Quote:
Originally Posted by Iridium
I'm glad someone else pointed this out. I've been watching Kyoto Animation works for years, and while, initially, the first thing that attracted me to their work is the high-quality animation (as drew me in with certain episodes of Tenshi ni Narumon and the Munto OAV), I realized pretty soon, especially after Fumoffu, that, in my opinion, the primary strength of this company is in excellent storyboarding throughout all stages of the animation process. You won't find many shows that "flow" better from scene to scene with planned out transitions and the like than you will with a Kyoto production, which I think bodes well for something like Lucky Star which will rely on good storyboarding much more than something taken from a manga or novel. Attention to detail on the storyboarding reflects in the comic timing that you mentioned earlier.
Reading this thread is reminiscent of the discussions that took place just before KareKano was released, with many unwilling (or unable) to view the series on its own merits without looking at it through the lens of the production studio or aforesaid production studio's previous big hit. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to it.
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That's exactly my problem, now that Kyoto Animation has made Haruhi, people can't judge their individual series by their own merits anymore, it always has to be auto-awesome since Haruhi was popular.
That kind of mentality among viewers never leads to anything good, believe me. As an example, if you want to know why the Playstation brand has dropped in quality, its that Sony realized they could get away with anything because of their bases unconditional support. Kaz Hirai's "The consumer's are ready speech", the idea that they have the right to dictact what the consumer's are willing to accept and the arrogance and contempt for the consumers desires they show now wouldn't exist now, as they'd still be trying to win over support if people hadn't given them carte blanche to do and say, whatever the hell they want.
At this point in time the studio could easily do a lackluster job, slap its name on it and it would be phenomenally successful. Thankfully they haven't done it which shows that Kyoto Animation has some integrity at least, but they very very easily could if they wanted too and thats what worries me.
It's exactly as you said, people must be able to view the series on their own merit rather than by what the studio may have done right in the past and no matter how much they may support them. Otherwise it won't be the viewers that hold influence and weight in the anime industry with their dollars to be won over by competing anime productions, but the companies who can essentially take the dollars and simply use their brand sticker as a reason for why they are taking the dollars. That's not the anime market any of us would want to see I'm sure.
I am looking forward to Lucky Star because its a funny 4Koma, but let's be honest, how many people think the ratio of viewers watching for the company that did Haruhi's next project versus the viewers watching for zany antics isn't lopsided toward the former. Now how many people think the ratio of people watching to see Aya Hirano play a character versus the people watching to see the Lucky Star cast animated is also lopsided towards the former. If I am wrong and I hope to god I am wrong because that means I'll never have to worry again, I will be happier than if I'm right believe me.
I'm just a small fish in the sea so I don't have much influence on the market, but the large bloc of fans out their who would be willing to give carte blanche to a company for creating one particularly successful franchise scares the hell out of me, because they have the power to ruin the market for an entire generation of viewers with that mentality.