Month: November 2007

Naming her Duck is not a reason to march on Washington.

Leave a comment

Count Spankula of AnimeJump once joked that if someone raised a stink on the Internet about their fantastic demands for an exclusive box set for Herman’s Head, they would be laughed off the Internet and ignored. But if someone makes a random complaint about an anime DVD, the anime companies tend to scramble to fix their complaint (even if it’s a minor complaint for a distinct minority of the fans). Is this a bad thing? Don’t we want a responsive industry that actually listens to its customers? Are the anime companies actually that responsive or do they just pretend to be? Do they actually listen to what we want or do they just pretend to?

Pleasing the fans, sounds easy right? WRONG. I think over the years American fans have become increasingly more demanding to the point of impossibility for any company to make everyone happy. I’m not sure when everyone got so darned picky. Or maybe the Internet just makes me think everyone is so darn picky. But on the complete flip-side, without so much fan input would we see the releases that we do today?

For one thing no one can ever do anything to make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time. That is one of the major dilemmas of any consumer industry. The minute you decide to do things one way, someone is going to complain why didn’t you do it the way they wanted it. Sometimes you can do things both ways, but is it worth the time and effort? Nine times out of ten any changes cost money. If you want to stay in business, those costs have to be out-weighed by increased profits. The only other reason to incur a cost is to increase overall goodwill of the customer. The other major problem is people on the Internet assume they are the majority just because they find a few other people who share their opinion.

A simple example is the use of honorifics in subs and dubs. In my opinion the simple answer is to use no honorifics in a dub but use honorifics in subtitles. I think it hits the broadest amount of fans of each type of translation. I feel that most people who listen to dubs would either like or not mind as much if honorifics are left out. They want their dubs to be adapted as close to English as possible. I feel that sub fans tend to want a more Japanese feel to their shows and would want the honorifics in their translation. I think it’s an acceptable compromise.

I’m in that sub fan category! I remember when I was watching Spiral and had the subs on I was complaining that they weren’t using honorifics but what was worse was they kept subbing the main character’s name as his first name even though people were using his last name! Hisu informed of Funimation‘s strange two sub tracks. One is a sub of the dub (don’t know why this exists!) and the other is the regular sub track. I was much happier after that!

The problem is when ever a topic like this comes up on the Internet, there will be someone who complains that they are a dub fan who demands that dubs have honorific. There will also be a sub fan who can’t stand companies putting honorifics in their subs. Are these people wrong in liking what they like? Obviously not. It would be silly to fault them for that. Also my preferences are far from gospel. The problem is when they insist that their preference is the only true preference and if their demands are not met they will boycott all companies X’s products. Or attack any one who has an opinion different then their own and insist that anyone who disagrees with them is a misinformed idiot.

Whatever are you talking a bout? The internet is full of calm, rational people.

That is just one example. The infamous sub vs. dub wars still are being fought today despite the fact that the have somewhat calmed due to DVDs being able to have both. People will argue endless about the minutia of translation, while ignoring the fact that translation is hardly an exact science. People will argue for hours on minor packaging details and which extras we do and don’t get.

I was told this story about the Kimagure Orange Road DVD release. The DVD has the opening in the extras section but not at the beginning of each episode. Sounds kind of odd, but it is there, you can watch it, no big deal. Well, people threw a fit! They claimed the company should have been upfront. About what? Once again it’s not as if the opening was gone or the song changed. And AnimEigo had to redo the DVDs because people were in such an uproar. Personally, I don’t know why AnimEigo complied to it. Not to mention that show isn’t some huge seller. But then AnimEigo doesn’t make money anyway.

AnimEigo had been surveying and they saw that most people skipped the shows opening after the first two times they watched a show. So they decided instead of making people skip the opening each time, they would just place the opening on the DVD as an extra. They did not mention that they were doing this, so many people were shocked when they popped the DVDs in their players. That was the main complaint people had, AnimEigo did not tell anyone that they were going to try anything different. People paid $240.00 for a box set and then it was not how they wanted it. Although I had no big complaint about it, I see why people felt a little betrayed. It is an industry standard to place the opening in the front of every episode. I would assume there was some sort of error if the opening did not play on an episode.

