2012-10-23, 07:28 | Link #101 |
You're Hot, Cupcake
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Age: 42
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Execution is considerably reliant on the target audience and what they want or can be induced into wanting. It's also dependent on timing - something that was a popular scenario, character style or art style a few years ago could have reached saturation point by now and have less impact in the present. Views of the world and society also factor into it.
In terms of what execution can offer by itself - gathering music to fit the mood of a scene or set a tone during a theme, picking a seiyuu with the desired effect for their role, quality control in the artwork and animation, staying on schedule, keeping to budget - those will be malleable and somewhat unique factors to the title. Writing something to be a big seller in literary form versus something in visual form has considerably different constraints and target audiences. But one can write a novel to be tailor-made to be adapted and it's an approach which has its merit in recent history. And of course, there's the quality vs quantity argument. Is sales what you wish for, or to make a critically acclaimed title to satisfy peers within a different clique? Each of those have their own constraints and pitfalls. Execution is certainly an aspect, but more of an enhancement rather than the sink or swim point, or at least one of several. And execution is so very dependent on what and whom you're aiming at.
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2012-10-23, 08:38 | Link #102 | |||||||||
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Which means she had atleast an emotional comfort from her own world accompanying her. Also if we are going to be so specific, then every premise can pretty unique depending on how much element you want to see it narrowed down to. Quote:
It's more a magical version of an alternate world that has resemblances to the japanese history. Inuyasha's settings is kind of debatable. Eventhough it might be the past, that itself is not that significant seeing that there is no such things as time paradoxes or other things related to time travel through the wormhole theory. Especially what Kagome knows and brings back in the past. Instead it focuses on a magical world instead of the actual past. I hope you are not implying that Inuyasha was about time traveling? Because for me it was more about the monsters and the hunt for magical jewel shards. It's not even relevant whatever happened between Inuyasha's time and the present time for Kagome when it comes to all the supernatural in that serie. Quote:
Like The wizard of the OZ has many locations in it's own world like the Emerald City or Winkie Country. Quote:
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Escaflowne for a sole female protagnist Garzey's Wing, Monster Rancher and maybe Zero no Tsukaima seeing that you did accept male protagnonists because of dog days. Quote:
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Aside from Naruto, good luck finding more animes with the exact same premises. Quote:
It also depends on how far you are in the story. Like relentlessflame has posted somewhere in this thread, a premise based on the first few episodes is different than from looking at it as a whole after it has been finished. Last edited by hyl; 2012-10-23 at 09:01. |
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2012-10-23, 19:01 | Link #103 | ||||||||
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Well, maybe I'm just unreasonably thick.
Seriously, though, if I knew why it didn't help, I would have replied, then. I didn't, because I didn't know how. Let me try. Quote:
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But that's not really how it works. Most "harem comedies" are also "high school romance comedies". You're presenting these as two different types of foundation, but they could describe the same foundation at different abstraction niveaus. That's because if you start with the abstract and fill out the details, you're going down a branching tree structure until you have your work, and each branching point has it's own name. At what point is it a foundation for your work? Actually, it's quite possible that the constant is none of this, but a particular character with a quirk, and you're just shifting through various settings and genres to find the best environment for him/her. Or it's an idea you want to explore. Or a formal experiment. In that case, it's no longer a "foundation" at the point of conceptualisation. Quote:
For example, I could say: "Psycho-Pass" is just a cyberpunk-dystopia. That's sort of how I feel about it, so far. It doesn't really stand out, to me. Sure, I haven't seen the exact combination. But the elements are familiar, the mood is familiar. It's certainly has appeal, but it's appeal is conventional within it's genre. In other words it behaves just like a "standard romance highschool comedy". I'm fairly certain we disagree on some level, but I don't know how. It's a mess of abstraction niveaus, genre expectations and value judgements. Quote:
