Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2006-05-05]
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2372 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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Very good session this week. Good rant. And I liked the talk about the one guy trying to get an artist for his story. I've thought of the same thing for awhile now.
Also, I agree with the "letting the show end itself" portion. I mean, sometimes a dessert needs to be savored short and sweet; if it runs too long, it melts and drips on your favorite jeans, and then you have nothing to wear tomorrow night. Well, you get my point. I mean, I liked FLCL for its insane style, but if they even bothered to continue it, I doubt they could keep up the same pace. Finally, your comment on Inuyasha was almost as good as VG Cats. "It's freakin' Dragonball Z for girls!" |
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Fiction Alchemist
Posts: 438 |
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DELETED. UGH.
Last edited by Fiction Alchemist on Thu Sep 08, 2022 8:23 am; edited 1 time in total |
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sabriyahm
 Posts: 292 Location: Georgia |
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Great Rant, I completely agree. People are always talking about the good old days and how anime fans have changed. I'm pretty old and I don't see much of a difference. Most of us are opinionated know it alls and that hasn't changed.
Also I agree with letting stories end but some anime endings are incredibly open ended leaving large mysteries unresolved. Or the show ends before the manga is done like Fruits Basket or Kenshin or Get Backers. Or the show lends itself to the possibility of semi-sequal movies (Cowboy Bebop being a perfect example as the movie wasn't really a sequal as much as a long missing episode). I myself have never been able to sit through more then 5 minutes of FLCL so I can't judge but I can understand wanting to see more of a show. How much more is the question. Inuyasha is a perfect example in that I used to love the show but after episode 70 or so I lost the love. However people wanting to see more of Inuyasha have a good argument because the main story was never resolve in the anime (I am not one of those people). You tend to hear the "I want more crowd" more when the show is really short or unresolved. Seems perfectly understandable to me. |
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Fiction Alchemist
Posts: 438 |
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DELETED.
Last edited by Fiction Alchemist on Thu Sep 08, 2022 8:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1599 |
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Yes! THANK YOU for what you said about FLCL, Zac. I'm so tired of explaining to people that the story's over and that a series about Haruko flying around space or whatever would just cheapen everything, especially since she's not the protaganist anyway.
There are some shows that could legitamatly use sequels (hello, Guts, didn't see you there) but for some reason fans tend to demand sequels for the ones that really don't. spoiler[If I hear someone say "Oh, maybe Spike is just SLEEPING" and actually MEAN it one more time...] |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8502 Location: Penguinopolis |
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It always irritates me when people just up and suggest they should make more of a series that is, with all intents and purposes, finished. Everyone seems to want more Cowboy Bebop, Trigun (hey, there's aways talk of the movie, but it's pretty much a complete story), Fullmetal Alchemist (movie ends the story, but even before it the end of the series is a satisfactory conclusion), Evangelion (how much more Evangelion could there be after EoE?! You want to see more Evangelion, go read those post-EoE Eva Comics, they're pretty funny, and include the contemplation of eating a giant Rei), Inu Yasha (give them time), Big O, Rurouni Kenshin (dear god, no more, they murdered it), and - dare I say it - Dragon Ball (no comment required).
So few people seem to understand the phrase "less is more". Just because more episodes are ordered or new stories are told, doesn't mean it wil be better. The logic that, "Hm, this is a good show, hey, more of it would be even BETTER!" is confusing - if a show's main arc has concluded, there's very little purpose for more of it. FLCL especially does a great job of this - it accomplishes in just six episodes what many anime fail to do in 26+. How could anyone ask for more? Last edited by penguintruth on Fri May 05, 2006 2:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Danno
Posts: 15 |
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I disagree; I don't think the writers would or should tell the viewers any more than they did. You don't learn the full story because it's a metaphor for your own life where you never get the full story either. You don't learn about the entity who controls Paradym City for the same reason that you don't learn what's outside the city's walls in Haibane Renmei: You're not meant to know. You can't know. At least, that's how I read it. Your mileage may vary, natch. To get this post back partway on-topic, good column and great rant. If you keep picking such interesting rants though Zac, you may be pushing yourself out of the spotlight. 
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selenta
 Subscriber Posts: 1774 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Sometimes I wonder if people are serious when they ask for more fo a show. I don't think they really understand what they're asking for sometimes.
If you were to ask me (and my friends do for what it's worth ) there ARE some shows that should be extended/finished. Some shows are actually finished prematurely for various reasons, most of them because of miscommunication between fans and management. However, some shows are indeed meant to leave some things unresolved, as some of you mentioned.
Example of a show that SHOULD be finished: Hikaru no Go, Twelve Kingdoms (though it isn't faithful to manga, IT'S NOT OK TO LEAVE IT THERE FOREVER!!!1111) Example of a show that one could make the argument that it should go on until a more satisfactory ending is made: Hellsing, FMA, Beck A show that ended and only retards would demand go on: Air, Wolf's Rain A show that deserves special merit imo for doing what should be done to every show that isn't finished right? Hunter x Hunter |
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Pez001
Posts: 3 Location: USA |
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I'd like to add my support to the crowd here, as well as my two cents.
I'm all for endings. In fact, I actively try and stay away from series that don't seem like they'll have any foreseeable conclusion. However, I think the anime that I'm most torn about on this subject would have to be Juuni Kokki (Twelve Kingdoms). Here we have a series which got a heck of a good run, ending at episode 45--but with numerous stories left untold. While I would love for more of the novels to be adapted, I do realize that it has been three years since the anime was cancelled. Styles change. People move on. And lord knows there are a ton of other great series out there to watch. The thing is, Juuni Kokki fans have the novels to turn to once the series ends for them (or they would, if American publishers would ever bring them over  ). The same applies to fans of Berserk, and I'm told that the Eva manga is a bit more thorough (or something--I haven't actually read them yet). And I think that this is the fundamental difference, and the thing that some creators need to get through their heads.