Once again, I agree it is odd and an idea they shouldn’t have tried again. But once you realized where it was, was it such a big deal? I think not. Betrayed seems like an awfully harsh word to use.

There were calls to send back the DVDs and to boycott AnimEigo and all their products. I don’t think it was the best idea the company has ever had but it was definitely no reason to stage a boycott. AnimEigo is one of the most fan-friendly companies on the market. Heck they released all of Urusei Yatsura, so they have earned my gratitude. It would take a heck of a lot for me to turn on AnimEigo. Leaving off the openings of one show but still keeping it on the DVD is not enough.

AnimEigo is the only company with enough money to release titles just because they want to. And thank goodness they do! If people really thought about, they would realize that no one else would have released all of Kimagure Orange Road on DVD.

AnimEigo went above and beyond to fix their miscalculation: they re-authored the DVDs; took back all the old DVDs; and sent out the new DVDs free of charge. Everyone was very grateful but did it really earn them any respect or gratitude? Bandai released a Gundam Zeta box set with spottily translated subs in a supposedly box set only set. Then then released individual DVDs with a better translation even though they said they would never release singles. Bandai refused to set up a exchange policy so the loyal fans could exchange their old DVDs to get the better DVDs.

People get mad but then they chill out and forget all about it. I don’t see too many people boycotting Bandai Gundam releases.

But did it really matter. Did anyone really remember the extra distance AnimEigo went but Bandai did not? I’m sure some people remember. I do. But how many others even care? How many peoples anger really stays after a discussion dies down on a message board. Should anyone really care past that point? Should people hold grudges and gratitude longer than that?

I feel like we are lucky any niche series gets released at all with all the complaining that goes on!

I remember when RightStuf picked up the second season of Super Gals. ADV licensed the first season but it did not do well enough for them to license the second season. Fans kept asking ADV but time and time again they said they were not sure it was a viable license. Then RightStuf announced that they took a risk and got the second season. The whole second season would be in an affordable box set, sub only. There were a lot of appreciative fans but it seemed that there were just as many people demanding they make a dub. There were people who refused to buy the box set unless it had a dub. RightStuf took a risky gamble and went out of there way to save the second season, and they got nothing but complaints. I mean in the end all RightStuf cared about was if they turned a profit on the show but a little appreciation could have been thrown their way.

Well, RightStuf also does the rare “we will only do this if X amount of people pre-order.” But it works for them and we see releases of small or obscure titles. I think it just comes down to a lot of people wanting it all, which isn’t wrong but seems slightly unrealistic. But I have to wonder, for all the complaining, are people actually not buying for those reasons? Some things seem too minor to flat-out refuse to buy for, especially the way things are done today. The only things that seem horrific enough would be major editing, like removal of scenes and/or plot points or completely changing names.

Well, one thing that pissed me off was Princess Tutu; a great niche title. Really an overlooked show that I feel could have gained a sizable fan-base like Utena. Not a break out hit that everybody has seen, like Bleach or Dragonball Z, but a cult classic. ADV decided to translate the main characters name from Ahiru to Duck. It’s not a name change because Ahiru means Duck. ADV felt that since Ahiru is not something one commonly names a child in Japan. It’s not a name word like Rose or Crystal; it’s like naming someone Pencil or Horse. ADV felt that the name would have more effect in English if translated.

Princess Tutu was a rare title indeed and one I had little hope in actually getting licensed. I hadn’t seen any of it but I had heard some good things and I remember Ask John had mentioned in his over view for that year of good titles. But there it was! I admit I was upset about the name change, until we really talked about it and I got the reasoning. I’m not sure, since sales figures aren’t released, how it performed against their expectations. However, I seem to remember some problems with the release schedule of the DVDs, like a loooong break in between.

People on the AnimeonDVD.com forums went ballistic. They whined that ADV was censoring the anime and destroying the artistic merit of the show. There were calls to boycott Princess Tutu and ADV products until they changed the translation. I consider this a major overreaction. It’s not like the made Princess Tutu the next Cardcaptors. I felt even if you thought the translation was not the way you would have translated it, it isn’t unwatchable or disrespectful to the original source material. People took a minor point on a struggling show and blew it out of proportion. The only thing all their protests did was push a niche show further into obscurity. They chased away people who might have otherwise bought the show due the buzz by reviewers.

