Kyoto Animation: Studio discussion, speculation, and whatnot.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Never heard of any of those awards aside from the Tezuka Award and not sure what they have to do with this topic either.

He's reading between the lines and seeing what you're implying. Saying stuff like "its not much of a contest" might tip someone off... or maybe he read your post in the comments to the article you linked.. you know this one.

Originally Posted by Kaioshin_Sama

Nice one Kyoani! Keep on trucking with those non-grand prizes and maybe go for a third time in a row next year. Great contest. :lol:

[DonQuigleone]

Considering the Grand Prize is to get the work animated, I think KyoAni has good reason to not give it out easily. If they know none of them will succeed if animated (and they probably have a pretty good idea given their track record with adaptations), then they shouldn't animate it.

Anyway, they keep giving out cash prizes, so that should keep the entries coming. Not only that, but there is that cherry still dangling there.

[0utf0xZer0]

Been thinking about Nichijou's flop (by Kyoto standards) recently and came up with an interesting possibility:

Endless Eight had a very notable negative impact on Kyoto's brand power, but the strength of the franchises it was working on have masked it until now.

To me, the best explanation of Lucky Star and K-On!'s high DVD and Bluray sales is that owning those shows gives the buyer otaku cred. But for the DVDs or Blurays to grant you "otaku cred", the show has to be hot among otaku.

Now, I'd be the first to admit that Nichijou didn't have some of the elements that made those shows such effect otaku icons, but more importantly, it failed to generate the sort of enthusiasm and discussion that Lucky Star and K-On! did. Those shows turned relatively minor manga into mixed-media monsters overnight.

Now, I don't know if Nichijou received the same sort of less enthusiastic than usual response in Japan it did among people I know, but if it did, I'd suggest that this was because Lucky Star and K-On! aired when Kyoto was known for always having excellent execution (K-On! finished airing before E8 started annoying people). By the time Nichijou rolled around, that was no longer the case. I can't imagine that change not having an impact on the enthusiasm for a show.

I don't think we can blame market saturation for these kind of stories, as other moe slice of life shows from smaller studios have been selling better than Nichijou.

As for the strong sales of Disappearance and K-On season 2, those were well executed entries (I hold that K-On season 2 is a notable improvement over the original) in established franchises, not new franchise launches. Haruhi season 2? Hey, I'm the one always pointing out how E8 sold less than 40% of season one's sales.

I suspect that rebuilding the reputation Kyoto held in 2009 could be hard too, since (at least from what I've seen) animation standards for Kyoto's specialty genres have gotten a lot higher since Air and Haruhi were wowing people in 05-06.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I don't think we can blame market saturation for these kind of stories, as other moe slice of life shows from smaller studios have been selling better than Nichijou.

Why not? The market is saturated with more interesting slice-of-life shows. Fact of the matter is, content is king, and no amount of hype, promotion or good name will save a studio if it produces something boring. 2ch aggregate blogs like Yaraon! still give off the impression that Nichijou has been talked about among the online fanbase, much more than the rest of the profit-making shows.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by cyth

Why not? The market is saturated with more interesting slice-of-life shows. Fact of the matter is, content is king, and no amount of hype, promotion or good name will save a studio if it produces something boring. 2ch aggregate blogs like Yaraon! still give off the impression that Nichijou has been talked about among the online fanbase, much more than the rest of the profit-making shows.

Yeah, but what kind of discussion has it been getting? I've seen plenty of western fans read and discuss Nichijou because hey, its Kyoto and therefore an important show - but I didn't see people embrace it with enthusiasm as they did K-On! And while some of that is related to the show's flaws, I honestly got the feeling that there was never the kind of enthusiasm that Lucky Star or K-On! had when they launched to begin with.

[Bri]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Been thinking about Nichijou's flop (by Kyoto standards) recently and came up with an interesting possibility:

Endless Eight had a very notable negative impact on Kyoto's brand power, but the strength of the franchises it was working on have masked it until now.

To me, the best explanation of Lucky Star and K-On!'s high DVD and Bluray sales is that owning those shows gives the buyer otaku cred. But for the DVDs or Blurays to grant you "otaku cred", the show has to be hot among otaku.

Now, I'd be the first to admit that Nichijou didn't have some of the elements that made those shows such effect otaku icons, but more importantly, it failed to generate the sort of enthusiasm and discussion that Lucky Star and K-On! did. Those shows turned relatively minor manga into mixed-media monsters overnight.

