2012-05-15, 01:49 | Link #1021 | |||
Pretentious moe scholar
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 37
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2009: 63 TV episodes + 4 OVAs (+1 Bluray only for Bake) 2010: 62 TV episodes + 3 OVAs (+2 Bluray only for Bake) 2011: 38 TV episodes + 6 OVAs + 1 movie (+1 Bluray only for Denpa Onna) 2012: Looking like 23-ish TV episodes. Movies are up in the air... perhaps one of the Madoka movies will make it but it's likely a fair bit will be reused footage. Kizumonogatari isn't supposed to make 2012 AFAIK. From what I've seen, their output remained relatively constant until mid-2011 at which point it dropped. Quote:
Nise looked good too but that's after they started to narrow their focus. Quote:
That leaves Denpa Onna as the "limbo" property ATM with 6.6K season one sales, which would be less annoying if not for the Bluray only 13th episode leaving a huge unanswered questions and essentially WTF bombing the first twelve. My suspicion is that both Air was also a watershed moment but a lot of the legacy it would have had got buried by Haruhi's success.
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2012-05-15, 02:29 | Link #1022 | |||
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Yes. Prior to 2009, SHAFT was making a bit less than they did from 2009 to 2011, IIRC.
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This is why Little Busters! going to JC Staff has made me a bit more antsy about Haruhi, I'll be honest there. Perhaps this is too dramatic of me to say, but it seems like KyoAni might be losing sight of its own legacy and much of what contributed to its current brand strength. If you look at most of the prominent animation studios, many anime fans mentally associate them with particular popular properties that they've done a lot of work on. Sunrise and Gundam. Gainax and Eva. JC Staff and Shana/Raildex/ZnT. And I think Shinbo has learned from this model and is giving us... Shaft and Madoka/Monogatari You often speak of animation studios and their "brand" values or brand strength, and I think that's a good point to raise. And this is where I think KyoAni might be hurting itself IF it continually puts new properties ahead of old, established properties with passionate fanbases. KyoAni isn't famous simply for being KyoAni, it's famous in large part because of certain properties, just like those other studios are famous in large part because of certain properties. It certainly doesn't mean that's all those studios do, but it does mean they recognize the value of having certain properties that are front and center for their "brand". KyoAni and Haruhi/K-On/Key blended for an awesome "brand" value, imo. A third of that (Key) has probably been lost. It would be a shame to lose two thirds or more of that.
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2012-05-15, 02:29 | Link #1023 | |||
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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As they're always walking on a tightrope, you never know when a production might derail. Bear in mind that SHAFT produced the Negima movie last year, which wasn't finished to spec. Quote:
On the other hand, producer Kubota was smart to bring in Shinbo to establish a signature style and offset budget issues. That built up a brand and cult following. Quote:
Think about why Negima turned out the way it did. Getting it out for a summer run was to please their client, Starchild (an obligation since they agreed to the contract despite being unprepared to produce the movie on time). Fans received a disappointing product. Now KyoAni is in a rather strong position to set some of their own terms (i.e. one project at a time; with Kadokawa, they also have some say over what property they want to animate). However, it's certainly possible that they may have upset VisualArt's as a result. I suppose that they don't feel Key is all that crucial to their success in the business. |
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2012-05-15, 02:42 | Link #1024 | |
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The brand strength and perception of an animation studio is ultimately decided by the fans, not by their clients. Of course, smart clients should keep that in mind as well. And that's why KyoAni and Kadokawa should at least sometimes put their existing fans/customers first.
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2012-05-15, 10:48 | Link #1025 | |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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SHAFT and J.C.STAFF are not exceptions, even if they produce many sequels. If their clients were to suddenly request all-original products and no sequels (which means cutting existing series short), they'd go with that. |
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2012-05-15, 16:05 | Link #1026 | |
俺様祭り
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: France
Age: 33
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Interrupting the current discussion for a moment...
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Going by the two illustrations that came along with the announcement on the Animation DO website, I also ended up wondering this might be some kind of attempt from whoever might be producing this project to bring the KyoAni quality to another kind of audience without hurting the studio's current image. I don't think anyone'd go through the risk of associating the studio with a potentially female-oriented work, hence using the subsidiary as a middle ground. That's a lot of assumptions based on just two pictures, though - watch it become the physical release of their illustration project instead of anything anime-related...
