Forum - View topicANNCast - Half-Lidded
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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The thing is invalidname, most of America doesn't like 'girly'. It's seen as weak, where as masculinity is seen as the 'correct' choice. I don't agree with the view point, but that's just the way the market works here; both in the mainstream and in the anime circle to some degree (though thankfully, anime fans do tend to be much more open minded about it, but it still exists; mostly in the casual fans).
I suspect that's why magical girl doesn't fare too well in America (in addition to female starring cartoons in general) Usually the 'female lead' is restricted to ones that act tomboyish or masculine. Something like, well, Ojamajo Doremi, isn't as marketable. It's the old rule of 'girls will watch boy shows, but boys wont watch girl shows'. Which is a shame because Ojamajo Doremi is probably the best written and presented show for girls I've ever seen. Actually, I take that back, it's one of the best shows for children, period, that I've seen. But trying to get that to appeal to the mainstream (ignoring the actual content of the show that made my jaw drop when I heard 4Kids of all people licensed it) because it's, well, feminine. Which is not good in the eyes of American consumers. Madoka probably gets by on the 'shock' value.. but if it was more traditional like, say, Pretty Cure? Not a chance. |
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Ryand-Smith
 Posts: 33 Location: Saratoga Springs |
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Twilight, for its many. many many faults had a lot of dark content that could appeal to male viewers, and the ability to force guys to bring their girlfriends over, but in terms of long term staying power, and revenue I'd say Harry Potter, which had much broader appeal (Classic story of a boy who has adventures, strong female characters, wacky diverse cast), is a proof that shows that have cross gender appeal are more important in terms of fantasy markets (and LOTOR might have them all beaten, I'll run numbers but I THINK HP might be winning by sheer volumes of movies)
Also I'm going to be frank, what Earth are you from, because Nyancat, while being a popular meme, is not a huge monemaking thing, If we are talking internet memes that exploded, there is that old reddit (ugh) post about the Marines going back in time and fighting the Roman empire that got the movie deal, or the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, which seems to be based on the internet meme of LETS MIX HISTORY WITH WACKY THINGS, like the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies novel from a year or so back. Fundamentally, I feel you are almost fetishishing anime, and making it something intrinsic to Glorious Japan, and as Redline shows, that isn't exactly true. (One of my top, if not all time favorite animes, Legend of Galactic Heroes is blatantly a NOT HISTORY OF PRUSSIA/FRANCE, for example). Japan doesn't always do shows that are filled with Japanese only elements. I don't mind 'girly" anime, I think Utena is one of the amazing treasures of anime, and was happy when the Sailor Moon reboot came out, but I accept that to sell large numbers and even try to get the nerd dollar in the world of video games, you have to appeal to the male audience at least on the cover style level. |
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LordByron227
Posts: 158 |
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Honestly, I kinda hope that Justin is starting the Muv Luv Triology of VNs, that way, he can give Total Eclipse an arguably more favorable look.
But, he'll have to go thru extra, which is prolly not his cup of tea. |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I'm all for progress, but the point is that 10-bit will never be supported because consumer electronics companies are not interested in it. Adding codec support for CE devices is not trivial because it's not done with a traditional microprocessor, but actually is baked into the chips. This is also why no video card can do hardware acceleration of 10-bit decoding. This does not compare to the adoption of regular 8-bit h.264, because that standard was already in the works for consumer devices well before the anime community started using it. The fansub world thinks that they deserve some credit for this (a conceit fed by the addition of .MKV and .SSA subtitles in some consumer devices, which isn't the same thing and is actually much easier), but the truth is that in this case they've backed a standard that is unlikely to ever see wider acceptance. This means that if you watch your content on anything other than a fairly decently powered PC, you are screwed if you want to watch fansubs. No game consoles, no smart TVs, no tablet devices, no phones, no set-top boxes. It's possible that at the peak of fansub usage, that might've been enough to get some people talking about 10-bit in the CE world, but fansubs are already significantly diminished from where they were a few years ago. Streaming, like on CR (and Hulu and Netflix), is not the best quality around, but for most people it's good enough -- the video equivalent of a decent bitrate MP3. Fansubs used to be useful for everyone, but in their current form are now exclusively for people who: A) ONLY watch their content on a PC B) Have a PC fast enough to decode HD entirely in software C) Are very picky about video quality D) Not able/willing to use legal options E) Comfortable using Bittorrent Like I said in the show, this is probably ultimately a good thing -- fansubs need to go more underground -- but sometimes they're still the only way to see a more obscure show, and now using them is a pain in the butt if you're not all of the above. You have to roll your eyes at a community that's actively contributing to its own irrelevance in the name of being on the edge of a technology that's unlikely to gain widespread acceptance. Last edited by jsevakis on Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:45 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Starks
 Posts: 87 |
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Wouldn't VLC on Android also play 10-bit?