I don't think brand damage was the cause for the bad sales. Nichijou is a problematic enough property on it's on to account for the bad sales.

If we compare it to Lucky Star, which I feel is the most similar Kyoani property, we can see many of the issues.

* Lucky Star is about otaku life style, Nichijou about the absurdities of normal life. Therefore, as you said, Lucky Star has much more otaku appeal. Also in Spring we have seen other more otaku centric shows scooping up the sales like Steins gate and Denpa Onna.

* Nichijou lacks the pretty character designs of LS, I have seen little interest from cosplayers and character centric fans. This is probably the most damning weakness of the show. Content maybe king but unless it contains a pretty package it won't sell. In fact Infinite Stratos proved this winter that you can do without content as long as the show has good looking animation and characters. Nano is cute to a fault and Yuko is a great caricature of the genki girl and abusive tsundere but they just look too plain.

* Nichjou's absurdist humour is much more of an acquired taste then LS's manzai style stand up comedy. What baffeles me was that Yamatokan got canned after the first four LS episodes, which were significantly more abstract then the rest of the series and got more fan critique, and now, a few years down the line, Kyoani make a show that is much farther out there then LS ever was...

Which makes me wonder why did Kyoani try their luck with Nichijou instead of making a sequel to LS?

I think it's due to K-on. K-on got Kyoani's first bit of recognition outside of the core otaku fanbase (even though it gets blamed for being pure otaku bait). Earlier attempts at different content did not work too well; see Munto and FMP. My guess is they tried the same with Nichijou, but went a bit too far in trying too please non-otaku so they lost their main audience on this one. I'm sure Nichijou would have worked fine in the Noitamina slot. Still, I hope it won't end their attempts to do something different.

[darkchibi07]

I wonder if KyoAni will ever do a series that'll be on the noitaminA slot. Has any producers ever approach them about it?

[Ithekro]

The more...trollish...part of the western anime sectors has a segment that has been making Nichijou a comedy hiding the darkness of life and has gone about writing up (and providing images) of all the characters having dark backrounds (depression, parental abuse, drugs, worse) with Yuuko getting the most treatment with suggestions of suicide by the final episode (and no on in the show caring when it happens).

But then that is the trollish side of the community. I'm hoping such behavior has not been pushing others away. It is enjoyed for the amount of reactions the characters put out every episode, and for the over the top nature of some segments. The early weiner scene and the deer wrestling in particular.

There is a heavy divide in the show at present between those that like the school segments that are generally absertist and the professor segements that tend to be cute. That should go away next week.

A question. Is this KyoAni attempting to get out of the otaku moe market and branch out, or is this just what was handed to them to animate?

[Bri]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

A question. Is this KyoAni attempting to get out of the otaku moe market and branch out, or is this just what was handed to them to animate?

What kind of influence Kadokawa can exert on what Kyoani will animate is probably only know by insiders. However if the recent TV commericals Kyoani made are any indication they are branching out in other types of non-otaku work (not out of moe though, thats still their bread and butter). These cms are part advertisement for Kyotos animation and part advertising for a buddhist organisation. The designers that adapted Haruhi (Shouko Ikeda) and K-on's (Yukiko Horiguchi) characters for animation did the character designs for these commercials (can be switched to 720p):

Shouko Ikeda's characters (last video) are totally made of win, I'm sure they could carry their own show.

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Bri

~~

Spoiler for Tidiness:

Shouko Ikeda's characters (last video) are totally made of win, I'm sure they could carry their own show.

Always, I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony,
harmony oh love

Hmm... KyoAni makes a Robot Unicorn anime. Yay or Nay?

*inhales*

[all_flying]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

Maybe its because College students evokes images of maturity/responsibility. People who goes to college do have a clear goal of what they want to do in life, while a lot of anime is targeted at people searching for escapism from the daily rigidity of Japanese workforce. That's why a lot of male protagonists in high-school are under-achievers who sit in the corner of the class staring out the window, wondering when something exciting is going to happen to them...and then a girl falls from the sky etc.

This is..., just have so much wins...

[totoum]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I honestly got the feeling that there was never the kind of enthusiasm that Lucky Star or K-On! had when they launched to begin with.

