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Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

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Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#151

Post by cplanas »

bsder wrote: post #147
cplanas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, wow. How did you manage to interview Hideaki Anno? Despite the fact that his best works are anime TV series, I always thought Anno was one of the best filmmakers alive. His works in the 90s are absolutely amazing, particularly Evangelion and Karekano . He is a complex artist on many sides; formally he is the first (and mainly only) modern anime director: he uses the long-shot substantially less in favor of close-…

> Satoshi Kon Death has a way of putting a crimp on using your whole potential. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kon

I know: that's why I wrote "for different reasons". I understand that in the case of Kon it feels more unfair, as he had a great career before his death; of his 4 movies, 3 are typically considered great/masterpieces. Kon didn't use his whole potential in the same way that James Dean did; Anno and Iwai are a bit more like Nicholas Cage.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#152

Post by fjsolwmv »

satellitec4t wrote: post #105
egypturnash wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me introduce you to a concept called "pencil mileage". Simply put, for a budget of $x, your crew can draw $y miles of lines. How do you use these to fill out the huge number of images you need to produce? In the West, the solution has historically been to simplify your drawings as much as humanly possible so that you can have a lot of them; we tend to want to have everything constantly moving and changing. Our ch…

I couldn't quickly find a link/reference, but I remember reading a couple years ago that, when shown images/photographs, in the West we spend most of our time looking at the foreground objects, while in the East (might have been Chinese specifically who were tested?), they look at the background more than westerners (which is not to say that they look at the background more than the foreground)

It was Freakonomics, I think. Or a contemporary book

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#153

Post by TeMPOraL »

distrill wrote: post #56
exelius wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I feel Lain is one of those underrated classics that people really only watched if they were super into anime around 2000-2004. Any later than that and the reaction was kind of "well, duh, of course that's what happens". I feel the same way about much of the societal commentary in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex -- they totally nailed the way groups like ISIS and the alt-right would spread like wildfire…

I saw lain a few years ago for the first time and I wasn't underwhelmed at all, I thought it was great.

I saw Lain this year and... I couldn't understand any of it, even though I tried hard. I found it pretty confusing. Could someone explain to me what were the intended (or unintended, but interesting) messages in that anime?

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#154

Post by ekianjo »

drderidder wrote: post #102
ekianjo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That, plus attention to detail is just part of the Japanese culture. I am waging you have never seen powerpoint slides made in Japan.

lol, powerpoint guarantees ugliness. But have you seen the excel artwork? http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2013/05/28/tatsuo-horiuchi-excel...

Yes I am aware of that guy. That's pretty crazy to do this kind of things :)

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#155

Post by ekianjo »

6t6t6t6 wrote: post #137
ekianjo wrote: post #11

Because that's what Japan looks like, duh! Any place in Japan has basically power lines all over the place, even in cities like Tokyo. And also because it's easy to draw and show for 5 seconds in every anime to save on the precious animation budget because it's super static and goes everywhere. Added bonus it can be added into any decor and you would not notice it's the same pattern imported all over again in between…

I happens the same with cicadas. People abroad think that they are a kind of anime thing, but the reality is that anywhere you go in Japan in summer you will hear cicadas.

One thing is true however for cicadas (semi in Japan) is that there's a LOT of them in every single tree during summer, which makes them really, really noisy. I have seen cicadas in Provence in France but it was nowhere as noisy as in Japan.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#156

Post by deadmetheny »

hkmurakami wrote: post #114
exelius wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC Cowboy Bebop was developed explicitly with western audiences in mind. It’s success informed later shows (in a similar way to how thr Chinese market is influencing Hollywood movies) so it really is a landmark show, even if it wasn’t as well received in Japan.

I mean they made a Movie spinoff from the show, so it was sufficiently popular at the time. It didn't have mass appeal staying power a la Eva or Geass, but the former is an outlier and the latter was made in an era where the production companies became much more sophisticated about fan cultivation and pre planned media mixing.

Oh yeah, I don't mean to suggest it wasn't popular, but it also doesn't seem to have had the same level of sustained popularity that it has here in the West.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#157

Post by ksec »

GuB-42 wrote: post #25
ekianjo wrote: post #11

Because that's what Japan looks like, duh! Any place in Japan has basically power lines all over the place, even in cities like Tokyo. And also because it's easy to draw and show for 5 seconds in every anime to save on the precious animation budget because it's super static and goes everywhere. Added bonus it can be added into any decor and you would not notice it's the same pattern imported all over again in between…

It is true that it is what Japan looks like but it is still interesting to see how detailed the depiction is. Compare to the Simpsons for instance. It is set in present day American suburbs, but it doesn't look at all like a photograph. All the small details are missing unless they are relevant to the story. In the west, even if real life photographs, power lines are commonly seen as a nuisance and avoided, or even e…

I remember watching Full Metal Panic! ( Which after 10 years is finally getting its ending series this Summer ), there were lots of scene in Hong Kong where, it was exactly the same as in real life, so much that even small details like stairs and windows cover were exactly the same.

Turns out the crew went to Hong Kong for a week and actually filmed everything out as well as taking lots of Photos, before sitting down and draft out the action and anime.

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