Amongst worry about the fates of dozens of unfinished series, much of the reactionary concern is with the lost in limbo comics of OEL creators, which TOKYOPOP has held fast to. Will the rights revert automatically? Many of these series have already been drawn in their entirety — will they finally see print elsewhere? It remains to be seen, but S.Girl points out that the answer to the first question is “no.” The rights won’t autorevert. And TOKYOPOP isn’t going away completely — their New Media division remains, so there’s still an entity to hold the rights. But with their Publishing division gone (at least in the US; TP Germany will continue operations), what incentive is there for TP to hold on to the publishing rights?

In “coming weeks,” the fates of TP’s vast catalog of titles are supposed to be announced. Hopefully this will mean the fates of the OEL titles will be revealed as well. I doubt Viz will ever start the original comics initiative it announced in spring 2009, and with TP out of the game for good, it might seem as if OEL is dead in the water. And yet… and yet, it’s thanks to TOKYOPOP that all of this started. It’s easy to forget, but many of the new creators it nourished and challenged with its Rising Stars of Manga program are still working in the industry today. The creators that found their start with TP are still making manga, and other companies are actually publishing it.

TOKYOPOP ushered in a wave of Japanese comics monstrous enough to affect and influence an entire generation of fans and artists. Traditional US comics companies couldn’t really ignore it. Everyone was drawing in this damned manga style because that’s what they were reading and that’s what they wanted to read. TOKYOPOP took a chance on that and tried to capitalize on this new crop of artists. It didn’t really work out, and that’s the part people remember. A decade and a few years later, there are still many prejudices in the industry and still many walls for artists to break down, but with so many more people turned onto comics in general because of manga specifically, companies have slowly come to understood that rejecting manga is losing money…

There’s a dirty irony to the idea that the artists that TOKYOPOP harbored and subsequently screwed over with overbearing contracts are still surviving because of TOKYOPOP’s overarching influence on the industry, but it is what it is.

Having graduated from the SCAD Sequential Art department, the anti-TOKYOPOP sentiment was shared amongst many of the students and just about all the professors, who had explained on multiple occasions that TOKYOPOP was, in fact, banned from the department’s annual Editors’ Day because they “want[ed] students to get hired, not screwed.”

It’s disappointing when, as an artist, the company offering your biggest chance to succeed is also the company most likely to use and abuse you. No one else has stepped up to specifically fill in the shoes as a big OEL publisher, but maybe it isn’t really necessary anymore. Ideally, in a few more years, the style really won’t make the difference anymore. We won’t need a specific “OEL” initiative because good comics are good comics, no matter how they’re drawn. Ideally.

No, I don’t believe the “manga revolution” has been won yet. It’s sad to see that the effort is winding down, but I’m not sure how relevant TOKYOPOP has been to the fight in the last few years.

For my part, I gave up on the idea of ever publishing with them (or anyone else, really) when the OEL fiasco went down. Self-publishing has become the most viable option for creators, in my opinion. Just about all the manga I read currently is put out by Viz. In fact, with Borders shutting down, I’ve picked up a great big stack of Viz manga, but there’s not a TOKYOPOP title amongst them. I know that’s just my preference though, and I do still own a lot of TOKYOPOP’s older gems. A lot of good series that are going to be stranded now. With one less publisher out there, the manga shelves at the bookstores will continue to shrink. The number of new readers caught in our market will be lessened…

Well, who knows. But it’s a sad thing, to be sure. Why TP has decided its lackluster New Media division should survive while their core business collapses, I’ll never understand. (And honestly, I’m calling it now, the remnants of TP will probably be gone by 2013, if not earlier.) But for all the things that the company’s done over the years that I’ve disagreed with, there is no joy in saying, “I told you so.“

I am so excited.

Seriously. For me, the build-up to Black and White has been very similar to the build-up to Gold and Silver, which, as the very first new generation, was the Most Exciting Thing Ever. Sure, by now — generation five and almost fifteen years old — the franchise’s new additions are pretty predictable: new island (based off New York City, baby!), new trainers, new attacks, season changes, three-way battles, more Wi-Fi stuff, and of course, new Pokemon. But as tried as the formula is, I am still most excited about the new Pokemon. I like having new things to collect. Monsters were cool when I was eight. Monsters are still cool, dammit.

