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Hey, Answerman! [2005-10-28]


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Cloe
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Joined: 18 Feb 2004
Posts: 2728
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:08 am Reply with quote
Quote:
I'd like to point out that the "First Person" sequence in the recent DOOM movie is one of the silliest and dumbest things I've seen in an action movie in a long, long time.

^^; Would I seem terribly doltish if I admitted that the FPS sequence was the single redeeming quality in the entire film for me? Or that I actually saw that movie in the first place? Actually, I would. And I do. Oh well, no point in lying to myself. Perhaps I liked it because it was the only shot that held any semblance to the game, which I have adored for over a decade.

Good column this week, Zac. I look forward to any OEL manga you may review in the future. Although I still hesitate to call them anything but "comics."
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Greboruri



Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 390
Location: QBN, NSW, Australia
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:26 am Reply with quote
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Alternately you can always just learn Japanese and import the R2 DVDs.

There are no R2 DVDs for the second season.
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
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Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:09 am Reply with quote
Greboruri wrote:
Quote:
Alternatively you can always just learn Japanese and import the R2 DVDs.

There are no R2 DVDs for the second season.


I was going to say the same thing--according to discussion at a certain fansub aggregation site forum, there were no R2 DVDs, and the producers may be reluctant to let ADV release R1 DVDs for fear of "reverse importation." This is partially conjecture, as the fact remains that ADV lacks the license.

And honestly, I wouldn't want the thinpak for Super Gals; it's one of those shows where you really need the disc extras and liner notes to understand a large portion of what goes on. That's why I bought the original 6-disc release after seeing Vol. 1+ArtBox for $9.99.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 9902
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:13 am Reply with quote
Greboruri wrote:
Quote:
Alternately you can always just learn Japanese and import the R2 DVDs.

There are no R2 DVDs for the second season.

That's what I don't understand either. Even in Japan, its DVD release stopped at vol. 7 (eps 23-26) on 2002-02-25, over three-and-a-half years ago. I don't expect ADV can obtain more episodes on DVD before Japanese audience could -- otherwise there will be "reversed importation," in which Japanese audiences would import ADV releases ($26.98) back to Japan, where Super GALS DVD costs ¥5,250 ($45.59) per disc.

EDIT: Ack! Beaten by Zalis.
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Cosmic Kath



Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 17
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:30 am Reply with quote
I have to agree, Dramacon is pretty damn good. It's even got its own fanlisting now. Not bad considering volume 1 just came out, eh? Very Happy

It's the humour that makes it a winner; anyone who had been to an anime con can relate to a lot of the situations, and the artist has perfected the characters' expressions.

Ya, it's good stuff!
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biliano



Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 956
Location: Cleveland, OH
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 7:12 am Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
It's no surprise, really; Toei barged into the market with a heretofore unseen level of hubris and arrogance and managed to shoot themselves in the foot by releasing a totally subpar product that was largely seen as an insult to fans. Any company that goes that far to ignore common sense and good business advice deserves failure.


Absolutely agree with this comment, Zac! Very Happy

When it was announced that Slam Dunk was going to be released in the U.S., I was hoping that given the popularity of this title both in Japan and North America through its serialization (in combination with the refound popularity of basketball in NA), Slam Dunk would help bring life into an anime genre that desperately needs support - the sports genre. I was absolutely appauled at the lack of effort and research that Toei showed when they released Slam Dunk (no extras, episodes don't run continuously, the worse English acting track since Sailor Moon, etc.) and I'm not surprised that future releases were suspended. Perhaps Toei will learn from their mistakes (not likely Evil or Very Mad ) and if they do decide to re-release Slam Dunk (along with Air Master and Interlude), they will give us loyal anime fans the respect (and anime presentation) we deserve.

(Note: Please bear in mind that this is not a knock on the Slam Dunk anime itself - from the few episodes that I saw, I though Slam Dunk was a pretty decent series. I'm just upset about the way it was presented in the North American market. Cool )
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CorneredAngel



Joined: 17 Jun 2002
Posts: 854
Location: New York, NY
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 8:34 am Reply with quote
Overall I'd say the Giant Robot genre, be it "super" or "real" needs another EVA-style kick in the pants in order to generate something innovative.

For all it's worth, I'm really looking forward to the second half of Gunbuster 2. I know it's not going to be "great", but I'm willing to put money down that it will be entertaining at the very least, and certainly unusual.
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ACDragonMaster



Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 405
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:03 am Reply with quote
On the Americna "manga" thing, I have to agree that there definitely aren't many out there yet that are very good. I've sat and gone through the manga section at Borders before and, while there were several flashy-looking titles written in English, few to none were actually any good once I looked at them. Whether it be art, dialogue, or even storyline, there's a lot of good ideas out there that just aren't presented well.

Long story short, if Tokyopop and other companies really want to start selling stuff written by Americans, they need to make sure it's of a level able to begin to compete with the stacks of stuff it's shelved next to.
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rabble



Joined: 25 Sep 2005
Posts: 46
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:00 am Reply with quote
Quote:
The last ADV panel I was at, they reminded the audience that if they wanted to see the second season at any point in the future then they needed to run out and buy the new thinpak box set of the first season to show their support for the series; it's pretty basic economics, really.


