Chess Master
 

Decapitate me with any pointed object of your choice if this thread has already been posted, as I'm absolutely sure it has not. Right now, the only thing I know about this series is that it is (or was) a joint work by Chinese and Japanese. I don't know how you'd really classify this series, but for me it is suffice to say that it is anime - look at the trailer here if you don't believe me.

Personally, I like sports anime especially those who put something unique in their presentation that make the anime endearing to me. I like Hikaru no Go; I'm loving Akagi. (I love Akagi because it is an antithetical sports anime. It isn't made of kids with positive outlooks towards the future and their later lives: it is made of a teenager (or a man) who has accepted how the world works and works in its schemes. This teen isn't even scared of death - something you don't see in many sport anime.

Asides aside, this is a pretty inviting 'anime' (or collaboration, whatever) because chess is something more accessible to me - even if the characters are in Chinese, I'm pretty sure that once I get to know what the characters mean, I would know the flow of the game. What's better is that I am actually an avid fan of chess, and know the game by heart (more or less). That doesn't mean I'm great at it, however. I decided it was apt to consider it to be an anime series mainly because of how the characters were drawn and animated (from the trailer, anyway) and also of how they just look. Having said that, I think that loli on the left side of the website posted above (that of the trailer) looks cute. :D

Do not worry, however - once I have seen the first episode I'll be sure to update on what it's all about here. Until then,

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/5...eers0030ug.gif

People in the US should use http://www.chessmaster.com.cn/english/top.htm instead. The other link is filtered. I don't see anything about Japanese company either. Also, be warned, this is Chinese Chess .

I dunno, looks kinda like Hikaru no Go with Pokemon influence instead of character development.

I watched the show some time ago and cannot remember exactly. But I am sure that there are quite a few Japanese names in the credits, especially for the major positions. IIRC the character designers and the episode director are Japanese. The in-betweening work and background art are all by the Chinese animators though.

I will post some screenshots of the credits when I returned home. Sorry if I have made some mistakes in this message as I am currently at school and have no access to the video file .

By the way I am not sure why you have to warn people that it is about Chinese chess (a warning is for something more serious IMO). After all many English-speaking anime fans are as oblivious to Japanese chess as to Chinese chess. But I don't see people warning those who are interested in Hikaru no Go.

After watching the first episode (woah, I actually understood the Chinese dub), it has some potential if they can straighten out the directing hijinks. Some scenes don't flow well.

But, as someone who has played XianQi for most of his life, I'm definitely keeping up with this.

There are English subs to this 'anime,' and that was the reason I posted this thread initially in the Fansubs section. Why was it moved?

GAWD. The anime is so sweet, it's almost Hikaru no Go-ish. :D Kawaii love interest FTW!

Ah yes, I saw this mentioned in some HK blog as well. It seems to be a cross between HikaGo and Yu-Gi-Oh.

http://www.cuhkacs.org/~alanlee/blog...gqiweng_01.php

It seems after being outsourced by Japanese anime studios numerous times (you'll see names like "Shanghai/Hangzhou XXX Animation Studios" in certain anime credits from time to time) , it seems inevitable that the Chinese studios would develop enough skill and experience to try producing their own anime. How good it is is another matter though.

This seems to be a Chinese-Japanese collaboration, just like Condor Heroes was a few years ago (which itself was based on the well-known Louis Cha martial-arts novel).

I'd watch this...but blast if I can get any English subs to turn on in the mkv! Tried zoomplayer, MPC, BsPlayer, VLC....all just have options that don't include a choice for an English sub instead of the japanese one.

Where is this going wrong so differently than anything else that comes out these days?

Intro music seemed quite good though.

LoL I just finding it very funny to see an anime that is orginally dubbed chinese. Well it does feel good that for once I dont need to refer to the subs and can laugh at all the translation errors since I am singaporean chinese.

Not very impressed by it at all, seems to be very corny. But since I play Xiang Qi otherwise known as chinese chess all the time when I was younger, I will continue with this.

I have just checked the credits. The number of Japanese staff is much greater than what I thought...

Director
Exectutive Director
Animation Director
Art Director
Character Design
Props Design
Colour Design
Storyboard Artist
Key Animation
Line Artist

While the Chinese staff is responsible for the in-betweening, background, sound, CG, and etc.

If you think more about it, how different is this show from those produced by Japanese company, with the major design/directing work done by Japanese, while having the animation work outsourced to China/Korea? Indeed, even some anime shows in this season have Korean art/episode directors. To me, this show is well qualified as an anime.

O_O .. so there is an english sub available for this anime?

If its really HnGish .. I'm sold ^__^

Try downloading the low-quality version - that is, the RMVB version. The subs seem to appear fine for me in the RMVB, although it sometimes is overlapped by the Chinese subs. :)

Yes, there is. It's also Pokemon-ish or Yu-gi-oh-ish, so be forewarned.

EDIT2: I just edited my blog post on Chess Master and different things, so in this post contains the torrent link:
Chess Master and Other Things. Just scroll down (to the bottom part of the post, and you'll see italics at the end of it.) There's a link there for the torrent, and some instructions written by yours truly to be able to view RMVB on your PC. Enjoy! (Oh, but if you have time, do read the post ;) )

Does anyone feel that the leading male (esp in the first screenshot) has the potential to become a crossdresser like Mizuho from Otoboku :heh: ?



Anyway just joking. I guess they'll stick to the usual anime style and storyline suitable for kids.

Now that I think of it, yeah ... o.o

I chose warning because by just looking at the title, most people would expect regular chess.

Also, to agree with everyone else, from what I watched before I fell asleep, this looks like a sad marketing attempt ala Yugioh x Hikaru no go.

It actually doesn't appear to be fansubbed, it appears that the english subs were on the original raw since the chinese subs overlap. HK rip? Aired subbed? Already subbed by someone else and then resubbed?

Oh I see. I can see where you're coming from now. Umm... maybe some kind of romanization is more suitable for the title.


AFAIK the English sub was actually shown during the broadcast. The Chinese sub is the fansub for those Mandarin-impaired Chinese-speakers. That's why you can see the English sub being overlapped at times.

And no it has nothing to do with Hong Kong either. If you are talking about bootlegs (as you said "rip"), it's simply too quick to get a release out. Not to mention that the kind of font is not that common as DVD sub.

Sorry to sound impolite, but the overgeneralization of "bootlegs = HK" prevalent in the English anime community simply makes me sick... This just reminds me of all those nasty sterotypes and generalizations against other cultures common in the last century, which I have no interest at all in bringing up again.

Was that the reasoning of the moderators why they put this into General Anime?

I think, it's because they feel it isn't actually "fansubbed" yet, since the TV broadcasts had subs in them already? (I'm not really sure).

I'm not about to make a ruckus or rouse a rabble just for that simple question, but I'd just like to know why ... :)

We are not mind-readers nor are we omnipotent or omnipresent. We do not read all the posts in all the threads nor are we online 24/7. Instead of making post after post asking the same question, why not just PM a Mod. Not me since I'm going to sleep now :)