Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - For God So Loved The Laserdisc
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2680 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Oh Brian, how silly you are... God obviously has one of those LD players that moves the laser around so that you don't have to flip the disc! I have one of those, and it's awesome. I bet God's LD player also plays CDs, VCDs, DVDs, & BDs, too. |
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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One thing that Brian didn't mention about anime endings is that they're often kept open or done badly for a reason... many anime are made only to promote the manga or light novels. If they leave the anime open, it makes people want to go read the original source material to find out what happens next.
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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That is true, but that also presents a lack of foresight or market awareness on the part of the creators. There's no denying at this point that the anime market is huge and a large portion of it is segregated from the manga market. While it's one thing to promote the manga, they still have to recognize that a large (and arguably growing) portion of the viewership is not interested in the manga and is watching the anime for the story. They still need to account for that segment of the viewership and at least make an effort to satisfy those viewers, because there's no arguing that a large portion of them will just complain about the ending rather than go pick up the manga if they weren't interested in doing so to begin with. |
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RyanSaotome
Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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I don't see why they'd bother. For late night anime, its just a commercial: They buy a timeslot in hopes of promoting the property. Many series that supposedly have "Bad endings" or "open endings" don't really see much difference in dVD sales, yet often have a giant increase in manga and light novel sales. They're not making anime for the foreign markets, which only really care about the anime. They're making it for the whole anime/manga/light novel industry in Japan who has access to all of the different mediums. |
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jcaliff
 Posts: 156 Location: Houston |
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I don't know if Brian watched all the extras on the Avatar DVDs, but they (the American studio) actually did hand over animating certain scenes completely to the Korean studios. In fact, some of the character designs were done by the Koreans as well. The Korean studio tours on the DVDs were really interesting. I recommend anyone interested in current animation production watch them.
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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The issue you bring up is really a late-night anime issue. Brian seems to be talking more about the long-running shows like Naruto, Bleach, etc. more than 1-2 cour late night anime, as he uses Ranma 1/2 and Naruto as his examples and most of his comments fit that kind of show better. The question is vague on which one its addressing and the answer is a bit different depending on which you're talking about, so I find Brian's answer a bit lacking due to not making this distinction. As far as late night anime are concerned, I don't think its right to say "only" but that's definitely a big if not primary purpose for many of them. But basically, if they're adapting ongoing material, they really only have two choices: A) create an anime original ending or B) follow it faithfully and just stop when they run out of episodes. Option A used to be the norm, probably because few shows were able to justify sequels. But that can cause problems if it *does* become a hit, as Shakugan no Shana exemplifies. However, I've noticed that Option B has become the norm in recent years, at least among light novel adaptations. Creating incentive to read the source material might be part of it, but I doubt that's the main reason, as that was always part of the incentive. I suspect its more due to the headaches it causes for the shows that do become successful, especially if that anime ending was truly conclusive. Again, Shana is a case study in all the things that can go wrong when the adaptation mucks around with the story. Though that's not to say that rigid faithfulness is always the right answer, as sometimes the adaptation can change things for the better or come up with some truly good original material. Railgun is an excellent example of this. And Kannagi and Toradora both had some really good "filler" episodes that you probably wouldn't guess were original content if not for the novel/manga readers complaining about how awful they were.
While I also initially assumed he was the generic bland male lead, he actually isn't. Nobunaga left him at the end of the episode and he hasn't appeared again since. |
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Sheleigha
 Posts: 1674 |
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About the region locking question:
I doubt it'll EVER be worked out to break down the barriers. Every region has its own way of doing something, especially when it comes to rating and pricing. Plus, who would be the main distributor? Or would every region still have their own version, so for example, Europe would still get all their languages? I'm also thinking of games here, where its not about subbing, but the dubbing and all the translation work of the text as well. Games would be MUCH more messy to handle! Still in the end, someone would complain on the prices being too high or too low in their area. Blu rays are already pretty much region free, bu the import prices are what kills it alot of the time. Bottom line: I don't see how it would ever work, to be honest... That is, for physical media. Though digital media, I can see being easier. |
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ljaesch
Posts: 299 Location: Enumclaw, WA |
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I thought I'd bring something up in regards to the Sunbow/Marvel Productions shows from the 1980s.
For Christmas, I got the Jem The Complete Series box set. The last disc in the set includes some retrospective featurettes, and one of the featurettes talks about how the show came to be. One of the people interviewed for the feature talked about Toei designing the look of the characters, and what they got back were designs that looked "anime" (the guy talking made references to Urusei Yatsura). After seeing what Toei sent back, Sunbow/Marvel sent some of their artists over to Toei's studio in Japan to show what kind of art style they were looking for. I don't know if it all of the 1980s Sunbow/Marvel shows were done that way, though. My thought after hearing that was, "Wow, we almost had anime Jem back in the 1980s." 