Although I admit, fan objectives can be good, too. I am glad manga is not flipped! (Vertical get on the ball.) I was ecstatic that Princess Mononoke was released with the original Japanese track and therefore influenced the way all of Studio Ghibli’s works are released. Also, many small series wouldn’t be released without all the fan demand, such as Emma. I guess it is a question of drawing the line.

There has to be a happy medium, I just don’t see anyone taking it. I don’t want anime companies to just ignore the fans. I like the fact that, overall, the industry listens to what fans say. They might not be able to meet every whim but some of them are just impossible or not viable to cater to. On the other hand, many times anime fans have what I consider reasonable demands: good audio visual quality, limited to no editing whenever possible, quality translations, as many extra as possible are simple demands to be met. I wish anime fans were a little more accepting. It does not mean that they should roll over and accept any garbage that is put out there buy a little understanding would not hurt anyone.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Rose of Versailles
Reading Story of Saiunkoku
Listening to Crescent album– Gackt

Hisu (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Tsukihime, Lunar Legend
Reading Parasyte
Listening to Godot-The Fragrance of Dark Coffee

Top 5 dead licenses I would like to be restarted by someone
1. Kodocha
2. Fist of the North Star
3. Black Lagoon
4. When They Cry – Higurashi
5. Dirty Pair TV

Best AMVs I've never seen.

3 Comments

The zen master looked on the AMV community and said, “So much potential. But even more wasted potential.” From what I understand AMVs started when people would throw multiple episodes on a VHS tape for fan-sub trading and there would invariably be 5 to 15 minutes of empty tape. To make use of that tape, and make their tapes more viable for trading, they would throw on an AMV or two. Eventually, people began to really like the AMVs, as more that just tape filler, and they became as popular as the shows people were trading for. What does it say that AMV artists back then could put in more effort for something to fill up a fan-sub tape than someone making an AMV today?

A chain of things have led to this blog. The first was the Answerman’s column where he talked about AMVs. That led to two podcasts about AMVs on the Ninja Consultants responding to his column. That then led to Narutaki and I looking up stuff on AMV.org. After all of that, we came to several conclusions: one, the signal to noise ratio of AMVs is quite high; two, there are a whole bunch of really good songs it seems nobody uses; and three, leaving subtitles in your video is more rampant that it should be.

I really enjoy AMVs, I think they are a fun way of expressing your fandom. In recent years, it has become increasingly easy to make such tributes. Of course, along with that you get more and more junk and it becomes harder to sift through it all. We were randomly looking up songs that we thought would make good music video and noticed so many that weren’t there! Something about there being 1000 videos using the same song drives me crazy, when there are tons of songs out there.

I remember a long time ago, Ask John had a column about AMVs. He speculated that, where as the Japanese express their love of an anime with doujinshi, Americans use AMVs. That was interesting enough to stick with me years later. I will point out one thing that was wrong with the article. The Japanese make AMVs but they tend to call them MAD movies. They also tend to include more visuals from Eroge games than in the U.S. Surprise surprise.

I guess that makes sense, I mean we know how huge the doujin community in Japan is. I look forward to an American doujin community growing to such numbers. They are completely different ways of showing fandom though. One is continuing the story or a fantasy about what could have happened, where MADs/AMVs are using what has happened and reflecting upon it. And of course, the Japanese community didn’t have the tape trading aspect that really created the AMV.

IMHO, MADs show a cross pollination of fandom between the East and the West. We borrow and adapt from each other all them time. How long before we have our own doujinshi conventions? How long I ask you?

It has become really easy to make an AMV. That means any punk can do it now. It used to take a large amount of technical skills, time, and effort to make AMVs. Now that you can get video digitally and edit video digitally, it opens the floodgates of who can make AMVs. This is good because it lets anyone make AMVs, so artistic people who might have been thrown off by the large amount of audio/visual knowledge required to make old style AMVs.

