Expo Licensing Stuffs

I was thinking not long ago that the look of anime has been a little genericised lately (with a few big exceptions!) since a lot of the source material is now light novels or other multimedia projects rather than manga, with the relatively huge variation in character design aesthetics which came along with it due to the different artistic levels of the manga creators. There are still some great character designers out there and I do personally like most of the new styles, but I agree that there is less of the "wow" factor to snare sci-fi fans and followers of other nerdy pursuits into giving anime a try. My entry as a hardcore fan was not dissimilar to what you've described, ayase; I don't think the K-On girls would have had quite the same effect on my impressionable young self as seeing the sexy Bubblegum Crash VHS covers on the shelves did, or those gorgeous shots of Crying Freeman's hand drawn art in magazines. I remember staying up late to tape Armitage III on Sci-Fi, feeling very excited, but now I don't even have television at all at home.

From my experience, most newer anime fans nowadays (active fans as opposed to people who download Naruto periodically without ever taking it further) seem to come in through Ghibli films rather than the more typical shows. Quality series like FMA are still out there and other geeks would definitely enjoy them, but the rounded, cute designs probably don't exactly scream "buy me" to people unused to the aesthetic. It also doesn't help that reference-filled comedies and bishoujo series are dominating in licensing and it's a bit harder to casually get into these than something about robots and/or angry gun-toting women in hotpants.

Having said that, I have had numerous strangers on the street here stop me and ask about my Gurren Lagann and One Piece t-shirts, recognising the characters, so it's hardly all that underground either. One Piece has never even had a legal release in this company so it's bizarre having middle aged women approaching me out of nowhere to remark that they think Luffy is awesome, especially given how little I go outside. These people certainly aren't getting their anime experience from the region-locked streams or from the R1 DVDs :/

It's still bewildering that stuff like Black Lagoon and Cowboy Bebop isn't in ready circulation here at the moment.

R
 
Of course, sourcing from LNs is not the root cause though. Boogiepop Phantom, Kino's Journey, Baccano!, Full Metal Panic, DenYuuDen, Sword Art Online, it is pointless to go on and list more examples of potentially "cool" (lol) settings, never mind how much pulp sci-fi helped to introduce the LN format in the first place.

The homogenizing of art styles when things reach the stage of being an anime, as well as the specific LNs that are focused on, is what leads to that impression, not some sort of flaw in the entire concept of older teen fiction vs comic books.

Rui said:
Having said that, I have had numerous strangers on the street here stop me and ask about my Gurren Lagann and One Piece t-shirts, recognising the characters, so it's hardly all that underground either. One Piece has never even had a legal release in this company so it's bizarre having middle aged women approaching me out of nowhere to remark that they think Luffy is awesome, especially given how little I go outside. These people certainly aren't getting their anime experience from the region-locked streams or from the R1 DVDs :/R
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You live in a weird place.
 
Rui said:
Having said that, I have had numerous strangers on the street here stop me and ask about my Gurren Lagann and One Piece t-shirt
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This is as good a reason as any not to wear anime t-shirts. Talking to people I know is bad enough, but strangers? Being approached in the street by random people is about the only thing that could make me want stay indoors more than I already do.

If I was 13 years old today, I know that Redline would have blown my tiny, hormone-addled mind. Hell, it blows my tiny hormone-addled 30 year-old mind. Also, ayase, you should think about getting Rideback. It's not strictly speaking "sexy" but it has a strong and not particularly cute female lead and mecha and politics and ****.
 
My comment about light novels is more rooted in the fact that illustrators for light novels tend to be accomplished artists with an already-pretty style, whereas with manga quite a few have the same person drawing and writing, with the result that some very beloved manga have extremely unusual art which wouldn't necessarily sell on its own merits (but fans can grow into it on the strength of the story, or the artist can adapt over time). I rarely see an ugly otaku light novel cover.

In other words, I think the general standard of light novel illustration is higher than it is for manga, but at the expense of some variety in styles. It probably doesn't help that illustrating a light novel is rather less demanding on time than drawing an entire manga so the same skilled artists might work on a number of series (especially once they do something which becomes popular and suddenly everyone wants to be publishing their art).

And yeah, London is a weird place :s and I could live without random downloaders coming up to talk to me. But I will never stop representing my fandom!

R
 
That's an interesting theory, but I still feel like it is some sort of contrivance rather than root cause and effect - Western comics are generally drawn by a "real artist" and written by someone else, yet don't feature those "pretty" tendencies, and are easily as strong overall as Japanese comics when it comes to providing artistic variety and/or "extremely unusual" art.

We needn't even extend the discussion into how many recent manga adaptations would be indistinguishable from LN adaptations in the factors we are discussing*, because it is only too obvious.

Products are adapted to suit the market, not the other way around.

