A nice summary of why good anime is rare (or, phrased more objectively, why a lot of anime is very niche, low budget, and/or short and unfulfilling). It is about anime, so some shots may be NSFW.

@BESW This is so confusing. Click the timestamp and you're taken to one exchange, click the link and you're taken to another...

OH. Now I get it. XD

Oh my goodness.

"Moffat is my favourite villain and I'll have his part, thanks."

I think he'd be great in the role.

"Moffat is...my...favourite villain...and...I'll have...his part...thanks."

(Shatnerised.)

No, no, no. It needs... more... ERRATIC EMOTION!

[organ chord]

@BESW Was it you who told me about the director just deliberately exhausting Shatner and wearing him down during one of the last Wrath of Khan scenes?

(it was either you or another friend super into that movie)

Yes.

That is a lovely thing and tells me a lot about Shatner. XD

At about 26 seconds into this clip.

@BESW That's the scene.

@doppelgreener Another really great insight into Shatner's psyche is the extra features interview on the Groom Lake DVD.

@BESW Tell me about it?

Here's a small taste of his amazing sincerity and child-like sense of wonder about even the simplest things: "...and we had food to eat! They would have a table with some food so if you got hungry you could eat some food and keep your energy up and act."

The whole interview is very long, and includes an anecdote about being taken on a midnight horseback ride with border agents patrolling the Mexican/American border, and an illegal immigrant recognising him as Captain Kirk.

(Groom Lake is a very personal project for him, associated with the death of his first wife and intended as a tribute to her, so he really lets down a lot of the act when he's talking about it.)

Hmm. I don't know if I would call that wonder. It seems much more explanatory to me, like he's highlighting the difference between a big budget piece (where amenities are standard) and a low budget piece (where you're doing good if you can scrape together food) to the audience.

It's open to interpretation, obviously (which is one of the great things about Shatner), but I get the impression that he was unaware of the details that went into a production until he was a low-budget producer--and also that lines like "your dressing room is a van!" are genuinely pleased.

But--yeah, whatever the impression you get is, that interview seems to me like it's a good peek at Shatner.

It is highlighting the difference in his experience, too, and having something like a heated van for a dressing room is definitely a nice thing (which one is likely to appreciate more having done a low budget film). But yeah, it's not exactly the same Shatner one usually sees.

He rambles and talks story to the camera, nobody prompting him or anything. Remembering his first wife, and talking about how his second wife helped with the film, and being recognised by a Mexican immigrant in the middle of the night. The things that he finds strange and wondrous, and the things that he finds ordinary.

(He's excited to be invited to join a midnight horseback border patrol, but he doesn't seem to recognise that it's weird for that to happen. He's telling the story because somebody from another culture recognised him as Captain Kirk.)

one of my mom's friend can't get enough Shatner

anything with him in it she had/has see to

I say has in case he still is or still will make anything

not to say my mom and dad aren't tickled by his overacting and such but said friend takes it to a higher level than anyone else to my personal knowledge

In the future, Shatner leaves instructions in his will to preserve his body and convert him into an AI when available. The technology is developed five years later, and the AI Shatner devotes itself to radio shows.

Fans fight over whether he's "the real Shatner".

AI Shatner looks on in wonder, is mighty amused by the the effect this philosophical conundrum is having on people, takes no position and returns to his radio shows. Producers fan the flames for more discourse and attention.

@trogdor Diane? I've recommended Groom Lake to her.

uh no

Ann

Ah.

I am not sure if you have met her

She lived down the road from you back in the day?

Her son went to school with me.

yeah

she loved Star Trek, Incubus, and Boston Legal

to be fair, my parents did too

and I liked them myself

but she was more into it than anyone else

@Pixie While I can't read the article now, I have the strange felling based on your notice that the whole post can be shortened to "fanservice over plot"....