I HATE HATE HATE people who use video with subtitles for their AMVs. It’s super lazy and it usually means your whole collection is made up of fan-subs. If you own the DVD, it is a simple matter of not having subtitles on your AMV. If you only have fan-subs, or it is a show that can only be found fan-subbed, then someone had to have the raws to make that fan-sub. All you have to do is a little searching to find the raws. And if for some reason you can’t, you can still edit out the subtitles. All in all it’s just plain laziness that makes people leave in subtitles. Either do it right or don’t do it at all.

Well, you do have to rip your DVDs on to the computer so that is kind of a pain. But I agree that do it right, at least technically right, or don’t bother. But why should you? You can just slap together your Nate video, put it up on YouTube, get 7354628 hits, and all your friends will tell you how amazing it was. I think most people aren’t trying to be awarding winning, they are trying to be internet popular.

I hate you internet.

But what I think makes a music video memorable is pacing and movement. Everything else is just technical skill, which you need to have, but if you don’t know how to tell a story then I don’t think it has any power. Matching the timing, speed, and pace of a song to a show creates a sense of unity, like you can’t imagine that song without the video afterwards. Songs and movies both have a beginning, a climax, and a resolve; I want to see that in an AMV. And movement within the picture, how do I explain myself. How a character moves or the camera moves should be reflected in the music, as if to say what is going on in the video has created the sound. I don’t know if that made sense.

I remember my first anime convention, and subsequently, my first taste of AMVs. It is a fond memory and I saw a video I will never forget. West Side Bebop. If it isn’t obvious, it is Cowboy Bebop set to West Side Story, with really great lip-syncing and perfect comedic timing. This was shown at the only Anime Expo NY and won Best of Show and Best Comedy. I have never found it to watch it again. It is listed on AMV .Org but it is not available to watch. Other than that I don’t really have a list of AMVs that I love other than Hold Me, Princess Tutu and Ordinary Day, Escaflowne. I have a bad memory but this has spurned me on to start saving the ones I loved.

I can’t remember what the first AMV I ever saw was. I’m pretty sure it was something Mr. McGraw (one of our frequent readers) showed me, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. I do remember being impressed with the AMVs at Anime Boston 2004, the only time I went. In particular this one. They were really good. I hear that Anime Weekend Atlanta is where you go to see all the really impressive AMVs because that is where all the masters go to thrown down.

The AMV Hell series I really love for one reason: it protects us from jokes going on too long and therefore no longer being funny. They are usually on the screen just long enough to be funny and not wear out their welcome (with a few exceptions).

I think the one AMV we saw at Otakon this year sums it up best. Someone tried to do Gangster’s Paradise to Cromartie High School. When we saw it on the list everyone who went to Otakon was giddy with anticipation for how it would turn out. The problem was it seemed like a great idea but in execution it was just boring. Maybe if someone else had done the video it could have been hilarious, but I think it would have worked in the AMV hell format. Just play the song long enough to make sure people realize it’s Ganster’s Paradise and that the show is Cromartie get your laugh and move on to the next joke.

I have seen a lot of people use the opening song of the series for a music video. What? Doesn’t that seem like a total cop out? Clearly that song already goes with the theme of the show (unless you are like Berserk or NaruTaru. ) So exactly what kind of thought went into that choice? In fact, it seems like many people don’t think about song and show, they think I like this song and I like this show but not the two together. I think you see this a lot with romantic pairing videos.

Well every review of NaruTaru always mentions that the super cute happy opening totally does not let you know what a messed up show that is. Test Tubes. ;_;

GAH! DON’T SAY IT! IT STILL HAUNTS MY DREAMS!

BTW – the best romantic pairing videos are of pairings that don’t exist in any way what so every, except in the person who made the AMVs mind. I’m not talking about ones done for comedic effect. I’m talking about videos made to show that clearly Yomi has an undying love for Osaka (and your an idiot if you don’t see it too).

Or random yaoi pairings that you see only in fan-art and dojinishi but someone thinks it would be good to make a video about those characters. Even though they clearly have no interaction like that in the show at all. So they just keep showing moments of them talking.

I would really like to see more videos using older songs. Maybe it is just the age of people making them but I’m not old or anything. I think there are lots of songs that would make amazingly funny AMV’s. I mostly think in terms of comedy ones. I’m not really sure why that is, perhaps it is just easier to come up with a funny song pairing than try to make a very serious one that doesn’t come off as lame. I would also love to see more musicals/Broadway songs used but that requires great lip syncing abilities.

