Kyoto Animation: Studio discussion, speculation, and whatnot.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by cyth

I think pointing out this relationship between quality and popularity is just useless. It also propagates this myth that more often than not quality and popularity are diametrically opposite, which is harmful to healthy discussion of any show's merit. They aren't. People will like what they like and buy what they'll buy.

I never said sales = quality though? .

I liked Free! (not nearly enough to buy it, then again I haven't bought anime in ages) because it had this weird "Key-like" vibe to it, but also because it focused on one of the rare few dilemmas young boys have to go through in puberty. It wasn't exactly deep or whatever, but I found myself in that show. I'm not a female either. So the whole demographics and popularity notion flies out the window if you consider someone like me.

Not trying to be misogynistic here. I equally think something like K-on is equally bad for the same reasons. It's just genderflipped for what I felt.

What I'm trying to say is that Kyoani tends to make their characters, particularly female characters, two-dimensional cardboard cutouts who try to garner as much attention possible by being "airheaded", "mute" or just plain silly. Free had those kind of characters, except they pretty much put in female like characters in male bodies this time.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

What I'm trying to say is that Kyoani tends to make their characters, particularly female characters, two-dimensional cardboard cutouts who try to garner as much attention possible by being "airheaded", "mute" or just plain silly. Free had those kind of characters, except they pretty much put in female like characters in male bodies this time.

Well, I'm not gonna say they always do it, though I suppose there's no point separating it by gender-- certain derpy portrayals are just an insult to humanity.

Though mute isn't that bad if it's just nothing to say in the sea of stupidity.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

What I'm trying to say is that Kyoani tends to make their characters, particularly female characters, two-dimensional cardboard cutouts who try to garner as much attention possible by being "airheaded", "mute" or just plain silly. Free had those kind of characters, except they pretty much put in female like characters in male bodies this time.

Two-dimensional cutouts? They add colour and humour to the shows!
(No seriously, this is exactly what I think about Yui, who is probably Kyoto's most iconic airhead.)

Also, you do realize as a hardcore Kotomi fanboy I will have to exact terrible vengeance upon you now, right?
(I'm also an Eru fan but I think she's a far ways off of genuine derp, so you're safe on that front.)

[RobotCat]

I feel like people are unfairly harping on the Kyoukai no Kanata LN based off the impressions given by the anime. From what I've read of the translations, it's actually one of the better LN's. It's leagues above your typical harem light novels. It has some pretty solid characterization as well as world building, and works it in fairly well in a story that just seems to be mostly conversations at first. The translations I've read cover roughly the same amount of content as episodes 1-3 of the anime, yet there's more characterization and world building than the current 10 episodes of the anime.

Its major weakness is that the author is trying to channel the Monogatari LN's dialogue but he's too inexperienced to really make it work. That's something that definitely could have been improved upon with more experienced writers when undergoing the adaptation treatment.

I think the biggest blunder KyoAn had with adapting KnK is that they played it too safe. They wrapped the story into the typical KyoAn presentation, increased the various moe factors shoehorned the main character/female lead relationship into something we've already seen them do many times before. The LN also switched between lighthearted scenes and more serious scenes, but its strengths were just how dark it was under the surface. There were so many nuanced character behaviors and interactions that seem innocuous at first but under further scrutiny bring the despair in the work to a fairly depressing level.

There's also a huge PoV shift from the LN to the anime. In the LN Akihito is the PoV character, and we perceive the world through him, and through hits thoughts on everyone and everything we come to learn a lot about him. He's actually pretty interesting for a male lead in this type of light novel and it's really easy to empathize with him. Compare this to the anime where even 10 episodes in many people don't really care about him.

Finally, the anime has rewritten so much of the original work that I'd only consider the anime 'loosely' based on the LN. So a lot of poor writing falls squarely on KyoAn's shoulders as they are the ones who wrote the original script for the anime.

Just based on the first half of volume 1, I thought it had a lot of potential and with the right director it could have been polished into something far more memorable.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Two-dimensional cutouts? They add colour and humour to the shows!
(No seriously, this is exactly what I think about Yui, who is probably Kyoto's most iconic airhead.)