But that's not how I see it. If you're working top down, you have to fill in blanks (the formula/variable specifiactions approach). There's no such thing as a default, though some specifications are used more often (the closer you get to the finished work, the more distinct it will be). Sometimes you'll run across shows that don't quite fit a genre, and that's because people don't always work top-down, to begin with. That makes it a bit more complex, too. Quote:
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Seriously, popularity isn't easy to pin down. (And if people, on a large scale, are content with the way SAO treats MMOs, then I'll probably never see a show that does it well. Oh, wait, there's .hack/signs... [Sorry, couldn't resist.]) |
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2012-10-25, 04:28 | Link #104 | ||||||||
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Now, instead of getting into a lengthy tangental debate over several specific anime shows, there is something I want to raise to your attention. A lot of the examples you keep suggesting for having a premise like Spirited Away's are from the 90s. In some cases, we're talking almost 20 years since these shows aired. The fact you keep having to dig that far back for anime examples of a premise like Spirited Away's shows that its premise really isn't that common. There's a considerable difference between a premise that is used 10 times over 20 years, and a premise that is used 10 times over 2 years. One is extremely more commonplace and heavily used than the other. To be fair, it's not so much "original vs. unoriginal". A truly original premise may indeed be exceptionally hard to fine. So it's more a case of "rare vs. commonplace", in my opinion. Some core narrative ideas are used more rarely than others, meaning that they have more room left for significant concept exploration, and also that they'll feel less stale to a lot of potential viewers. Quote:
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1. If a theme is left to viewer's interpretation, then it's not really part of the series concept. 2. Much of the point to my 2 sentence approach is that it forces people to distinguish the most important elements of a show from less important details. It is through that filtration process that we determine what are the core, defining elements of a show. Even the most complex of stories tend to central ideas or an overarching focus running throughout it. Quote:
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If I say "harem anime male lead", what's the first character concept that pops into your head? Now, which female character archetypes are likely to be part of the harem male lead's harem? 9 chances out of 10, it'll include at least one tsundere, so that's essentially a default as well. And if the harem anime male lead has a sister, what do you think are the chances that her feelings for him are entirely familial/platonic? I mean, seriously, let's not play coy/naive here. We all know that there's a very standard approach to the more common anime genres. It's not hard to imagine what the platonic ideal of a harem anime would look like (lots of slapstick and situational comedy, at least one girl with big breasts, at least one tsundere, at least one very feminine girl that may well double as a loli, at least one girl that likes preparing food for the male lead, the male lead is very indecisive and can be a bit of a doormat, the male lead will at least once or twice stumble in on a female character in a state of undress, the male lead will at least one or twice have an accident in which his hand conveniently lands on top of a female character's breasts, there's going to be a beach and/or hot springs episode, etc..., etc...). I'll grant you that highschool romance comedy tends to have fewer defaults, but even here, what do you think is the chance there will be a love triangle? You see, some things you might call "branching details" are virtually defaults. These branching details are only truly notable if they buck the trend of the defaults; if they go against genre convention. If they don't, if they consistently go along with genre convention, then well... here is where I think all the great execution in the world can only make so much difference. If you're taking a concept that's been done literally dozens upon dozens of times before, and you're not putting some notable twist on it, then great execution might still make it enjoyable, but I'm not likely to find it all that fresh or interesting anyway. And I doubt I'm alone here. Whereas a notable twist can, in and of itself, make something more interesting just on the face of it. So, just on the face of it, if you have "Generic 'Platonic Ideal' harem anime" vs. "Harem anime where the male lead is actually a pro wrestler that takes his bumps in the ring, and not from his harem", I can tell you what interests me more right from the get-go. As for K-On, my friend 0utf0xZer0 shared an interesting thought on that with me once. He said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that it's success could be due to being like a harem anime that cuts out the weak harem anime male lead and leaves you with "just the girls". Plus, as common as "all-girls" anime are nowadays, I'm not sure if they were that common when K-On first came out. K-On is a case where a particular concept became more popularized by a popular show.