*I'd actually nearly forgotten what we were discussing, as this tangent seemed more interesting. ^^;

Anime on TV - as far as I'm aware, it was never dropped due to lack of popularity or decreasing amounts of coolness/sexy women and robots, it was dropped because channels increasingly decided to focus on their own series from which they could generate much higher profit margins.
 
kaze_andrew said:
ayase said:
Don't people think TV is a bit of a dying format though (at least for anything more cerebral than reality shows)? I'm still amazed advertising space is worth anything in the age of AdBlock. When I watch a programme, I don't want to see adverts. They're a nuisance and a waste of my time. So what tends to be on my TV at any given moment is a BBC channel or a DVD.
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You'd think so and I genuinely thought the same. There's an interesting argument which is TV is still super strong for the general public though even for teens.

The stats tend to prove that for now though - however I don't think it's unfair to say that digital is where most of the anime community are with regards to replacing TV though.

So it's a kind of balance - you need a strong digital offering to interest the existing community but without TV you'll lose out longer term. I mean there is a whole generation who woke up or stayed up late to see Nadesico and Evangelion on Sci-Fi, people who tuned in for DBZ, Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, Outlaw Star and Gundam Wing on CNX and 4Kids too.

It's a very weird phenomenon - but TV is at least on paper very much alive right now. For the pre-existing anime community - am not so convinced.

Something I'd been thinking on recently so figured why not share!

Andrew,
Still working...
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What I think would work is a weekly block.

A channel enterely devoted to anime wouldn't work, since only pre-existing fans would know about it, and only a portion of those would watch it, since the majority would have already watched through DVDs or Crunchyroll etc.

Having random shows scattered about wouldn't work either, since there wouldn't be enough advertising.


I'll use Adult Swim as an example, even though it's US, it's been pretty sucessful for over 10 years.

It shows anime in a Block on Saturdays. The block also gets great advertising, since it's on a channel with shows such as Family Guy.

Going back to the DVD and Crunchyroll deal, the shows currently being premiered on Adult Swim are Bleach and Durarara!!. Both of these shows are freely available on Crunchyroll, and in the case of Dura, also DVDs.

Why? Because it doesn't target anime fans! Your ideal audience is probably people who are already fans of some Science fiction and Animation, but when it comes to anime, are only aware of at the very most, Akira and DBZ.


tl;dr: I'm not an expert on the TV industry, so skip all that noise above if you want. But I think it would work if you used Anime on TV as a"Gateway Drug" for potential anime fans, rather than targeting pre-existing anime fans.
 
ilmaestro: I suppose I sort of miss less slick but very visually distinctive anime designs like Ranma 1/2 etc. The Ranma 1/2 OAV designs worked well for me as an example as they beautifully combined Nakajima Atsuko's own extremely pretty style with Takahashi's simple, functional creations, and I could see both influences from a mile away. Yet those designs looked very different from those of most other shows at the time; shows which in turn often looked different to everything else as well. I'm using this as an example as Ranma was one of those major turning points in my fandom which pulled me in deeper, despite being a very fluffy comedy show. The 'exotic' visuals of the show even within a dedicated anime magazine somehow drew me in.

(Note: My choice of words isn't meant to discredit Takahashi Rumiko's art style as I think she's very talented, and I have artbooks to prove it, but it's definitely working on a different level to the gorgeous two-page spreads of upcoming book covers I see in magazines with their ambitious use of colour, effects and texture which the format allows for.)

Digital animation techniques are also partly responsible, as things as simple as two-tone hair would have been a total pain to animate in the 'good old days' but now they can get away with that kind of fun special effect relatively easily as far as I can tell. I think (personal opinion) there is less need nowadays for people to develop their own dramatic house styles since there are so many more complex ways to lay down unique designs. The differences between many popular designers feel as though they have generally become a lot more subtle and refined. I also feel there is more of a requirement to make almost everyone attractive with the currently fashionable genres which by necessity means fewer shrivelled old men, musclemen with caterpillar eyebrows or wobbly-looking middle-aged women. Whether this is a bad thing is debatable (I certainly have no objection to casts loaded with attractive-looking people...).

But yeah, I agree with the logic that the market dictates the trend (and geeks in the UK are definitely not the market here). It's not like I dislike the newer styles myself, it's just that it feels less obvious to a newcomer that there is such a deep variety of flavours around, which might make anime seem less appealing to a certain kind of person here. It probably doesn't help that S23 (as apparent leaders in quantity if not quality of western licensing these days) tend to try to pick up all of the dubious bishoujo game adaptations which look sort of similar and inexplicably (<_<) pass over stuff like Kaiji which has a more dramatic aesthetic.

Rushed this in the end as I forgot I have to actually go home! Sorry for rambling so much about nothing.

