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SakechanBD wrote:

Also, I'd like to know where you're getting the idea that Clannad has "way more mainstream appeal than Kanon and Air ever did." What makes you think that?

The characters are a lot more enjoyable and more than just generic moeblobs that permeated Kanon and Air, mostly. Tomoyo especially, and while there may have been moeblobs in some of the cast, they certainly weren't the majority like the other series.

SakechanBD wrote:

Frankly, there's a lot of people just using the, "Oh well, it doesn't have a dub" excuse to not buy something they wouldn't have paid money for anyway.

Or, you know, they just immensely prefer dubs and don't want to buy a series in a language they really don't care to watch TV in very often.

Zac wrote:

ADV didn't dub it because Clannad is a niche show exactly like all the other niche shows and people don't buy them in large enough numbers to justify a dub.

And it has nothing to do with the fact that ADV has dubbed everything up to this point, "niche" or otherwise, or the fact that they're going down the tubes, or that the economy is crap, and everything to do with they just suddenly, randomly decided that this one, big-name title wasn't worth a dub. Right.

Zac wrote:

You are vastly overestimating the potential impact of you bitching about dubs on an anime forum.

Because of course I'm naive enough to presume that one singular person on an anime forum is the sole driving force in making companies change their mind. It has nothing to do with speaking to Shawn Kleckner and others who mentioned large numbers of people complaining about dubs, etc, etc. It's clear that even if the CEOs aren't thinking it's enough numbers to dub the series, it's enough to mention in passing about the subject.

JairStout wrote:

"But ADV is broke!" is the next excuse besides the "niche" one.

Unfortunately, it's true. Combat Butler Hayate is already being threatened with a lack of a dub, last I heard.

Zac wrote:

The release package that makes sense for these shows is a sub-only box set. Period.

So you really expect people to believe that out of the decade and change that ADV has been releasing anime, it's suddenly now, out of nowhere, that they come to this blinding EUREKA conclusion that they've been doing it wrong all this time? And that doesn't sound a bit odd at all? Despite the fact they just lost a bunch of licenses, money, and the economy is in the tubes? Also, "more" mainstream appeal doesn't exactly have to be some 0-60 jump to airing on primetime NBC or whatever.

Zac wrote:

Here's a short list of what anime DVDs Americans in general actually buy: <snip>

And yet all of those series have been on American TV. Several at key time slots, at that. You can't compare the audience a series garners when it's on TV to a DVD only release, wtf. I'm not even beginning to say that if Clannad were on TV it would outdo the typical generic shonen, but it would certainly do better than it would with no exposure!

SakechanBD wrote:

it will also generate a crazy amount of backlash.

...For what? o__O You lost me.

LiuXuande wrote:

and you end with a mediocre translation and performance meant to fill a "gap" and try to satisfy dub fans

...But Kanon and Air both ended up with some of the best dubs ADV's done in a long time. Many people I know who are hardcore subbies even enjoyed them.

SakechanBD wrote:

A LOT of people are going to be turned off by the fact that these girls look like they're 12

You're stretching a bit. I think Hayate's calling, they want their mistaken pseudo-lolis back.

abunai wrote:

Ever had a look at Betty Boop? If you had only the face to go by, and didn't know what her body looked like, would you think the character portrayed an adult? Would you consider watching Betty Boop cartoons an indication of a twisted mind?

Brilliant. Couldn't have put it better myself. Game over. xD

SakechanBD wrote:

Also, shows like Clannad/Air/etc will never, ever in a million years be a top 10 selling anime in America. EVER. A show about a gaggle of prepubescent kids staring at a guy, while crying over the top of their mittens? Not only will it NOT be popular, it will also generate a crazy amount of backlash. You might like those types of shows, and *I* might like those types of shows, but they will never be popular.

Clannad and Air and stuff may not have much mass market appeal now, but I think it's going a bit too far to say shows like that will never have that large scale appeal, ever. The market changes, tastes change, and what is niche this year may not be next year or the year after.

Now, I'm not saying ADV should have gone "oh, in the future this might be popular, so let's dub it now!" But I am saying that to completely write off these types of shows as being forever obscure is foolish, I think. After all, rewind to the past, and you'd find a time when people would probably scoff at the idea of ANY manga being high up on USA today's bestseller lists, yet that happens fairly often now.