Codebase is common. |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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It'll try but the processor on those devices is way too slow. You need hardware acceleration to play HD video on tablets and phones, generally. The CPUs will get faster eventually, but it still won't be ideal because you'll chew up all your battery life, since your CPUs will be heavily taxed when you're playing the video. Playback of 10-bit will get slightly easier over time, it'll just never get baked into the silicon, which is very necessary for a good amount of devices, at least in the foreseeable future. |
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Starks
Posts: 87 |
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I'll have a Galaxy S3 in a few days and let you know how it goes.
The dual-core Snapdragon S4 should be comparable to the quad-core Exynos. Not expecting much, but I'll try. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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There's no doubt they'll jump from Hi10P to the newest codecs and profiles they can use and release shows with, so what comes after 8bit h264? And when? Will our current devices be ready for wide implementation of h265 without issue, or we stuck with what we got unless we upgrade? As for groups who only release one 10bit version, I guess it's either nothing or try to look for some reencodes. Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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If it can't handle it in HD, just downscale it to ... oh, wait. No, never mind. It seems a peculiar form of the instinct of workmanship. After all, how much does "it's smaller" matter for downloaded video with the current price of rotating media? The only things that size really matters for downloaded media are exactly the devices that can't play 10bit. The "noticeable banding" of Crunchyroll streams are of course due to the constrained bandwidth, where a big part of the limits in bitrate is what bitrate the actual membership can handle. If DLNA gets anime production committees to pretend that buffering to a DLNA media server is the moral equivalent of streaming, then we'll sooner or later get buffered streaming Video on Demand with bitrates that will handle most of what is contained in the original media, and the videophile rationale for downloading bootlegs will largely disappear. |
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superdry
 Posts: 1309 |
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And some fansubbees believe hardware acceleration is stupid because its constraining. Which leads me to point a little later in my post.
It seems like a good chunk fansubbers are still in school, so, yes they'll be using their PC for their work or watch anime, which will playback such encodes
VLC is still in beta. Use MX Player instead - it can hardware decode, software decode, its multithreaded and render ASS subs pretty much perfectly. Even overclocked it with its plain-jane Cortex-A9, the quad-core Tegra 3 struggles to decode 10-bit videos smoothly, but its at least watachable at the expense of battery life. The quad-core Exynos supposedly does a much, much better job.
People will have to upgrade at some point. That's why using hardware acceleration is constraining and "people shouldn't watch videos on shitty plastic toys" - regarding tablets, phones and standalone media players - opinions I've read I've read from fansubbers and leechers alike. Luckily, if you're using a PC, you can easily upgrade your video cars to gain h.265 hardware acceleration in the future unlike 10-bit right now. I do wonder how many normal consumers who just watch stuff encoded in h.264 will wonder why they have to upgrade their standalone media player to watch some video in the newer h.265 format. I feel like moving from h.264 to h.265 might be the same for some people thinking about the move from DVD to BD where some think DVDs are still perfectly fine.
Gaining a smaller file size is nice, but its the gain in video quality that matters moving to 10-bit. Last edited by superdry on Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I'm not gonna deny that nostalgia plays a big role, BUT that said, AFAIK there are/were TWO (total) games on the resale market that ALWAYS (I'm talking including 20 years later) commanded pretty much MSRP for the SNES, they were: -Super Mario Kart -Chrono Trigger You can poo-poo any thoughts about older RPGs surviving beyond 10 (or even 5) years, but I'd take your bet on Chrono Trigger. I'll totally concede that there are really old games that I'd grab for "nostalgia" and would have no interest in today's consumer market, but Chrono Trigger is as closer to an "evergreen" as ANY video game RPG is gonna get. (it's only real limiter being graphics, but that's true for ANY game) Heck, if nothing else, CT gets props for making me agree with Zac on something. 
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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LOL. Of course, because it's nostalgia these companies are hoping lead to sales.