@SPArchaeologist It's a video, and not really. Fanservice is not the main point. The point is that anime production is a business that has to make money, and unless you're Miyazaki, you can't do that by courting a wide audience. You have to target a niche or known audience that will reliably support you (which certainly can mean fanservice).

@SPArchaeologist I'm getting the impression that sort of thing is kinda your white whale.

It is a bit of a fair assumption to make in this case, and it's something addressed in the video specifically. However, the video is really addressing the underlying causes of that and other trends.

@BESW I am asking... please don't take it as an offense or anything but.... how much do you follow the anime scene? Because yes, it may be my personal white whale, but I think it is pretty objective that fanservice has increased a lot in the last years, animes (and games) based only on it has also increased a lot and the "good taste" in some of those series is no where to be found.

Enough to know that what you're talking about does exist, but also enough to know that reducing the medium's struggles to a single concept is silly. You've made impassioned speeches about similar topics outside of anime, and so I'm not surprised that it's what you immediately assume is the primary problem with any medium that has it at all.

@BESW never I said above that this is the only problem. I said that the fact that you need to say " It is about anime, so some shots may be NSFW." it is a good indication that one of the problems is that fanservice manages to sell whatever useless thing you may have on your hand. No need for good work. The fact that a video that is aimed at pointing out "why good anime is rare " should be NSFW because "it contains anime".... well, for me it is pretty sad indeed.

But yes, as I said I can't see the video now.

Will comment again as soon as I can.

It is commonly viewed as a major problem with the anime industry, by those both inside and outside of it. I like this video though because it explains the context in which that exists.

Fan service in anime is one of my issues with it too

but I don't know if it is the worst issue for me, and it definitely isn't restricted to anime

And, please, also know that I am not talking of "moderate fanservice" like you may see in mainstream anime as One Piece (while I still believe that there was no much need for Glorious Island...). I am talking of the increasing number of animes that are just fanservice and nothing more.

To Love Ru comes to mind.

@SPArchaeologist A summary of "why a lot of anime is very niche, low budget, and/or short and unfulfilling" is going to be extremely disappointing if it "can be shortened to 'fanservice over plot'" because that's not a cause. It's a symptom.

@SPArchaeologist Glorious Island? I'm a long term fan of One Piece, and I don't remember that one.

(But I mean, one of the most NSFW things in the video is the cover of Ghost in the Shell, which is critically acclaimed and is unlikely ever to be described as "just fanservice." Revealing outfits and poses are very common in anime -- that's why I phrased it like that.)

And that's why I describe it as a white whale: assuming that "anime is NSFW" means "any discussion of anime is going to have to focus on PWP" is reductionist when we know that a lot of high-plot anime art is gonna raise eyebrows in a workplace.

Is that a problem? Sure, I'd buy that a whole medium shouldn't be so beholden to body-image art. But the spy-film franchise is equally problematic, and if I were to link a "The reason spy movies are failing" article I don't think anyone would say "Obviously that article can be reduced to 'too much sexiness.'"

@BESW Yep, there is only a problem with that.... that the actual message was " I have the strange felling based on your notice that the whole post can be shortened to "fanservice over plot"....". Also notice that I said "Post" just because I was still thinking the linked article was in text form, not video.

Let me rephrase this: I just assumed that the article was about that based on Pixie notice. It is only because you then defined that assumption my "white whale" that I pointed out that it is objective that the market is been using fanservice to sell more and more as time goes by.

So, to make it clear, I am perfectly aware that that is not the only reason

It is just the notice Pixie made that made me think the video was mostly if not all about that.

Knowing this is not the case, I will be sure to watch it as soon as I return home.

Again, I can kinda understand that. I honestly think this video is so helpful, though, because it gives context that not everyone has. A lot of fans dislike fanservice (and, again, other trends) but don't know about the climate of the market.

So it's easy to rail against fanservice, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing to do, but not so easy to address the underlying causes (anime is expensive to produce, is generally a niche medium in and of itself, and people don't buy stuff).

