Questioned By Fandom For The Week Of May 16th, 2015

Johnny Yong Bosch would be an ideal Killua. I just want it dubbed and released at this point since the window of striking while the iron is hot is passing very quickly.

I can’t wait for Black Bullet to get released so that its format and design are settled and I stop getting comparisons with it to practically every other show Sentai Filmworks licenses.

I haven’t seen Black Bullet but I get plenty of odd questions and concerns about the show here regularly and I just don’t get it.

It almost comes across as a kind of trolling to just talk about a show.

Everyone interprets characters in their own way. If you think she’s a weak, useless loli, than that’s what you’ll think. Others will think otherwise.

Most won’t view it in terms of labels anyway and enjoy the show for what it is.

Since we’re closing in on ten years since the original broadcast of the show, and not long after for the dub of it, I’m hard pressed to care.

Honestly, it’s one of these situations where I totally understand the way fans feel about it because they get tied to an actor or group of actors and their performance in the show.

But at the same time, I’ve spent so many years with changing casts that it doesn’t bother me. Part of that is born from years of reading comics and having wholly different interpretations come down the line, from writing to artists and to the entire way a character is presented.

A new actor can provide a new spin or take on the character that can be better, worse or equivalent. But the truth is if that you get so tied up in an actor that you can’t appreciate the show itself, it’s best to just walk away from it instead of getting upset about it.

I’m sure there will be angst from some, but Haruhi also isn’t the powerhouse it once was (if it ever truly was in terms of the dub fandom), so there will be griping and complaints, but the majority will have no issue with it.

No, I don’t remember it at all. I never cared for the movie and after the first time purchasing it and seeing it, I rarely went back and didn’t follow it much.

I have not seen Aldnoah.Zero (nor Mahouka, doing home video for both as neither fit into my streaming schedule), but going by what I saw on the social media scale of things, Aldnoah.Zero is going to have a wider appear. Mahouka had a look and feel of something a bit more niche and it went into its initial broadcast with a lot of criticism about the material and the adaptation. Aldnoah.Zero had a lot more positives and trended better in general. It’s also a bit more “mainstream” accessible with its genre than Mahouka.

Having not seen either, Mahouka gives me the impression of another high school based action-ish comedy while Aldnoah.Zero has a more serious/intrigue/politics/action approach. There’s less of those in general these days and that garnered more attention. Plus I think it was just marketed better during its simulcast.

Having watched the Ex Machina movie recently, I think I’ll avoid that route entirely.

I’m guessing that they looked at the streaming numbers for it that they have through where it was shown and worked the formula to see if it made sense (i.e. profit levels required) in order to make it work and that it didn’t come up.

I have no idea how popular it is. While we reviewed it, I didn’t see much discussion about it in most places I frequent. Hopefully it does well enough in this form that it might get the upgrade to a dub eventually. But I get the feeling that it’s one that’s lost to getting a dub unfortunately, since it looks like one that voice actors would have fun with.

I’m sadly only… two episodes into it? I’ve got it all recorded, but since I watch it with a few others that haven’t had time, I haven’t been able to get further into it. I really liked the reworking I saw so far in that it was staking out its own claim and playing with what we knew before. Since it involves time travel, changing things up doesn’t bother me much if you go with the whole ripple effect.

If the season ends with a WTF, that’s probably just in its nature and I’m looking forward to it. 😀 Glad it got a second season pickup!

I’m not surprised, but I’m really disappointed. The series is one that I liked with the pilot, worked through the couple of first episodes where they had to readjust to changing the narrative and then completely fell in love with it when it found its groove and began to embrace its material.

The show is one that should have succeeded, even at 13 episodes, in being the prime kind of 10pm Friday night show that would build an audience over time. But networks no longer can/will have that kind of luxury.

I am very hopeful that it can find life elsewhere, because it’s a solidly put together property and it provides the comic book access without being tied to suits and capes. I do think it’s ideal for The CW and would be the perfect blending in series for the supernatural to what’s being built there.

Anime has ~always~ been too niche to sell at mass market prices. The only time it really does sell at that rate is with movies since it’s a different kind of commitment to dub, localize and sell with just a 90-120 minute movie compared to 300+ minute TV series.

There’s a wholly different business model there simply because they’re licensed works with a lot of partners involved and just a hugely different scale of an audience to begin with.

My guess at the moment is that it’ll play out similar to Lucy did in 2014, probably a bit better domestically though. A lot depends on the marketing for it. If they knock it out of the park with the visuals in the first trailer, it’ll draw a lot of people in.

With the way the anime series has played on TV so much for the past decade on Toonami, that’s also going to seed a level of fan as well that will just be curious. Not bonded so closely to the source material or its Japanese origins. Just those wanting to see a variation of it in live action.

There’s a lot of people that want to just kill the project outright, and I get why. But I think it has the potential for a good run and an interesting adaptation. I don’t think it’s going to spark an interest in other properties though.

Not really. While it has its fans online, they all have access to the streaming numbers and other aspects of how it could perform. Remember that the basic idea of business is to maximize profits. Warner Japan likely just thinks that they’ll make more by doing it this way (the less route, i.e. no dub) than by putting in all the effort and getting a minimal return.

If the sub only DVD release overperforms, perhaps we’ll see a decked out version. Especially if the Viz Media master licensor aspect plays out with some solid merchandise.

(Please note; after this question was asked Warner Bros. revealed that the series would indeed have a dub).

For a lot of people, there’s just a sense of cheapness from them in how they’re perceived, rightly or wrongly. For others, it’s just a complication in storing alongside other releases. Some of it comes down to that when they’re put out here, there’s no “latching” mechanism to it so they’re free and open, which isn’t fun when you pick it up and things fall out. They’re not bad, but they’re not a mass market design and that’s what the average consumer is looking for. They may have a gee whiz cool aspect at first, but functionality wise, they’re not the best for a lot of vocal fans.