Sorry my explanation is lacking in detail, but I watched that featurette about a couple of months ago, and I don't have time at this exact moment to pop the DVD back in and re-watch it for a more specific description. |
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Fencedude5609
 Posts: 5088 |
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Yeah, and while Sengoku Collection isn't the greatest show ever, and its going to fail miserably, it gets a hell of a lot of undeserved flack. |
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LordByronius
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 861 Location: Philippe for America! He is five. |
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thanks! that's kind of what i assumed, but i didn't have the information in front of me. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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I'm actually kind of annoyed at the change of pace in episode 4, which makes me want to keep watching despite knowing many of upcoming episodes will continue to be the same old crap, but Date Masamune was way too hot to give up on and I'm genuinely curious to see what she'll do in the future. I can't recommend this show if most of it turns out to be inane drivel of random Sengoku warlords giving their secret treasures to Nobunaga, but maybe it will have some future surprises in it. Masamune being a righteous and honorable samurai demanding a yakuza boss commit seppuku really caught me off guard. Even more serious shows tend to not go that route unless it's something along the lines of Shigurui. If only her revenge had included bloodbaths, I would be 100% sold on a show with tonal whiplash, from cute idols to murdering yakuza goons who follow a boss who wronged you. Upotte!! is one of my favorites this season. Following the manga, the story heads into some pretty serious territory when they start to engage their Slav rivals. The show is entertaining, informative, and so goddamn cute. Oddly, it is making people more interested in firearms, their history, and ownership. Perhaps not here, but elsewhere, the show and manga have quite a massive and dedicated following, with gunowners being helpful about people wanting to get into the sport. It's surprising and not surprising at the same time; anime has made people want to try new hobbies for a long time, but firearms aren't exactly exotic or innocuous like karuta or go. Even a small thing, like wanting to rewatch and finish Full Metal Jacket because of obvious references. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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We are already "all digital" in our media so analogue technology is now basically archive material only. Yes there still are analogue equipment in use, but with every decade more and more will be finally "retired" until things like CRT teles, or anything that supported video tape technology will be relegated to attics, basements, and recycling facilities. Also because video tape was based on a electro magnetic concept it is naturally susceptible to degradation from the Earth's electro magnetic field, the same one that points your compass north, so anyone who buried a "time capsule" of their high school graduation of 1972 for 100 years thinking it would be just as high resolution as say a 35MM film of 100 years, were sadly misguided because even if they buried the tape deck to play it back on in 2072. I doubt there will be enough discernable information on the tape to see apart from white noise and glitches. What's changing at an all too fast pace is the technology and gadgetry to retrieve those digits on to in an analogue form that we as natually analogue creatures can enjoy. Everytime I read about what the computer and medical R&D facilities are colaborating on, the more and more I see a world like GiTS becoming a reality. So having said all that; a DVD or Blueray will probably have more chance of being of any use in 2072 than any VHS tape by then, as I'm sure someone will have invented a conversion interface firmware that will allow you to download the entire DVD into your ceribralpicoprocessor connected to the USB10 ports on the back of your neck and then you can enjoy classics like KnJ projected on to your optical nurons whilst relaxing in your bathtub. Fortunately I won't be around to see it happen.
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notazaku
 Posts: 135 |
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Regarding anime with open endings, often they just conclude the current story arc and then leave room for more later on, sequel or no sequel (Durarara for example). But some anime endings take it a step further by explicitly setting up the story for the next season/series and when there isn't one it's really annoying for the viewer to be left hanging like that. I just finished The Legend of the Legendary Heroes and it was a perfect example of this. I understand why the ending is open ended but why tease the audience by setting up a sequel that may never happen? Couldn't they have found a better stopping point? Maybe not but it is still annoying. The only thing worse would be to end a series on a cliffhanger with no sequel. I can't think of one off the top of my head but there's got to be an anime that ends like that.
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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I can't really recall the last time I was disappointed in an anime's ending... maybe Star Ocean EX. I guess it depends what someone views as a good ending. People will complain an ending sucks if two characters they like don't hook up
Speaking of the Japanese market, those anime original episodes are another thing. It's mind-boggling the amount of hate I see those episodes get in the American fandom. They'll send you death threat PMs if you cite something that didn't happen in the manga, and ask you pretend it doesn't exist despite the fact I'm pretty sure I watched the episode so it did happen. I guess all those hours put into this 5 minute bonus scene in the anime is supposed to not exist in the confines of reality. There's no real hated for that stuff in the Japanese fandom, or at least nowhere near as much as I see in English speaking communities. I swear a show has an anime original story and it's like the producers ran over their dog and then ate it with the amount of whining and complaining I see. Or maybe it's just a really whiny vocal minority. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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lol, there are waay too many shows like that. It is refreshing and hugely satisfying to see the rare anime that has an actual ending, which would require an original anime property that was written with only 1 or 2 cours in mind, or the source material (manga, novel, VN) has finished. |
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