Your statement seems right on target about people not using older songs. Fandom has become increasingly younger so that probably means that as long as that trend continues the trend of not using older songs will continue as well. One of the main problems is any community is usually going to have certain common musical preferences. This does not mean everyone in the anime community listens to the same music. Far from it. But I’m sure if you could somehow read every anime fan’s Myspace page I’m sure some artists would appear ad nauseum. That is why you see a million Linkin Park and Weird Al videos. Oh and if I understand correctly, there is some very good software that greatly aids in any lip syncing efforts. It would take more work than others songs but I think it would easily be worth the effort.

Deadman’s Curve by Jan&Dean for Initial D would just crack me up. A lot of people probably don’t know this song. It is from the early 60’s and it’s about street racing, but it has such a wholesome bouncy sound. Most Initial D videos I see use some euro-beat song and really that isn’t making an Initial D video. It’s not that they aren’t good, but the show itself is one giant euro-beat music video so it doesn’t seem to require much effort. My Boyfriend’s Back by The Angels for tons and various shows all mashed up together. When I thought of using this song, I thought that surely someone already had! It is the perfect song for some hilarious butt-kicking wish fulfillment. Lots of characters popping up from all kinds of shows with choruses of girls singing. Summer of ’69 by Bryan Adams or Juke Box Hero by Foreigner for BECK Mongolian Chop Squad. The story doesn’t quite fit but I think it has the spirit and someone could make it work.

I think Who Could It Be Now? by Men at Work would make an awesome Welcome to the NHK video.

I think I may try my hand at an AMV one of these days. The power of a good AMV is to ellicit an immediate reaction whether it be joy, laughter, sadness, suspense. They can convey the feelings of a show in a compressed version which can feel overwhelming. What a show takes to give you a feeling, maybe 26 episodes or whatnot, someone is trying to give you one or all of those emotions in a matter of minutes. Or they are trying to make you laugh, and I love to laugh. There is nothing better! So if an AMV can accomplish one of these two things, then I can appreciate it.

I will be rooting for you but I know I don’t have the patients to do something like that.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Bamboo Blade
Reading Bleach
Listening to X-Japan

Hisu (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Genshiken 2
Reading School Rumble
Listening to “disarm dreamer” by Aki Misato

Top 5 AMVs I have watched recently
5. Urban Ragnarok, Metropolis
4. Best of You, Various
3. Getting Away with Murder, Death Note
2. Two Towers Requiem, Final Fantasy IX
1. Sweet Revenge, Gankutsuou

Size does matter.

7 Comments

I think we have all experienced a show that made us say, “That took too long to do what it needed to do.” Most clearly evident in shows that have filler, like many Shonen Jump titles. And on the flip-side I’m sure we have all wished a certain series was longer (because 7 seasons was just not enough of Ranma for you!).

Well how many times have you also felt that, “Boy that ending sure was rushed.” I think pacing is a form of art that is not always supremely executed by the Japanese. I’m sure the rather harsh time restraints and budgeting of anime (or TV in general) leads to some unevenness in story and plotting, but I don’t think the blame lies solely there. I have seen OAVs and movies which theoretically have unlimited time constraints and they have had major pacing issues.

I have to think that with such a large repertoire of shows they can’t get it right all the time. Quite a few OVAs are used to wet the appetite so you will buy the manga. Or there have been those few instances where OVAs were basically made for existing fans of the manga, as a little bonus, such as the Angel Sanctuary OVA, the Tokyo Babylon OVAs, and the Here is Greenwood OVAs.

BTW – I felt that some of the better Ranma stories like the Musk Dynasty, Konatsu, and Saffron never got put in the anime.

Of course, there are many reasons for it. Especially with shows that are running closely along side a manga. While most longer running series, I think, would benefit from taking a break between season, marketing doesn’t see it that way. They are afraid of being forgotten or out done by a new show in the coming season. So instead you can end up with filler, that many times is pointless, boring, or worse, just plain bad. I shake my fist at you D.Gray Man and your last 20 episodes!