Last edited by Megiddo on Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:34 pm; edited 1 time in total

Mohawk52 wrote:

Also let us not forget that the generic appeal of moe, or moe/loli is the fact that the characters may well 17/18, but still look like they are 12 in personality and design. What fanboy, of this genre, doesn't drool over a picture of anime 12-year-olds with developing breasts. It's the old "but they are 17" lame excuse. If they are 17 then draw them like they are 17, not 12. Rolling Eyes

I assume that you've never seen Clannad before, correct?

These girls do not look 12.

You can say that have gigantic eyes, because they do.

You can say that they have only a dot for anose, because they do.

But you would have to be blind to think that they look 12.

Now granted, they're not 7 feet tall like CLAMP designs, but they certainly look like they could be in high school (granted, with giant saucer eyes).

EDIT: And honestly, I've been around 12 year olds. They don't have giant saucer eyes, so I don't see how having giant eyes could make anyone think that they were 12.

Last edited by Mohawk52 on Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:36 pm; edited 2 times in total

abunai wrote:

Ever had a look at Betty Boop? If you had only the face to go by, and didn't know what her body looked like, would you think the character portrayed an adult? Would you consider watching Betty Boop cartoons an indication of a twisted mind? Would the average mainstream audience member?

Try that with any of the Key designs and you will get the same result. Betty Boop was designed as the stereotypical Roaring 20s slapper, with a Brooklyn accent. she nearly always wore her trademark LBD and never a junior high school uniform. She might have been a little nieve, but she was always adult in action.

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You're totally ignoring the existence of anime and cartoon conventions. I can imagine that you're doing so to justify your argument that Clannad/Kanon isn't instantly acceptable to mainstream American culture, and I don't dispute that point -- but it does sort of bring into question, not Clannad/Kanon, but pretty much all of anime. "Big eyes, small mouth", you know. It's pretty much the trademark of the medium. And it all started with Betty Boop...

Quote:

SakechanBD wrote:

Look, we both like Clannad, and I absolutely love Air. And anime fans who like these types of shows will understand the appeal of them. But the argument was, "Could this show ever be a Top 5 seller?" So you have to look at that from the point of view of someone who *doesn't* like these shows, who *doesn't* get these shows. You have to look at them from the point of view of your average high school kid whose only anime consumptions is comprised of Naruto and Bleach.

I don't think anybody harbours a sincere belief that Clannad might ever match Naruto in audience figures -- but that doesn't necessarily make it as "niche" and unacceptable to a general audience as you seem to believe. Never going to be Top 5, though, that's true.

- abunai

I put forth the same argument with Victorian Romance Emma. Is Clannad any less niche then say VR Emma?

SongstressCela wrote:

The characters are a lot more enjoyable and more than just generic moeblobs that permeated Kanon and Air, mostly. Tomoyo especially, and while there may have been moeblobs in some of the cast, they certainly weren't the majority like the other series.

That isn't 'mainstream appeal'. That's 'you liked it more than the others and thought it had better writing'.

'Rachel Getting Married' had much better writing than 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'. That doesn't mean it has more mainstream appeal.

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And it has nothing to do with the fact that ADV has dubbed everything up to this point, "niche" or otherwise, or the fact that they're going down the tubes, or that the economy is crap, and everything to do with they just suddenly, randomly decided that this one, big-name title wasn't worth a dub. Right.

Well, you're wrong about that first one:

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Star-Stories/dp/B0007D4MDQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1235506907&sr=8-1

Not to mention City Hunter TV (they dubbed the movies, but not the TV series), Prefectural Earth Defense Force, Mospeada and Southern Cross...

All niche titles that they couldn't justify a dub for. And all of these were released in the company's heyday.

Also: Clannad is not a "big-name" title. It is popular among hardcore fans who post on anime message boards.

Fullmetal Alchemist is a big-name title. Death Note is a big-name title. And even then, only in the world of mainstream anime.

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Unfortunately, it's true. Combat Butler Hayate is already being threatened with a lack of a dub, last I heard.

That isn't an ADV show.

As for the age thing, they barely look human in the first place, but I wouldn't place any of 'em over 14.

Mohawk52 wrote:

abunai wrote:

Ever had a look at Betty Boop? If you had only the face to go by, and didn't know what her body looked like, would you think the character portrayed an adult? Would you consider watching Betty Boop cartoons an indication of a twisted mind? Would the average mainstream audience member?

