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Hey, Answerman! [2009-02-13]


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posterior_praiser



Joined: 21 Oct 2007
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:19 am Reply with quote
Humm interesting on the FMA. I was pretty sure when I saw them come out with the half season box sets that one day they'd do 2 sets, so I waited...5 years to get FMA Anime hyper!!!! I'm that frugal. I'm willing to wait though, if on principal if nothing else, cause I refuse to buy singles or sets with lame episode counts unless I know that its not going to get any better. I saw FMA fan subbed several years ago, and didn't keep it cause I wanted the DVDs one day, and that day is...any day now when the first set comes in the mail Anime hyper! I'm willing to wait as long as it takes. Hell, I'm still waiting for Honey and Clover, and that ended in 2006.

On the subject of comfort food anime...Sailor moon Anime hyper!!! That and Honey and Clover. Whenever I feel like I’m hitting a crossroads in life, I watch Honey and Clover again, and it helps me every time. And Kyou Kara Maou. I’ve watched that a bunch of times just cause its so fun.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8503
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:25 am Reply with quote
Now that poor fool will have to shell out money for the next Fullmetal Alchemist series, as well! I'm still collecting the first. I bought the first two "parts" of "season 1", but I plan to get the full "second season" boxset when it's released.

I've felt the need the re-purchase a series on DVD that I only ever had on VHS, but I've only ever bought an anime on DVD all over again in the case of Bubblegum Crisis. It was a few years after, having put off buying it for years, I finally bought the original, pink, girly-looking original boxset. The blue remastered set was released and something just overcame me. Luckily, the purchase was worth it. The remaster set had a noticably higher video quality.

Speaking of BGC, when it comes to anime video games, I'd love to see one. Too bad it's about two decades too late.

As far as "comfort anime", I'd say something like Lupin III or Shin-chan fits the bill. Maybe Detective Conan. Long, episodic programs. I can do all sorts of things while I watch them and still enjoy it. I might start watching Dragon Ball Z again for this reason. Nostalgia usually makes for good comfort watching, unless you become disillusioned.
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:28 am Reply with quote
Usually Japanese apartments of a normal family are not going to have colorful designs to it like an American home where you have the surround sound stereo system. Heck, I wouldn't put much in my home either, but I think it's a matter of taste in that opinion. But for most of the places I've been in Japan, so is the case.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:29 am Reply with quote
Comfort Anime, huh? I definitely have to go with anything that features awesome fighting, like Dragonball Z or any giant Mecha fight.

You heard me. As much as I wax lyrically about the joys of plot and character development and not breaking the suspension of disbelief, when I just want to mindlessly chill out then mindless but exciting action it is.
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The_Libertarian_Otaku



Joined: 11 Sep 2008
Posts: 189
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:30 am Reply with quote
Fullmetal Alchemist being re-released: I had bought vols. 1-6 in singles a few years ago, then moved over to the half-season box sets and traded in the singles that I had before. Good thing I did, because they save shelf space over the singles and are cheaper in the end. Assuming you're paying MSRP for the whole series, would you rather pay $390 for all 13 single discs, or $160 for the box sets? Do the math, kids. Singles may be OK for shorter shows like Green Green or Haruhi Suzumiya, but not for a long show like FMA, Bleach, or Naruto.

Comfort food anime: I'm split among Marmalade Boy, s-CRY-ed, Gundam SEED, Hellsing, MD Geist, Cyber Cito Oedo 808, Golgo 13: The Professional, Peach Girl, Cowboy Bebop, Ranma 1/2, and of course FMA. (In Marmalade Boy and Cyber City's case, they don't seem to make anime like that anymore!)
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posterior_praiser



Joined: 21 Oct 2007
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:33 am Reply with quote
fighterholic wrote:
Usually Japanese apartments of a normal family are not going to have colorful designs to it like an American home where you have the surround sound stereo system. Heck, I wouldn't put much in my home either, but I think it's a matter of taste in that opinion. But for most of the places I've been in Japan, so is the case.


Yeah. As far as I know, the Japanese have always favoured simplicity in architecture and interior design. They were never for over the top decoration like in the west, until meiji.
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Asrialys



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 1164
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:56 am Reply with quote
An Excel Saga eroge would mess up the world for good...

I own Cardcaptor Sakura twice Smile Singles and box sets.
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rankothefiremage



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 523
Location: Michigan
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:01 am Reply with quote
What part of world wide economic melt down don't people understand??

Honestly the drop in anime buying is part of this, when the rest of things recover then anime will, simple as that.


-Gabe
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4645
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:11 am Reply with quote
rankothefiremage wrote:
What part of world wide economic melt down don't people understand??

Honestly the drop in anime buying is part of this, when the rest of things recover then anime will, simple as that.


-Gabe



It's partly that, but the sales have been down since before the current recession. Even when the economy was looking good over the past few years, it was down. So while it might recover somewhat, the previous trend means that it likely won't be so simple.

