Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Can't Anime Use Trademarked Names?
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Heishi
Posts: 1345 |
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I find some of the altered names in lots of these shows, hilarious. Like when one series changed Sony to Pony.
There was another show that had the name "DSP". Can't remember the name of the show, though. |
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Top Gun
Posts: 4755 |
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Oh jeez, this reminds me of something from the n00biest days of my fandom. Many years ago I was watching a run of Trigun on [adult swim], and it happened to be an episode where Vash is drinking with a famous gunsmith. One of the bottles in the shot was clearly meant to be Wild Turkey. My roommate and his friend happened to walk by the TV, and being aficionados of the brand, they were instantly pumped and wound up watching half the episode. Good times. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 943 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Two reasons. First is that it's quicker and easier (and therefore cheaper) to take something existing and modify it enough to not be problematic. The second is that it generally works better to evoke a known brand rather than have a completely fictional one; MgRonald's and Sentucky Fried Chicken say "major chain" to the audience better than anything they make up from scratch could.
I'm not sure if it's the rules or the enforcement that's more lax, but print media definitely gets away with more, and not just in the trademark department. One of the Suzumiya Haruhi novels features the SOS Brigade getting drunk, one of the Bodacious Space Pirates novels apparently features a drug-fueled party, the Strawberry Marshmallow manga had a high school girl smoking, etc. |
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Levitz9
Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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Years and years ago, when I watched Sakura Diaries, I was very amused to see they had "Prings" brand potato chips. These came in a cardboard tube.
We mustn't forget the preferred candy of Mizuho Kazami of Please Teacher! fame: "Rocky". |
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ChromeEagle
Posts: 34 |
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I was about to mention the fact that Pixar's worlds are often entirely fictional to begin with, but Pachy seems to have answered their own question. When anime characters are spending time in/around the Kantou region, you're going to expect to see familiar brands, not ones that were fabricated from nothing. Having the characters from Toy Story visit a place like Pizza Planet, or that massive shopping outlet in the sequel, does more to keep the audience immersed within the fictional universe the story is set within. If it was stated at some point that the setting was in Texas, those two locations are suddenly going to feel out-of-place. |
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Aphasial
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 122 Location: San Diego, CA |
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It's not so much a trademark usage as it is a parody (of A&W Root Beer), but I still crack up any time Toshinō Kyōko pulls out a can of "Masochist Cider" in Yuru Yuri
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Sloppy_Jimbo
Posts: 98 |
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^ This, and Sudoh (Pseudo?)-Bucks cracks me up.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6239 |
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And yet when it comes to something like video games putting in ads for real things = shattering the immersion (and other nondescript complaints). |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4512 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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^ I always prefer seeing ads for real things in videogames. Or maybe not so much ads (unless it's a place where you'd expect to see ads like billboards or on the side of buses) but certainly real world logos add to the immersion.
That's one reason why I like the Playstation 2 game The Getaway so much, they recreated London with hundreds of actual storefronts as well as all of the authentic Piccadilly Circus signage from back in the day when it was mostly fixed signage and not just boring video screens. I was able to "visit" many Pizza Huts, KFCs, and McDonald's that I had eaten at in real life. |
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Violynne
Posts: 128 |
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No, they're not. And, no, they most certainly can't. The biggest reason people believe this nonsense is because of articles like this, which spread this misinformation which people begin to believe (since it's posted so much, it has to be true). Trademarks are only for products and slogans and must be attached to a product or service. This means, by definition, they cannot be "intellectual property" (a term I wish everyone would stop using). The only way a person or business can get sued using a trademark on their product or service, which can cause customer confusion. It's more a problem with the threat of a lawsuit is all it takes to circumvent legal use, and articles like this do nothing but propagate this stupidity rather than actually correct it. Perhaps stick to anime and leave the legalese to those who best understand it. Please. Don't add fuel to the fire that's already out of control. |
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher Posts: 10454 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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The issue isn't recognizeability, but rather trademarks. You can perfectly, completely and accurately reproduce something that isn't trademarked. The design of a gun isn't trademarked, but the logo is. Someone gave an example of a car. There are many very accurate reproductions of cars in anime and manga. It's fine if they are recognizable, the characters can even say "oh, look, it's a Porsche 911 GT4RS" but the artists can't show the Porsche logo. So in the case of guns, the designers can accurately depict a gun, they can have the characters refer to it by name, but they simply can't show the trademark. With guns this isn't such a big deal because the logos generally aren't super pronounced on guns anyways. It should be noted that car, gun, and any product design can be copyrighted. But using them in a work of fiction would be fair-use. -t |
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rinkwolf10
Posts: 750 |
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Anyone remember Cat Planet Cuties advertising A&W.