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2012-05-15, 22:51 | Link #1027 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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When it comes to anime, it's important to remember that Anime doesn't run on a "studio" system. Though studios are important, the primary entity is actually the "production comittee" you see mentioned in pretty much every single anime opening out there. All the creative and financial decisions are made by members of that comittee, which usually first includes the publisher of the original work (if any), the author of the original work(or usually a representative they choose), DVD distributors, sponsors and the primary staff the comittee then chooses to employ (animation director, scriptwriters etc.). The production comittee negotiates with the studio, and the studio does as the comittee orders. The studio will primarily be responsible for the technical quality of the production, but all the creative decisions are taken by the production comittee.
This system is very similiar to how independent films are made in the US, and is quite versatile. The most powerful members of the comittee by far are the original publisher, the author (who can veto anything). The studio is more of a workhorse, though the prominent staff on the comittee are often associated with a particular studio (like Shinbo and SHAFT), but not always so. If studios seem to have a "brand" it's more to do with the fact the publishers build a relationship with the studio, and keep employing them for projects they think will work well with the studio, it's not any concious decision on the part of the studio. It's simplistic to put everything on the studio, when success or failure of a series usually has a lot more to do with the people behind the studio. Anyway, as for Kyo Ani, I think the way they're doing new shows is a good idea. They've done well off haruhi, but I think the success of that franchise is beginning to peter out, so it's a good idea for them to branch out. I don't think they're doing a disservice to "the fans" by doing so. Now whatever show they're doing may or may not turn out well, but KyoAni can't produce hits all the time. That said, I do find it strange that Little Busters ended out going to JC staff, given KyoAni's previous success with Key stuff. Personally, I think the strength of Anime is that it doesn't get too bogged down in pre-existing properties, it gives those properties their place in the sun, and they move on. Compare that to Marvel or DC, or american television. If the industry shifts just to servicing old properties, Anime will lose a lot of the creativity and variety that makes it great. Rather then make more Haruhi, I'd prefer KyoAni to make new shows that capture what it was we all liked about Haruhi in the first place. I think they had a decent stab with Nichijou, I'm taking a wait and see approach in terms of the future. Maybe Chū-2 Byō Demo Koi ga Shitai! will be interesting. It sounds a bit clichéd, but it's theme of adolescent delusions of grandeur could be good. |
2012-05-15, 23:01 | Link #1028 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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It has been suggested that Clannad and Clannad: After Story bogged the animation staff down for too long verses how much they got on their return. They basically were doing nothing but Clannad for about a year. This was also while still contracted to product more Haruhi and later K-On and Haruhi-chan, plus redo Munto. They managed to get out a Lucky Star OVA between Clannad and After Story.
Little Busters is functionally longer than Clannad, and they might have had a problem using that much time in response to other projects they have lined up. (Little Busters would not have been a Kadokawa project)
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2012-05-15, 23:10 | Link #1029 | |||||
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By being in the committee, they can help decide what will be best for a work. They (as a committee) decided that Disappearance would work best as a movie instead of 7 episodic installments, and it was changed. Tanigawa himself has commented on the changes that KyoAni wanted to make for the franchise's adaptations and how well they turned out. They're much more vocal than you give them credit for. Quote:
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2012-05-15, 23:41 | Link #1030 | ||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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KyoAni is more known for it's style, not necessarily creativity. I would say that the identity of it's franchises (particularly Haruhi, and Key) is as much to do with Kadokawa or Pony Canyon etc. as to do with KyoAni. Quote:
Anime is as much an advertisement as a product in and of itself. A large component of it's profit is that it shifts more copies of what it's adapting, sells models, and other miscellaneous merch. In that respect, Kadokawa doesn't have as much to gain from further mining the Haruhi franchise, as it can't expect to see the same kind of bump in sales of those products. Sequels won't create new fans, they just serve existing fans. And those existing fans are likely to buy more merch regardless of whether new sequels get put out. It's more profitable for Kadokawa to sell new franchises. Also, just personally, I didn't find the sequels to have quite quirky charm the original show had. The movie was too dramatic, and the s2 had endless eight... Even if it's still financially strong, I feel like it's creatively petered out. |
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2012-05-15, 23:50 | Link #1031 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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If I recall the next part of the series returns a bit to the quirky bits. Though they keep some of the dramatic to keep a plot in motion. There however will not be another Endless Eight
Though there will be time travel and dimention hopping....but this is Haurhi....that is expected. Especially since the next major plot is suppoes to center around Mikuru (the main girl that hasn't had any real focus. Well focus that isn't on her chest that is). But also more Tsuruya, along with some surprises.