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2012-10-25, 05:39 | Link #105 | |||||||
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Join Date: Feb 2009
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Also you fail to understand how important Toto is for Dorothy and the symbolisms behind the dog. Quote:
Seriously, how many stories in modern literature are about the same concept these days? I also have to dig up looking for stories about similar premises in English, just because such books are no longer the current trend. Your reasoning that it's no longer common in modern anime seems invalid to me, because that is just how the taste of the audience seems to have changed for these kind of stories. Even spirited away is 11 years old. Quote:
So i am asking this again without being rhetorical this time: Your point is? Quote:
Like the movie source code, the source code itself is left to the viewers imagination what it really did. Spoiler:
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Seeing that the anime version has almost no "koi" in it and the game itself had no chocolate in any stories except Chisato's. Also I don't remember chocolate having an actual significant part of the premise. Last edited by hyl; 2012-10-25 at 09:11. Reason: lol @ my own typos |
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2012-10-25, 09:38 | Link #106 | ||||||||
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Read season previews on various anime-focused blogs, and you'll see exactly what I mean. Writers for such blogs get much more excited for rarer premises than they do for more generic ones. Quote:
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It's about a teenage guy who is forced to enter a Student Council President election in order to save his threatened Food Research Club, but along the way some disturbing facts about his school will be made known to him... The story also includes significant romance elements, in which chocolate is important to the male and female leads for a mysterious reason that will later be revealed... Bang, done. Quote:
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2012-10-25, 10:17 | Link #107 | ||||||||||
reading #hikaributts
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Personally i don't see that much difference from Btooom and wizard of Oz if we go by "without the aid of teamwork right from the beginning" Quote:
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Also if we just go by the initial premise, then Madoka would have flown under many people's rader. Furthermore hype is not just created by premises, seeing that sometimes the staff, animation studios or the original works can also contribute to it. Little busters has a fairly bland initial "premise" (when looked at the beginning, the "total" premise is different) while it is still very much hyped. That's not the point here. I can create an unique sounding premise for stories that are similar to Naruto like 666 Satan with ease, despite being mostly a ripoff. Quote:
It's pretty subjective what premise is "better" Quote:
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The romance between the 2 characters were hardly developed Spoiler for spoiler:
I am curiously how many actual "Koi" moments you have seen in the anime. Also i was not joking about the game in which there was nothing about chocolate in every route except Chisato's and a very little reference in Mifuyu's story. Last edited by hyl; 2012-10-25 at 10:41. |
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2012-10-25, 11:24 | Link #108 | |
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Also I'm pretty sure Triple_R considers the fact Madoka is a deconstruction to be part of the premise,which I guess you can find debatable,maybe deconstruction is just a way to execute a premise. There's something that puzzles me with the issue of a rarer premise being a better premise,let me take an example: a highschool comedy with an all girl cast was basicly unheard of until Azumanga Daioh,so back in 2002 that would make it great but today since there's been a whole lot of other shows like this it wouldn't be a good premise?Even if it's the same one?I just have a hard time grasping that notion.
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2012-10-25, 11:44 | Link #109 | |||
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2012-10-25, 12:03 | Link #110 | |
Me at work
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2012-10-25, 12:44 | Link #111 | |
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To answer your question, fractale may have a better sounding premise but that is because of the differences in genre. You can't actually compare those series seeing that one is a high school comedy, while the other sounds like an adventurious sci-fi at first glance. If we look at examples that are more recent it's like comparing the premises of Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo and Shin Sekai Yori. It simply doesn't work, because subjectivity of genre preferences might also come into play. Last edited by hyl; 2012-10-25 at 12:55. |
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2012-10-25, 19:33 | Link #112 |
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totoum's 2nd most recent post on this thread sums up more or less exactly what I was going to reply with, so I'll leave most of my points there. Thanks, totoum!
Just to be clear, hyl, premise is not the only determining factor for why I watch a show. I'll admit that character design is often a significant factor for me as well. The main reason for why I watched Amagami SS, Shining Hearts: Shiawase no Pan, and (somewhat ironically) Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate was character design (and more broadly speaking, the show's artistic style). I'll admit it: Every now and then I'm in the mood for sugary sweet eye candy. Anyway, all I'm basically saying is that a show's premise is not entirely unimportant. I'll even admit that execution is probably more important (I more or less agree with what Eater of All wrote here). I'll probably leave it at that, aside from apologizing to ahelo for kind of derailing his thread. This thread is supposed to be about anime's Excellence of Execution. So maybe it's best if we let this thread get focused and take a clear shot at that topic, like a good Hitman would.
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2012-10-25, 19:44 | Link #113 | ||
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So at this point when comparing different animes, it's no longer apples and oranges but apples and chainsaws. The uses are just too different. Though honestly, I feel that the producer's attempts at something extraordinary might be more interesting than whether critics or the majority think the final product is extraordinary. You can't plan for greatness, but you can sure try. In these cases, I think that's why I'm so attracted to original anime-- the journey is more important than the destination. That's why watching something like Madoka was so diffrent; I was in the progress of watching something great happen. It didn't matter if the critics gave it a 1/10 or 10/10, that's just something that can only be experienced there. It had also helped that I was in the pits when it came to anime and many other things. It seemed to try to do things I was confident couldn't happen. And honestly, since I view things quite negatively at times, I enjoy it when I'm proven wrong. There's something like Tari Tari which I also watched anxiously to unfold and perhaps someone that doesn't share my perspective simply can't understand. I was pretty much confident this show wouldn't last long, but it somehow did. Throughout the show I saw numerous allusions to PA works's previous shows creating some sense of nostalgia. I don't know if it was intentional or not but somehow I got the feeling that whoever made this was enjoying themselves. I've always had an interest in their work, and was kinda bummed True Tears didn't sell. So seeing something that seems to have borrowed from that work end up doing fairly well on its own just made it a feel good moment that has very little to do with the actual show. Thus, yes, it's very personal at times and can be hard to understand. But this begs the question. Is it better to have anime attempt something radically different but end up exploding in a spectacular fashion or just stick with the safe route? I'd like to bring up a certain Uta Kata, which overall didn't seem that great, but since it was a fairly unique deconstruction of the magical girl genre long before Madoka came around (yes, everyone, Madoka's not the only one. Hell, Mai-HiME was one too), I remember it quite well despite thinking it wasn't that great by more traditional standards.
