Nigorimasen! Blog

Trivia: Greg Ayres voiced Chrono in the ADV dub.

I suppose I should have anticipated that, the day before a large convention, a firestorm that would spawn from Scott’s post on the divisive issue of fansubs with relation to Greg Ayres’ Anime Next panel but I was still a bit surprised by the blogocube aftershock. Hinano composed a breakdown of his piece to present the other extreme of being a raw-only watcher (the first extreme being no fansubs/raws, period). Her post led with what I agree is an important distinction — downloading raws IS essentially different than watching fansubs.
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I’m gonna throw in my two cents on my current feelings about Lucky Star (albeit possibly tardy…or maybe not) as a slight fuss arose in the anime blogocube following Scott’s post. Like Scott, I showed the series in question in my anime club with the final episode shown this past Wednesday. While most people liked it watching for the first time, I began to be pretty passive about it rewatching, working on a crossword or reading some articles for a class. On principle, I usually don’t watched something I have already seen (anime, movies, TV shows, etc.) except I am looking for something in particular to pick out or if I am listening to a director’s commentary. For example, I can recall somehow seeing Love Actually three times within a 9-month period and enjoying it less and less on each subsequent viewing.
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Earlier this week, ANN reported that listings for recent ADV Films titles including Kanon, Gurren Lagann, and Sgt. Frog have been removed from the company’s website and store. Soon after, a spokesman for the company told them that they are “working through a few short-term challenges and fully intends to continue our releases”. However, further information has come out in the form of a canceled ICv2 article that was posted on a couple forums and subsequently Robert’s Anime Corner Blog and, at least for me, puts a new light to the breaking down of negotiations with Geneon late last year. It’s not as horrible as Geneon - the reason why it’s a canceled article is that something got worked out - but it’s still something I’m concerned about as this industry continues to traverse a rough patch.
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Even though my Internet access right now is limited to use of university computer labs on weekdays and Internet cafes at the rate of €1 per hour, I am still trying to keep up with my usual information absorption methods through podcasts and RSS feeds. I was not particularly aware of the recent “anime is just entertainment” discussion that happened over the past week and frankly I didn’t really care about it. (My short response: anime is entertainment by definition. It is the viewer that chooses to see depth in it, if any in fact exists with the work in question.) Same goes for the “anime is dead” and “how does one define anime” discourse of the last month or so. I felt that if I happened to fashion a post on the above topics and those of similar ilk, it would get lost in the noise and not get read with as much credence or attention as the first couple people who chimed in. Though I probably would have written a “What are you talking about?!? Anime is alive and kickin’!” post if I had thought of it at the time instead of just now.

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I was just catching up on a couple days of unread AnimeNano RSS feed backlog and read about Hinano’s situation with YouTube taking down her “Otaku Idol Haruhi Dance” video. After going through the comments of that post, I’d like to add some things regarding the topic and attempting to use my rudimentary legal knowledge to complain about media companies’ throwing their weight around, distressing licit creators in the process, and YouTube’s inability to tell those companies “That’s enough!” Read the rest of this entry »

I was browsing the local Borders yesterday afternoon after a busy day on campus and looking through the magazines, music, and movies. (Don’t ask me if “that” policy has changed because I didn’t look.) Anyway there was a DVD dedicated to music-related stuff like concerts and, I guess, operas? I don’t know, I wasn’t paying that much attention to what other stuff was in that area. But as I was walking away, my eyes caught a glimpse of the word “Animusic” and I had to back up to look at it a little more. It turns out to be a collection of computer-animated instruments playing virtual concerts. For some strange reason, my mind jumped from that to anime music videos and how anyone could try to monetize them. I immediately found several flaws with the concept but I think it’s still an interesting idea to muse upon and make a post out of it.
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One of the tenets of keeping peace within any anime club is making sure people who have previously seen the shows being screened do not talk about future plot points and effectively “spoil” the experience for those yet to watch them. Same rule applies for AMVs of shows being screened that use footage from as-of-yet-unseen episodes. The definitions of what is considered “spoiler” material differs from person to person but there seem to be underlying standards in classifying them. Although this type of jerkish behavior occurs in other media like movies or television, I think it’s due to happen more often with anime because different people watch fansubs/DVDs along a seemingly wider spectrum of time.
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[adapted from PTO: The Sideblog]
I was originally going to keep this on my sideblog but after reading Mr. Gallagher’s comments on Megatokyo, I decided to copy what I wrote over here to reach a larger audience. I’m not trying to pressure people into voting a certain way but if you are an American citizen and happen to be registered, please vote today if you haven’t already. If you’re not sure whether you should bother at all, keep this in mind: you have no right to complain about the results if you didn’t participate in the process in the first place. Musing after the jump.
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I had been working on and off on this for a couple months until I finally decided to finish it and push it out the door. If you’ve been in a bookstore (e.g. Borders) with a manga section, you have most likely seen a couple people reading volumes in the aisle. Some might even be laying in the adjecent aisle. Now, if they read through that entire volume and put it back, is that ethically wrong? Short answer: yes; long answer: maybe not. Read the rest of this entry »

[from Newtype USA interview, Nov 2004]

“While [Satoshi] Kon has built a career out of pushing beyond the boundaries of anime, he worries about the industry overall, suggesting that anime is currently caught in a vicious circle. One limiting factor is the fact that many creators are anime fans themselves, so they tend to make new works along the lines of something they’ve seen and liked. ‘That’s part of the problem,’ Kon says. ‘The other half of it is the fans. It’s probably an overstatement to say that all they want is stuff they’ve seen before, but it certainly seems to be the case. I don’t necessarily think they’re to blame for feeling that way, but I also don’t think it’s asking too much for people on the production side to start working toward getting the fans to watch other things. There are other stories out there to tell.’ Kon also believes that the tradition of adapting popular manga into anime is unhealthy for the industry; he feels that animation ultimately ends up as less of a creative force than manga. ‘We need to start demanding shows that were conceived as animation from the start. It sounds kind of overblown to say it like this, but this needs to start with the animation industry.’”

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