Forum - View topicANNCast - Tarboxed and Feathered
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2673 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Interesting episode. Just hearing the stories behind Raijin and CMX was worth it. But first, simply to be picky, Baki the Grappler wasn't Shonen Jump; it was Shonen Champion. With that out of the way...
The Raijin Comics story certainly was interesting, from its Bond-esque final formation to its narrow-minded way of running. That said, I do have all that was released of Fist of the Blue Sky (5 volumes worth), my friend has all but one volume of Fist of the North Star's Master Editions, and I even have a volume of City Hunter, which I enjoyed to the point that it made me hunt down the ADV DVD releases that I could afford. It's a shame that there were still some titles that never got even one compiled volume release, like Hana no Keiji, Wild Leaguer, or even Baki. From Raijin only two titles seem to have been rescued, Mammotte Shugogetten (which TokyoPop recued) and Slam Dunk (by Viz and it deserved a rescue), and I don't think we'll ever see any more of that... Unfortunately. As for CMX, if licensing seemingly-random titles resulted in the license of titles like Kamikaze Kaitou Janne and Kikaider 02 then I'm happy it went that way. Still, I think most of what happened to CMX can mainly be blamed on DC, who seemingly thought of nothing but money but didn't actually put any actual thought into how this business works when compared to American comics. Finally, that story about Tsukasa Hojo adding a biniki was just awesome. That's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of story... Unless Tarbox did that other times with the likes of Tetsuo Hara as well. And hopefully one day that return of a Coamix-related publication with Tarbox being the editor comes true. |
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Hardgear
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That was a very entertaining and insightful look into the tragedy of manga industry failures. They are tragedies in the literal sense: The outcome was obvious given the decisions made, and yet someone still found it a good idea... I rate this episode on par with the one you did a while back spilling the beans on Geneon's implosion.
And damn, I hear you on the whole "all of the responsibility, none of the authority" thing. That is basically the description of my job... I am the "owner" of various projects, where "owner" translates to "the guy who does the grunt work to implement someone else's design, often against his better judgement". APPARENTLY that is my employer's idea of "empowering" the grunts by making them take "ownership" of their work. Of course any design failures are completely my fault, even if I have a paper trail proving I fought against making that specific choice. I should have fought harder, yes, that's what they tell me, despite writing me up as being "argumentative and insubordinate" on my performance review the last few times I fought for something that ultimately ended up being the correct choice... Overall my job is great though, at least it has become great since I have learned enough of the system and office politics to work it in my favor. I basically made the transition from Asok to Wally, and much quicker than I thought I would (yes, I am making a Dilbert reference, that comic used to not be very funny until it became my job in comic form, same goes for Office Space really). This leads into another reference to the podcast, where y'all were talking about how no one goes about their job thinking about what it does for the greater good. I used to when I first started, until I realized that all it got me was punished. Those foolish beliefs and behaviors have fast been trained out of me  .
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2480 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Only got through the early Zac & Justin stuff so far. On Funico vs. Crunchyroll, why does Anime Network streaming never figure into this discussion? Is it because they're pretty much an appendage of Section 23 / Sentai, and live or die by that catalog?
Another factor Funico needs to consider is mobile apps. Crunchyroll and Anime Network both have good iPhone/iPad apps that make subscriptions more valuable. It's also fun to compare Durarara!! episodes side-by-side between Crunchyroll and the Adult Swim app, since CR has the sub and AS has the dub. For the same episode, Crunchyroll looks vastly better, being either better encoded or having multiple bitrates available and thus better matching my 6Mbps DSL. |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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To be honest, I didn't notice CMX preparing for the shutdown 18-24 months in advance. Sure, series such as Swan and From Eroica with Love were released slower, but that's what any sane publisher would do with titles that aren't doing well. New volumes and series kept coming out at a steady pace right up until the announcement. The website was updated to include new licenses two or three days before it was pulled offline.
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Man, it's a shame to hear about Interstella 5555's Blu ray. It's a great movie and we all know it deserves better than that. I mean, I don't have a Blu-ray player or HDTV anyway (I'm way behind the tech curve, no?), but this certainly won't be a title that I rebuy on Blu-ray for any reason.