@Miniman One Piece Film Z - The movie had a prequel short (20') that was made available on mobile devices in Japan. I don't know if it was made available outside Japan on some media, but it was included in the dvd release of the movie there.

Plot can be shortened to "Nami in swimsuit" for the first half. The second half is somehow better since you get the rest of the crew fantasizing over a "food world" with some funny clip there and there.

@Miniman - here you have a link to the wikia. Pixie considerations above still apply.

@Pixie The don't buy stuff - you mean "gadgets/toys/figures", the actual DVD/episodes or both?

@SPArchaeologist Both. The broad audience often has no interest in merchandise, and with piracy (or casual TV-watching), who needs to buy DVDs and blurays? Only dedicated fans.

I can see that being an issue

I for one have not bought any anime or merchandise based off of one

that being said, I haven't really pirated it either

@Pixie you know what I think it is somehow funny? That me, as a dedicated fan, sometime have real hard time in managing to buy those DVDs thanks to nonsense distribution and such.

@SPArchaeologist You're not the primary market, though.

Anime is an even more niche market outside of Japan. Except in very rare cases, overseas sales cannot really help an anime.

@Pixie yep, my problem was that I wasn't just including anime in that ;_;. Go on, have fun, try to buy a dvd set for MLP in Europe...

Without importing from AU.

(sorry, forget the above rant )

Piracy is also severely impacting what overseas market there is. Between 2006 and 2011, overseas anime profits roughly halved (part of that is yen declining, but piracy is a big factor).

As for that, similar issue: you're just not MLP's primary market. And it was a long time before we got proper DVDs. Do we even have them now..? I forget.

Okay, we do. But it took them a really long time, and they were not interested in the idea at first because they don't necessarily sell with their demographic.

@Pixie so, whole Europe isn't MLP market? I can see your point, but in this case trust me it is only very very very very bad marketing. Let me explain the actual situation with those and you may see my point.

@SPArchaeologist It's not the primary market.

Hasbro had actually licensed the release of the Season boxes to one company. That company did a very poor job at it. Season 1 was published as 4 (or 5) separate DVD with out of order episodes and bad audio (bad NTSC-> PAL conversion, audio got out of synch and such). When the Season 1 box was made, Hasbro has just revoked the license to said company - as a result they just published a "compilation box" of the 4 dvd and called season 1. Same problems as above.

This is to say that I know that we aren't the main market, but I also know that they tried to market the boxed there, and as a result of that marketing, many persons that would have bought that DVD now just download the episodes.

But yeh, I know, bad example (as I said, it was more of a rant, sorry)

Guam is part of the United States, and has access to the full United States Postal Service capabilities. United States companies that will ship normally to Hawaii and Alaska will charge us international rates, or insist on using private services that cost three times as much like FedEx. Apple services us out of their Philippine hub despite that creating problems like "our plugs don't work." There's a big dark swath between "not a market" and "not a primary market."

That said, I would love to know your position on region-lock, at least in the console market (which maybe can be a little simpler than the DVD one)

Me? I think we've firmly established that I have never owned a console.

For me personally, it's a pain. [eyes several Japanese PS1 games awaiting the purchase of a system to play them on] But it does make some sense, given that the games are intended to be played in a specific region.

@Pixie I can understand that. But then why Sony and Microsoft went region free while Nintendo still go for region lock? My research on the topic point out that region locking was mainly introduced to help keeping market distribution easier. What then I don't get is what exactly made two mayor company drop it now while the third still latch on it despite of petitions and such.

That isn't something I really feel qualified to talk about as I haven't researched it.

oh, no need to worry, I was just asking, no obligation at all.

... oh my.

ok, this one will be printed and pasted on my office "Wall of infamy"

Why would you even make a wipe button so prominent in the first place?

Or:

do anyone mind if I repost that on the Tavern? I want to see the reactions there.

NSOMN.

[squint] Hello, Google Chrome. Why are you taking up more than 16.5 GB on my hard drive?