Okay, the onus is on you. You need to go out and find a million+ people, who have never played Chrono Trigger, and get their input to see if the game still holds up. How long do you think it'll be before you can get the results to us? 
I think a few people around here may have mistaken my comment and read it as though I said these games suck. Despite the failure in reading comprehension, that's not the point. I'm challenging someone telling me "I like the color blue, so therefore, it can still hold up, so let's see the color red do this in 10 years." It's a foolish statement. Of course what you like will stand the test of time, but that's why it's called "nostalgia". What you liked 10 years ago is irrelevant to me, and I'm sure as heck not going to take your word for it today. Hell, I just tried replaying Parasite Eve II on a friend's PS2 a couple of months ago and the first thing I said to myself was: "They need to remake this game for today's consoles." In truth, though, I doubt it would sell well outside those who originally played it. While it's good, it's not Skyrim good, and that, my friends, is why most games don't fair well over time. It's just like anime. Trying to get today's fans to watch Dirty Pair or Cowboy Bebop will be an arduous task, because these shows didn't stand the test of time. If they had, many of today's fans wouldn't say, "I'm not watching that old crap." Which brings me to a recent news statement: Toei is damn smart to reversion Sailor Moon for today's generation of anime fans. That's how a story stands the test of time.
PS: if you want to see a show standing the test of time, remember It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah, I know, you're sick of it now, but you weren't a while ago, right? How old's that movie? 
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Ojamajo LimePie
 Posts: 769 |
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The reason 'girly' anime don't sell is because women have never been properly catered to by anime companies. The most we get is the occasional bone thrown our way as though it were meant to appease us. More often than not, we've been actively pushed away by companies who've emphasized sex and violence. The misogynistic attitudes of some fans don't make women eager to participate, either. |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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The sad part is 4Kids is probably the only company to make an attempt. They got Tokyo Mew Mew and Ojamajo Doremi, and even some western stuff like Winx Club, and I guess Bratz (though I discredit it in the next paragraph)
But the reality is American television and market doesn't allow for shows about girls. Tokyo Mew Mew, from what 4Kids mentioned anyway, did pretty well in ratings (for their block, at least) however, toy companies didn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole, because they saw the main lead was a female and didn't want to cut a deal to make toys for it, so 4Kids had to drop it. Making a show about a female lead that isn't based on some doll line like Bratz or Barbie or My Little Pony is a death sentence in the US. I suspect Ojamajo Doremi was in a similar position, but there was never an official word on why it went under, so the fate of Ojamajo Doremi is an educated speculation on my part. Or maybe I should say, a female lead that's actually aimed at girls. Because the unfortunate fact is usually any female lead show that actually gets made once in a blue-moon is designed to appeal to males, not females. That's why most female leads like, say, Korra, are designed for male appeal. They act like tomboys, are rough, aggressive, detest anything girly and etcetera... you know, they act likes 'men with boobs' which is a criticized stereotype in writing for females. Female leads have to appeal to boys, because they are the core demographic (you'll notice Nielsen reports boy ratings and kids ratings... but never girl ratings. And as the old TV rule of thumb 'girls will watch boy shows, but boys wont watch girl shows') And showing magical girls in dresses or skirts isn't going to do that. Just look at the dub for Card Captor Sakura.. they tried to write Sakura out of her own show and make it focus on her love interest, Li, instead. That's pretty bad. Granted, a 4Kids dub of Ojamajo Doremi and Tokyo Mew Mew is not what anyone needs, but the fact they're the only company who tried is quite disheartening. But I suppose even if a company tries, you can't change the market or public opinion about women in the media. Look at Europe though, especially Italy.. magical girl does very well there, because they don't have these kinds of public opinions. Shame this stuff has to be limited to Europe and Asia, though |
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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I can make the same arguments for sports anime. If they don't sell discs, they're just not worth picking up. Maybe Sentai can start grabbing some of the older PreCures and release them sub-only, but Sailor Moon operates on nostalgia, and CCS operates on being a fantastic anime regardless of its genre. I don't think most other mahou shoujos have a chance unless they go a unique route like Uta~Kata and Madoka, which are also short (cheaper) shows. No one's going to run the risk of licensing Heartcatch and fully dub it just for all of the networks to tell them to bugger off, same with that new soccer anime. Maybe Big Windup in particular just didn't do well for FUNi, maybe sports anime still have a chance, maybe mahou shoujo does too, but most of these series are just too long to bother with. |
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