Try that with any of the Key designs and you will get the same result. Betty Boop was designed as the stereotypical Roaring 20s slapper, with a Brooklyn accent. she nearly always wore her trademark LBD and never a junior high school uniform. She might have been a little nieve, but she was always adult in action.

FAIL for not getting the gist of the argument you were responding to. Look again:

abunai wrote:

If you had only the face to go by, and didn't know what her body looked like, would you think the character portrayed an adult?

Next time, try to make sure you have understood the post you are replying to, before shooting off one of your trademark reflex posts.

- abunai
And, hey, it's "naïve".

abunai wrote:

Would you consider watching Betty Boop cartoons an indication of a twisted mind?

Apart from appreciating its importance in a historical context, I can think of a lot of reasons not to watch Betty Boop cartoons.

This seems like a bizarre analogy to me, anyway, since Betty Boop cartoons were a hit specifically because of Betty's overt sex appeal. With her lipstick, long lashes, flapper haircut and carefully-placed beauty mole, Betty doesn't resemble any child I've seen.

Cloe wrote:

This seems like a bizarre analogy to me, anyway, since Betty Boop cartoons were a hit specifically because of Betty's overt sex appeal. With her lipstick, long lashes, flapper haircut and carefully-placed beauty mole, Betty doesn't resemble any child I've seen.

Heh, and the children you've seen have big eyes and button noses and look like Key characters? Really?

- abunai

abunai wrote:

Cloe wrote:

This seems like a bizarre analogy to me, anyway, since Betty Boop cartoons were a hit specifically because of Betty's overt sex appeal. With her lipstick, long lashes, flapper haircut and carefully-placed beauty mole, Betty doesn't resemble any child I've seen.

Heh, and the children you've seen have big eyes and button noses and look like Key characters? Really?

- abunai

They're designed to illicit the same feeling of protection you'd feel towards a child. Take all the "uguuuuus", take the same girl running around with wings on her backpack. No 17 year old looks like that. Period. Fuuko, with the way she clutches her stars and literally beams *stars* is meant to represent a child. The genius girl, whose name I've forgotten, literally *hides* her face behind Tomoyo's arm because she's afraid to say hello to people.

These are CHILDREN. With breasts.

And I meant "fictional breasts" to mean that these breasts are merely drawn on to denote that they're supposed to be a certain age, when everything else about them say otherwise. That's what I meant by "fictional." They were slapped on for the sake of being there.

FURTHERMORE

Betty Boop's lipstick, long eyelashes (both portrayals of a heavily made-up face), and giant hoop earrings makes it very obvious that she is an adult.

If you think Fuuko and Betty Boop could any possible way be even near each other in terms of visual maturity, then there is something wrong with your eyes, sir.

Last edited by Megiddo on Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:29 pm; edited 2 times in total

SakechanBD wrote:

These are CHILDREN. With breasts.

No. They're not. (I'm not speaking for Ayu, because she may have very well been a child, and we're not discussing Kanon here, we're discussing Clannad). Kotomi acts like a child in regards to social matters, absolutely. She has been a situation where she's pretty much been a loner all her life. So yes, you can say that at the social level, she is childlike.

But saying that socially she acts like a child and calling her a child with breasts are two complete different things.

EDIT: For instance, she is extremely intelligent. Enough to be completely fluent in the English language no less. I would not expect a normal Japanese child to be fluent in English.

EDIT 2: With regards to Fuuko, spoiler[In After Story she is seen out of her comatose state. Her sister comments that even though she is the same age as Tomoya (now six or seven years older), Fuuko is only attending the first year of high school.] So yes, mentally she was a child. I'm not disagreeing with that.

SakechanBD wrote:

FURTHERMORE

Betty Boop's lipstick, long eyelashes (both portrayals of a heavily made-up face), and giant hoop earrings makes it very obvious that she is an adult.

If you think Fuuko and Betty Boop could any possible way be even near each other in terms of visual maturity, then there is something wrong with your eyes, sir.

The very point I tried to make as well, but so obviously "failed".

Megiddo wrote:

we're not discussing Kanon here, we're discussing Clannad

Are we? I thought we were talking about the Clannad/Air/etc lump, which is the exact same wording I used a few pages back. These Key shows are all pretty similar.

Quote:

But saying that socially she acts like a child and calling her a child with breasts are two complete different things.

EDIT: For instance, she is extremely intelligent. Enough to be completely fluent in the English language no less. I would not expect a normal Japanese child to be fluent in English.

