Twilight Anime Is Not Likely
Did I mention John’s writing improved over the years? He has a ways to go still like the rest of us.
I think the shortest answer to why it won’t be likely to see a Twilight anime is that it’s outside the context of why anime are made. The shortest answer as to why it will be made is that Americans would buy it, and an American company might be willing to pony up the dough and do the work.
Most anime are made today as a cross-media marketing tool. They air in infomercial spots and are made to sell books and toys. An anime adaptation is designed to raise awareness for any given franchise, but actual sales on media (ie., people buying the anime) is not so hot, save for some unexpected smash hits. Considering every season in Japan we see maybe a few dozen anime on TV, plus a couple dozens more that are always on the air, it seems difficult for an anime title to distinguish itself. But if you are trying to advertise a manga, the competition is much worse.
The problem is complicated when it comes to western titles in Japan. For one, far most of these western titles are already popular by the time they land in Japan. On the other hand, how many people knew about Saki before the hit mahjong anime title got its way, for example? Plenty of people know about Twilight already, thanks to the two films and the hubbub surrounding Twilight and its fans. A typical, late-night spot anime probably wouldn’t increase Twilight’s Japanese fanatical fan base any more than how the books and films do the job as is.
Second, would it sell? It might, it might not. But I would stick my limb out and guess that it probably won’t increase the number of people who are already aware of Twilight, so it’s not likely to add to existing marketing efforts. In turn, that means the money spent in making a hypothetical Twilight anime isn’t going as far as money spent making an anime of something kind of niche or hasn’t had a chance at the TV screen. In other words, a Twilight anime in Japan isn’t going to sell any more books or Twilight merchandise than the movies would be already pushing, so if the anime end up being a failure it would have achieved less than an average failure of an anime. It doesn’t seem like an effective way to market the stuff when we look to Japan’s native population, too, because how would you pitch it? Fujoshi or desperate housewives? I mean, I guess it might be better than having Hideo Kojima judge a pixiv Twilight fanart event… Anyways.
I suppose it is possible that Japan might hit critical mass when it comes to people wanting to buy more Twilight merchandise. Kind of like how there’s a Winter Sonata anime, I guess. But that require the blessings of the IP owners, and regardless if they agree, that’s just an additional cost upon already a higher-than-normal amount of cost and uncertainty. None of that yields more bang or more buck, let alone bang per buck. Plus, who knows how popular will Twilight get in Japan?
I think that is why there isn’t a Star Wars or Harry Potter anime. And probably Twilight too.
Of course, this is where the Afro Samurai perspective comes in. By that I mean anime made for Americans, sold in America as its number one market. Would American Twilight fans buy up the anime? Probably. I think as with the latest batch of We-were-made-to-hit-in-America anime OAVs, the business model is to attach these products for the fans to buy. I mean the average Halo-tard is not likely to spring for the action figures…right. But action-packed, visually stylish, STRAIGHT-FROM-JAPAN treatment of their favorite IP might do much better, especially since everyone’s hooked up with Xbox Live anyways (press butan, receeb bacon mentality). I mean, what else would you sell these guys? DLCs? More games? Console accessories? Anime is the next best thing in a lot of ways.
Now not all the same can be said for Twilight fans, especially unlike Batman or Halo, there are a lot more girls %-wise in that Edward-fawning mix. Not that I’m saying anything about girls, but it’s just more uncertainty to navigate to try to tap into a new kind of market. Comparatively, it’s something people making/selling dolls, patches, cheap jewelry, t-shirts and whatever Twilight merchandise is intimately familiar with. (Side note: LOL check out these Halo earrings LOL!)
Oh yeah, this is why people mention Funimation in this context. Who knows what they’re up to though.
Also, it might be something to think about when someone pitches the Twilight project to Japan’s (and/or Korea’s) more creative production houses. I mean, can you imagine Peter Chung or Shinichiro Watanabe doing a Twilight anime? I cannot. At the same time I’m mildly curious as to who could be the best candidate for the task! (Off hand, Naoyoshi Shiotani? Hosada? Yamakan??)
