Year in Review: Type Moon Redemption
Heaven’s Feel is now fan-translated, so that rounds out the entire original Fate/stay night game.
Kara no Kyoukai (the prose) rakes in a professional, English translation and release. Even if it’s just for one chapter, with full book(s) on the way.
More Ciel figures than ever! And Over Nine Thousand things from Fate/stay night; Unlimited Merchandise Works.
Studio ufotable continues to churn out amusing stop-motion animation. And feature films. I want Blu-Ray!
Wait, there was a Tsukihime anime? Hey Kyoto Animation, you know there’s some eager fans looking for anime studios to butcher their games! Hmmm.
Ever since its not-so humble beginning, Type-Moon somehow has a significant hold on the balls of the Japan fan creation scene. Channeling that sort of fan frenzied, raw energy into expressions is the essence of doujin works; but to do so in a professional, well-understood package is a major feat. Through both failure and mediocrity, the boys of Type-Moon will eventually awe us with something. I hope.
(What’s that 428 game and CANNAN thing? Besides that they look delicious?)
The demarcation between doujin and pro is a curious, multiple-dimensional one. It makes a curious subject for a Zepy rant? Someone, please.
But the fact that there’s all this Type-Moon crap to talk about, in 2008, means Type-Moon has gone pro for nearly 5 years, and all 5 years are full of … stuff. They’re on a roll. And at least they haven’t really failed the audience this year even if they didn’t totally floor them either. Getting their current library out to those who hasn’t seen it seems still to be the first order, but they’re also transitioning well into totally new crap. Like the 428 game and anime.
Year in Review 2008:
- Introduction
- Kurenai
- Miyuki Sawashiro
- JAM Project & others
- 12 lists of randomness
- Type-Moon
- 9 TV series of 2008
- Conclusion
Kyoani can go die in a fire somewhere as far as I’m concerned. If we let them re-do Tsukihime they’d spread it over 52 episodes and make the second half drawn-out, uninteresting crap. And there would be a five year break between halves.
ufotable have shown that they understand how to adapt Type-moon work properly. Give them Tsukihime and the budget for another five OAV films a la Kara no Kyoukai, one film for each of the five major paths through the game.
Aren’t you laying on the hyperbole a bit thick here, omo? 5 years of “stuff”? More like 5 years of milking the cash cow dry, and then some. We have, in no particular order, with repeats and stuff not made in-house in bold:
Kara no Kyoukai (October 1998, reprinted 2004, 2007)
Tsukihime (December 2000)
Tsukihime PLUS-Disc (January 2001)
Kagetsu Tohya (August 2001)
Tsukibako (compiles the above three, April 2003)
Fate/stay night (January 2004, DVD ver. 2006, PS2 ver. 2007)
Fate/hollow ataraxia (October 2005)
Fate/zero (concept by Nasu, written by Gen Urobuchi, 2006)
Fate/tiger colosseum (made by Capcom, 2007)
Fate/unlimited codes (made by Capcom, 2008)
And a whole bunch of fighting games under the Melty Blood series that no one really cares about, which, of course, has had no more than 3 spinoffs and 2 updates.
So… what was that you were saying, again? “On a roll”? More like 5 years full of recycled material. Their visual novels stopped after Fate/hollow ataraxia. Heard of the idiom “Resting on your laurels”? Definitely sounds like it to me.
Compare this to Nitro+, who’s churned out at least a game a year, and you’ll see why Type-Moon isn’t exactly what you’d call the most productive company:
Phantom of Inferno (February 25, 2000)
Kyuuketsu Senki Vedogonia (January 26, 2001)
Kikokugai: The Cyber Slayer (March 29, 2002)
“Hello, world.” (September 27, 2002)
Demonbane (April 25, 2003)
Saya no Uta (December 26, 2003)
Phantom INTEGRATION (September 17, 2004)
Angelos Armas -Tenshi no Nichou Kenju- (January 28, 2005)
Jingai Makyō (June 24, 2005)
Hanachirasu (September 30, 2005)
Sabbat Nabe (December, 2005)
Gekkō no Carnevale (January 26, 2007)
Chaos;Head (25 April, 2008)
Sumaga (26 September, 2008)
Your post might actually make sense in 2009, though, since they’re coming up with a Tsukihime remake, and two other brand-new VNs then. Original material, in my Type-Moon? Shocking, I know. But Wikipedia is there for a reason, and you could do well to check it the next time you write about stuff like these.
Dude, Owen, quit trolling.
Or for that matter, Learn2Read. I’d take years worth of milking Type Moon’s franchises (by the way, Type-Moon is 2 for 2, I don’t think Nitro is batting at 1.000) than unlimited crappy game works. Nowhere did I say they created a lot of original games as you seem to imply that only “stuff” could be?
