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This Week in Anime - The Movie Game


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BrazillianCara



Joined: 31 Dec 2023
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 9:37 am Reply with quote
I can't help but think that the only reason I enjoyed the Mario movie as much as I did was because I watched it subbed with the Japanese dub. This doesn't do anything for anyone who has problems with the script, but it was definitely less distracting.
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Eilavel



Joined: 16 Apr 2024
Posts: 122
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 9:57 am Reply with quote
Street Fighter II Movie is indeed still great. But honestly the live action one (and mortal kombat) are OK too. Its a pretty simple premise for an OK dumb action film.

The failures of Persona and Ace Attorney play into the vibes thing here though. Just like anime can carry the "vibes" well, a game- which has a lot more time to pace things out- can establish vibes and sell stuff. The ludicrous twists of an Ace Attorney case work on the context of a multiple hour visual novel, but fall totally flat with a straightforward adaptation.

Videogames are almost inherently baggy storywise as they need to create space for ludic elements and I think adapting them is quite difficult; its telling that most of the success lifted are about adapting the vibes and high concept rather than retelling the plot.
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tintor2



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Posts: 2028
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 10:14 am Reply with quote
Probably something I found interesting in the Danganronpa and Ace Attorney anime and manga is that the main characters come across as more intelligent and wiser since they are no longer avatars from the players and easily pick up the errors of the culprits and shoves them off with Makoto and Phoenix's "No, you are wrong!" and "Objection!"
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psh_fun



Joined: 22 Oct 2023
Posts: 80
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 10:21 am Reply with quote
Gyakuten Saiban's anime was useful since it's probably the only way most English speakers can experience the original version of that franchise given the very loose localization the games have. I remember people getting upset they used the original Japanese names and had ramen instead of burgers and no one was making Harlem Shake jokes. But most games tend to not have localizations like that so playing Danganronpa and other games are fine even if they might have a few odd flubs or edits.

Persona 4's adaption was a lot better than 5's. Although the best part of both were the anime-original stuff which felt like bonus content. I think I'd rather have more anime-original storylines and stuff out of video game adaptions. Tales of Eternia back in the day was an entirely original story.

Minecraft's movie looks bad and I'm amazed they didn't make it animated. With all the Minecraft animators out there and how popular they are it seemed like the most obvious choice. A full movie in the style of Angry Alex or Just Monika seems like it'd be a no-brainer and fit in with stuff like the Lego Movie. Also a bit of an odd correction but Minecraft isn't Japanese it was made by Swedish studio Mojang run by Markus "Notch" Persson. Microsoft then bought it in 2014. I personally blame Microsoft for this movie Razz
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tintor2



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Posts: 2028
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 10:57 am Reply with quote
The SNK animes were also fun but did the writers forget previous works when writing Terry? In Obari's works, Terry loses two girlfriends and in KOF Destiny, a third one hits the floor. In gaming, the closest Terry has to a girlfriend is Blue Mary but Ureshino said it he is not still sure about promoting their relationship even in Garou: Mark of the Wolves where Terry is still a single father with problems taking care of Rock.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2636
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 11:07 am Reply with quote
Interestingly enough, what I feel is one of the better video game anime from the 90s, which was notorious for its (let's just say) "mixed" quality, was an adaptation for a game that never came out. The 1994 TV anime Shinken Legend Tight Road was a 13-episode series produced by Toei that was meant to promote a fighting game published by Zamuse, which was a co-producer for the anime, & allegedly was going to be developed by a pre-Atelier Gust, which would have made the game Gust's first title after going pro.

However, by the time the anime actually debuted in late 1994 Zamuse had pretty much gone out of business, so Shinken Legend became what I like to call a "vestigial work", because it no longer had any reason to exist, similar to the Dancouga Burn manga in the 90s based on an unproduced anime reboot, the Escaflowne manga based on the original concepts that TokyoPop brought over, or the SpyHunter game starring The Rock based on the movie that never got made.

Shockingly enough, though, the Shinken Legend anime is actually pretty good! Sure, it's not on the level of the Street Fighter II Movie or the Virtua Fighter TV anime, but it tells a focused story throughout, implements what was obviously meant to be the fighting game's cast well, has a very good (& jazzy, because it's the mid-90s) soundtrack, and overall is leagues better than most of the other video game anime that actually did see release in English back in the day. Unfortunately, it only ever received a single VHS release by Toei in 1996 & was essentially forgotten with time, and I had to literally buy the VHS tapes from Yahoo! Auctions Japan a few years back just to be able to watch it (without any subs, of course) & write about it.