That's a lot of previous versions, Chrome. Like, a lot a lot. ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE VERSIONS OF CHROME WHAT ARE YOU SOME KIND OF DRAGON THAT HORDES OUTDATED BROWSER RELEASES?

Don't forget your temp files.

Cache, cookies, etc too.

Temp files nothing.

111 outdated versions of Chrome is 16.59 GB out of the 16.78 GB that GoogleChrome.app is taking up.

Now, how surgical do I have to be about deleting these stupid things? [googles]

Yikes, glad I stuck with Firefox.

I want to go back to Firefox...

grin are you sure it is Chrome and not Comodo? That may explain... resume whistling fox tunes

@BESW [squints]

Next time I've got a day or two I'm gonna try again.

That is a many lot of Chromes.

such chrome. so gigabyte. many data. delete.

very trash. much empty. so restart. amaze.

...Huh. The Finder is being weird about how much space Chrome is taking up.

[runs DIX]

Okay, looks like Chrome is now within about 0.15 GB of Firefox.

(My drive was getting to about 90% full, so I'm doing consolidate/move/purge work.)

I'm back to about 30% without going through my old job files and trashing workflow saves from four years ago.

I now have Death Should Not Have Taken Thee stuck in my head ("DELETE! DELETE!").

But ahh, yeah, it's good to do a purge every now and again.

I counter with Exterminate Annihilate Destroy.

I am getting further and further away from music that is suitable to the scenes I am writing. This is perfectly acceptable.

You triggered my trap, Kaiba. I activate Party X Party

@SPArchaeologist Meikoooo. <3

I remember sawing a pony version of this one somewhere too.

I love this song, though. I want to play a game like this sometime. xD

I prefer Your adventure log has vanished.

probably because it is something I experienced....

@Pixie Is this a challenge?

@SPArchaeologist Party x Party takes it for me. It's the part with the dark lord. Yes. But definitely, Your Adventure Log Has Vanished is every gamer's nightmare...

@BESW I'm not sure Exterminate Annihilate Destroy can be topped, but... why not.

@Pixie The Rocking Son of Dschinghis Khan.

This may be a better link

@Pixie You know, that is the only one I think the pony version can be even better than the original, just because when they do have the baka-sama part, the king is replaced with Pinkie, and the hero-warrior with AJ. Which create a scene I totally can see happening in the show.

(I like the first one, myself.)

anyway, I will listen to Cat Food .

then probably Cendrillon.

@SPArchaeologist But which Cendrillon? (My answer will always be MeikoLuka Cendrillon.)

nope, the VY2v3 demo.

@BESW Hmm. Maybe a tie.

@SPArchaeologist The VYs. Yes. Acceptable.

Wasn't the original version the one with Kaito an Miku? At least, most videos both from fandom and arcade rhythm games seem to point to that.

@SPArchaeologist Yes. I am not a big Kaito fan myself (except in stuff like Sandplay Singing of the Dragon and Ashes to Ashes), though the original isn't bad.

@Pixie no ice cream for you then.

@SPArchaeologist Noooo..! Who allowed Kaito to have a monopoly on ice cream?!

@Pixie the same ones that gave Miku monopoly over spring onions

(or leek since the discussion seem to be still open)

My leeks died... maybe it was because I didn't have Miku's blessing. Or, more probably, because we forgot to plant them.

@Pixie There is a female DJ that I think must live very close to me that always manages to be at every cosplay competition I go to. She always cosplay Miku, a different version every time.

Lately, she started to bring some onions with her.

Seem there was another live concert recently in Shangai.

Will we get one someday? sigh.

Heh. I'd go if one miraculously appeared nearby, but it's not something I care too much about myself.

Then you will have to live like I do and dream while you look at this.

bandai.co.jp/candy/hakovision/products/03

I managed to predate one of those at an anime convection nearby. Yes. It works as described.

I like the Mikuture phone app. So cute.

One of the many use of Project Diva is that you also get a nice generator of wallpapers for your PS.