Not surprisingly, the starters were among the first Pokemon revealed after Black and White was announced back in April. I am starting with Grass again for sure. (He kind of looks like Excalibur, doesn’t he?) Tsutaja, though he’ll undoubtedly be renamed for the overseas release, actually doesn’t look all that different from Treecko, but instead of being gecko-based, he’s apparently snake-based… ’cause his final evolution looses all limbs. It has always, always bothered me when Pokemon loose appendages when evolving (Kadabra’s tail, Graveler’s arms, Zorua’s tail, etc), but snakes are freakin’ awesome, so I guess I’ll get over it. Firepig is cute, but I’ve never really liked Fire-types. His final evolution looks like he’s gonna be best buds with Infernape though. Otterthing got a lot of hate originally for looking so damn derpy, but his popularity has grown over the months, and he’ll probably get even more popular with its awesome second evolution, though I reaaaaally don’t like his final form.

Progressing through the new ‘dex, we have the new versions of the Pokemon we get repeatedly: new annoying Normal-type for early on in the game based on some rodent (#504-505), new dog- and cat-based Pokemon (#506-510), new Normal/Flying bird based on a pigeon (#519-521). I usually don’t care all that much for these, but despite already having the Pidgey line, the new pigeon Pokemon is adorable and I like it so much better than the Starly line of the previous generation. We also have a new Pikaclone to join our army of Pikaclones! Emonga (#587, right) joins Pichu (2nd gen), Plusle, Minun (3rd gen), and Pachirishu (4th gen), and is probably the most adorable of the lot. It’s also Electric/Flying, making it the only non-pure Electric-type of the group, and the I am ridiculously excited to have another Electric/Flying aside from Zapdos because having legendaries on your team is lame.

There’s actually another new Electric/Flying for Black and White (#642); it seems to be part of a trio, along with a Ground/Flying (#645; the third of that type combo, after Gligar and Gliscor), and a straight-up Flying (#641). Aside from seeing more Pokemon fitting into certain type combinations, I am also really, stupidly excited to see some of the brand spankin’ new type combos, including Fire/Psychic (#494), Ground/Steel (#530), Ground/Dark (#551-553), Dark/Fighting (#559), Bug/Steel (#589, #632), Bug/Electric (#595-596), Grass/Steel (#597-598), Ghost/Fire (#607-609 — left, dude, it freakin’ looks like you set Driftloon on fire!), Electric/Ground (#618), Ground/Ghost (#622-623), Dark/Steel (#624-625), Dark/Dragon (#633-635), and a ton of others.

I am so glad they are finally adding more mixed type Electrics, Ghosts, and especially Dragons because Dragons are ridiculous with their single-type weakness, Ice, which is a pretty rare type to begin with. Pairing them with another type will hopefully make them a bit less overpowered. Then again, one of our box-cover legendaries, the white dragon that’s on the cover of Black, Reshiram, is Dragon/Fire… which means they probably aren’t weak to Ice, which means it’ll join the Dark/Ghosts (Spiritomb, Sableye) and have no freakin’ weakness! Maybe it will be weak to Water, but I kind of doubt it, even if Water is neutral to Dragon. There is also a new Dragon/Ice (#646)… which is definitely not weak to Ice. Tangentially, I’m still waiting for a Grass/Fire type, which would presumably not be weak to Fire, Ice, and Bug. Single-type Grass Pokemon have the second most disadvantages in the whole game (after Rock), and while there are already a lot of mixed Grass-types, I’d like to see more because I love Grass Pokemon and it sucks that they’re weak to everything!

But back to Reshiram… I am having a terrible time deciding whether I should get Black or White. On one hand, I like how Reshiram (above left; cover of Black) looks a lot better. On the other hand, even though Dragon/Fire would theoretically not have any type disadvantages, I much prefer Electric-types to Fire-types, and Zekrom (above right; cover of White) is Dragon/Electric. But I also like Reshiram’s name better, and I feel they’ll keep both names in the translation since they’ve kept most other legendaries. Other version differences thus far revealed include an exclusive area in both games — White gets White Forest and Black gets Black City. Kind of indifferent to this since I don’t really know what we do in each. Other than the legendaries, the only version-exclusive Pokemon known right now are two Psychics, #574-576 for White and #577-579 for Black. The latter trio (final form to the left) looks much better.