They increase my chance to facepalm or question the character's intelligence

Also, you do realize as a hardcore Kotomi fanboy I will have to exact terrible vengeance upon you now, right?
(I'm also an Eru fan but I think she's a far ways off of genuine derp, so you're safe on that front.)

To be fair, that's more of a fault a Key rather than Kyoani, since I pretty felt the same when I watched Angel Beats and Little Busters (which I dropped pretty fast) and those weren't Kyoani productions. They are [in]famous for making their girls "special" afterall.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by RobotCat

Its major weakness is that the author is trying to channel the Monogatari LN's dialogue but he's too inexperienced to really make it work. That's something that definitely could have been improved upon with more experienced writers when undergoing the adaptation treatment.

Yeah I saw a lot of "It's a poor man's Monogatari" impressions about the novel, which made 4chan crowning KnK as the Monogatari killer ironic. About as successful as Geist beating Halo, what's Geist? Exactly.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by ultimate_noob

I agree. I was a bit happy when they said on the recent kyoani event that they're doing a "power-up" on tamako market for the new movie/second season whatever format they're going to do with it. I guess they did saw the shortcomings of that show and decided to garnish it a bit to unleash its full potential.

What is even more impressive is how they convinced the other members of the production committee of that show to help them invest again considering the lackluster sales. Or maybe they've formed a new committee which remains to be seen. I wouldn't be surprised either if kyoani will go all-in on this one.

Either way it's all good efforts.

I still don't think that they have any idea of how to accomplish what they're trying to. Maybe Kyoto Animation can get away with it if they change the new Tamako Market into a silly moe comedy, but I think that they'll go halfway and fail miserably. "Powering up" the show doesn't make any sense when the best episode in the original was relatively low key.

Originally Posted by Westlo

If KyoAni want to play the profits game by owning IPs they should just contract Gatoh to write/concept an original show for them, chances are it will be better than anything they've turfed out recently.

They're trying to recapture K-On and Haruhi, so they want ancilliary sales as well. It's probably the wrong approach, but Chuuni's sales means that they'll keep trying to make it work.

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Two-dimensional cutouts? They add colour and humour to the shows!
(No seriously, this is exactly what I think about Yui, who is probably Kyoto's most iconic airhead.)

And sometimes these character concepts run counter to what the rest of the show is trying to do. Tamako Market was hurt, perhaps irrevocably, by this very thing.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

For the reason above, I'm not really sure it makes such a huge difference to them as long as they keep the majority of the profits from all the various facets of the media mix. And if you take all four of their recent projects on the composite, their batting average in terms of hits is still pretty good, with shows like Free and Chuunibyou potentially making up for some of the lesser-performers. And heck, as Kadokowa anime demonstrates, sometimes even a show with a poorly-received anime ends up seeing a sizeable-enough boost in novel sales to make a sequel worthwhile. So, we don't have all the data, but it seems to me like this should be at least as sustainable if not more so than their old business model as long as they keep playing it relatively safe.

I get that the strategy of adapting their own LNs is profitable on the whole, and I think it'll probably form the core of their strategy for the foreseeable future. I just don't think it's all they're going to be doing, since their catalog consists of:

2 huge sellers.
1 weak seller.
2 unadapted properties.

That doesn't exactly scream "we're never adapting an outside property again" to me.

Originally Posted by Westlo

Yeah I saw a lot of "It's a poor man's Monogatari" impressions about the novel, which made 4chan crowning KnK as the Monogatari killer ironic.

As ironic as it may be, it strikes me as extremely fitting. Because if the attitudes of the 4channers I know are any indication, that board pretty much lives for "ironic spectacle".

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I get that the strategy of adapting their own LNs is profitable on the whole, and I think it'll probably form the core of their strategy for the foreseeable future. I just don't think it's all they're going to be doing, since their catalog consists of:

2 huge sellers.
1 weak seller.
2 unadapted properties.

That doesn't exactly scream "we're never adapting an outside property again" to me.