I've got Project Diva F. So fun. So hard. Not enough Meiko.

I think that Japanese rhythm games aren't mean to be played by the common mortals outside Japan.

... yeah. Pop'N Music flashbacks.

You need to be a new-type to follow those icons.

(I love Pop'N Music though, terrible as I may be at it.)

And I speak as a Rainbow-V Alstor player in VJ1

I played that taiko one last year too... ahh so difficult. But if I had them at home, I could learn 'em. I'm confident in that.

One of the most satisfying thing in VJ1 is when you lose the attack warning icon by either reaching the Ultra-V rated difficulty level or by playing as Cap. Blue.

That one I haven't played.

Then, you learn once again that you knew nothing when you start detecting the attack by the sound even before the animation start.

It is so nice when you manage to avoid Fire Leo tornado attack by listening to the different roars and some other players watching you wonder how you can do that without using Slow.

Must be something close to the felling the old coin-op champ felt while they where playing pac-man, aware of the pattern the ghost moved in, while beyond them the un-enlightened ones watched in awe. ^_^

so, I read the first chapter of Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin Laws a little while back, and one of the key insights I came to is that I don't work from the standard narrative notions of emotional "highs" and "lows" -- instead, what I want to do is make the reader set their emotions aside and analyze what is going on in a detached, almost scientific way, and I do so by not trying to take the story "up" or "down" from an emotional perspective, but "sideways"...

... by trying to come up with character actions that grossly violate the expectancy of what other players think will continue the story, either "up" or "down"

@Shalvenay Okay... wait, mind if I ask a potentially dumb question?

Are you writing or GMing something?

@Alex -- this is most problematic in open-ended environments, such as freeform or near-freeform play, and also when I am a player -- my GM style, when I'm not trying to lead players on a story (something I probably should do less of, but is hard to avoid for campaign play I find), swings to a "sandbox-referee" mode that I find avoids this problem completely.

Initially, I thought you were writing something

As in, a novel

So you're talking about narrativist RPGs

exactly

Sorry, bit of a misunderstanding there, I thought you were applying RPG paradigms to writing... not a bad idea, but I was way off-track

aah. Hamlet's Hit Points develops a form of literary analysis that can be applied to narrativist RPG play

Okay, but what you're doing doesn't sound like a problem

Oh, okay... so the other way around basically

aah -- it is a problem, though, because it effectively denies other players agency over the direction of the story, as that agency seems to key off of being able to influence the story "up" or "down" as well, and when it keeps going sideways no matter what you do, you wind up feeling like you have no agency over it, even if you actually have the ability to alter which sideways course it takes.

(also, it can be seen as abusive by other players, because they see it as trying to take something away from them that they see as essential, namely, their emotional reactions to what is going on)

Can you give me a more concrete example, please?

I appreciate the ideas very much, but I haven't read the book so I need something to go on

so, there was one case where my character was captured, and the captors were probing into said character's mind, but instead of the mind probe succeeding or failing, it was causing said character to conjure up some sort of shadow-figure, which basically confused the other players into trying to execute the character, which provoked a rather inappropriate reaction from me (come to think of it, my character would have escaped because of the execution, and I should have keyed off of that)

and escalated into the BBEG trying to use a wind spell to separate from the situation, and blowing my character free in the process

(we wound up retconning the whole thing afterwards, basically, because it had gone so far off the rails)

Hm, okay.. so basically you're saying that even though the system offers you a lot of freedom, not every expression of freedom or even creativity is the most rewarding in the long run?

