kind of crazy, exploitative antics of the Ninja-Scrolls and Wicked City's of the world kind of dove-tailed right into the current. Similarly, for the Sci-fi/Fantasy nerd factor, we had Slayers, Maze, Sorcerer Hunters, etc.. Once you got a bit more 'hooked' on the form one could find a good mix of the action-comedies too, but still everything kind of tied back in to a general world of the cult/niche enthusiast, and the stately 'Nerd Collector Hobby' rules/buying pattens that came with it.

Down the line, just as you wrote, there was definitely a shift to anime being it's own prominent fandom/interest; with the rise of 'easy-use' fansubs and the forming of a heavy 'social' aspect that revolved around it, a huge fundamental shift occurred in the 'fabric' of the fan base and the consumer expectations they had. That's not really a 'Good or Bad' issue, time and exposure changes the nature of a lot of things, but it is a shame that anime's 'market model' seemed to have frayed so irrevocably from the fading of the old 'cult collector' days to the more 'social' prominent trends of today.
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Murasakisuishou



Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 1469
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:20 am Reply with quote
irishninja wrote:
I love the scene where they're all standing in a line in trenchcoats looking hardcore. Very Happy


There are so many little hints in it that you don't really get until you watch the whole series too, like the brief shot of the three hands (with the one only showing one finger), or the frame of Gohda and the Individual Eleven logo. While the animation in the first OP was more about "Oooh, look at me! I'm Motoko Kusanagi and I have big boobs and hardly wear any clothes!", the second OP gave more of a sense of the series as a whole.
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