Well, they can keep holding more contests and get more IP that way, along with creating in-house originals like Tamako Market. They're in contact with enough creative people that I'm sure there'll always be some idea out there they could work on. As was proposed, they could just ask one of the writers they've worked with before "hey, got any ideas?" and I'm sure they'd come up with something.

I don't think it's like they're completely closed to every adapting other people's works again (if nothing else, either Animation Do or a new subsidiary could form and take on extra projects), but I think they want to position themselves so that, whatever they work on, they're able to have a lot more leverage in the financial partnership. It'd probably take the right type of project and the right type of financial terms for them to be interested, but I'm sure anything's on the table if the deal is good enough. The Kadokawas of the world do have plenty of other options, though, so no need to rush.

[ultimate_noob]

Originally Posted by Westlo

lol, why would Free be a good show to anyone who follows sales. Just because it sold well doesn't mean you have to like it lol.

You didn't get my point. If you follow sales numbers, in terms of sales, Free! is good because it sold well. It doesn't matter if a show has good plot or you didn't like it.

Plot or music or animation quality is a different matter altogether because we're talking only on a sales point of view.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by ultimate_noob

You didn't get my point. If you follow sales numbers, in terms of sales, Free! is good because it sold well. It doesn't matter if a show has good plot or you didn't like it.

Plot or music or animation quality is a different matter altogether because we're talking only on a sales point of view.

That's just a completely silly way of looking at it. I don't gaf if we're talking from a sales point of view, no show is good or bad because of it's level of sales.

[ices]

I hope their next project an idol show.

[darkchibi07]

Originally Posted by Westlo

That's just a completely silly way of looking at it. I don't gaf if we're talking from a sales point of view, no show is good or bad because of it's level of sales.

But, but, high sales of a series I love very, very much means my love for the series gets validated and gets more seasons and junk merchandise!

/sarcasm

Originally Posted by ices

I hope their next project an idol show.

I hope they apply that little hip-hop routine scene in Hyouka and make it about cute girl idols forming a dance crew!

[whitecloud]

Isnt there that unknown project? In 2014... Whta would it be? Isnt there 2 LN that unadapted by kyoani by now, coppelia and myriad color phantom world?

[Esclair]

Originally Posted by whitecloud

Isnt there that unknown project? In 2014... Whta would it be? Isnt there 2 LN that unadapted by kyoani by now, coppelia and myriad color phantom world?

That Myriad Color Phantom world LN was just announced. There's only going to be 1 volume out. I hope they're not going to adapt with just 1 volume worth of content again considering what happened with KnK.

Then again, this LN seems like a harem com/com, so maybe some additional padding might work out a lot better than with KnK.

[brocko]

It seems like they just farm their LNs for story concept and premises really, since they've made rather loose adaptions of Free, Chuuni and maybe Kyoukai as well from what I've heard. So it wouldn't probably matter as much if there was only 1 volume out. If they just get a set of characters and setting of the story, they could (and preferably too perhaps?) work off that.

[Miraluka]

Originally Posted by brocko

It seems like they just farm their LNs for story concept and premises really, since they've made rather loose adaptions of Free, Chuuni and maybe Kyoukai as well from what I've heard. So it wouldn't probably matter as much if there was only 1 volume out. If they just get a set of characters and setting of the story, they could (and preferably too perhaps?) work of that.

Free! is anime original serie, there is no manga or LN.

About KnK, there were 2, and vol.3 got released later.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Miraluka

Free! is anime original serie, there is no manga or LN.

Well... technically it's very loosely based around the High Speed! LN... but was significantly altered for the anime to the point where some have said it may as well be considered anime original. (For example, High Speed covers the characters when they're in elementary school, whereas Free is in High School. Many of the main characters are the same, though.)

[Tyabann]

IIRC Free is a sequel to High Speed.

[brocko]

Originally Posted by Miraluka

Free! is anime original serie, there is no manga or LN.

About KnK, there were 2, and vol.3 got released later.

Like others have mentioned, it was loosely based on High Speed and was served as a pseudo-sequel to it. Either way, they still jacked what they could from the original and made it their own.