I mean, a bad upscale is one thing, but becoming quite possibly the worst one out to date? That's just sad. |
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bemused Bohemian
Posts: 404 Location: central Mizzou (Moral Oralville) |
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Great interview with Mr. Tarbox about state of manga and anime topics. I found it both entertaining and insightful. And glad to hear premise/promise of ANNcast occurring on a more timely basis. At times you guys are a fun diversion from the realities beyond my front door and I look forward to these measured doses of ribald or vitriolic nerdery.
I see the Music business hasn't changed over the years. My Dad had the same gripes when he left it back in the 1930's to go practice medicine. Paul Whiteman (who??) had 4 bands in the era and my father was advanceman and music arranger for him back then. If he was still alive I'm certain he would be impressed by the technological strides the industry has made but it is disheartening that in spite of all the positive changes certain aspects of it still remain lacking. Keep up the good work. You guys are a fun ride for the mind. |
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Bamble
Posts: 130 |
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Funny, what with contemporaneous and near-contemporaneous DVD releases of nearly the entirety of City Hunter and the New Fist of the North Star OVA from ADV, many have said that Coamix should have co-ordinated with ADV to get some synergy between their product. It's fascinating to actually have confirmation that this was in fact the intent from the beginning.
I agree with the sentiment that Raijin would have lasted a little longer with such a strategy, and ADV likely might have had increased sales on these titles in the short term too. Of course, they'd still never have been big sellers to a mainstream U.S. audience, but I can't see how they would have performed any worse. It's all simply yet another example of a missed opportunity due to chronic mismanagement that has all but destroyed both the U.S. anime and manga industries in the last few years. The Hojo bikini story is quite amusing, but like CMX, highlights that despite their supposed attempts at "authenticity", the Coamix guys were similarly content to put out censored product in both the regular magazine and tankobon editions to protect their valued readers - of which there ironically didn't really turn out to be many at all. Pity Raijin crashed and burned so badly. If they'd targeted their good, but aged series like City Hunter and Fist of the North Star to the appropriate audience (i.e. oldies), they'd surely have had more success, instead of vainly trying to make these obviously-censored 20-year-old series popular with a largely apathetic mainstream audience. |
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neocloud9
 Posts: 1178 Location: Atlanta, GA |
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Really interesting episode! That guy's had a fascinating career... It's too bad I can't afford to go to DragonCon. I might be able to manage it if only it weren't in the same month as AWA.
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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I agree with Zac, looking at how quickly ADV manga bombed because they tried to become the biggest manga publisher right off the bat (despite the fact that they only had a few big selling series) I don't see Raijin still being in business. Raijin's problems was that it should have been like Vertical selling older manga to a niche within a niche.
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Dorian
 Posts: 111 Location: Houston |
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Happy one hundreth
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Kakugo
Posts: 163 |
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INTERSTELLA might not have an "uncompressed" track, but it does have lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, which is the exact same thing as uncompressed once it's been decoded. If you're only getting a vanilla DTS track it's because your player/decoder is either too old to handle it, or it's just not set up properly.
The video is certainly an atrocity, though. Far as I can figure the feature was originally animated at 24fps, and then converted to PAL using destructive interlaced methods. All PAL versions are this initial framerate conversion, and all NTSC/"1080p" versions are that same master converted back to NTSC. In other words, the US release is basically an NTSC > PAL > NTSC conversion... it probably couldn't be more f'ed if they'd tried. If neither Toei nor Virgin Records kept the NTSC master - and it seems unlikely at this point - all of those video problems are baked into the materials. The only way to fix it now would be to reanimate it from scratch. |
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tuxedocat
 Posts: 2183 |
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Great podcast Zac.
Holy crap! Bamboo's new column will totally ROCK!!! -at least for me, since her earlier work on shelf life helped build a large portion of my anime collection. Also, those Spotlights rock, too! You guys just keep adding more awesome content! I love the new articles Gia has been writing lately, too. More fun to look forward to. Happy now. re: CMX. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if CMX had a talented marketing person? I'm noticing a few articles about Vertical's Drops of God showing up in non-fandom places like the Wine Enthusiast website, and a link for another on the Huffington Post. In addition, it almost sounds like CMX had no acquisitions dept. other than "some guy" who would say "oh. look. another manga volume...." then sign the provided contract and send the book to editorial. Whatever happened, I am very glad we got obscure and older titles like Eroica. I never would have volumes 1-8 of Apothecarius Argentum sitting on my shelves. Even though unfinished, they are treasures to me. Because of that, I am kind of grateful to that not-acquisitions guy. 