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On a totally irrelevant note, the Time of Eve writing contest ended and grats to our winner (dunno this person). Please take note on the response by Eve’s creator Yoshiura about the Turning test. It’s sort of amusing that the straight answer got chosen, but I guess that is really the spirit of the show.
Anime Is a Privilege And a Right
[I’m farming my drafts, here is one of the abortions that I felt made some sense.]
There’s a school of thought among some anime fans that anime is not a right, it’s a privilege. And I understand well enough where that thought come from. But I think it’s wrong to think that–at least, it’s no more correct from an economics or moral perspective than self-entitling warez kiddies ripping UR DVDs.
Of course, you have to bear with me. The saying of “anime is not a right, it’s a privilege” is just a saying. It doesn’t actually mean anime is a privilege. Because the word privilege is not so different from right–both are legal devices that allow a category of people’s freedom to do something they aren’t entitled to. For example, everyone in the US has the right to receive reasonable medical care but only the rich and insured are privileged to do so. On the flip side, since there’s no right to economic solvency, poor people go bankrupt when they get tagged with a bad disease without health insurance, where as the insured and the rich are privileged to afford their health care. To be precise, the on-the-face meaning of the saying implies that anime is a right–the privilege is the ability to watch it legally and foster a (potentially) positive, mutually beneficial relationship with the copyright owner. The statement “anime is…” refers to its existence and not just the partaking of anime as fans do.
Which is to say, all of that is not at all what these people mean. Or is it? I think I wouldn’t be writing this rant if people said “anime is a right and a privilege.” But the saying, I think, addresses the fundamental, “all man are created equal” concept that is so beholden in American culture. And anime is not any kind of that.
Or is it? What exactly is a right under those conditions? Our freedom of speech, assembly, privacy, the right to own firearms for traditional use…none of them are absolute rights. The right to watch anime? The right to buy anime? The right to demand it? The first two are rights of privacy, the last two are rights of expression… So to me, anime is definitely a right. What else do you really need?
As far as privilege goes, if it’s a right, it’s also a privilege as long as you can pull it off via influence, wealth, or the rule of law. I think anime falls under the “wealth” category. After all, it’s “lol anime” in the sense that it is a commercial expression for the most part–used to sell books, manga, toys, “a moe moe gay ol’ time,” or what have you. Nobody is entitled or privileged to that unless they pay.
So there you have it–anime is a right and a privilege; or neither. I just find it ironic one of the biggest supporter of the North American anime industry think otherwise. I guess it just never occur to some that there are parts in the world where speech is not free, and people really do have to fight for the right to party. That they can’t even buy half the anime that gets released in America because it’s “not a right” and it doesn’t pass mustard against moral censors or the local government’s opinion on what passes as permissible media. Heck, stuff like DRM and region coding suggest that anime isn’t even a privilege, and they have the legal right of way as well. So I guess it’s more accurate that anime isn’t even a privilege.
The Apple of My Eyes
Future idol is past identity,
Of both adorable in nature, and
Of dreams not fulfilled, to entertain many:
Of one, or few, maybe countless like sand.
The amount of entertainment is based
On amount consumed; these days everything
Is vetted through computer systems–cased
In context, personal or group thinking.
Like Futurama’s talking heads? Preserve
Past celebrities beyond relevance,
Reinterpreting, a satire with curves.
We crave it like search engines, relevance.
Still: none does better than Japanese toons.
I too want to see the Macross films, soon.
Limited Chords Works Volume 1 Puts No Chords Works Volume 0 to Shame
[It’s a gag, so please forgive the … charade.]
Blogger and VIP seiyuu fangirl j1m0ne struck gold with a foolish play at some of my favorite anison classics. I mean, Setsu Getsu Ka? Anybody remember that piece of seiyuu image album goodness? It’s like a best-of of a forgotten portion of the seiyuu-idol history, way back 10+ years ago when the .com was blooming and Megumi Hayashibara was at peak popularity.
