Quote:
Originally Posted by TJR
The business is community oriented, and the Internet is particularly influential with regard to the otaku market. People watch, play, and read what their peers are excited about, and a similar line of thinking extends to anime purchases (one's enjoyment is a prerequisite, of course).
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Yeah like I said the community factor seems to be a huge overriding one. If you can get noticed by the 2ch and niconico crowd you're basically set and don't have to worry about a whole lot, but watching the pre orders come in and making sure you have enough product to meet demand.
Sparking a meme is a big part in this whole community thing as far as I've been able to tell. Now in Kyoani's case, while I haven't watched every show they've done to completion (god forbid I know) I've managed to catch every first couple episodes of everything they've done since Haruhi and honest to god it looks like they are trying to spark a meme to get them cred and posts with the 2ch crowd right out of the gate with every show. Just a few examples:
K-On: Moe Moe Kyun
Hyouka: "Dem Eyes" as people call it
Haruhi: Too many to name, but the Bunny Suit, Mikuru Beam, Endless Eight, Out of order airing gimmick, and God Knows come to mind
Lucky Star: The whole show practically centers around doing this
Clannad After Story: "Dozo have a Star Fish", Hit counters for Tomoyo beating up Sunohara
Usually you can tell when they're trying to do that because there's a certain sparkly background they use for a lot of them and the animation goes sky high during these scenes as if to tell the audience, "Look this is the scene you're supposed to pay attention to, this is where the new hit meme is!"
You can sort of see the community experience in play a little bit on AS too for certain shows that are also a hit in Japan. Nisemonogatari comes to mind as does recently Hyouka where you can see people discussing the specifics of girls getting toothbrushes crammed into their mouths and "Dem Eyes" in the most serious business manner such things can possibly be discussed, but when you ask someone to point out the specific qualities they like about the shows typically the response is silence or an admission that they don't really know and that to me is very telling of a lot of things.