While I can't think of any anime I'd want this for offhand, I can think of a number of prematurely cancelled American shows... Firefly, Wonderfalls, Carnivale, to name a few. The creators of these shows had plotlines in mind for them, but they're hording them in case they should ever get the chance to continue the tv series. That's all well and good for them, but what of the fans who want to know the rest of the story? Will there be a time when the creators start looking for alternate means of telling the story. We can only hope. Take Red Dwarf for example.
There's a prime example where alternative methods of storytelling should have been used. There are other mediums besides television and movies; mediums that don't require a multi-million dollar budget. radio plays, novels, scripts... if you have a story to tell, don't just tell half of it*. You're depriving your audience! At any rate, the above only applies to certain cases, few and far between, and isn't really necessary. Most storytellers who are good enough to warrant people asking them to make more, are good precisely because they can leave the audience clamoring for it. I think the real problem is that American programming has instilled in many people the belief that stories don't end. The comics continually have characters resurrected, most of our tv shows are designed to go on and on until low ratings kill them. Well, I hope at least some of what I wrote made sense or applied. I tend to wander. I'm going to stop now, because it's five in the morning and I need to get up at eight, and because I seem to have lost the thread of what I was saying... I would like to close by saying that what we desire is not always what we need, is hardly ever what is good for us, etcetera, etcetera Goodnight *unless you're George Lucas... then you should just have your moviemaking privileges taken away until you can demonstrate some responsibility. |
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Gauss
 Posts: 519 Location: Finland |
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That wasn't a rant, that was a level-headed reply to last week's rant. Where's the fire? Where's the brimstone? Can we actually have a heated discussion about something as uncontroversial as this?
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hanachan01
 Posts: 504 |
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You're right. The past two weeks, the rant has been the heat of the discussion; now it's the FLCL question. It was a good read, but it was more of an editorial than a rant.
Anyways, I think more FLCL would make my brain explode. 
The only series I want more of are American shows(Teen Titans and Invader Zim), but I would watch another FMA movie/series, since I love FMA so much. And the movie ended with spoiler[Ed and Al going to look for a uranium bomb, and adventure that could possibly be made into an OAV or short movie.] And someone siad a Bebop prequel-that sounds cool. However, I think we could live without those. Even I, a hard-core FMA freak, would be happy if the series ended at the movie. |
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rabble
 Posts: 46 |
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Thank God there were none of those "Aw, here's a cute kitty" pictures this week.
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mangajunky
Company Representative
 Posts: 72 Location: New York City |
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DriftRoot
 Posts: 222 Location: NH |
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Hey Zac, next week put up a picture of a corgi puppy. I guarantee people will swoon from the cuteness. I have a pic of my pooch if you need one. 
Yah, that rant had the potential to be a rant, but it kind of got sidetracked with...I'm still not sure. If the general point was that one shouldn't stereotype oldschool/newschool anime fans (or even use those terms), get into shouting matches over the worth of "old" anime and "new" anime or consider younger otaku somehow less passionate or ignorantly passionate about their hobby...it wasn't made as clearly as it might have been. A lot of big words, too, I deliberately kept my rant simple, simple, simple for the sake of Joe Q. Public (I work in journalism and this causes me to dumb things down, to a certain extent, unless I'm writing a philosophical thesis on the subjectivity of morality). Anyways... To stir things up, I DO think there is justification for clashes between oldschool anime fans and younger/newer ones. Note: this does not mean all older anime fans fall into the oldschool crowd! BUT there is a significant segment of the otaku population who cling tenaciously to anything pre-1990 and wouldn't sit through an episode of Bakuretsu Tenshi unless they were chained to a chair. Give me Galaxy Xpress! Give me Vampire Hunter D! Give me (ugh) Speed Racer! At a convention, these individuals may be sifting through the stacks of cels for sale and gleefully laying down hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for decades-old art 95% of other congoers could care less about. If a shouting match does ensue over their selections, perhaps with a nearby collector of racy models from Love Hina, it's going to be based on a snapshot of anime from a particular time period, not the genre itself. Both parties love anime, after all, they just have different experiences with it. One person claiming that the other is "less" of a fan because they come at the hobby from a different perspective is just extremely narrow minded. This kind of self-centered judgement about others is inherent in any demographic, though, it's not something unique to otaku. Now, if the rant had gone on to specifically break down the various arguments the oldschoolers use to belittle younger/newer otaku and vice versa, that would have been a more solid way to get the point across that both sides have no right to criticize/stereotype one another. The author seems a little wishy-washy on who is right/wrong and how they feel things SHOULD be. Although I know they're out there, I can honestly say I've never run into an oldschool fan who was completely dismissive of a younger fan, though. As I said, we all love anime and I think everyone understands this, even if some people may think others are fans for the wrong reasons or are missing out on that which they think any "true" fan would hold dear. Oh sure, we can be annoyed by 8 year olds who live and breathe DBZ and would fall asleep during Haibane Renmai, but we can still be pleased that they are excited about anime (whether they think of it as anime and will go on to search out other series in the genre is up for debate). Everything evolves over time, anime certainly has and will continue to do so. What it was then has made it what it is now, and both will influence what anime becomes in the future. At no time was this medium of art/storytelling static and chances are it was some new incarnation of anime that first hooked the oldschoolers; being prejudiced against newer fans who are being hooked on the genre for the exact same reason is hypocritical, to say the least. |
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Keonyn
Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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I don't think the author was trying to say either side was really right or wrong, I think they were trying to say that both sides have both right and wrong in them and that these types of vocally aggressive and rude fans exist in both situations regardless of age and preference of material.
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