Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - In the Name of the Moon
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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 Well spotted. Have a cookie.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4788 |
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No offense to Mr. Robert, but I'd love to take an ax to the habit of lumping One Piece in with the other members of the Big Three, just because they happen to be comparable in length. Yes, it's true that Naruto wound up being one big angst ball, and yes, Bleach became a horribly-paced mess (just stick to fashion design from now on, Kubo, you're awesome at it). However, Oda actually comprehends and utilizes the fundamentals of good storytelling...he's had much of his series planned out from the very beginning, and he's stuck to that plan as it's progressed. I think the majority of us who have sunk a decent amount of time into One Piece would consider it a worthwhile investment; unlike the two previously-mentioned series, I'm fully of the opinion that it continues to get better as it progresses. There's a good reason why it's become the merchandising juggernaut it is in Japan: at its heart, it's just a great story.
As for what I'm thankful for, it's the fact that Japan still manages to sneak out a few awesome gems every year amidst all of the harem/moeblob nonsense. I never watch the current crop of series (it's easier to wait a couple of years for the really good stuff to get filtered out), but I am in the middle of watching Break Blade at the moment, and damn we need more stuff like that. |
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BonusStage
 Posts: 307 |
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speak for yourself, I find myself struggling with One Piece, especially after the really forced timeskip. Naruto actually has a coherant storyline you can follow and it's clear Kishi knows what he's doing. Oda is essentially retelling the same arc for the most part of Luffy finding an island, beating the bad guy, and moving on. The thing with Oda is he'll do something like show Laboon and then 500 chapters later he's all "Hey remember Laboon? He's actually talking about THESE people and actually relevant again" that's not really planning out so much as pulling from your back log and recycling characters and plotlines.. he does that alot. Planning out would be the obvious connection between Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to the three Sannin which was apparent from the beginning when they were introduced, and it was nice to see them grow into their mentor's roles over the years and eventually succeed their masters as the series went on. Oda relies too much on recycling things to really say he planned stuff out
 because you seem to have a very poor grasp on what actually comes off if you're the kinda ignorant person who labels it all "harem/moe". A bunch of stuff currently out is a lot better than Break Blade, but if you wait for it to be licensed or whatever, you're in for a long wait, since most of the best series never do  it's a shame to see people like you who write off current anime and are stuck in the past stuff
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Top Gun
Posts: 4788 |
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Given that One Piece's setting is a circumnavigation of the globe, I'm curious how Luffy and the crew wouldn't be island-hopping by necessity. That aside, did you miss the part where each of those islands tackle very different themes, often very heady ones for what's essentially a children's franchise? To say that Arabasta equates to Skypiea, which equates in turn to Enies Lobby, is rather disingenuous. And that's nothing compared to how the scope of the series has expanded over time. One Piece started out as a bunch of goofy pirates trying to find a legendary treasure. It's evolved into the protagonists essentially declaring war on the World Government and getting wrapped up in a centuries-old conspiracy. It's storytelling on a grand scale, something you rarely see in shounen manga, and Oda does it very well.
Um, no, most of those "recycled" concepts are things he'd had planned out years in advance. You used Laboon as an example? spoiler[Oda had the character of Brook sketched out and conceived all the way back when the Straw Hats first met Laboon. He already planned that the Straw Hats would meet a talking skeleton who happened to be the only survivor of the crew that "abandoned" the whale at the entrance to the Grand Line.] The same is true for multiple other characters and concepts throughout the series' run. I will grant you that Oda originally didn't plan for his manga to last nearly as long as it's going to, but all of these elements from the past that he uses later on are things he's wanted to do when they were introduced. It's certainly far preferable to completely forgetting that past characters ever existed in the first place.
While I may not watch what's coming out as it does, I've paid more than cursory attention to ANN's season previews over the past couple of years, so my position is hardly uninformed. While the craze does seem to be dying down a bit, and so much the better, you can't sit there and tell me that the past few years haven't contained a glut of pathetic-male-somehow-attracts-multiple females and obnoxiously-cute-girls-do-cute-things titles. Hell, even a quick glance at the promo art on those season preview images that circle all over the Internet shows as much. I've had vague interest in multiple titles over the past couple of seasons, but before that, we went through a very dry period of truly meaty stuff. And no, I'm not "writing off" anything. I don't limit myself to titles that are licensed, but I do prefer most series I watch to be completed before I start them, so I can get a good consensus on them as a whole. I'm not in the habit of dropping what I watch, so I want to invest my time wisely, and the gift of a year or two's worth of perspective goes a long way towards that. Also, the concept of being "stuck in the past" as an anime fan is an enjoyable one, given that the majority of anime fans seem to have absolutely no interest in titles that are more than a decade old.