And they’re on a roll, for what it’s worth–in that they haven’t really produced a failure.
This is where I say, “No, you learn to read,” and you suddenly become impervious to anything I have to say. Selectively-induced blindness ftw! Considering your track record when it comes to talking about Type-Moon with me, though, I’m not surprised at this reaction of yours.
Right. Only that the “entire original Fate/stay night game” was published in 2004. But I guess if you’re going to count English translations and not general productivity, then…
…one chapter isn’t much to shout about. And the full book(s) arrive in 2009! Hold on… wasn’t this a 2008 post? Wait, it is! Hmmm.
I’m not really sure what you’re referring to here, but okay!
I guess if you’re one for mediocrity then suuuure, right, Type-Moon has been doing fine these past 5 years. I think the rest of us would beg to differ, though.
Then again, you don’t really think highly of Nitro+, so LOL, there goes this discussion. I had no idea you were that ignorant of things. This is just a friendly tip, and I’m not trolling either: How about reading up on understanding the subject before you blog about it? Unless you’re trying to emulate the way the very edgy and cool episodic bloggers blog about raws they don’t fully understand, in which case… please treat my comments as “trolling”, and have a nice day.
Well, I have no idea when the Kara no Kyoukai book will get released. But having the first chapter, which is fairly substantive IMO, is worth writing about.
I am being quite selectively blind, on purpose. Obviously the perspective changes once you step outside into some kind of self-proclaimed perspective that you’re taking, something about porn game makers? Why even compare Type-Moon with Nitroplus? Why not Konami or Blizzard or whatever fits your fancy? Last time I checked Nitroplus isn’t being associated with novels.
But obviously such includes not, say, Nasu’s involvement in Kara no Kyoukai anime or the books. Last time I checked Nitro isn’t really the pet studio of a handful of creators. They’re much more srsbsns.
Put it this way, in 2008 what did Nitro do? Shouldn’t I just write about Chaos;Head? Yet I can’t do that for Type-Moon, since besides Kara no Kyoukai there’s all this other stuff to write about. Including all the mediocrities that I like and somehow you think everyone should ignore?
>And a whole bunch of fighting games under the Melty Blood series that no one really cares about
I… I RAGED
Sion ;_;
Anyways, wow @ OP pic. It’s now my new wallpaper. :D
they wowed me. As of this year, I care about the Type-Moon moniker.
Yeah, Type-moon FTW. Although I don’t really know much about how much stuff they made since I’m too busy fanboying over the english translated Fate/stay night, KnK (movie), tsukihime, and others. Well from what I’ve seen translated in english all Type Moon works seem pretty epic or solid. Also theres a mountain of awesome doujin games (Fate/another and Battle Moon wars FTW). Oh, I know Fate/UC is a capcom creation, but since it’s fate does it count as Type Moon? I think Nasu wrote the story after all.
Type-Moon may not be the most productive studio, but their works are EPIC noneoftheless.
It’s quality over quantity, is it not?
Currently addicted to the Fate/Stay Night Visual Novel (in UBW now), and it instantly made me a fan of the studio, first time I think that Visual Novel > Anime, but this is rarely the case..
Except for Type-Moon works, that is.
It’s impossible to animate everything in the Visual Novel.
Owen: I’d like to think that the “…stuff” referred to the amount of random things that have spun from that small amount of works that TYPE-MOON brought out, official or otherwise (mostly otherwise?). If you’re in people’s minds enough that you can produce a lot of stuff from a couple of sources, I’d think you’d doing a good job in something. I mean, crap, even though Nitro produced a lot more original new content than TYPE-MOON, I still don’t know that company as much, and I don’t even think I know TYPE-MOON that well. More people know of TYPE-MOON and do stuff because of it, I guess?
I don’t think he’s even talking about that. He got confused for a moment because to him type-moon is just another eroge-ya where as I’m not talking about games at all, really. I mentioned 428 briefly and that FSN is done being fan-translated, but that’s just the little things. TM actually created good IP that can be enjoyed by people who has never really played the game or read the book or whatever, although it may not be because of them.
I suppose there’s nothing new in the Gundam universe, either. It’s been thirty years of retreads?
From the perspective of an English-language anime and manga consumer, I’d say Kara no kyoukai has redeemed the thought of an adaptation of a Type-Moon work to other media — something that the Fate/stay night and Tsukihime anime adaptations had caused me to dread. It doesn’t matter to me much that there’s been little new source material, nor do I object to things coming back into print (in fact, I rather like it).
The translations of the Tsukihime and Fate/stay night manga adaptations are also quite welcome.
As for Nitro+? Well, now the Chaos;head anime has taught me to dread adaptations of their games, as well? Perhaps Nitro+ will find a ufoTable to produce worthy adaptations of their works sooner, rather than later.