Or Pizza Hut in Railgun
Along with the Dyson fan. I mean half of the first season depicted it as it was next to the table they sat at and sometime the camera angle was directly from the fan. Last edited by rinkwolf10 on Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:44 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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TsukasaElkKite
Posts: 4005 |
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Qoogle and Mindows OS and Pineapple OS
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13597 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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At least the USA has trademark fair use: descriptive is when you use it to describe a product whereas nominative fair use is for commentary, parody, and comparing ads. [/i]
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11555 |
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Hang on to your tl:dr hats, this is a topic near and dear to my heart. 3,2,1, Let's Jam!
Cowboy Bebop has a ton of product placement, with a mix of real brands, altered brands, and fake brands. Of the latter, my favorite is in Sympathy for the Devil, where Ein's dog food can is labeled "One" with the numeral 1 as well. This is a triple pun on being the best dog food, Ein's name (German "one"), and "wan" the sound of a Japanese dog bark. If this is not an actual Japanese product name, it should be. The Bebop movie is a festival of all three types of products. The convenience store in the beginning alone boasts brand names like Pouy, Booning!!, Star Milk, OK MASH, No BoB, Sticks, Big; Soft, Clock, Pan, Power, Classics (instant cheesecake), and Look (brownies). These appear alongside Old El Paso taco sauce, Slice soda, and Duncan Hines cake mix. I think everyone spotted the blatant Lucky cigarette pack in the opening credits, but Marlboro is also very well-represented, not only on packs of cigs, but signs for both brands everywhere in the movie. Also easy to spot is the "Kodac" sign and the Coca Cola awning on Moroccan street, plus the three old guys are drinking from Coke's distinctively shaped bottles. "Pudweiser, the King of Beers" can be seen, and both WacDonald's and McDonalds show up as well, along with the properly oriented Golden Arches by themselves in one background, which is weird. If they can do it in one scene, why not the whole movie? What's a little less noticable is that Jet is drinking Starbuck's coffee at the drive in, and there are multiple bills advertising Law and Order on the wall behind Ed when she's calling Faye to tell her she found Lee. Considering the saturation level of L&O spinoffs we have now, that stikes me funny, the idea that it will still be airing in 2071, on other planets even. There's also a ridiculous amount of hidden brand placement of pool cue manufacturers! In episode 9, every ship on Ed's list of incoming ships (except the Bebop) is a designer pool cue brand name (e.g., Ginacue and Gus Szamboti ) and the entire series is littered with these names. This obsession even carries over into the movie. I can't tell if Asics is an actual sponsor of Haikyuu!! or not, since the logo on their clothing is altered, and their shoes are missing a stripe, but Molten and Mikasa are in the credits, and Mizuno is absolutely in your face about their sponsorship of Ace of Diamond and DAYS. Monster was also chock full of actual brand names, though those were altered for the international release (along with a lot of other inexplicable changes). For example, there was the Racke whiskey that was a key plot point, Werthers hard candies, and a bottle of Warsteiner beer left on a character's grave. The latter two were partially obscured even originally, but the artwork made the logos unmistakable. Also Eva was quite varied in her drinks, including Jack Daniels and Ben Nevis single malt. There's even more such alcoholic placement in the manga. Ok, I'll stop now. I could do this for days... |
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