Changing subjects: It might have been nice to have been as frugal about FMA as other folks here, but I ended up buying the singles on release day, and will do the same whenever that Blu-ray version comes out. However, I have been waiting to get Eureka 7 in box sets, but this has been so slow that I wonder if it will happen. (Seriously, where are my Blu-ray FMA movie and my Eureka 7 sets already?)
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Anton Chigurh



Joined: 03 Dec 2007
Posts: 257
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:12 am Reply with quote
I've bought Street Fighter II V several times - in singles (except the fourth volume, which I still want to get), the 4-disc set, and a few episodes off iTunes. I would've bought a VHS tape I saw at K-Mart a few years ago if I hadn't been an idiot to leave it there.

SFIIV is also my "comfort food" series. Either I pop it into the DVD player or seek out some vids in Youtube and I can keep watching for long.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4552
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:26 am Reply with quote
I always think of the high watermark of anime's expansion into the North American market as being when Spirited Away won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2003, which was as much mainstream exposure as you can possibly get on television, short of having Lynn Minmay singing during the halftime show at the Super Bowl, and the market seemed to be surging through to at least 2004, back when ADV Films was seemingly licensing anything and everything under the sun, with Anime Network airings in mind.

Then, eh, while there were still a lot more anime fans than before, the faddish novelty of anime had worn off and a lot of the trend-followers moved on to other things, plus the advent of streaming video fansubs really began eating into DVD sales.



Most of the anime I buy nowadays is probably what the more "intellectual" anime fans would think of as "comfort food", but I like things light and fluffy. Currently, if I had to name one title, it would probably be Azumanga Daioh, which I somehow never even watched until last summer, even though I like other similarly-paced moé slice-of-life light comedy shows like Ichigo Mashimaro and Minami-ke. Even though it's only 26 episodes long, each episode is just so insanely re-watchable that the "default" DVD in my player if I'm not watching anything else is one of the five DVD's from the Azumanga Daioh thinpack set, just as the "default" CD in my portable CD player is ABBA Gold.
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ankoku22



Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 73
Location: the American midwest
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:54 am Reply with quote
Quote:
I will now take off my hat that is made out of money.


Heh heh, I'm reminded of an old Penny Arcade comic strip...

My "comfort food" anime... hmm... I'll say the original, chopped-up, 53-episode English dub of Dragon Ball Z. I also own the uncut version, but all the ridiculous talk of "sending" dead enemies "to another dimension" and destroying "empty" buildings, among other things, bring back memories of my younger days catching the show on Sunday mornings in syndication. Add a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and I'm set.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8503
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:03 am Reply with quote
ankoku22 wrote:
My "comfort food" anime... hmm... I'll say the original, chopped-up, 53-episode English dub of Dragon Ball Z. I also own the uncut version, but all the ridiculous talk of "sending" dead enemies "to another dimension" and destroying "empty" buildings, among other things, bring back memories of my younger days catching the show on Sunday mornings in syndication. Add a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and I'm set.


Plus, in my opinion, the voices were best in that original dub. Even better in the second season when Peter Kelamis took over for Ian Corlett. When Funimation did season three and beyond, the dub was less restricted by censorship, but the voices weren't nearly as good.
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Anime World Order



Joined: 05 May 2006
Posts: 390
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:11 am Reply with quote
I think another metric of the "decline" of anime compared to 2002 can be directly observed by the simple fact that far fewer titles are being licensed by anime publishers now, and the brick-and-mortar places in which anime is commonly sold have reduced the size of their anime sections quite a bit compared to years past.

I don't know if I really consider the re-releases of Fullmetal Alchemist double-dipping or a case of Funimation trying to "get" people. After all, the discs themselves are physically identical each time. It's just becoming progressively cheaper over time. All anime releases should be like this. You know like how every week at Best Buy they've got sales of old catalog movie titles for like $5-$10 each? That doesn't really happen with anime releases unless the dealer wants to free up storage space for something they bought a lot of which didn't really sell all too well. Granted, my example isn't technically the same thing--the old discs aren't going on sale, they're releasing newer, cheaper sets--but the end effect to us buyers is the same. I'm glad Funimation is doing this with their Viridian collections and what have you. Maybe I can actually convince people to watch Gankutsuou once it eventually comes out in a set that doesn't cost $150!

(to tie that into the first paragraph: try going into a store and seeing if you can still actually buy the individual volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist. Chances are quite high that you cannot, since the reduced size of the anime section means that they don't really carry older releases anymore.)

Answerman wrote:
the sullen souls unable to understand the true and uncomplicated beauty of love


You could have just said "otaku," you know. Well, I suppose you couldn't have, since too many people use "otaku" to simply mean "anime fan" and not well, actual otaku. I was never keen on this idea because if you want to call yourself an otaku because you buy a bunch of merchandise but still have a social life, what word remains for the rest of us?


Last edited by Anime World Order on Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:15 am; edited 1 time in total
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Ai no Kareshi



Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 561
Location: South Africa
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:14 am Reply with quote
First, two things.
  • I love your writing style.
  • The way you respond to flakes is awesome.
As for my comfort food anime, I would say Utawareru Mono, but the bittersweet nostalgia kills me. Instead, I think anime in general acts like comfort food to me. If I'm feeling down, I just watch the latest episode of whatever and usually that makes me feel all better.
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