I guess I still have another half year to figure that out though, since the North America/Europe release is set for sometime Spring 2011. Oh, there seem to be no new Eeveelutions! I am not particularly surprised, considering they also skipped third gen. So I guess that means we’ll get another pair of new Eevees in uh… three years or so, when sixth rolls around. (I’m hoping for Ghost and Ground; how about you?)

But yeah. All in all, I am incredibly pleased with the new Pokemon for the fifth generation. The fandom, as always, seems to be very conflicted for the moment. Some people love them all; some people hate them all. A lot of people feel the new designs resemble Digimon a lot more than Pokemon, and while I can definitely see why — Reshiram and Zekrom in particular remind me a lot of Digimon because of how needlessly complex they are (and maybe also because they both have generators on their butts) — I don’t see why that’s a reason to be upset? It isn’t really as if all Pokemon before this have been entirely consistent in style. Just compare, I dunno, Pikachu with Machamp with Magnemite. All first generation originals; all very different Pokemon. Besides, you can’t simultaneously complain that we’re repeating too many animal species (pigeon-based Pokemon, tadpole-based Pokemon, bat-based Pokemon, etc) and that we’re diversifying too much.

Some people are also upset at the number of inanimate object-Pokemon like IceCreamConemon (#582-584) and Coffinmon (#563) and Gearmon (#599-601). Admittedly, I didn’t used to like animate object-Pokemon either, but they’ve kind of grown on me, especially after having used Bronzor/Bronzong in Platinum… and especially because Lawnmower!Rotom exists and is adorable (right). As long as they manage to make the designs either 1) badass, 2) adorable, 3) reasonably aesthetically pleasing, then I’m all right. You won’t like every single Pokemon in every single generation. I am personally not a big fan of most of third and fourth gen, and there are certainly Pokemon I don’t like in the first, second, and fifth, but hey, you win some, you lose some.

As such, I am preeeetty tired of people whining about how the first generation how the best Pokemon designs by virtue of being the first gen. Really, guys?

It’s a TURD WITH A NOSE, a RACIST DEPICTION OF A BLACK PERSON, an EXPLODING INVERTED POKEBALL, a PUDDLE OF SLUDGE, and THREE MAGNET BALLS STUCK TOGETHER. You cannot convince me that they are more awesome than:

So there. I can’t freakin’ wait until this comes out Stateside. In the meantime, I really need to finish up SoulSilver. <_<

There are only a few naysayers, and most either confused or cautiously speculative, but I honestly don’t think many things on the fandom end will be affected; there will just be more money in different people’s pockets. What’s really going to change with this acquisition? Disney is notorious for aggressive merchandising and pushing their licensed characters, but will a flood of new action figures and new Marvel-themed rides at Disneyland really affect Marvel’s artistic integrity or quality of work? As long as Disney keeps its hand out of what the folks at Marvel actually do, then I don’t see a problem. People were upset when Disney bought out Pixar too, but Pixar has, for the most part, retained its autonomy and continues to produce outstanding films. So why shouldn’t I expect Marvel to continue making comics like it always has?

Some people are concerned with the long list of Marvel properties being developed as films at the moment, but it isn’t like Disney is forcibly severing Marvel’s existing contracts with the dozens of studios already involved. If Marvel’s success in movies is part of why it was attractive to Disney, then shouldn’t Disney just let them continue doing their thing? Others are concerned that Disney might take away from the maturity and violence of certain Marvel titles, but if Disney was also attracted to Marvel’s popularity with boys and men of a wide demographic, why would they tamper with that by numbing anything down? Of course, logic hasn’t stopped companies from shooting themselves in the foot before, but Disney should know that they can’t afford to make too many mistakes here.

I guess I might be more concerned if I actually read more Marvel titles, but my Western comic consumption is pretty limited as is, and even then, it’s mostly DC for Batman. Still, I see this mostly as just another acquisition that will be accepted soon enough, just like Disney and Pixar and when Adobe bought Macromedia.

As for Kingdom Hearts, I don’t really think that Spider-Man will be making his debut there any time soon, but Square-Enix is just as notorious for exploiting its properties as Disney, so who would really be surprised? Sora, Spidey, and Mickey VS Xemnas, the Lizard, and Sephiroth, why the hell not?? At this point, Kingdom Hearts is every bit as much of a cash cow as Final Fantasy, so I’m not too invested in the franchise keeping any kind of integrity anymore. It’s too late for that already, so whatever! Bring it. …I’ll still buy it. Integration might be a little awkward considering most Marvel characters reside in the “real world,” but hey, it would be kind of awesome if Sora and his buddies could visit Manhattan and do the tourist thing. Sora in Times Square! Sora in Central Park! Sora at the Statue of Liberty! Sora riding in a taxi! I mean, they’ve already visited Port Royal and that was a real place too.

