I hurt my back yesterday, so i'm on pain meds and stuck at home until wednesday. Bleh.
(The following was posted in two parts elsewhere, so if it sounds a little disjointed, tough.) :
I went to Otakon, and i was really disappointed.
First off, i was looking for my friends. I found only one, and he didn't have the phone numbers of any of the rest of y'all. I had a goal for this convention, a really specific one, even though i wasn't going to be able to spend very much time there. I'll go into that later.
Anyway, i was walking around the convention (didn't register; i just walked right by the lines and looked around) and all i saw was the kinds of people that i hated being around when i was a more regular convention goer. I mean the place as CHOCK FULL of fanboys and fangirls who were running around hugging people who were dressed as characters that they liked, as if the cosplayer was the actual character. WTF? Is this what fandom has devolved into, or was this what it always was, but since i was more directly involved, i was just blind to it? Or have i really just grown out of this shit? Or did i always know, and there are just more of these people and their numbers have outgrown the number of normal people? Anyway, they all irritated me, and the convention center was full of almost nothing but.
When i got to work afterward, i was talking to an acquaintance there about it, and he was like "HAHA, that's your audience, man!" That made me quite depressed about the state of the nation, and the youth of the nation. But then i thought about how this is really just a small segment of the anime/animation watching population, but of course the problem with that is that these are most extreme and the most vocal of said population. Hmm.
Anyway, i really wouldn't want to cater to what i consider to be the lowest common denominator. I suppose that's unavoidable, because there's always going to be some idiot or bunch of idiots that are going to be more vocal about things. But i'd like to cater to a more intelligent audience. Even if i'm going to be making a martial arts show, i'd like to be the kind of thing that people can relate to plot-wise, at least kinda. I dunno... i'd just like to make a smarter show for smarter people. If the morons like it too, then fine. But i'd like for the morons to not be the PRIMARY audience, y'know?
Ok, so the aforementioned "really specific reason" i was trying to get to Otakon in the first place, was because i wanted to try and arrange a meeting with Toshifumi Yoshida (known him for a while and he's got a lot of knowledge and connections), so that i could show him the artwork for the series i'm trying to develop, and hopefully pick his brain for what he thinks i should do so that it would be presentable to producers in about six months or so. Of course, with the convention being so large, and with my lack of time due to my work schedule, that was near impossible since i couldn't get a hold of anyone who would know where he might be. So that was a wash. Plus i was just so annoyed with everything at the convention that i just decided not to go back any of the following days to try again.
I think that what really turns me off about conventions now is the fact that i'm much older than most of the attendees. Part of that has to do with the fact that i started going to cons in 1993, and back then, the only people who attended were the hardest of the hardcore, and for the most part, over the age of 18. Probably half of them were over 25. While one can argue about the maturity level of such people, you have to agree that given the times, and the availability and marketability of anime then, the crowd was MUCH different. And i was one of about 5 black guys at the entire convention, MAYBE. In fact, i'm not sure if i saw any black people at my first con other than my father, who went with me.
The difference now, is that because anime has been marketed and cross marketed, and mainstreamed (thanks to Cartoon Network and others), the convention going crowd has gotten larger and younger. While i certainly don't mind the fact that it's gotten larger, the fact that the crowd has gotten younger bothers me a little, but only because that means that most of the anime that get put on television gets censored, and i've always had a huge problem with censorship. The other issue is that a lot of really DUMB anime gets imported translated and pushed out onto the new fanbase, who, like the older generation will eat it right up, just because it's japanese (or looks like it *cough*Teen Titans*cough*). I don't feel that the success of such stupid things leads to the advancement of the art of animation, and certainly takes away the marketability of more intelligent storylines in favor of what can easily be made into toys or collectible trading cards. Of course these have their place, but it's the over-saturation that gets on my nerves.
It also seems to me that intelligent animation has to have something cheap about it to get people to watch. With Ghost in the Shell, for instance, for a long time it seemed to me that no matter how intelligent the story itself might be otherwise, the only way for Shirow to really hook viewers/readers was the fact that the main character is a sexy woman with a penchant for wearing not-quite-enough. That may not be case anymore, as i believe that GITS has enough of an audience now so that it's unnecessary, but think that it's kinda sad that it may have been necessary before. It's something that in general i'd like to avoid. I don't that think that "fanservice moments" are wrong (lord knows the one in my story is kinda major) but i'd like to think that they weren't *needed* (or didn't need to be the crux of the series) and could just be put into the story for fun.
With my series (a martial arts story), i'd really like to stay away from anything really silly. Martial arts animes have a tendency to be really over the top as well, and i'd like to make mine a bit more realistic (like, no fireballs or anything like that), but still have it be fun. I'd also like it to be realistic in the way that when certain styles are showcased, they actually look like the styles in question. That may just be a matter of budget more than anything else, but that remains to be seen. Of course the real question is: "Would anyone actually WATCH a series like that?" I know i would, but would you?
What hooks people into series like Naruto and DBZ?
