Forum - View topicHey, Answerman!- Anime World Order Edition
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DuelLadyS
 Posts: 1705 Location: WA state |
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This is so very, VERY true. My fiance and his brother went to a con as Turks from Final Fantasy 7 once- they even made fake Shira basges to put over their con badges. End result- everyone assumed they were Convention Hall staff. Including the Convention Hall staff. Apparently, not once in 3 days did anyone stop them and ask why they didn't have a con badge on. This is all despite the fact that they wore black suits (and staff wore green) and had white badges (as opposed to pink, as I remember.) We think we inadverently found the best way to sneak into our local con without paying. 
(for the record, no, we have never snuck into our local con without paying. It is simply a long-running joke.) |
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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To reach the ULTIMATE mark of faux-authority: wear a suit, tie, AND CARRY A CLIPBOARD.
I certainly love me some Giant Robo and Ring ni Kakero, but let's keep things in perspective guys: we're giving anime recommendations for someone who'll be in kindergarten that isn't already a fan of anime. That's why I set those conditional restrictions, particularly the "there should be an English dub" one. I imagine that most boys age 5-6 would view reading subtitles on video as a chore. Setting aside my length restriction GaoGaiGar is a decent pick, but the portion of the series that stands out to me as great is the second half and sequel OAV which was retooled to appeal to the more hardcore robot show audience, than the much more kid-friendly first half. Luckily, that first half tells a complete story, so people should totally show kids one episode of at least that part of GaoGaiGar a day. The second half is a judgment call. Media Blasters was hoping it might catch on the way that Voltron did back in the 80s, but that's not exactly possible without TV. Man, kid-suitable robot toy commercial shows like GaoGaiGar and G Gundam--another good pick!--really went extinct in favor of the collectible battling-type cartoons, didn't they?
That is of course not directly related to what I was talking about, which is visual novels, but it does illustrate a point I made: "quite popular" by mania/otaku standards is a very different thing than "quite popular" by more general anime fan standards. That is, the Kanon anime isn't "quite popular" here the way that Evangelion or Fullmetal Alchemist are. As an aside: the Kanon visual novel was--per my very limited knowledge on the subject--never commercially released in the US, presumably due to the fact that everyone who would've bought it played a fan translated version already. I can't provide any exact numbers regarding how well the Kanon anime sold in the US, but I do know that it sold well enough to make money and warrant subsequent releases of other visual novel anime adaptations that I won't be watching. But much like US releases of visual novels, on average that figure tends to mean about a few thousand copies these days; 2000 is a number I often hear as a "it's lucky if we sell that" figure. A few years ago that number was 15,000. This is the crossroads anime is at, and the one that perhaps visual novels may soon reach with any luck: whether to cater to the highly dedicated yet progressively shrinking otaku crowd or to a wider, potentially larger audience that is far less likely to come around to your product. Hmm, maybe that came up in the next ANNCast given the guest they've got lined up... |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2573 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Well, on my part, I did say that RnK1 is for those who are "adventurous" and want to take on fansubs... Naturally, that would only apply to those who have experience or are at least old enough to be fine with subtitles. That's why I put GaoGaiGar up as the first choice; I pretty much agree with your take on how it works for younger audiences, Daryl. Really, though, it just comes down to the fact that what's acceptable for younger audiences in Japan wouldn't necessarily be considered acceptable for younger audiences over here. And very few companies are actually doing the animes that would be good for those kids nowadays. Discotek's children anime are a very good choice, as you pointed out, though I'll add in Sea Prince & the Fire Child; I haven't seen it yet but I did buy the DVD Discotek released and will probably check it out one day. I'm also guessing you're trying to bring up titles that have been released on DVD, Daryl. Well, that's even trickier, as outside of Beyblade Metal Fusion being released right now, and maybe a Bakugan release here and there, most of those yougner audience DVD releases aren't in print anymore. Considering the trouble 4Kids is in right now we probably won't be seeing DVDs for more Yu-Gi-Oh!, for example.
Oh, please don't remind of the time MB admitted that they were on the verge of getting GaoGaiGar on one of Disney's networks... Before Disney decided that little kids don't want giant robots just months after feeling that giant robots were the next big thing. So it's not like MB didn't try to make it into the next Voltron, but the networks apparently didn't want that. |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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I think the last one I can remember off the top of my head was Gear Fighter Dendoh in 2000. All the rest are things like Gurren Lagann which are super niche otaku shows that celebrate how awesome super robot shows where. Even Transformers Animated had a Jam Project song made for it to draw in the Otakus. |
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Hardgear
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Amen to that! But that aside, I would say show the kids a little bit of everything (not just the "made for kids" stuff) and let them pick what they want to watch more of. That is about how my parents did it. Well, my dad anyway. My mom tried to shelter me, but then I went into the next room where my dad was watching the newest Steven Seagal movie and he said I could watch if I bring him a couple of beers. I was about 5 at the time BTW, and at the ripe old age of 25 I have a spotless criminal record and a good job.... Things I would show my proverbial kids if any woman was crazy and/or drunk enough to try to make them with me: Fist of the North Star Any other long-running Shonen show (the pacing annoys adults, but lets face it it is designed for kids!) Any Shojo show Anything by Miyazaki Magical Play Twelve Kingdoms Gurren Lagann Trigun Aria (if they can handle it) Battle Athletes Magic Knight Rayearth Moribito Nadia Slayers Rin ~Daughters of Mnemosyne~ (alright this one is a joke I admit...) |
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Josh7289
Posts: 1252 |
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I'm one of those fly-jin who left Tokyo a few days after the quake. But sorry, I'm not going to deal with more radiative materials in my body than what I was already exposed to the day I left (the day radioactive materials first hit Tokyo). Unlike most residents of Tokyo, I had somewhere safe I could go, and so I did. |
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daveriley
 Posts: 117 Location: Philadelphia |
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I formally request residuals for the use of the term "Kung-Fu Scientists."