Just think, you could have Wolverine as a summon and he’d slash through Heartless for you… Okay, so I can’t actually picture Logan taking orders from Sora at all, but heeey. Maybe if Sora buys him a cigar and a beer.

From @debaoki (Editor of manga.about.com and one of the best AX twitter reporters I’ve found!):

okay at manga in US industry panel #ax09

lots of good commentary at manga in the US panel. lillian diaz-pryzbyl, luis reyes from tokyopop, plus robert napton fr. bandai

i can’t keep up with all the incredibly quotable quotes from the us manga panel at #ax09. very frank talk about failures, limitations.

there’s talk about how expensive it is to develop OEL manga – 4x as much as licensing manga from Japan.

Damn, that’s a huge investment difference — no wonder so few companies are willing to put forth the effort! Especially since they at least have an idea of how popular a licensed manga from Japan will do. With OEL, all the risk is on them — they have no idea how much it will sell, which leads into some cyclical failure as far as marketing goes. Seriously, how many OEL titles have you actually seen advertised? If TOKYOPOP pushed had pushed its OEL titles even half as much as they push Fruit Baskets, more of them might have had a chance. I also really get the idea that the talent search isn’t thorough enough — there are a slew of mediocre titles out there that pollute manga fans’ general opinion of OEL, which also contributes to this apparent downward spiral.

I really want to see more traditional US comics publishers to take on OEL projects. The companies that have previously been just licensing Japanese works may not have an incentive or the financial support to experiment with OEL, but at the very least, companies like Marvel and DC have money to play with. And I don’t mean any of the “manga versions” of their existing titles either — manga X-Men and manga Batman don’t count. I guess they still don’t have much of an incentive, but it’s unfortunate if they’re only looking for original projects in a certain style. If VIZ’s eventual original comics line will be willing to accept good pitches in any style, then why can’t Marvel and DC?

lots of talk about how the US system is not equipped to train artists to be better artists, storytellers.

US industry doesn’t allow artists time to develop their skills over time – demand for quick $$ return

at this panel, they’re showing examples of student work from a manga program at a local university. they’re all v. mediocre. #ax09

the very amateurish examples being shown on the screen don’t help anyone think that OEL manga has much to offer.

Exactly. No wonder no one wants to buy OEL! Consider that a vast majority of TOKYOPOP’s OEL titles were picked up form high school and college kids that entered their Rising Stars competition — most of them have never had any sort of formal training, so it’s really no surprise that they putter out so quickly. Their 20-page one shot might be okay, but give them a three-volume series and they have no idea what to do. I really get the feeling that TOKYOPOP was too eager to break into that market since no one else was tapping it at the time. Manga had only been popular for a few short years when Rising Stars was started, so there was only one generation of fan-turned-artists to draw from (admittedly, there were lots of manga fans from before the big boom, but the recent generation is the biggest crowd to take from). If they had started a few years later, there would have been many, many more art school-trained artists that would have been more capable of tackling the challenge of building up an OEL market in the States. Then again, many art-school trained artists still suck in the storytelling department because all they focus on is drawing, as noted below:

korean comics industry is smaller, but seems to allow for experimental comics to be more successful

“very few US manga artists have that fusion of drawing skills and knowledge of how a story flows”

webcomic artists forget that their pace of drawing 3 pages a week is too slow for professional work.

“it’s very difficult to be an awesome artist & an awesome writer at the same time.”

“We’ve met great artists who are miserable writers. There’s only so much an editor can do to fix an awful story.”

“so many 14 year olds on deviant art say “I’ve got a great idea for a manga”

“I say ‘give it 10 years & come back to me when you know how to write.’ – & that’s me being NICE.”

“ive been to many portfolio reviews where the artist says ‘this is not my best work’– so why show it?”