No article/podcast that mentions Viz will go un-chastised for not releasing the rest of Monster (anime). However, I am thankful for Pluto (manga), and the continuing publication of 20th Century Boys (manga) and House of Five Leaves (manga). Having come from a publishing background, I can say that I totally will miss physical books. I have a library full of them. I look at my shelves, and seeing them there is a kind of comfort. However, I can see why periodicals are going digital. Even when I was active in publishing, the costs of paper just continued to rise. Paper is a diminishing resource, I totally understand that. I also understand that a lot of people regard the tangible form of publishing, books, as a disposable form of entertainment. I don't. |
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ljaesch
Posts: 299 Location: Enumclaw, WA |
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Another good show this week.
Bamboo's new ANN column: It sounds like a really good idea for a column, especially now that simulcasting has become an important part of anime fandom. Does this mean that Shelf Life will now only focus on physical media, or is Erin going to continue to review streaming anime as well? Interstella 5555: After hearing Zac's reaction to this, I'm glad we didn't try to upgrade our DVD. Halloween: I had basically lost interest in Halloween by the time I was in the fifth grade. The main reason I have any interest in it now that I'm in my mid-to-late 30s is due to my kids. However, I do try to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown every year around Halloween. I also like Nightmare Before Christmas. Muppets: I love the Muppets, especially The Muppet Show and The Muppet Move. I never really got into The Great Muppet Caper, although I did find enjoyment in The Muppets Take Manhattan. I also was never a fan of The Muppet Babies animated series; this was probably due to the fact that I was in fourth grade when it first went on the air, so I was already a little beyond the target audience. I agree that the more recent Muppets stuff just hasn't been as good. Jonathan Tarbox: He was such a great guest. I enjoyed his stories and anecdotes about his work in the manga business. They were informative, interesting, and also amusing. It was interesting for me to hear him mention working on Musashi #9, because I just recently read the first volume of that series that I checked out from my local library system. I like coincidences like that.
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GATSU
Posts: 15558 |
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At least this just proves my argument that the Japanese publishers and/or licensors were the ones screwing over ADV on NewType, and not the other way around. They would not be dropping an allegedly profitable magazine, if there wasn't some bullshit going down on the Japanese end.
What? But they published such great titles!
Actually, I've heard complaints from someone who works in the anime industry that she has issues with little kids being able to get access to mainstream manga with graphic sex scenes in Japan.
I don't think it was a mistake for DC to get into manga. It was a mistake for them to not do the proper research. And it's not like they had no experience in that field before CMX, since they previously published manga versions of Batman and Gon. ANNZAC:
Arucard vs. Alucard. I know that was an issue for DMP.
As for Interstella, I'm just glad I saw it on the big screen when it played in L.A. Geo:
I don't think Wild Leaguer was even published in the magazine. They announced it, but it didn't happen. But I'm surprised no one brought back Nemuri Kyoshiro/Sleepy Eyes of Death after Animeigo released the movies on DVD.
They rescued the first one, but not the sequel.
I'm just glad Slam Dunk is doing well enough for Viz to continue it in this market. Remember folks, if you like it, and can fit into your budget, you have to support it until the end. If Viz still publishes it bimonthly, we got two more years of volumes left.
A lot of people on the Raijin and AOD forums hated that edit, but I could actually live with it, 'cus I was in it for the action scenes and one-liners.
They edited out the tits from the Fist Master Edition. Not that keeping 'em in there would've saved that series here, unfortunately... 
Bamble:
I think the biggest mistake was when FOX brought over the Jackie Chan City Hunter, and they did not jump on it. Especially when Jake asked people at the BAAF Hojo panel how many saw or heard of that adaptation, and most of the attendees raised their hands.
Let's be honest. Loved their line-up, but they needed to place less emphasis on being sausage-fests. And I think Cat's Eye would've done better in the American market than City Hunter. I know the anime bombed, but it had little exposure. Kakugo:
Well, there was a film print, so I don't know what they did with that... |
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kyokun703
 Posts: 2505 Location: Orgrimmar |
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Listening to Tarbox talk about CMX pained me. Although I am so grateful they brought over Eroica and Swan and Emma. It's just pathetic though that they didn't even try from the get-go.
Re: the binding issue, early CMX's were very stiff, they didn't open all the way, the pages wave and flux stiffly with crackly sounds instead of lying flat. They seemed to switch to a different binder by vol. 4 or 5 of anything I own though. |
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