[Kaijo]

Repyling to multiple people, so trying to trim for size. Let me know if I skipped something you'd like me to address.

Originally Posted by speedyexpress48

Comparing Nanoha to a Shonen Jump production probably isn't a good idea...for one, two different audiences. Shonen Jump stuff don't depend on merchandise as nearly as much as late-night anime does; late-night anime depend on merchandising, and there's only going to be so many buyers with so much money. I don't even think Madoka Magica can pull a film and an ongoing series at once (Madoka Magica may be "mainstream" in the anime community, but outside of that, it's not mainstream at all.)

Nanoha is essentially a shonen MG show. Thus comparing to shonen isn't that far-fetched. But yes, shonen does rely on popularity, and thus you can tell it is popular because it gets movies and a series at the same time.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Downturn? StrikerS was the best-selling Nanoha season of them all.

Sure it wasn't selling more discs, because they needed more discs to contain 26 episodes? Regardless, it obviously wasn't selling well enough for a 4th season.

With good characters that for the majority get a good amount of development. It's amusing you hammer on Dog Days while it's really a series that helps prove your point.

Ironically, yes, I do realize that Dogs Days has a lot of characters, and manages to share the screen time between all them for some development among all of them. In this respect, I do realize that Dog Days does it better than Nanoha (and above people who want Nanoha to consist of only two characters). But I don't pretend about the reason people are really watching.

Because those four have way higher budgets and can afford to?

Do you think you get a higher budget because you are popular? Or because you are not popular? It's been a long time since I saw the beginning of Naruto or Bleach, so I won't comment too much on them (although they had a popular manga to gauge off of). But Fairy Tail was much like Nanoha's first season. There was plenty of stock footage and magic circles, and one character even had several stock footage magical girl-like transformation scenes. And then, magically, after 12 or 13 episodes, those mostly disappeared. Why? Budget got bigger when they realized it was popular, so they could afford to spend more. Much like A's.

So, I wouldn't discount Nanoha as being too dissimilar from those 4.

"steady viewership" means something completely different for a long-running series then it does a seasonal one. A long running series needs to constantly keep attention, a seasonal series can afford to fade into the background for a while.

It still needs viewership when it airs, otherwise it doesn't air again. But not getting what you're saying by this. Gundam is also a seasonal one, and maintains a viewership and it's popularity.

Having recently rewatched several episodes of A's, it doesn't come anywhere near the quality of the movies. To make an anime of the same level of quality as the movies, you need a really big budget.

This implies quality and time is a straight curve. It is not.

I was comparing the budget of A's to S1, not A's to the movies. As I said, if you have a budget for 6 hours of animation, yet spend it on 2 hours of animation instead, do you think you'll end up with higher or lower animation quality?

While your latter statement holds some truth, it is also folly to think there is no relation, either. If you double or triple the number of frames per second, you are going to generally get better quality. I was referring to the 6 hours of animation spent in 2 hours concept.

But you are right there is a higher return on movies if they are successful. Though that has to be balanced by the aforementioned costs first.

Ultimately, Seven Arcs is a business. Like all businesses, it does what is profitable. Right now, a movie is profitable while a series isn't. You can only sell a series if you have enough people watching the advertisements on TV, so 100 fanboys ain't gonna cut it. However, you can put something on the big screen, and 100 fanboys will go see it 10 times. Easier to make your money on a movie, then.

Originally Posted by Demi.

Because that's 90% of what you say, Kaijo. You can't go a couple days without claiming Fate and NanoFate have all the screen time. And you do care if Fate has the majority of screen time, because she doesn't in this movie, and you still think she has too much. If that's what you truly think now, then by the time you're done with Fate or NanoFate I think they will have truly been side lined.

No, I don't, Demi. This is NOT what I am saying at all. In fact, it is not about screentime at all... it's about development. You do need screentime to do that, but you can do a lot of development in a short period of time. To YOU, screentime is development. If I can showcase the same amount of NanoFate development in less screentime, that is still sidelining to you, and thus unacceptable. My changes would have the same amount of NanoFate development. Remember, what you want is fluff... which by it's nature is usually extremely light on development.

There are other mains, they simply don't move passed their origin. Lest one of two things happen-- Nanoha and Fate really do get sidelined, or we have an over abundance of main characters. Fact of the matter is minor characters are the first to get cut when it comes to condensing a series down to half and turning it into a movie format.

And here is your circular logic. Nanoha and Fate are mains and thus deserve development. Minor characters don't deserve development because they are not mains. They could become mains if they got more focus and development, but they are minor characters so they don't deserve to. Thus, only Nanoha and Fate deserve development because they are the main characters.

Of course, your argument is really destroyed when you realize Nanoha doesn't get development. Only Fate does.

Because you put too much emphasis on removing Fate and NanoFate scenes and not nearly as much on anything or anyone else..Which leads me to questioning your motive. Which again, leads me to being less agreeable.

I am reminded of Republicans wanting a flat tax, because on the surface, that seems fair. Yet failing to realize that, to someone making $10k a year, and thus below the poverty line, 10% of his income is $1k, which hits him harder because he has less. Meanwhile, a rich person making $10 mil a year, simply chucks $1 mil out in taxes and is still riding pretty.

Yes, NanoFate and Fate scenes got more cuts, because there are more of them. It is a simply matter of quantity. If I cut equal time from everyone, then people like Yuuno would simply disappear totally from the movie... which may be your intent. I know it would be for some. Some characters have less time. And I will restate that the A's movie is about Hayate and the Wolks, and thus their development is paramount, and can't be cut as much if we want to establish them.

I do, yet I think that has nothing to do with the poor sales Nanoha had in the west. Either way, I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at here. Honestly, compared to any of the previous series, the movies are far less fan-servicy. I have no clue why they opted for nipples in the henshin scene, but it's literally the only fanservice in the whole movie. While it was a constant theme in the other three seasons.

The S1 had the shower scene, but Nanoha was surprisingly lacking in panty shots (there are really only a very few, barely noticable). So, the movies are actually a step above the series in fanservice, given the updated henshin sequences.

It's simple marketting. The movies have proven very profitable. And StrikerS honestly had nowhere left to go...Too many time skips, and manga are now ongoing and making virtually no progress. These movies are his way of moving onto greener pastures.

The fact that you think there is nowhere to go after StrikerS, merely showcases your lack of imagination. Many fanfiction writers here have written great fics that came after StrikerS, so unless you want to call them all lacking in imagination... And the manga are making progress, but due to the once a month thing, it might not seem so. If only Nanoha was more popular, like some other series, then it might get a once a week release instead...

Are you saying that Nanoha should start pandering to little girls? Because I'm not following you otherwise. It's too late to change the targeted audience now. If he fails, not only would he damage his current fan base, but he wouldn't have a new one to fall back on. Nanoha is by far and wide the most profitable thing Tsuzuki has ever come across. You expect him to to take too many unnecessary risks.

Any series, animated or otherwise, will bleed viewers. Thus, every good director knows they need to find ways to attract new viewers, so yes, things need to change. SG-1 and SG: Atlantis were great shows, but they were losing viewers. Thus, they made the choice to change the format with SG: Universe. Their gambled failed and they were ultimately cancelled, but they would have been dead anyway without that change.

You would need one massive budget to make a Nanoha series look anywhere near as good as the movies look. The only benefit a series has over the movie in the first place is that it's cheaper to produce. It would be losing it's only advantage by investing so much money into turning a series into movie-quality.

See above, about a budget focusing on 2 hours of footage instead of 6. The movies probably still have a higher budget than the series, but not by much.