Lillian was frank that they think that they don’t pay artists enough, but the biz structure makes it hard to pay more

“we don’t care that you can draw naruto in 15 poses. Being able to draw a character in a story, that’s what we want”

Ouch. And yet there are so many artists I know that will openly admit that they can’t write worth a damn. But they still want to draw their own comics. There aren’t enough comic-oriented art programs in the United States — most liberal arts universities have a very general art program with most of the focus on traditional fine art. As such, they will have students work on technique and style, but not storytelling. It might be more useful for aspiring comickers to enroll in a film program instead, or at least take a few directional classes on camera and storytelling. It blows my mind that countries like France and Korea invest so much more into the arts and recognize so many more branches of art; no wonder both of their comic markets are ten times as prosperous as the one in the United States.

Interesting bit about the webcomic artists though — what is the professional pace of pages per week? I feel like this is something I should know, but the rate would be different depending on how many people are working together on the pages (penciler, inker, toner/colorist). This really is a ruthless industry, lots of work for very little reward other than your own satisfaction, but your own satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills.

general consensus is that OEL manga development is a low priority for publishers in hard economic times.

“the bookstore model works as consignment: you can sell 10,000 books to these stores, then they can return 9,000.”

“this really plays havok with a business to be stuck with 9,000 books that’s headed to the compactor.”

Bad news for all the recent and soon-to-be-graduates looking for jobs! (Oh snap, that includes me.) I think this is all the more reason to hope that the Longbox really takes off since it’ll make production and distribution much, much easier and cost-effective for publishers, which could theoretically translate into them being more willing to take chances with original projects.

–

Not really specifics from the AX panel, but here’s some good additional commentary from @CBCebulski (Talent scout for Marvel Comics):

The U.S. comic system is equipped to train artists. The problem with OEL is that a lot of them aren’t artists. They’re manga fans who draw.

Many OEL kids were thrown into, and taken advantage of, by a fledgling business they had no education in or understanding of.

Early OEL chewed up and spit out a lot of artists who did have talent and just needed guidance and support. I hope they stick with it.

I know many “OEL artists” who have stuck it out and have successful careers now, but there are plenty more who walked away disenchanted.

Hopefully they’ll go to art school, learn more about the comic form, & give it another go, w/ a company/editor who can guide them this time.

Reading manga is not a proper art education.

The last bit makes me laugh, though while I agree, I also think that reading a ton of manga/comics definitely helps. There was a girl in one of my classes last year that admitted to not reading a lot of comics at all. Everyone else in the class was all, “Then why the hell are you here?”

It has some very Apple-inspired aethestics.

I’ve written about the idea of digital distribution of comics before, but had only considered a web-based platform because that was what most companies seemed to be experimenting with at the time. And really, I think one of the other reasons I hadn’t considered the iTunes model before is because I couldn’t really see the comics (or manga) industry ever agreeing on a universal solution, especially considering how haphazard and all over the place everyone’s digital model is for anime and television streams and downloads. And yet, how convenient and elegant it would be if they could agree? If you could find all your comics in one place for the super cheap price of $0.99/issue? It’s just about perfect.

With all the comics inflation that’s been happening recently, the price point of the Longbox might be the most attractive feature for both consumers and companies. Marvel has raised its most popular titles from $2.99/issue to $3.99/issue. For me, the three bucks I’d save buying a digital version is well worth sacrificing the novelty of a hard copy, especially when those three bucks add up every Wednesday. I could use that extra money to buy more comics! For graphic novels, if we go by prices set by various current web-models, they might go for anywhere between $2.50 and $4.50 a volume — at least half the price of Viz’s new $9.99 standard and TOKYOPOP’s $10.99. And for companies, since there would be zero printing costs, and since the Longbox supports formats already being used, it isn’t unlikely that they’d see an even bigger profit margin from digital sales.

A lot of people already read comics digitally, whether legally or illegally, so I really don’t think that transition will be much of an issue here. With money tight in everyone’s pocket’s these days, it’s hard to argue tradition with cost, and the publishing industry in general has been declining for a while. When Amazon’s Kindle 2 released in February, my feed reader was bombarded with Slashdot and New York Times articles comparing its surging popularity with that of Apple’s iPod with further comparisons with the music industry in general. And indeed, there do seem to be a lot of similarities, including telltale mistakes. The Longbox does seek to interface with the Kindle, as well as the score of other experimental eReaders like the iPhone, WiiWare, DS, and Xbox Live. The graphic format of comics might make it more challenging to adapt than text, but at this point, I see its acceptance as inevitable, at the very least on computer screens.