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2012-05-16, 11:59 | Link #1032 | |||
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But I think that you're taking your overall line of reasoning a bit too far. You're creating a false division between "industry demand" and fan demand. Who determines "industry demand"? Paying fans do. It's the fans that demand moe, not the client. If the fans all suddenly lost interest in moe, do you think the client would keep wanting to make it even if it didn't sell and gave them poor return on investment? Of course they wouldn't. Not unless they have a taste for financial suicide, anyway. And if the fans continue to demand moe, are clients going to ask for it to stop even if that's what the fans overwhelmingly demand? Of course they won't, because it's simply bad business to refuse to give your customers what they want to pay you money for. Kadokawa and KyoAni are not immune to fan demand, or fan disinterest. No company working in the entertainment industry is, no matter what part of the chain that company is in. Yes, KyoAni works directly for their client Kadokawa, but if fan support was to dry up, that would obviously negatively impact KyoAni anyway, right? So it's only good sense for KyoAni to also want to please their fans. And it's obvious that KyoAni itself has fans - This thread alone proves that. So it's not an either/or situation. It's not like the client is the only thing that matters. A smart contractor wants what he's contracted to do to be popular and well-received in and of itself. Some companies pass customer service responsibilities over to third-party contractors, for example. I personally have worked for such a third-party contractor in the past. It didn't mean that myself or my bosses didn't care about the customer, and only cared about the client (I can tell you for a fact that we did care about the customer). If we provide poor customer service than that reflects poorly on us even if we're working directly for the client and not the customers. Quote:
That's all I'm really crediting SHAFT and its clients for - For recognizing where the fan demand is, and making an actual effort to meet it. Even if that effort is a mere "side-effect" of something else, it's functionally the same from a fan perspective, and so deserving of fan support and thanks, imo. Quote:
Let's say Peter Jackson had decided to not complete the Lord of the Rings trilogy in spite of how well the first movie did. Let's say he did TV interviews saying "Sorry, but I hate doing repeat work. Also, I think it's a good idea to branch out with a bold artistic vision, and not focus too much on franchises that are petering out. So I'm not going to bother adapting the rest of the Lord of the Rings book into film." How do you think Lord of the Rings fans would react to that? Their perfectly reasonable hopes and expectations (given how well the first movie sold) have now been crushed. Many would angrily say "Part of the reason I so strongly supported the first movie is because I wanted to see all of the Lord of the Rings book adapted into film!" These Lord of the Rings fans would be absolutely incensed. To me, this is obviously a very poor way to treat the paying customers who supported you in the first place, and so it would be deserving of fan criticism. It is doing a disservice to the fans, in my view. Now, would Peter Jackson have an actual legal obligation to finish off the Lord of the Rings movies, based purely on fan demand? Of course not. But that doesn't mean that fans wouldn't feel like they have a right to expect to see the Lord of the Rings films completed, given how the first movie did really well financially and clearly leaves lots of story left to be told (just like Haruhi 2006 and the Disappearance movie is clear here). And Haruhi is about as big in the anime world as Lord of the Rings was in the movie world (the movie world itself is much bigger worldwide than the anime world, of course, but that's beside the point here). Now, I don't think that anybody is saying that Haruhi should last forever. Honestly, I hope it doesn't. You mentioned Marvel and DC comics, and yeah, part of the reason why I transitioned from comic book fan to anime fan is I got tired of endless stories without true finality. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and Wolverine - They never get to see their stories finished, they never truly get the happy end, or finality of any sort. Unlike, say, Shana. Or Tomoya in Clannad. That's one of the great things about anime - Actual, complete stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that's precisely why many of us want to see more Haruhi adapted into anime - We want to watch it get to the end. Or at least that's why I want it anyway. I can't think of many things more unsatisfying than a great story left unfinished. That's all some of us are asking for here: Finish the work that you began. Eventually. It's not like we're asking for sequels for Toradora, or endless Haruhi spinoffs. It's not like we're refusing to accept that a story has reached its natural end, and it really is time to move on. In fairness to you, though, if you didn't like the Disappearance movie, I can certainly see and respect why you personally might not want more Haruhi. But from what I can tell most Haruhi fans (including myself) were pleased with the Disappearance movie, so for the sake of those fans, I think that KyoAni should continue making more Haruhi at some point anyway.
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2012-05-16, 17:20 | Link #1033 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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I think equating Haruhi to LotR isn't corrent as in terms of forms there's a big difference.