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GloriousMaximus
 Posts: 138 Location: North America |
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I totally followed that formula last year when I went to the two cons I normally go to (except for the con badge part)... but not a single person batted an eye. I was incredibly disappointed... maybe I should have included a clipboard with the suit 
But I think the con atmosphere depends on the con you go to though. One of the cons I normally go to (not this year though) its run by a university and I think it tends to attract a more mature crowd of anime fans. Sure, there were some people yelling memes and dresses in gothic lolita, and plenty of (awesome) cosplayers, but there are just as many normally dressed and no one seemed to care. As well, in general, people were very well behaved. But I think it also depends on the programming that's offered. There was a lot of diverse programming, and I think that also helped in attracting a more mature crowd. |
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Anime World Order
Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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I did indeed completely neglect to mention Discotek's also having released Sea Prince and the Fire Child. Also good, but honestly speaking girls tend to like that one way, WAY more than boys. Perhaps it's because of how much the art is reminiscent of the Walt Disney Peter Pan?
Most everything Hardgear mentioned is decent, but I'd probably wait until they were closer to 10-12. Twelve Kingdoms for instance is chock full with tons and tons of terminology that's not the easiest to keep track of, as I noted in my review. But if they're old enough for "young adult," then the field's pretty much open. I know of some older fans who've successfully shown their elementary-school aged kids/relatives things such as Star Blazers and Robotech at about that age since that's about the age they themselves saw them.
I THINK THIS SHOULD COVER IT. |
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Annf
Posts: 578 |
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There's no market for "visual novels" as a general-purpose medium in Japan, so I'm not sure what people are expecting really.
There are tons of galge/eroge/otomege/BLge that use that format for their character-love/fap games, because it's cheap and effective. And then every now and then somebody makes something kind of novel-ish that isn't primarily a character-love game, such as the already mentioned Phoenix Wright. But the way people talk about the format in English, you'd think that in Japan it was some massive mainstream medium filled with variety, comparable to books or comics, which is ridiculous. Maybe some culture somewhere will develop that, but it certainly isn't the case in Japan and I wouldn't expect that to change any time soon. |
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4nBlue
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Actually most of the international VN fandom is mostly people who aren't that crazy about them and only really participate in the community when a new game is released and I'm sure that there is an even larger silent majority. Or maybe I'm responding too seriously to something that's clearly a joke. 
Visual novels are a niche product, but still not that much smaller niche than anime DVDs in Japan. From what I gather Maeda Jun's Key games have all sold at least around 200,000 copies and Fate/Stay Night sold 100,000 in pre-orders alone + other sales + 190,000 for Realta Nua. Of course those games are expectionally well selling smash hits, and your average visual novel is a big hit with 10,000 sales (like your average anime DVD) and should feed it's creators with even much smaller sales (if they didn't splurge on flashy OP, big name seiyuu or actual gameplay). And considering that between 2002 and 2007 there was over 500 eroge (not counting the all-ages games) released every year there is a rather huge competion for the contents of the otaku's wallet. Anyway my point is that they are a niche, but not that much smaller niche in Japan than other mediums aimed at otaku (like most anime and a large number of manga and light novels). |
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topleka
Posts: 42 |
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I seriously doubt that there will be a "visual novel boom," in the way there was an "anime boom" or anything like that. When the Harry Potter series got crazy popular, that didn't suddenly mean that everyone wanted to read a whole bunch of books. It only meant that everyone wanted to read Harry Potter. While some Potter fans probably did go on to read more, for the most part, it didn't increase the popularity of books in general. There will be some good visual novels that will probably stand out in the crowd (like 999, Phoenix Wright, Professor Layton, etc.), but in general, that's not going to mean that everyone's suddenly going to like playing visual novels.
If the story is good, then rock on. It'll find an audience. The good stories that break free from the average galge and otome games are the ones that actually stand out. Just write a good story. The medium doesn't matter nearly as much as the story in it. |
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Reaper gI
Posts: 299 Location: UK |
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A VN MUST DE-EMPHASISE GAMEPLAY It's a major part of the definition that seperates them from other adventure games, they about reading the text. If they have more gameplay they cease being a visual novel and go back to being a regular adventure game. Accurate PC sales data isn't easy to come by. The big stuff sells about 100k. The higest, I can find numbers for is over 300k (Kanon). |
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lewisfoster
Posts: 13 |
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Ha ha. You absorbed more radiation on the plane flight home than I did the entire month of staying in Tokyo. Source - Lewis |
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stanislaus
Posts: 19 Location: Fargo, ND |
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