R, who has no deep insight into the actual TV discussion due to not having TV ;_; (it does always feel sort of impossible to find anything specific on TV now there are so many channels, though)

Later edit: Wow, I sure wrote a load of meandering rubbish in my tripping over nostalgic art styles. Thinking about it the main difference is just that there seem to be fewer adult leads on average nowadays, and young people tend to look more similar to one another and more naiive than grizzly old guys. I liked the days of grumpy old guys and less cute women a lot.
 
Rui said:
R, who has no deep insight into the actual TV discussion due to not having TV ;_; (it does always feel sort of impossible to find anything specific on TV now there are so many channels, though)
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Oh, yeah, well the problem with UK TV is that the good stuff isn't even on there.

Community? Nope.
Parks and Recreation? Nope.
Breaking Bad? Nope.

You could probably find and record something, but to do that, you'd need a Sky+/V+, which costs more on top of that, so to be honest, it makes more sense to just buy the boxset or something.
 
Paradox295 said:
Rui said:
R, who has no deep insight into the actual TV discussion due to not having TV ;_; (it does always feel sort of impossible to find anything specific on TV now there are so many channels, though)
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Oh, yeah, well the problem with UK TV is that the good stuff isn't even on there.

Community? Nope.
Parks and Recreation? Nope.
Breaking Bad? Nope.

You could probably find and record something, but to do that, you'd need a Sky+/V+, which costs more on top of that, so to be honest, it makes more sense to just buy the boxset or something.
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Or get a cheap harddrive recorder. I have one. It's quite marvellous. I only have freeview.
 
I have freeview and freesat...

I watch about an hour of anime a day online, via Youtube AoD or Crunchyroll, and I watch DVDs and Blu-rays. I was watching 2 hours of TV a week, Spooks and Smallville, but they're finished now...

I have an HD Recorder, but I don't use it. There's very rarely anything I want to watch. I find that if I want to watch a mainstream Hollywood movie, it's more convenient for me to watch the disc than to watch it on TV, at the wrong aspect ratio, in stereo only, compressed video, with adverts. I also find that whatever disc I might put in, is on TV thereabouts anyway. Last week I watched Blade on DVD. Ejected the disc, then watched the last ten minutes over again as they were being broadcast on Viva with a logo over the action.

Mostly I watch TV for the news, live sport, or just background noise while I eat my dinner.
 
I had a thought earlier today: What if AnimeOnDemand tried to get a deal to have their content on the Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo Wii?

American owners of those consoles have access to Netflix and soon Hulu; while obviously both services give far more than just anime, the UK side of Nintendo's consoles are lacking any streaming services (except the BBC iPlayer on the Wii). If someone goes on the Nintendo eShop on the 3DS for example, they could be presented right away with an advertisement for AnimeOnDemand, next to the latest Virtual Console or 3DSWare title they originally went on to purchase.

While gamers are usually put in the same box as anime fans, it's pretty obvious that the majority of gamers (Especially with a casual gaming company like Nintendo) will not be anime fans, so it could be good exposure if say, there's a trailer for Tiger & Bunny, Usagi Drop or Un-Go.
 
ilmaestro said:
Products are adapted to suit the market, not the other way around.
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Rui said:
I agree with the logic that the market dictates the trend (and geeks in the UK are definitely not the market here). It's not like I dislike the newer styles myself, it's just that it feels less obvious to a newcomer that there is such a deep variety of flavours around, which might make anime seem less appealing to a certain kind of person here.
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Exactly. Anime has adapted to suit the Japanese rather than US or UK market. As a product of Japan that's fair enough of course, but I do see increasing differences in what each market wants. I'm not going to go down the "all new anime is moe crap" route because I don't honestly believe that's the case, but an increasing amount of higher profile anime is unappealing or even downright off-putting to western audiences outside the established fan base (us) who have seen it change and develop over time.

Rui said:
I also feel there is more of a requirement to make almost everyone attractive with the currently fashionable genres which by necessity means fewer shrivelled old men, musclemen with caterpillar eyebrows or wobbly-looking middle-aged women. Whether this is a bad thing is debatable (I certainly have no objection to casts loaded with attractive-looking people...).
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Me neither, but is what's attractive now really cute schoolgirls and similarly cute young women with breasts that look like they've been inflated with an air compressor? And pretty boys for the ladies? Everyone has their own ideas of beauty of course, but anime does seems to be catering to certain specific demographics (some might even say fetishes) far more than it used to.

ilmaestro said:
Anime on TV - as far as I'm aware, it was never dropped due to lack of popularity or decreasing amounts of coolness/sexy women and robots...
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I don't believe that's why it was dropped, but it is why I think it stands less of a chance with an unfamiliar audience if it were to be reintroduced now.

fabricatedlunatic said:
Also, ayase, you should think about getting Rideback. It's not strictly speaking "sexy" but it has a strong and not particularly cute female lead and mecha and politics and ****.
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I'm trying to find the best price for the DVD/BD combo right now as it happens. I've liked the look of Rideback since it was first announced and your and AF's comments have pretty much sealed the deal. I wasn't suggesting that sexiness and mecha aren't requirements for me to enjoy a series, but they are definitely what drew me in to begin with.
 