The last thing is, of course, content. A few studios are already on board, but no one major yet (ie, no Marvel or DC or Dark Horse, no Viz or TOKYOPOP). I am hoping that this will change soon as news of the Longbox makes its way around. Really, I don’t see any reason for it to fail once the major players sign on — iTunes is a proven success, and I don’t think comics or comics consumers are all that different from music and music consumers. Such a dramatic shift to digital comics will be hard on a lot of people and there will be casualties in the process (comic stores that don’t host D&D games will be the first to go), but as Ron Richards over at iFanboy dramatically puts it, “Digital comics are inevitable.  Change or Die.”

Naturally, the Pokémon community exploded today with this much, much anticipated announcement. It’s something that pretty much everyone knew was coming, but I guess I was always one of those cautiously optimistic ones. I don’t like putting too much faith into things until they’re official, and even then, sometimes announcements don’t follow through. I probably should have known better though. After all, Pokémon is never going to die! So no worries! HeartGold and SoulSilver are now official! And it will have a lot of new/updated features and other awesome things that will make people want to buy it more than they already do!

It’s like the anticipation for the original Gold/Silver all over again. The glorious nostalgia returns! I think keeping up hardcore with the news back then for G/S is one of the reasons I consider G/S my favorite generation and one of the reasons I have the fondest memories of my Silver game. Even though all the rumors didn’t follow through in the end (no male/female choice for instance), there was just such a huge upgrade between the second generation and the first generation that it was hard to be disappointed.

I don’t expect that things will be quite as drastic this time around, but consider this: the original G/S (and Crystal) were the only games that featured the lands of the previous generation. Can you imagine how amazing it would be if the remake featured all four major islands? Kanto, Jhoto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh, and probably a few extra feature islands too? I think all Pokéfans everywhere would just shit themselves with head-exploding happiness if that happened. Man, oh man. It’s highly unlikely considering the complex map shenanigans they’d have to pull, but we can dream, right?

As of yet, we don’t seem to have a projected release date or any hints towards what the newly added features might be, but I don’t doubt it’ll be fun following this news for the next however long it takes.

I absolutely cannot wait to have Totodile as my starter again, holy crap. You don’t even know!

There’s already been a live action adaptation of Death Note. Two of them, in fact, since the story isn’t easily told in one. I might be in the few as far as thinking that they were both fantastic movies and worked wonderfully as adaptations (I swear I’ll get around to reviewing them both), but the fact remains that it’s already been done, not to mention that L spinoff movie, which I’ve yet to see. All three of those movies have been licensed and released Stateside, so why do we need Hollywood to make another one?

Of course, Hollywood re-making Japanese (and other Asian) films is nothing new, and there are many instances where those re-makes are wildly popular and subsequently profitable. The Ring comes to mind, but I’ve seen neither that nor Ringu, from which it was based. Even so, there’s at least one adaptation that I found to be successful (The Departed, based on a Hong Kong film). But Death Note is not a J-horror and Death Note is not an action drama. And from what I can understand, Warner Brothers will not be basing their movie off of the existing movies, so Death Note isn’t even a movie.

Death Note is a superntural, psychological, suspense thriller manga, and I have little faith that a Hollywood adaptation will 1) make any money, 2) treat the source material right, 3) be a decent movie on any kind of level. Well, at least it isn’t Fox, right?

There are just so many potential problems with this that I can’t imagine enough of them being conquered for this to work. I might draw up a full list later if I feel like putting forth the energy to rant about it (if you want though, Gia’s already got at least five ways they can fuck it up), but for now, here is the biggest issues I see:

Audience Appeal

As fans, we have become jaded. It’s hard to ignore and forget this kind of abomination, as much as we’d all like to try. Some people say that fans are too critical and can never be pleased, and that might be true to a certain extent, but I like to think that there are actually a lot of people that are willing to give things a chance if given a reason to be positive. After all, I have hope in the upcoming Cowboy Bebop adaptation, and I’m also cautiously hopeful about that Akira adaptation. And it isn’t just the live action medium since, as I’ve mentioned, I love both already existing live action adaptations for Death Note. I was also kind of fond of the Speed Racer movie, if only because it refused to take itself seriously — that works for Speed Racer. It would never work for Death Note.