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Sailor S
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So, umm, stop reading/watching. I don't understand at all how you'd still be watching/reading after this many chapters/episodes (I don't know if you're a manga read or anime watcher nor do I care) Really, if there's anything still bothering you about OP at this point, then why the hell are you still following it? If you're still following either the manga or the anime, then you like it and you're just in denial. It's not like you don't know what you're going to get at this point. Just drop it and don't struggle anymore then. I suppose it's pretty easy for people that are getting it for free though. |
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Anymouse
 Posts: 685 |
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What about the people like me who don't watch long running shonen series?
We are getting left out of the discussion! |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Movies like Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs do well because the CGI main characters in the movies reflect very much how a little kid sees the world (and especially adults), only exaggerated: Tiny, out of place, always thirsting for something exciting to do, little to no responsibility, little to no regard for one's life, adults are gigantic mystifying creatures who are always too serious but are nice deep down, they travel in groups with an affinity for each other, and they're extremely curious.
That means little kids would be able to relate intensely to these characters, even if they're not aware of it. They practically feel as if they WERE the characters, or at least one of them, and when they succeed, the kids feel like they've succeeded too. In addition, if a little kid likes a movie and grows attached to the characters, he or she will want to see it again. And again. And again. They're psychologically hardwired to repeat anything that makes them feel good, as that's how a human brain learns things. This extends to watching a movie as well. So if some parents are feeling especially generous, they will repeatedly buy tickets at the theater, bringing the box office up further; they will also buy the merchandise and the video when those come out, not unlike how anime turns a profit (only for older folks). That's why Disney Studios generally does not like Up, for instance: It's almost completely unmerchandiseable. No one wants a plush toy or an action figure of two old men and a chubby boy scout, and Dug can't sustain merchandise sales by himself. Its characters and themes are also distinctly adult in nature. Kids had a hard time connecting to Up the same way they did with Alvin and The Chipmunks or even Toy Story (the toys there exhibit the same traits as in Chipmunks and Smurfs, only the story was very well done).
I'd laugh if one of them was the "funny symbols." |
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loyalmoonie
 Posts: 9 |
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For the record, on the "funny symbols" issue, despite what the website Sailor Moon Uncensored says (what do I care about them? They're nothing but cyberbullies), this is how the scene went: Mina: "You're totally right, Luna. Just look, I read this with my imagination!" Lita: "How could you read it? It's nothing but symbols." (NOT "funny symbols") Amy: "There are a few letters, but they're half-erased." As for what Naoko liked, I do know that she actually liked Luna's "British accent" or "nanny" voice in the dub. Plus, in the song "Motto Suteki na Asa ga Kuru yo", which was heard in Sailor Stars, if you listen to it's melody, it sounds like the composer sort of used the English dub's transformation theme heard when Serena transforms. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14886 |
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Might I also add that the live-action Blood: TLV wasn't that good neither, even when it was chuck-full of Japanese actors and actresses and based in Japan. Just something to keep in mind with English adaptations.
And yep, back when Sailor Moon was expanding to different countries, each with their own local opening theme songs (so people who hate any changes need not apply)........ Naoko Takeuchi never gave any sense of minding the changes. She just wanted her work to be appreciated worldwide (it was the first hit of her young career, and an anime being such a global hit was rare, aka don't look a gift horse in the mouth). Of course, she's also driving a Ferrari.
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loyalmoonie
Posts: 9 |
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Yep. Companies and people in Japan don't really mind what happens to anime dubbed outside of Japan (with the notable exception of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghlibi). |
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UtenaAnthy
 Posts: 694 |
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Just wanted to say that I'm largely uninterested in Transformers, I don't want to see any of the movies as they look terrible and I'm mostly not interested in the various animated incarnations, but Transformers: Beast Wars seems to be a really good show, from what I've seen (not much, but I definitely plan to pick up the new boxsets based on my sampling).
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