LotR is one coherent narative, the books were never intended to be taken alone (the split into 3 seperate books was not intended by Tolkien). Haruhi, on the other hand, is made up a series of books, each with a seperate plotline, tied together only by it's common set of characters, who also have evolving storylines of their own. If we're to compare to classic book series, Haruhi is closer in form to something like The Famous Five. Adapting just one part of the Famous Five without the rest, would not be as much of an afront to the fans as just adapting one part of LoTR. For instance, taken on it's own, the original series, despite leaving a slew of questions unanswered generally feels "finished". Also, if we focus in on the Haruhi Franchise itself, looking purely at the source material, there's nothing actually particularly remarkeable about it. In the world of Light Novels, Haruhi is not a particularly remarkeable story, and there are many other light novels that are a lot like it. Personally, what makes Haruhi as great as it is mostly comes from the KyoAni side of the equation. If the show had been in the hands of a lesser studio like DEEN or JC Staff, it would have been just a footnote to 2006's other successful series. It was what KyoAni brought to the table that really made it as great as it was, the non-linear episode order, the catchy ending theme/dance, the movie within a movie, the weird meta humour and sight gags, and of course KyoAni's always high production values. In a straight sequel, I don't see how KyoAni can easily replicate that. Sure they can straight adapt the source material, but all the variety that made the first series good is going to be very difficult to do a second time around, the first series had surprise going in it's favour, it was very easy for it to endlessly surprise it's viewers, that's going to be very hard to do again, as everyone will be expecting it, and a lot of the fans will have already read later parts of the LN series. Admittedly they succeeded with Endless Eight, though not necessarily in a good way... Another factor to bear in mind is the way the staff at KyoAni has changed since then. Now I'm not saying it's not a better or worse studio now, but it is a different studio. One of the people that contributed to Haruhi being what it was Yutaka Yamamoto, now his work since leaving KyoAni hasn't been stellar, and I'm no fan of his "Drama" (KyoAni is probably ultimately better off without him), but Haruhi was the way it was in large part due to his influence. Later Haruhi productions made without him have much more played up the Moé elements latent in the series, which wasn't what made Haruhi popular in the first place (arguably it was the way it parodied Moé that made it popular...). Also, with a 28 episode series, and a near 3 hour movie, we're reaching the stage where we have a lot of Haruhi, but no ultimate conclusion in sight, as the novel series at this stage is going to keep being written until it stops making money. It's gotten too popular for it's own health, so I don't see it ending satisfactorily in the near future. I'd like to see KyoAni do similiar stuff again, but I won't personally be looking forward to more Haruhi, for the reasons above. That said, I could also be proved wrong, I liked Clannad After Story a lot more then Clannad, for instance. |
2012-05-16, 18:07 | Link #1034 | |||
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But I don't think the same is true of Disappearance, the latest full Haruhi novel to be adapted into anime, IIRC. There's a scene in Disappearance that clearly points to yet-to-be-seen story (to avoid spoiling anything, all I'll say here is think about how the conflict of Disappearance is resolved and what it indicates narrative-wise). I think that a strong case can be made that starting with Disappearance, the Haruhi novels are increasingly tying into each other more and more. Quote:
So I simply have to disagree with your assessment of the quality of the Haruhi narrative and its characters. That being said, I'm curious to know what you would count as "remarkable" for you. Quote:
However, the day will come when the Haruhi novels are finished. It way be a long way off, but it will come. When that day comes, I hope we have gone farther into the anime adaptation of the property than Disappearance.
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2012-05-16, 18:31 | Link #1035 | |||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Casting the net wider to Japanese young adult "full novels", I'd also say Yoshiki Tanaka (Legend of the Galactic Heroes), and Nahoko Uehashi (Seirei no Moribito) are very good too. I'm sure there's others I'm missing as well. Can't really say that much for certain without actually reading them in the original Japanese. Quote:
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2012-05-19, 23:20 | Link #1036 |
Udon-YAAAAAAAA
Join Date: Jan 2008
Age: 35
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So i watched some TSR tonight because i was feeling nostalgic. their animation has definitely gotten worse since that time.. for me personally, the show that i'll rate all other shows Kyo Ani makes against is TSR.
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2012-05-20, 11:57 | Link #1037 |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2011
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New KyoAni CM for one of it's LNs aired during this weeks episode of Hyouka(ep 5)
The LN: http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/books/kyokai/ Spoiler for Screenshots for New KyoAni CM:
Man this really looks like something I'd see from Bakemonogatari. Can't wait for someone to upload the video of the CM. |
2012-05-20, 23:48 | Link #1039 |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2011
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Well since no one has ripped/uploaded a high quality version of the CM from the raw transport stream I'll just post this here then.
http://www.justin.tv/playstation_x/b/318834000 Skip to 12:49 for those who want to view to the CM. If only I knew how to rip and encode I'd surely upload this. With this video quality doesn't do it a little bit of justice. :P |
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