In fact, Shinken Legend didn't even have a page on the ANN Encyclopedia until just a couple of years ago!
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dmanatunga



Joined: 12 Jan 2015
Posts: 65
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 11:48 am Reply with quote
Never watched Ace Attorney anime, but I did severely bounce off the Persona anime from boredom. I haven't played the game yet, but the big issue for me is that when you make an anime of a video game where the protagonist is supposed to be a player-stand in, the blank slate can be even worse than your typical Isekai power fantasy.
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redvelvetdoll



Joined: 16 Feb 2022
Posts: 62
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 12:04 pm Reply with quote
Interesting that the Ace Attorney anime was brought up when most people I know are pretty positive on the live action movie and the stage plays/musicals (some of which are Takarazuka productions). Anyway, I think the anime should only maybe be watched after the games bc it has some nice original episodes, specifically the ones w Phoenix, Miles, and Larry as kids.
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2327
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 12:07 pm Reply with quote
Not a single mention of thigh accessories. I will never forgive you liars, and neither will god.
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pi8you



Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 172
Location: Minneapolis
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 1:06 pm Reply with quote
Aww yeah, Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games, that one rips and I dearly hope it gets a good adaptation.

Quote:
But that leaves out the sheer number of shows based on those dating sims and visual novels.

Hit Sentimental Journey in the continued journey through my physical backlog this weekend, and boy, that is a different beast from the sort of general VN vibe I'd had in my head about Sentimental Graffiti all these years.
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a_Bear_in_Bearcave



Joined: 14 Jan 2019
Posts: 534
Location: Poland
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 4:27 pm Reply with quote
FilthyCasual wrote:
Not a single mention of thigh accessories. I will never forgive you liars, and neither will god.

Fully agreed.

Also, not even one mention of the "Fallout" live action series? They did choose to adapt "vibes and high concept rather than retelling the plot" like Eilavel suggested, and I think it was the correct decision when I think how it would look if they tried to retell Fallout one - I bet it would end up worse.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6199
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 5:49 pm Reply with quote
Eilavel wrote:
.The ludicrous twists of an Ace Attorney case work on the context of a multiple hour visual novel, but fall totally flat with a straightforward adaptation.


Not really, even the twists in the video game could fall flat as evidenced by the divisiveness of Turnabout Big Top.

Though personally I would argue killing off the mentor character after the first case was far more egregious. If anything the most damaging thing about the Saiban anime was the janky looking art.

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That comparison is sort of the reverse of the way Sonic the Hedgehog's look was pretty consistent across all his games, comics, and cartoons until the ill-fated attempt at a redesign for the first live-action film.


So consistent that when they did Sonic Mania they weirdly chose to use Sonic’s sprite from Sonic 1/2 and not Sonic 3.

Or how about the Adventure games giving him green irises with the second game giving him new speed shoes that only lasted one game and were never seen again afterwards though honestly that one is understandable.
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Eilavel



Joined: 16 Apr 2024
Posts: 122
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 6:26 pm Reply with quote
BadNewsBlues wrote:
Eilavel wrote:
.The ludicrous twists of an Ace Attorney case work on the context of a multiple hour visual novel, but fall totally flat with a straightforward adaptation.


Not really, even the twists in the video game could fall flat as evidenced by the divisiveness of Turnabout Big Top.


I mean, I'm happy to amend it to "are more likely to work". Its a rather uncharitable read to suggest my meaning was "every twist in an AA game was a success".
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14869
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 10:06 pm Reply with quote
What, no love for the original Mortal Kombat and Raul Julia that according to this year's Capcom shareholders meeting, the 1994 Street Fighter live-action movie "continues to make tens of millions of yen each year to this day" Laughing



While Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, around the 47th minute, everybody remembers Wink
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Dr. Wily



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 359
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2024 10:15 pm Reply with quote
psh_fun wrote:
Gyakuten Saiban's anime was useful since it's probably the only way most English speakers can experience the original version of that franchise given the very loose localization the games have. I remember people getting upset they used the original Japanese names and had ramen instead of burgers and no one was making Harlem Shake jokes. But most games tend to not have localizations like that so playing Danganronpa and other games are fine even if they might have a few odd flubs or edits.


I remember reading somewhere that the first Ace Attorney game was designed to be pretty vague on the setting (aside from Maya's whole schtick) in case it was going to be adapted into other places, but it took so long for Capcom to finally decide to localize it, they had already written the second two games which went all in on the Japan influences.

Ah, the fun of localization.

Quote:

Minecraft's movie looks bad and I'm amazed they didn't make it animated. With all the Minecraft animators out there and how popular they are it seemed like the most obvious choice. A full movie in the style of Angry Alex or Just Monika seems like it'd be a no-brainer and fit in with stuff like the Lego Movie. Also a bit of an odd correction but Minecraft isn't Japanese it was made by Swedish studio Mojang run by Markus "Notch" Persson. Microsoft then bought it in 2014. I personally blame Microsoft for this movie Razz


It's because Hollywood still sadly looks down on animation in general. Primarily because it's still looked at as a whole-ass genre largely for kids and not a medium that can be for any age. Also because of that, animated movies just usually make less money. Like for example I think the Spider-Verse movies are way better movies than a lot of the live-action Spider-Man flicks, but they are at the bottom of the list as far as total box office numbers. I'm positive that if Nintendo had been less hands-on for Mario, Hollywood absolutely would've had actual human Chris Pratt/[every other actor in a human part] interacting with those Koopas/Toads/etc.
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