ANNCast

OveraChivers

ANNCast Episode 033 - OveraChivers

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Have we got a show for you this week! We open with a little bit about some of the non-anime stuff we've been watching, including How to Train your Dragon, Clash of the Titans, Breaking Bad and The Wire. Then it's off to the Spring anime season, with the icky-premise Senkō no Night Raid and the brutal Rainbow; then Justin has an announcement about our new video player and then stuff gets real, yo.

Our guest this week is Nmerichi Umennachi (who goes by "Chi"), a Ph.D candidate at the prestigious Tokyo University of Technology's animation program (You can read Chi's blog right here). He's there under a scholarship and invitation from the Japanese Ministry of Education to research Business Strategies for the Japanese Content Industry - which means this guy knows what's up with the Japanese animation industry and it is not, at present, a pretty picture. Chi has the lowdown on exactly what's plaguing the anime industry, who the next generation of anime creators are and what they're into, what's influencing today's anime creators most, the issues with CGI, the rise of moe and gag anime and a whole wealth of other subjects. You don't want to miss this one!

You can listen to the show on our player here, direct-download the MP3 version here, or you can just use these handy links:

Click here to subscribe to our show in iTunes!	RSS feed (for other software)

Also: if you like the show (or don't like the show, I guess) be sure to write us up a review over on iTunes! It'd be a big help!

NSFW Language Warning: Not a lot of swearing. Just enough to satisfy the senses.

ANNCast Episode 33 Breakdown

00:22 Host introductions, a bunch of American movies and TV shows

10:00 The rest of the Spring season; Senkō no Night Raid, Rainbow, etc.

18:16 ANN's new video player is a big improvement

21:00 Nmerichi "Chi" Umennachi introduction and his work in Japan

23:30 The Tokyo University of Technology and the Japanese attitude toward higher education

26:17 What it is exactly that Chi does

28:00 What are the biggest problems facing the anime industry today?

38:45 Maybe Zac has the solution! (spoiler: he does not)

41:15 The number of fans and the amount they each need to pay to guarantee financial viability

43:00 The trends Chi is seeing in the Japanese anime industry, among his colleagues and the changing landscape

50:00 The lack of new auteurs coming up through the education system

53:30 How easy is it to get a moe show produced?

55:00 Enough gloom 'n doom; what positive trends are there?

59:15 What anime Chi is watching now and what he's personally interested in

01:02:10 What's influencing today's generation of anime creators?

01:05:10 THE DREAD SPECTRE OF MOE HANNAH MONTANA

01:11:05 Twitter time! The clash between creative and marketing, the trends in CGI animation in Japan, Pixar vs. Robert Zemeckis, and more!

And that's it! See you next week.

Have questions for the ANNCast crew? Tweet 'em to @ANNZac! Or check out the community forums thread about the show, or send email questions to zac@animenewsnetwork dot com!

Special thanks to Phillip Harrington for designing and creating the ANNCast logo.