(The following was posted in two parts elsewhere, so if it sounds a little disjointed, tough.) :
I went to Otakon, and i was really disappointed.
First off, i was looking for my friends. I found only one, and he didn't have the phone numbers of any of the rest of y'all. I had a goal for this convention, a really specific one, even though i wasn't going to be able to spend very much time there. I'll go into that later.
Anyway, i was walking around the convention (didn't register; i just walked right by the lines and looked around) and all i saw was the kinds of people that i hated being around when i was a more regular convention goer. I mean the place as CHOCK FULL of fanboys and fangirls who were running around hugging people who were dressed as characters that they liked, as if the cosplayer was the actual character. WTF? Is this what fandom has devolved into, or was this what it always was, but since i was more directly involved, i was just blind to it? Or have i really just grown out of this shit? Or did i always know, and there are just more of these people and their numbers have outgrown the number of normal people? Anyway, they all irritated me, and the convention center was full of almost nothing but.
When i got to work afterward, i was talking to an acquaintance there about it, and he was like "HAHA, that's your audience, man!" That made me quite depressed about the state of the nation, and the youth of the nation. But then i thought about how this is really just a small segment of the anime/animation watching population, but of course the problem with that is that these are most extreme and the most vocal of said population. Hmm.
Anyway, i really wouldn't want to cater to what i consider to be the lowest common denominator. I suppose that's unavoidable, because there's always going to be some idiot or bunch of idiots that are going to be more vocal about things. But i'd like to cater to a more intelligent audience. Even if i'm going to be making a martial arts show, i'd like to be the kind of thing that people can relate to plot-wise, at least kinda. I dunno... i'd just like to make a smarter show for smarter people. If the morons like it too, then fine. But i'd like for the morons to not be the PRIMARY audience, y'know?
Ok, so the aforementioned "really specific reason" i was trying to get to Otakon in the first place, was because i wanted to try and arrange a meeting with Toshifumi Yoshida (known him for a while and he's got a lot of knowledge and connections), so that i could show him the artwork for the series i'm trying to develop, and hopefully pick his brain for what he thinks i should do so that it would be presentable to producers in about six months or so. Of course, with the convention being so large, and with my lack of time due to my work schedule, that was near impossible since i couldn't get a hold of anyone who would know where he might be. So that was a wash. Plus i was just so annoyed with everything at the convention that i just decided not to go back any of the following days to try again.
I think that what really turns me off about conventions now is the fact that i'm much older than most of the attendees. Part of that has to do with the fact that i started going to cons in 1993, and back then, the only people who attended were the hardest of the hardcore, and for the most part, over the age of 18. Probably half of them were over 25. While one can argue about the maturity level of such people, you have to agree that given the times, and the availability and marketability of anime then, the crowd was MUCH different. And i was one of about 5 black guys at the entire convention, MAYBE. In fact, i'm not sure if i saw any black people at my first con other than my father, who went with me.
The difference now, is that because anime has been marketed and cross marketed, and mainstreamed (thanks to Cartoon Network and others), the convention going crowd has gotten larger and younger. While i certainly don't mind the fact that it's gotten larger, the fact that the crowd has gotten younger bothers me a little, but only because that means that most of the anime that get put on television gets censored, and i've always had a huge problem with censorship. The other issue is that a lot of really DUMB anime gets imported translated and pushed out onto the new fanbase, who, like the older generation will eat it right up, just because it's japanese (or looks like it *cough*Teen Titans*cough*). I don't feel that the success of such stupid things leads to the advancement of the art of animation, and certainly takes away the marketability of more intelligent storylines in favor of what can easily be made into toys or collectible trading cards. Of course these have their place, but it's the over-saturation that gets on my nerves.
It also seems to me that intelligent animation has to have something cheap about it to get people to watch. With Ghost in the Shell, for instance, for a long time it seemed to me that no matter how intelligent the story itself might be otherwise, the only way for Shirow to really hook viewers/readers was the fact that the main character is a sexy woman with a penchant for wearing not-quite-enough. That may not be case anymore, as i believe that GITS has enough of an audience now so that it's unnecessary, but think that it's kinda sad that it may have been necessary before. It's something that in general i'd like to avoid. I don't that think that "fanservice moments" are wrong (lord knows the one in my story is kinda major) but i'd like to think that they weren't *needed* (or didn't need to be the crux of the series) and could just be put into the story for fun.
With my series (a martial arts story), i'd really like to stay away from anything really silly. Martial arts animes have a tendency to be really over the top as well, and i'd like to make mine a bit more realistic (like, no fireballs or anything like that), but still have it be fun. I'd also like it to be realistic in the way that when certain styles are showcased, they actually look like the styles in question. That may just be a matter of budget more than anything else, but that remains to be seen. Of course the real question is: "Would anyone actually WATCH a series like that?" I know i would, but would you?
What hooks people into series like Naruto and DBZ?
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
_tab:
If it is something you would watch, surely there are others out there that would also watch it.
jc_blitz:
heard about your back, how is it doing now? i havent really been around, and probably won't see you guys until saturday when i go to start the process of fixing up that floor.