Hey, ADV, I can neither confirm or deny that I'll be supporting any of your releases. Rolling Eyes
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15599
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:13 am Reply with quote
Quote:

It's no surprise, really; Toei barged into the market with a heretofore unseen level of hubris and arrogance and managed to shoot themselves in the foot by releasing a totally subpar product that was largely seen as an insult to fans. Any company that goes that far to ignore common sense and good business advice deserves failure.


I think there were other factors, such as Slam Dunk not being that big in the U.S. in the first place, and Airmaster lacking pretty girls on the covers of the dvds. The average consumer probably wouldn't care that much about dubtitles. Toei just thought they could sell any anime, and didn't actually bother to assess what would be popular.

Quote:
Overall I'd say the Giant Robot genre, be it "super" or "real" needs another EVA-style kick in the pants in order to generate something innovative.


Evangelion is as "innovative" as Kill Bill. What the genre needs is less whiny and horny teenage pilots and more action.

Quote:
Good points! The review wasn't really saying that all OEL (original English language) manga sucks, but it did point out the fact that A Midnight Opera is a good example of what's wrong with a lot of OEL manga and that most of what's on the shelves is stunningly mediocre. I have yet to read Dramacon, but I've heard nothing but glowing things about it so I'll have to check it out. OEL manga definitely has a lot of potential, but there just isn't much out there on the shelves right now that can hold a candle to most native Japanese stuff.


They need more personality IMHO.
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TranceLimit174



Joined: 21 Jul 2004
Posts: 963
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:14 am Reply with quote
I was actually wondering about the super robot thing too. The last new super robot show I saw was Gravion, and that was just awful. However I saw a bit of the first episode of Godannar and that didn't look half bad. I agree that it's been lacking lately, which is too bad cause it's a fun genre.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4555
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:51 pm Reply with quote
Zac, paraphrasing ADV, wrote:
The last ADV panel I was at, they reminded the audience that if they wanted to see the second season at any point in the future then they needed to run out and buy the new thinpak box set of the first season to show their support for the series; it's pretty basic economics, really.


Super Gals! is, quite honestly, my favourite anime series from the past decade or so, but the advice ADV is giving to those of us who want a second season is a little, shall we say, preposterous, since I have *already* shown my support for the series by buying all six of the singles at full price. "Buy, again, something you already own just to show 'support'," is advice which might play well to that small handful of people on a certain other popular anime message board who make weekly lists every Tuesday of the twenty anime DVDs they've pre-ordered from Amazon or DeepDiscountDVD, but those people have seemingly bottomless wallets and I just don't.

As for recommending that other people buy it, shoujo comedy is a very acquired taste, even for anime fans, and, being a 31-year old man, I just don't hang out with the target demographic for this anime, which is half my age and female. I have recommended it to people in my anime club, but, as far as I know, no one's interested (and, when God was rolling the celestial sixteen-sided die to create my character, I think he somehow rolled a negative number for "CHARISMA", so my power of persuasion is lacking). Excluding mentioning it on a semi-frequent basis in my blog, Super Gals! is not the sort of show I'd be caught dead recommending to anyone outside of an anime club context.

Maybe, now that the show will be reairing on Japanese cable (forget which channel), that will finally inspire Bandai/Emotion to finish the Japanese DVD release, making it more likely that ADV will follow suit sooner or later.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15599
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:30 pm Reply with quote
Tenchi: I enjoyed Kamikaze Girls. Is Supergals like that?
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4555
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:02 pm Reply with quote
Never seen Kamikaze Girls. I only took a chance with Super Gals! because I had already read a little bit of the manga in French prior to seeing the first volume on the shelf.

The one anime people tend to compare it to is Kodocha, and I suppose the flavour of comedy is a bit similar but the excesses of the wackiness has been trimmed a bit. You still get the goofy superdeformed expressions, but the stories are a bit more down-to-earth (not that I'm saying they're entirely realistic; a lot of the stories are based on sensationalistic tabloid reports of what modern Japanese high school life was like when the manga stories the episodes were based on were written). Some episodes are didactic "crisis-of-the-week" melodrama, almost like a Japanese version of Fat Albert, but, a lot of the episodes, especially after the first two volumes, are just teenaged characters having fun around Shibuya with no deep point to it all. Since the characters are some five years older than most of the characters in Kodocha, the people who claim that Super Gals! is just a rip-off of Kodocha are grossly exaggerating (a touch derivative, perhaps, but no more so than how Kodocha was a tiny bit derivative of Marmalade Boy while being not all that similar; and all three of the manga were originally published in Shueisha's Ribon, so some similarities to one another are to be expected).
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holl.e.rama



Joined: 09 Jul 2004
Posts: 102
Location: California
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:52 pm Reply with quote
It really is too bad that the 2nd season of Super GALS isn't available on DVD for R1 or R2, but you know, that's not the only way to get your GALS fix. Right now, CMX is releasing the GALS manga and they're up to volume 3 with volume 4 coming out at the end of November. There are 10 volumes in all and from what I've seen of the anime (up to Disc 4) it follows the manga pretty closely. CMX will probably release GALS in its entirety, so if you don't want to wait and see if the anime's second season will ever be licensed, I'd suggest picking up the manga.
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