And j1m0ne remembers it. And that’s just track 1 of this many-splendored-thing (36 total, with 3 intermission pieces). Free to download and listen to it over at j1m0ne’s blog. You should also read the liner notes available at the same. Limited Chords Works Volume 1, the supposed part one of potentially more-than-one in a series of guitar covers of various anime songs–image albums and OP/ED from and related to anime–cuts to the chase. It delivers the antithesis of a hackneyed, karaoke delivery that is too usually found on line, done by fans. Sure, things like “empty spaces between tracks,” “post-processing” and “Limited Takes Works” go out the window in the process.
I promise your hearing will not be permanently damaged (by the music alone)!
Short of reviewing it proper like fellow anison fan zzeroparticle, I’m going to just highlight what was interesting. It’s probably best you listen through the album first and give j1m0ne’s liner notes a read first. Yeah, this is like, extensive comments, but it doesn’t really matter right?
Tracks 9, 22, 36: Mayoi Snail indeed. The jokes goes, Hachikuji sometimes stutters, perhaps on purpose, perhaps not, when she says Araragi’s name. She then apologizes. As you hear in these three “intermission” tracks.
Track 1: You know that’s about how much nonsense I’m going to write for a bunch of these. How much? Like my first paragraph or two up there? Yeah, too much. But it’s SOS!
Track 2: This is kind of the odd ball I think, but it’s a great song on its own.
Track 5: I remember this song to be worse than heard here, honestly.
Track 8: The rendition of God Knows is, well, different. But this is one track that gets a lot of coverage and I’ve heard a wide range of takes on this already. J1m0nes doesn’t add much beyond the funny title.
Tracks 10, 11: Well, they’re definitely how I remembered these. If at all.
Track 13: I think this is one of the highlights. I mean, track 2 was good for the song it covered, but this one is like “hey can j1m0nes do a cute tongue twister?” The answer is yes, but not while singing. Props to Enomoto!
Track 14: Seriously, this was like, the song I wanted to get an autograph for when Rie Tanaka came to America (which I failed to do so). And too bad this isn’t the “bad” rendition of that song, loooool.
Track 18: Should be properly titled “Fry Pray.” Possibly the best re-arranged cover in this album. Also, I really like the laid-back style rather than the high-pitched, “HAY KIDS C IS FOR CAT” delivery used in Cross Game proper.
Track 19: When I listen to this album there are a number of tracks that I know I’ve heard somewhere but I couldn’t pinpoint it. This is probably the best example. It’s almost as odd as the one time when I went to see Sister Mayo perform and she did that one Cyber Nation Networks song “Get My Future.” Note that I had not heard of this song since, like, 2001, until this freaking past spring. Took me a long time to dig it out of my mind!
Track 20: I think J1m0ne can actually go full out Horie copycat on this song. Very fitting.
Track 21: This is a nice song for a project like this, because the original is a bit of a “limited works” piece too. It almost channeled the same feeling as the original piece!
Track 25: Best J1m0nes track ever. I have a soft spot for this song, I guess.
Track 27: zzero-man covered it better than I could.
Track 28: I like the brisk guitar arrangement, fits this song well (conceptually).
Track 29: See track 19, but this one was easy to pick up (I don’t know why).
Track 30: Tough song to do, as she mentioned in her own notes.
Track 31: I think it’s a good follow-up. You know, about flow. Plus, it’s a good choice.
Track 32: If Limited Chord Works is a show, the crowd should cheer at this, right? The delivery could be better (looool) but it’s a great choice.
Track 34: And as with this.
Track 35: Good way to finish things off.
Sure, it’s a bit of a gag but it’s not common that you’ll even find youtube videos of amateur people singing and playing at the same time, in the same take. It has that kind of a charm to it. Sure, it’s probably not recorded like how this was, but that was two people doing it inside a studio… And the song selection crits, surely.