Paradox295 said:
AnimeOnDemand would never go about doing that, becuase they're too small.
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Could help AoD grow though, couldn't it?

You can watch CrunchyRoll stuff using your PS3, however.
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How?

Shame that the PS3 is my little brother's, so I rarely get a chance to go on it though xD
 
Paradox295 said:
tl;dr: I'm not an expert on the TV industry, so skip all that noise above if you want. But I think it would work if you used Anime on TV as a"Gateway Drug" for potential anime fans, rather than targeting pre-existing anime fans.
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Skipping all the noise above - as a good chunk of it I'd just pick at, your overall point is exactly what I meant. It's a dying medium for anime fans - but that number is far less than the mainstream.

Trouble as always is finding the right person to share your toys with - as a channel like Rapture TV for example - only anime fans heard of and that was only because Wolf's Rain on it. So it has to be a big name channel or the value is lost and that puts you back into the vicious cycle all over again.

Here's hoping we can do something cool eh ;)?
 
kaze_andrew said:
Rapture TV
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THAT was the other one! I could remember Anime Network/Propellor but never that one. Never got to even try either being on cable.

You know what would be great? Getting anime on Virgin's On Demand service.
 
BBC2 used to do this teenage chunk way back when, showing cult TV like Neat and Tidy, and animation like Aeon Flux, as well as those two old guys who used to come up with inventive ways to destroy each other.

There's nothing like that on TV now, although BBC3 is aimed at a similar demographic. You need to convince BBC3 and Channel 4 and the like that shows like Big Bang Theory have primed an audience that will geek out at anime...

You also need to convince them that showing it will be cheap, cheaper than the alternatives.

I'd say that long running shows are out obviously, as are the mainstream genres. You need to show quirky, and culty, presenting something that is out of the ordinary when it comes to what even we expect from anime. I'm thinking more the Paranoia Agent, Serial Experiments Lain, something that won't immediately be recognised as anime.

More recent may be Ristorante Paradiso, Aoi Hana, Usagi Drop, Deadman Wonderland. Short, sweet, and surprising. The minute you whip out a card, shout out a special move, introduce a mascot, you'll get the Pokemon connotations, and you'll lose the audience.

But anything less than a free to air, terrestrial channel would be a waste of effort.
 
kaze_andrew said:
Paradox295 said:
tl;dr: I'm not an expert on the TV industry, so skip all that noise above if you want. But I think it would work if you used Anime on TV as a"Gateway Drug" for potential anime fans, rather than targeting pre-existing anime fans.
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Skipping all the noise above - as a good chunk of it I'd just pick at, your overall point is exactly what I meant. It's a dying medium for anime fans - but that number is far less than the mainstream.

Trouble as always is finding the right person to share your toys with - as a channel like Rapture TV for example - only anime fans heard of and that was only because Wolf's Rain on it. So it has to be a big name channel or the value is lost and that puts you back into the vicious cycle all over again.

Here's hoping we can do something cool eh ;)?
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Yeah, channels that are only on Sky are too obscure. But channels that are on freeview would never go for it. Virgin Media channels are probably the sweet spot.

Just Passing Through said:
BBC2 used to do this teenage chunk way back when, showing cult TV like Neat and Tidy, and animation like Aeon Flux, as well as those two old guys who used to come up with inventive ways to destroy each other.

There's nothing like that on TV now, although BBC3 is aimed at a similar demographic. You need to convince BBC3 and Channel 4 and the like that shows like Big Bang Theory have primed an audience that will geek out at anime...

You also need to convince them that showing it will be cheap, cheaper than the alternatives.

I'd say that long running shows are out obviously, as are the mainstream genres. You need to show quirky, and culty, presenting something that is out of the ordinary when it comes to what even we expect from anime. I'm thinking more the Paranoia Agent, Serial Experiments Lain, something that won't immediately be recognised as anime.

More recent may be Ristorante Paradiso, Aoi Hana, Usagi Drop, Deadman Wonderland. Short, sweet, and surprising. The minute you whip out a card, shout out a special move, introduce a mascot, you'll get the Pokemon connotations, and you'll lose the audience.

But anything less than a free to air, terrestrial channel would be a waste of effort.
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Yeah, BBC3 and Channel 4 are out of the question. And the audience of TBBT are not geeks. :wink:

Syfy and Horror Channel would be the channels I would guess would be the best fit.

Also, none of those shows would work. You need the type of shows that did well on Adult Swim. eg: Bebop, FLCL, GitS, Champloo etc.
 
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