Hey, Answerman!

hey Answerman, last month I saw the Naruto movie and while it was OK it was basically a drawn out episode. I also saw one of The One Piece movies a while ago and it was the same. It seems like nothing really happens in the Shonen Jump movies, just once it would be nice if something big happened that was part of the main storyline. Why are the movies always like that?

Yeah, they're generally all like that. The thing is, they can't do anything to drastically alter the TV show's storyline, since normally when they're releasing a film, the TV show is ongoing. So they have to write a side-story, and usually they involve some one-shot character that they spend way too much time on and the principal cast becomes the supporting cast. Most Shonen Jump-style movies - even with things like Inuyasha - are like watching long filler episodes. There's never a lot of meat to them, and they're generally pretty forgettable.

In fact, the only kind of anime movies based on an existing TV show I genuinely find myself enjoying are the ones that "reimagine" the main plot; Escaflowne and Revolutionary Girl Utena are two great examples, and I suspect the upcoming animated Evangelion movies will be the same way. I've always liked highly stylized versions of popular characters and those sorts of films appeal to that sensibility, I guess.

Oh wow! It's my old friend, the Berserk question! I haven't seen you in ages! How's it going, old friend?

Hey Answerman! I was looking around again for any updates on berserk and couldnt find any, and have always wondered if they would ever continue animating that series. So I figured since your called the answerman you might have an answer for this question. From what I heard the anime wasnt continued because of a dispute between the Director and the writer. I love this anime and its story so much that I ended up reading the manga just so i can know whats going on. If your able to find anything out about this for me or know of anyway I might be able to sway them to producing it again please let me know. Thanks.

I used to get this question so often I even made an image for it.

The answer remains the same: NO! No no no. There is no news about a new Berserk series. None. Never. Kaput.

Read the manga which has a buttload of volumes available from Dark Horse. It's probably better than a new anime series anyway.

dear answerman which animes are the best animes

This is the best anime:

Happy now?

No winner this week either, but here's a rant anyway.

It comes courtesy of Sarah Maynard. The following is in no way representative of the opinions of Anime News Network, Zac Bertschy, or anyone else save the person who wrote it.

Recently, I watched a mini documentary on the birth of Studio Ghibli on the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind DVD. There was one film that stood out to me, and I immediately went to find out more. The film was Only Yesterday, and after consulting Internet Movie Database and its Wikipedia entry, I found out that plans to release it were shelved indefinitely. The reason? Apparently, Disney felt uncomfortable with two scenes, one where a family bathes together and another where schoolchildren discuss menstruation. Now why does this bother me? Because people seem to think that those two scenes will cause Disney to be seen in a negative light, and they can't cut them out because of a deal made with Ghibli. It basically comes down to censorship.

We live in a day and age where it seems like children need to be protected from everything. “The children! Won't someone please think of the children?” Too many times have we heard from parents who say that their children have been exposed to some inappropriate material. My question is, well, then, where were you? It is not the job of the company, the vendor, the local library, or whatever medium the media is published to make sure that your child isn't exposed to what you deem ‘inappropriate.’ But this practice of making sure that things are ‘appropriate’ for younger viewers has sadly become the norm. Which means that sometimes scenes of great significance in some anime or manga are ultimately edited. Or even fan service is toned down. Tengho Tenge is a great example. It's a manga chockfull of fan service, things that, yes, children probably shouldn't see at a younger age. So the publisher decides to cut things, and censor others. Again, my problem with that is that it's not the publisher's job to protect the children. It's the parents’ job. As a better example, Lionsgate recently released a 25th special edition DVD of The Last Unicorn, which is, in my opinion, a great film. However, because of pressure from parents and Wal-Mart, Lionsgate decided to censor a few curse words, most notably the word ‘damn’ during Molly Grue's speech to the Unicorn. My argument is that her speech is an emotional point in the movie. Looking back, even some of Disney's animated movies contain curse words (my best example would be Hunchback of Notre Dame).

Some anime shows are not for younger viewers. But I believe that anything by Ghibli has a general appeal to audiences of all ages, and to completely disregard a film because of two questionable scenes is, for lack of a better word, stupid. Many times we as a general people underestimate the intelligence of children. They can handle certain subjects, if discussed appropriately. I've sometimes been led to think that the reason anime and manga are full of questionable material in terms of American standards is because parents in Japan don't talk to their children. Now I believe that we are the ones that don't talk to ours, to protect them from the things that they are ultimately capable of understanding.

Whew. So what do you think? Do they have a point? Sound off on our forums and let the discussion begin!

That said, we've had a lot of complaints about the rant section lately - generally, we're getting rants over and over again based on the same few topics: fansubs, dubbing, lolicon, and "I hate anime fans who do [X]". I'm just as sick of those as you guys are, so as an incentive to write better rants, here's what we're doing.

What I want are rants - or essays - or whatever you'd like to write, really (please don't get hung up on the dictionary definition of "rant" while you're writing) - that are about subjects OTHER than one ones listed above. I want well-thought out, careful writing. I want subjects we haven't covered a million times.

Here's what I don't want:

* Responses to previous rants about lolicon/dubbing/fansubs/anime fans who suck a lot
* 200 words about how awesome Dragon Ball is
* New rants about lolicon/dubbing/fansubs/anime fans who suck a lot
* Anything that's really, really boring.

The next rant I publish will either conform to these guidelines or we simply won't have one that week. Rather than always publishing a rant - which I've been doing in the past, even if the rant was awful - I'll simply skip the section. Sound good?

Well, there's more. The author of the next rant to be published - which will only happen if it's good enough and follows these guidelines - will receive a prize box chock full of anime and manga straight from my own collection. I won't announce exactly what the prize is, but suffice to say, it's an incentive to do your best.

The rules as they are won't change:

1. No excessive swearing. "Damn" and "Hell" are fine, anything stronger than that needs to be excluded or censored.
2. Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
3. The word "Rant" must be in your email subject line.
4. Your rant must be at least 500 words, and use proper spelling and grammar. Internet speak, like 'lol' or 'u' instead of 'you' will not be tolerated.
5. If you send me something that's already been published on your blog or on another site, I'm just going to delete it. Likewise, requests that I link to your blog or another site if I print your rant will also result in your email being sent straight to the trash.

Send your rants to [email protected], and watch this space next week for our next installment!

I sat down to write the column last month and decided I was pretty sick and tired of staring at Howl. So I cracked open Photoshop to craft a new banner for Hey, Answerman!, but the inspiration just didn't come!

What's the obvious solution? Ask my readers to do it for me!

Here's the deal. You take this banner: