×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
Answerman - Why Do TV Networks Air Reboots Instead Of Originals?


Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Dr. Wily



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 225
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:14 pm Reply with quote
Hey hey hey, I'm not one of the unwashed masses! I took a shower today. Wink

But I do understand. I try to appreciate the classics, but I remember long ago when Toonami tried to air the original Gundam, but after watching Gundam Wing I just could not get past how... old the series looked. These days I can cope with such things better, but I'd be lying if I said I seek out old titles rather than watching more contemporary anime.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Ambulator



Joined: 08 Oct 2016
Posts: 30
Location: California
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:16 pm Reply with quote
I've never heard it called pillarboxing before, only letterboxing. Well, live and learn.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
luffypirate



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 3186
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:25 pm Reply with quote
As my son would say “daddy, why do you watch OLD anime?” :p
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
heavyweather



Joined: 29 Aug 2008
Posts: 97
Location: Fargo, ND
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:29 pm Reply with quote
It's not just classic anime - it's very rare for any major network to air pre-HD (or pre-widescreen) content. TBS' reruns of Friends and Seinfeld are stretched to 16 by 9. Most PBS stations still air Keeping Up Appearances and The Lawrence Welk Show, but that's it as far as older content, without going to more obscure cable channels.

And besides, Adult Swim has a small block, and a ton of new shows to choose from. They really don't need to go back.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Frenzie



Joined: 08 Sep 2017
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:44 pm Reply with quote
Ambulator wrote:
I've never heard it called pillarboxing before, only letterboxing. Well, live and learn.

Pillarboxing is the "opposite" of letterboxing, i.e., 4:3 to widescreen as opposed to widescreen to 4:3.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
FLCLGainax





PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:48 pm Reply with quote
We're lucky to be getting remastered versions of Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop on Toonami at all. Only a few years ago, they used to air old SD masters of Ghost in the Shell: SAC which were blurry and stretched.

I wonder how they would re-air the original FLCL episodes later this year, in anticipation of the new seasons. It would be a choice between upscaling their old SD masters or using the poor upscale from the Blu-ray.
Back to top
svines85



Joined: 30 Sep 2011
Posts: 42
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:19 pm Reply with quote
Hah... "the unwashed masses", good call, Justin, good call Anime hyper

Yup, it's a shame, but you just can't teach people to have good taste, eh?

Great article, thanks a lot Smile
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
DamianSalazar



Joined: 25 Jul 2017
Posts: 703
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:46 pm Reply with quote
I feel like people forget to mention that Toonami cannot air unlicensed material, the Hunter x Hunter of 1999 has gone out of print and Viz aren't interested in re-licensing it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Xe4



Joined: 04 May 2015
Posts: 96
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:47 pm Reply with quote
It's worth noting that The Wire was originally shot in 16:9 because it came at the time which it was pretty obvious that was the format for the digital future. Simon shot it in that and cut it down so as to future proof the series.

Every other point is spot on. No one except for classic movie and show channels (which don't really show anime much anyways) will do SD letterboxed stuff.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5286
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:52 pm Reply with quote
The funny thing is that when Toonami first came back, people were complaining about how most of the shows were from the old Toonami run. I strongly disagree with the part about the mainstream, a good chunk of the people who watch Toonami are those who first saw it many years ago.
Quote:
For example Hunter x Hunter choose the 2011 version over the 1999 version.
That's not to do with age, that's just common sense. Do you put the one on that adapts more of the source materiel and is made by a better studio, which you are also currently dubbing or the one made a lesser studio that did not get very far and you only partly dubbed.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Primus



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2757
Location: Toronto
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:17 pm Reply with quote
A better question would be why it took Viz a decade to release the original Hunter x Hunter. If they didn't take their sweet time, the show would've had a better shot at landing a TV deal and probably would've gotten a higher budgeted dub.

Quote:
Funimation ran into this problem when remastering Dragon Ball Z for Blu-ray. The hardcore nerds who know a thing or two about video and presentation wanted to see the entire 4x3 image, but enough mainstream consumers balked at the pillarboxing that Funimation ended up stopping their release to go back and zoom in everything, cropping areas of the picture to fill a modern 16x9-shaped TV without any black bars on the sides. The fans were irrate, but the resulting discs sold a lot better.


I don't believe that, Justin. Dragon Ball Z is the only anime series that's been cropped recently by R1 anime distributors for home video. Sailor Moon, Escaflowne, Cowboy Bebop, even Speed Racer, are all presented in their OARs. It's funny, because back in the day the stereotype for consumers complaining about 16:9 DVDs on their 4:3 televisions were supposedly the non-AV aficionados, mainly consisting of an older demographic. Yet the audience for a mass market Speed Racer product (the cheap sets got into Wal-Mart) somehow isn't today's equivalent of that. Rolling Eyes

The first 98 episodes of Dragon Ball Kai are 4:3. The show was successful in the US on Nicktoons, The CW and Toonami. Each of them presented it in 4:3. If that was such a huge turn off, why did Toonami grab Kai instead of running the 16:9 crop of Z for those episodes?

No, Funimation cropped Z because it was far cheaper to chop the top and bottom and apply some DVR than do a full frame restoration. Those sets sold better because they weren't released directly after a glut of other Dragon Ball home video product and had a far cheaper per episode cost than their 4:3 counterparts. Cost is almost certainly a bigger factor to the mainstream consumer than presentation.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:11 pm Reply with quote
I really hope that if we ever do end up seeing Sailor Moon on Toonami again, it's the HD remaster/redub of the original and not Crystal. Crystal isn't going to catch as many nostalgic eyes and is also just plain lackluster.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
jlaking



Joined: 02 Mar 2008
Posts: 224
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 7:00 pm Reply with quote
heavyweather wrote:
TBS' reruns of Friends and Seinfeld are stretched to 16 by 9.


Those two shows were filmed on 35mm film for 16:9 and then cropped later. The credits of the show even mention this.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime
Lionel Horsepackage



Joined: 23 Jun 2017
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 7:18 pm Reply with quote
Xe4 wrote:
It's worth noting that The Wire was originally shot in 16:9 because it came at the time which it was pretty obvious that was the format for the digital future. Simon shot it in that and cut it down so as to future proof the series.

Not correct -- The Wire was shot in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio right from the very beginning (David Simon and Robert Colesberry wanted to shoot in widescreen at the start, but HBO wouldn't budge, due to budgetary reasons). When pre-production began on Season 3, HBO finally offered them the opportunity to shoot in WS, but given how successful and raw and gritty the 4x3 framing was in the first two seasons, Simon declined.

It was for the BD release that HBO started work on reframing the series in 16:9 widescreen, and brought Simon onboard to oversee the process -- Simon goes into deep detail on the whole affair here on his blog:

http://www.davidsimon.com/the-wire-hd-with-videos/


Last edited by Lionel Horsepackage on Wed Jan 17, 2018 9:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 2992
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 7:31 pm Reply with quote
CatSword wrote:
I really hope that if we ever do end up seeing Sailor Moon on Toonami again, it's the HD remaster/redub of the original and not Crystal. Crystal isn't going to catch as many nostalgic eyes and is also just plain lackluster.


It was confirmed on a preflight episode 2 years ago that Toonami tried to get Crystal but they lost their chance when Hulu outbid them and considering that Viz posted all of season 3's dub on there and Yahoo back in October, that deal won't be ending anytime soon.

Can't speak for the original on Hulu except Viz hasn't done anything new since posting the rest of the R redub in July 2015 and finishing the Stars subs in April 2016.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4  Next
Page 1 of 4

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group