Seitokai no Ichizon: Mafuyu’s Brofist Double-Tap All-Clear
After the latest episode of Seitokai no Ichizon, I have a hard time shaking off the feeling that an anime like this couldn’t possibly be as funny as it was. While just how funny Seitokai no Ichizon is to you is not my business, somehow it was able to find my humor buttons and played them like a champ. Well, great, but why do I estimate it being of a lesser caliber?
Because it’s a show about a truckload of tropes?
I think when we get too hung up on the meta elements and all that trope shuffling, it’s a risky thing to do in that even in the act of understanding characterization. What distinguishes a mere verbal description of a character from a compilation of oft-seen tropes that also describes the same character? For example, is it really a problem simply because the character has sex appeal and uses it to manipulate people? Is it really a problem when a character likes certain types of girls, he proceeds to try to befriend as many of them as he could? I mean, when I think about the flattest characters (not that way) in the show, Mafuyu, I think back to the scenes in the anime which focused on them. I don’t think about the tropes she represents.
When I think about the scenes revolving around Mafuyu in particular, aren’t they all just a huge, Dilbert-esqe joke? Out of the five in the student council, only Mafuyu is the outright otaku in the group. It’s quite amusing that she both perpetrates the stereotype in exaggerated quantities and also behaves as the straight (wo)man. I mean, sure, that is why it’s funny.
There are other reasons why Seitokai no Ichizon is funny. One total side note is the way the show is paced and how each scene, each line, is framed. It’s a good contrast with Lucky Star, which takes things slowly; versus a more realistic but frantic, girlish even, pace of moving the script forward (eg., Kurenai). Seitokai no Ichizon takes the latter route. I mention Lucky Star because both are, well, 4koma in aspiration. Or I should say, one is actually a 4koma manga and the other is a writing that attempts to achieve the same comedy dynamics found in the usual four-panel style. When we ground up the original material to regurgitate it into an animated experience, well, I guess it’s fair game to compare them.
[Side note #2: character chemistry mapping: Mafuyu->Konata, Kurimu->Kagami/Tsukasa, Chizuru->Miyuki.]
Back to Mafuyu. Beyond what is already said, being both normal and bizarre, she out-meta’d me last episode by describing herself as a cliché, and it’s the kind of cliché act that she’d do, too, to describe herself as a cliché. And it’s not just any cliché, but the kind of cliché you expect her to say she is; which is not the character trope she really belongs to, yet it sort of fits. But that’s not all–what was funny was not only that what she said was true (in that Dilbert, truer than life sense), not only because she described her own 2D-animu-girl nature accurately via the video game RPG character notion, but because I got the joke.
It is an anticlimactic way of saying “well, maybe this show isn’t so funny after all.” That is, if your peers are those who aren’t like you, as in, a serious anime fanboy. But to give it credit, Seitokai no Ichizon was able to communicate some difficult things, across the cultural and language gaps, to someone like me. There’s nothing moe about it.
[Side note #3: I have to mention this pretty awesome reference, but that’s besides the point. What isn’t besides the point is knowing they’re going to Odaiba tomorrow and they’ve mentioned bleep about you know what.]
In most anime, victory posing scenes are jokes; in Seitokai no Ichizon, it’s like the anti-joke. In as much as the almost unfitting moments of sublime, sentimental, victory-posing can be funny, I think they are a sort of safe harbor in Seitokai no Ichizon. It’s like, at the end, these bags of clichés are still representations of human beings like you and me; though we may call ourselves names, we are beyond these simple labels of race, sex, religion or creed. There’s a limit to how much we can laugh at ourselves after all. (…And it’s ok to even laugh at that!) If anything, Seitokai no Ichizon is the kind of show that asks us to ask why things are the way they are. Maybe that’s a tall bill to ask of its viewers, but I think it is as original as postmodern animated entertainment can be.
Then again, perhaps this is all void until the Seizon monster makes a Manabi Straight stab!