Well not on animesuki at least,for whatever it's worth k-on's thread managed to be 13 pages long before the first episode aired,in 3 months
Lucky star's thread managed to be 20 pages long before the first episode aired,in 6 months
Nichijou's thread managed to be 9 pages long before the first episode aired,in 1 year!

So even before the show started airing it seems people on animesuki were not that interested.

[Archon_Wing]

They need to make an original anime about flying dolphins.

Problem solved.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

They need to make an original anime about flying dolphins.

Problem solved.

how about space whales.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

how about space whales.

Space whales vs space megalodons, or krakens.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Bri

What kind of influence Kadokawa can exert on what Kyoani will animate is probably only know by insiders. However if the recent TV commericals Kyoani made are any indication they are branching out in other types of non-otaku work (not out of moe though, thats still their bread and butter). These cms are part advertisement for Kyotos animation and part advertising for a buddhist organisation. The designers that adapted Haruhi (Shouko Ikeda) and K-on's (Yukiko Horiguchi) characters for animation did the character designs for these commercials (can be switched to 720p):

Shouko Ikeda's characters (last video) are totally made of win, I'm sure they could carry their own show.

Is it fair to say that these 3 commercials seem to show more imagination than anything Kyoto has put out arguably since Haruhi season 1?

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Is it fair to say that these 3 commercials seem to show more imagination than anything Kyoto has put out arguably since Haruhi season 1?

Watching that makes me want to cry both tears of joy and tears of sadness.

Tears of joy over just how visually captivating and beautiful "Mary Poppins' Magical Dolphin Brigade" looks (that's what I've dubbed the 3rd video ), but also tears of sadness over the thought of what KyoAni could be doing right now if they were doing something more than Nichijou alone.


Anyway, thanks to Bri for providing us with those videos.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by totoum

Well not on animesuki at least,for whatever it's worth k-on's thread managed to be 13 pages long before the first episode aired,in 3 months
Lucky star's thread managed to be 20 pages long before the first episode aired,in 6 months
Nichijou's thread managed to be 9 pages long before the first episode aired,in 1 year!

So even before the show started airing it seems people on animesuki were not that interested.

One year? So in other words people here weren’t talking about it even while K-on’s second season was making waves?

This is the kind of thing I’m talking about. I don’t deny that Nichijou had flaws or that it didn’t still receive a fair bit of discussion. I’m saying that even before airing, Nichijou did not generate the sort of enthusiasm that previous KyoAni works did. And I can’t help but draw a connection with E8.

Originally Posted by Skane

Hmm... KyoAni makes a Robot Unicorn anime. Yay or Nay?

Having read Kaioshin's posts on this topic for a few years, I find this unintentionally hilarious.

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Is it fair to say that these 3 commercials seem to show more imagination than anything Kyoto has put out arguably since Haruhi season 1?

First one reminds me a bit of the much underappreciated Simoun in certain aspects.

However… given that they’re essentially 30 second showcases of the studio’s talent, I’d be surprised if they didn’t demonstrate more creativity than major TV projects. Thing is, original productions have never been important to KyoAni’s reputation. They were known for their rock solid adaptations, often with animation that blew away similar productions (particularly in the Air/Haruhi S1 era). Haruhi S2 really was the exception – generally KyoAni sequels have been better than the original, particularly in regards to the Air/Kanon/Clannad trio (okay, spiritual successors, yeah, I get it) and K-On. But it blemished an exceptional record at adaptation work, and I think that’s had an effect..

[Goggen]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

To me, the best explanation of Lucky Star and K-On!'s high DVD and Bluray sales is that owning those shows gives the buyer otaku cred.

"Otaku cred"? Please tell me you're joking.
You know why people bought those shows on DVD and Blu-Ray? It's because people enjoyed watching those shows. It's not more complicated than that.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Goggen

"Otaku cred"? Please tell me you're joking.
You know why people bought those shows on DVD and Blu-Ray? It's because people enjoyed watching those shows. It's not more complicated than that.

I really don't think he was. Are you going to say that there aren't a lot of people out there who bought and tuned into K-ON! simply because it was "popular?" That there really wasn't a show out there they would've preferred buying and watching but got sucked into the hype?

Like any sort of fad out there in any type of social group, people will copy what is considered "trendy" and in this case it's being called trying to get otaku cred.