You don't think the creators intentionally gave her a social handicap so she could be childlike? This is what moe shows do. The create these characters who are childlike in some way so fans will feel moe for them. And then they create backstories that provide excuses for their childlike behavior.

"Oh, she only acts like a child because she's been a coma for a while. But she's actually 17!"
"Oh, she only acts like a child because she's a loner."
"Oh, she only acts like a child because she died several years ago."
"Oh, she only acts like a child because she's actually a fox."
"Oh, she only acts like a child because she's been really ill all her life."

What is the difference? If they act and look like children, they are children. My goodness. I enjoy these shows to pieces, and even I can recognize their shtick.

Btw, are you implying that all bilingual children somehow aren't children?

Based on their behavior and the way they look - and yeah I'd more likely prescribe the physical feature 'button nose' to a child sooner than I would an adult, nevermind that everyone knows standard moe design is basically meant to look adolescent, as Bamboo already said that the point of the whole thing is to inspire feelings of protectiveness - I don't really understand the hard-stuck argument THESE ARE NOT CHILDREN THEY LOOK NOTHING LIKE CHILDREN NOT CHILDREN NOT CHILDREN!!!!! arguments.

You can split hairs and argue pedantic details and spin wildly and capitulate all you want but it all comes across as over-justification. Protesting too much.

If they look the way they do and they behave that way - which is very, very childlike - obviously they are supposed to invoke that sort of character. Which, OK, fine, this is accepted in anime fandom, it's in a lot of shows. Is it just that people are afraid of being branded lolicons because they like Clannad? Or that the show will get a bad reputation for being 'loli'?

Because I don't really see that happening. Plenty of people love the show who are obviously not lolicons. The story obviously touches people (bad phrasing there) emotionally without the sexual element ever even coming in to play. I think it's a show that can be enjoyed on two levels, one of those being just fine and the other is creepy and gross as hell, but that's OK. There are mountains of shows like that. I don't think any of the people arguing THESE ARE NOT CHILDREN!!! in spite of all the evidence to the contrary are doing so because they're secret lolicons and don't want to be called on it, they just like the show for the story and the characters and don't want to be stained with that brush.

I don't really think loudly arguing in the face of obvious reality is necessary. These characters are very typical moe types; they look like young adolescents and behave like children. That's obviously by design, to invoke a certain feeling. When you have to add a zillion caveats and excuses for each character to refute that, doesn't your argument wind up seeming a little desperate and, frankly, wrong?

SakechanBD wrote:

Btw, are you implying that all bilingual children somehow aren't children?

What sort of idiotic statement is that? I used the term "average Japanese child" and the language "English" for a reason. Because there aren't many children in Japan that can fluently speak English.

And I've been debating purely Clannad, because that's what this Shelf Life article is about.

And honestly, what makes you think Kotomi looks like a child?

Is it the eyes? Believe me, I've seen my 12 year old cousin's eyes, and they aren't in any way similar.

Now, if you want to change your argument to stating that they are "moe" (as in, purposely drawn in a way to elicit some sort of emotional response from the viewer), then I'd concur.

But until you show me a 12 year old in real life that looks like Kyou, Tomoyo, or Kotomi, I'm just going to have to say that you're just simply unwilling to give up this point.

Last edited by ANN_Bamboo on Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

Megiddo wrote:

SakechanBD wrote:

Btw, are you implying that all bilingual children somehow aren't children?

What sort of idiotic statement is that? I used the term "average Japanese child" and the language "English" for a reason. Because there aren't many children in Japan that can fluently speak English.

I was just being a dick to see how you'd respond. Because I thought your original comment was a terrible excuse as to why Kotomi wasn't childish.

Quote:

And honestly, what makes you think Kotomi looks like a child?

Really? Really?

=

Really?

Quote:

But until you show me a 12 year old in real life that looks like Kyou, Tomoyo, or Kotomi, I'm just going to have to say that you're just simply unwilling to give up this point.

You dunce. Just because anime characters don't look like real-life humans doesn't mean they can't resemble a caricature of a human.

Kotomi looks like an ANIME CHILD.

Look at the way grownups are drawn in anime. Look at the way children are drawn in anime.

Which do Kyou/Tomoyo/Kotomi most resemble? The children.

Show me a 17 year old in real life that looks like Kyou, Tomoyo, or Kotomi. And no, cosplayers do not count.

Ugh. I feel dirty now for having to google "Japanese pre-teens."

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