It seems like all in all filler does not necessarily have to be bad. I mean, if you like the characters and their adventures, some more of their tales should be just as good. It just turns out most of the time filler is useless, annoying, and takes time and budget from the better written main plot line. I did like the G8 filler arc from One Piece. Many people consider the Black Rose Arc from Utena as filler and that was awesome. But I have seen countless other filler arcs and they have mostly been weak sauce. For some reason, when other writers take another person’s creation it just always seems like they are missing some vital point that brings the other person’s creation to life. I’m not sure there is some tangible element to it but it just seems off.

Well, I also think that how many filler episodes you get in a row can really determine whether or not you are okay with it. Like one here and again, is fine and can be fun or funny. But when you are looking at 10 or 15 in a row, it starts to get painful. The ideal would be, if you have to have filler, to intersperce it within episodes that have plot. Cutting back and forth between filler and plot. Lots of American television series do this to build suspense and it seems to work a little better.

If certain long running anime could take season breaks, it might definitely help them. There would be less need for horrible filler. Each season the original would manage to have time to build more of the story. It works well enough in the U.S. with TV shows. I’m sure that some people will tune back into One Piece or Detective Conan if there were some repeats for two or three months. It might also lead to less recap episodes in certain series. I won’t be too harsh towards Japanese TV executives because sometimes a certain tactic that works in one country, may utterly fail in another. Maybe they have tried similar strategies in the past only to find that people flee a show on hiatus like rats leaving a sinking ship.

Then there are shows like Detective Conan that are very episodic in design. Maybe a few overlapping episodes, but for the most part you can tune in every week, or once a month, and still know what is going on. These are clearly the ideal for television.

Well all the mega major shows that have been on TV forever tend to be like that. Crayon Shin-chan, Sazae-san, and Doraemon are all the same way. They are always shows that have family appeal because there are the only shows that are going to get the ratings to survive that long. Otaku shows can’t usually sustain an audience as well. Or at least that is the conventional thinking.

And obviously ratings have a big factor after the series has started. Although, this doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem unless you are in a super good slot. Like all the otaku shows that air later at night seem to keep plugging away regardless.

Many times a you see a series drag because it has to be a certain amount of episodes. I remember figuring this out while watching the first season of Magic Knight Rayearth. The last five episodes, roughly, are the same episode over and over again. Talk about frustrating! And you commonly see a deterioration of animation right along with it. Of course, that is a budget issue.

Well the last episodes of Evangelion are famous for people talking with their hands over their mouths to cut down animation costs. There are also a bunch of shows that have spectacular openings and good to spectacular endings but shoestring budget middles.

My preferred length is right around the 13 episode, half season mark. It is long enough to tell a small story, develop attachments if there aren’t too many characters, and wrap it up without feeling like it went too fast. I also feel that it is just a nice manageable number. And for me it usually can be watched very quickly. That is not to say I don’t enjoy a longer series. Because for the most part, I feel studios have a handle on how long a series should be.

I think that I feel 26 episodes is the best amount of time it’s just really easy to mess up 26 episodes. I feel 13 episodes is greater for smaller stories. There have been plenty of 26 episode shows that should have been shrank down to 13 episodes shows to cut down on some of the fluff. But I think a well done 26 episode show is ideal. It has enough time to stretch its legs and really tell a meaty story but not enough time to wear out its welcome. I feel 13 episode shows are best for shorter or simpler stories. I think the Giant Robo OAVs clearly show that some giant robot anime might be more accessible if it were a little shorter.

I think the most important things is for a show to do the most it can with the time it’s given. I will stick with a series if it goes on 200+ episodes like One Piece and I won’t complain about a two episode OAV if they entertain me. All too often short OAVs seem rushed or frantic while longer series seem to have unnecessary filler that makes a series drag when it should be getting to the meat of the story. The ideal length is always just enough episodes to tell the story that needs to be told. No more and no less.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Hayate no Gotoku!
Reading Dragon Eye
Listening to Pocket single by Ai Otsuka

Hisu (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Gaint Robo
Reading Tista
Listening to Asterisk by ORANGE RANGE

Top 5 Favorite OAVs
1. Gaint Robo
2. Rurouni Kenshin
3. Record of Lodoss War
4. Bubblegum Crisis
5. ROD: Read Or Die