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Last edited by Archon_Wing; 2012-10-25 at 19:59. |
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2012-10-25, 23:45 | Link #114 |
Master of Coin
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Law of inverse bust size-The plot of any anime is directly inverse of the main heroine lead. More fan service, less actual plot.
Exception-The loli tundre effect-a girl who is highly underdeveloped yet generate no useable plot.-See Louise from ZnT, Claire for Serki no blade dance. |
2012-10-26, 00:14 | Link #115 | |
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Age: 41
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The higher "unique premise" is on your personal ranking of "factors key to my personal enjoyment", the more likely you are to have watched this sort of show in the first place. But my experience is that, at the time at least, these fans tend to feel very burned by the fact the show let them down (because they put the blame solely on the staff "messing it up"), and it's only in retrospect that they may appreciate what the show was trying to do. These fans will often argue that having a rich diversity is good or the anime industry because it has the potential to expand the fanbase in ways that sticking to the common patterns can't. For people who don't insist on "unique premise" so much and are okay with sticking mostly with the sorts of shows they know they like, a failed experiment outside their favoured genres/styles arguably may just as well not exist. If they even checked out the show in the first place, they may have dropped it. So at worst it's just noise in a crowded medium and will soon be forgotten. For these viewers, a "safer" show in their favoured genre/style would have been more personally appreciated (even if they recognize that variety is good in concept). But, by the same token, they're more likely to enjoy shows within their favoured genres/styles even if "the critics" find it flawed, so even a failed experiment that hit the right notes for them may be loved/appreciated. (For example, I quite liked Uta~Kata; bought all the Japanese DVDs back in the day. But of course I realize that it's not going to appeal to everyone. Feel the same way about, say, Manabi Straight or Futakoi Alternative, though these are perhaps not quite as high on the "unique premise" scale.) As an aside... your post made me think that I should say something about "the product" vs. "the experience" (or more the "collective viewing experience"). You mentioned that you enjoyed the experience of seeing a unique work unfold where nobody really knows what to expect in advance. I think that itself can be an enjoyment factor completely separate from whether a show has an "original premise" (speaking objectively). Even for an anime-original show with an arguably "derivative" premise, there's perhaps a greater sense of "you never know what might happen!", which some people find enjoyable. Plus the experience of going through that experience with all the other viewers can itself be enjoyable. This is why, for example, I enjoyed Endless Eight a lot more than many, because being there and being part of that experience was -- to me anyway -- really interesting and fun. I appreciate what the creators created on a meta level as much as what was in the show itself. So I think there's definitely something legitimate here.
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2012-10-26, 12:51 | Link #116 |
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For any particular work, I'd say that it's best to make well-crafted shows. A safe premise doesn't guarantee that, nor will a more risky premise. Ideally, there should be someone constantly trying new things and to expand the possibilities of the medium. However, just because it's something new or unusual doesn't mean that it's any good. I guess those works that try and fail get marks for effort, but that's not worth a whole lot in the end.
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2012-11-23, 20:32 | Link #117 |
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So, in the last week, I read through the Puella Magi Madoka Magica manga, and here's a very good example of how big of an impact the execution can have on the quality of the work.
The manga is essentially the same story as the anime, and while I consider the anime to be my favorite show of 2011, the manga falls flat, being rushed, battles lacking impact, scenes not having much in the way of dynamics, and just not having much visual flair. They cover the same story, but I consider the anime excellent, while the manga is decidedly average.
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2012-11-24, 07:48 | Link #118 |
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For a show where the visual presentation is one of its most distinctive and important features, I cannot imagine how a manga could possibly do it justice. The profusion of Madoka spinoffs look to me like the usual cashing-in that happens with any successful property. Usually the spinoffs have none of the artistry of the original.
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2012-11-24, 17:22 | Link #120 | |
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I quote TVTropes: "The Japanese are stereotypically obsessed with cuteness, while Americans are stereotypically obsessed with MANLINESS". Hence, some shows may sell big in Japan but not in the US because they're more cute (and therefore girly) and less manly; while some shows may be a flop in Japan but are big in the US because they're more manly and less cute/girly. |
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