Kind of a reverse of "restriction breeds creativity"?

yeah. I have the creativity of a test engineer, more or less, which tends to be disruptive instead of being constructive

(old test engineer joke: "A test engineer walks into a bar. He orders -1 drinks. He orders 0 drinks. He orders INT_MAX drinks. He orders a lizard." where INT_MAX is the largest number your computer can efficiently work with)

Hah, I hate to say something as cliché as this

but I really feel it's more of a group dynamics thing than a "you" thing

I mean that sounds a lot like what would happen at my table

...if I am allowed to say "at my table" after only one session anyway

The first "awesome move" ever of my games was very "sideways", if I got it right

Basically, my players were Z, an enchanter/investigator that had laced a chunk of ore with illusion magic to get B, an enslaved mine worker, talking or interested

they meet up in this alleyway, where when things stalled, I let out a small ambush on them at gunpoint from a corrupt chief wanting the "crystal" for himself

basically their dealings were illegal, so they couldn't report it to authority

I pressure them with violence hard, with no witnesses around, a gun pointing at them and a burly thug preventing escape on the other side

so Z declared that she had attached a sack of enchanted fire dust/runes to the ore in the packet. She gives it up to the chief, and when he checks it, his delight doesn't last much, because he gets a faceful of fire dust, "debuffing" him by a HUGE margin as a result of resource spending on Z's part

so it ends up being a non-violent chase between my characters and the remaining thug, whereas I thought they would stay in the city

they end up chasing through a forest that they made up anyway

they end up chasing through a forest that they made up anyway

and even then, they end up fighting the thug, taking him out non-lethally and dragging him to an outpost of B's

does this count as what you mentioned?

sort-of -- it's not as extreme a form of it. it's the roller-coaster version as opposed to the fighter-jet version, if you will :)

Yes, of course

But is it an example of what you're talking about?

I'm trying to understand better

If I were to perceive that as bad... what might some of the reasons why I don't want this be?

you are right, it is an example :)

as to reasons to not want it? the only things I can think of are "I don't know how to continue the story in the face of such direction changes" and "I'm not interested in a story that doesn't have a classical up/down tempo in it"

Oh, wait, something has come up, I'll be back in around.. let's say, 15 mins, I'm very interested in this

no worries

Okay, I'm back

Well, Fate and other games handle player-driven story really well

them doing all that lead the story almost by itself... it stalled when they met, so I used a guardsman from before to ambush them

then when they ran away, I didn't know where TO, so one of them declarared with spending a point that she'd been waiting to escape the mines for years so she knows a safe outpost in the forest, camouflaged in nature

session wrapped up because of her declaration, and now I plan to have the thug be a decent person, himself being tortured by the system

I gotta go for now, though, I'll ba back

be*

damn

I've tried DMing (and playing, once) FATE -- I find that it's all too easy for me to wind up basically only using the conflict-resolution mechanics at the expense of the entire FATE point economy

Wait, sorry, I'll be back, things are coming up

(evening, predictable that things would)

@AlexMitan Shalvenay's situation is a little different from what you're talking about. It isn't just doing unexpected things or coming up with novel solutions, neither of which are usually a big deal. It's a combination of factors like taking things to a great extreme, expecting players to have levels of knowledge far beyond the norm to engage with ideas, and entirely shirking the emotional aspect that other players want in their game.

(We've had an ongoing conversation about this, so I've got some more context.)

btw @Pixie -- if you haven't heard, I stumbled upon some professional help almost by accident (my quest for a general practitioner has taken a side-trip to the land o' the psychologists)

@Shalvenay Ahh, nice. It's a good thing to have.

sidenote -- having experience with what is likely a more varied cross-section of free-form RPers than I, would you say that a desire to have that emotional aspect in play is universal (or nigh so) among those who freeform-RP online, or is it merely commonplace?

Hmm. I'd hesitate to call it universal, but it is definitely very commonplace.

...yeah, I've perceived that as well, and its one of the reasons I'm loathe to go community-hunting -- I feel that my problems would put me at risk of getting shown the door most places I go.

On the other hand, you're having trouble where you are now, and going elsewhere (where there's better OOC communication) would give you the opportunity to be up front about your situation and touch base with people on how you're doing, which you can't currently do.

there's also the issue of lore playing into it -- I find that a game with more mature lore helps me in that regard, in that less is left purely to social expectancy