This might be a more minor thing, but it might be worth mentioning that some fans, while still fans, have gotten sick of the title’s supreme oversaturation across all markets. I mean, the manga finished in 2006. In the three short years since then, there has already been two live action movies, one spinoff, and an anime. Now there’s going to be yet another movie? Geez.

As far as the general audience goes though, is Death Note even the sort of story that would fly in the States? I think the supernatural element would be a huge turn-off both because straight-up monster-looking things aren’t that popular in [serious] American movies and because CG becomes an issue. Ryuk’s design and translation into CG was already an issue for the Japanese adaptations, but if it’s anything less than amazing this time around, people won’t go for it because they will compare it to stuff like Pirates of the Caribbean and I doubt Death Note will have the budget to compete with that.

I wonder if the whole capital punishment theme would cause a stir at all, and if so, would it be positive or negative as far as ticket sales go? Consider that so many schools took issue when Death Note-like notebooks made rounds in middle schools with kids’ “enemies’” names scrawled in the pages — would they be afraid of more stuff like that happening as a result of a domestic movie’s release? It’s also worth noting that The Boondock Saints was a movie that had a similar theme: it had a limited release and poor reviews, but has garnered a cult following since. Death Note already has a cult following, but the cult is hypercritical. Would WB’s Death Note create a new sublegion of fans? People that knew nothing of Death Note before seeing that version?

Warner Bros. must realize how big of a gamble this is. Speed Racer tanked. Dragonball Evolution tanked phenomenally. If they can’t help but do more manga/anime adaptations for some explicable reason, I have to wonder why someone doesn’t pick up a few shoujo titles and have at some chick flicks — why all these crazy shounen and supernatural stuff? Shoujo is, by nature, much, much more suitable for live action. The Japanese understand this — there are tons of dramas and movies based off shoujo. But none by Hollywood.

I’m really curious to see how many fansub groups this official stream deters. Since the stream is only available for those in the US and France, there will likely still be foreign language sub efforts. It’s probably presumptuous of me, but I feel at least a little confident in guessing that a significant portion of fansubbers and leechers reside in the US. I don’t usually keep up with these things, so I’m not sure if any major fansub groups have already announced FMA:Brotherhood as a project, but if there have been, I wonder if any will drop it out right following this announcement.

Dattebayo dropping Naruto when Viz started its simulcast was a big deal. It’s exciting to see FUNimation starting to do something similar with a new series — especially FMA, which is already wildly popular in the States.

As for this series… I’m still kind of pessimistic about it; its very existence right now annoys me. Even though I’m a little relieved that it isn’t a sequel after all, the fact that it’s a remake doesn’t help that much either. The bottom line I have to repeat is that the manga still isn’t finished; why are you remaking the series now? If you’re going to remake a series so it’s more faithful to its source, why don’t you wait until the source is actually complete so you aren’t inevitably forced to start making stuff up like you did the first time? What’s going to change in this remake? Seriously, what’s going to change?

Haha, honestly, I think I’m now more excited about FUNimation’s stream of the series than the series itself. There’s been a lot of experimentating with the digital streaming, and it’s been confusing because most companies will have a site stream in addition to a YouTube and Hulu channel. I actually really like FUNi’s video site though, so I definitely look forward to having a completely legitmate way of watching this series as it airs. I almost wish FUNi had more ads on its video site — I do want to support them, and if I can do it without actually buying anything (hey, we’re all struggling, y’know?), then all the better. These are still experiments — they are undoubtedly still messing around and seeing what works — but I want them to succeed.

The animation looks gorgeous and, for me at least, erases many of the doubts that came with the first look at the artwork a few months back. The character designs are very faithful, as are the backgrounds, and the action. The music reminds me a lot of Baccano!, which threw me off a little at first — it’s very energetic, upbeat, and kind of hookey, which clashes with some of DOGS’s darker undertones. But considering that the OAV will only follow the storyline from “Stray dogs howling in the dark” rather than Bullets&Carnage, the humorous energy isn’t all that misplaced.

The trailer itself isn’t a great indication of story, so those unfamiliar with the manga probably won’t be impressed by much, though the action does looks nice. I’m really eager to see a trailer that will show more general background music and that will show speaking parts. I listened to the first drama CD again not long ago; it still sounded great, so I’m excited to see it all match up with their animated images. Gleeeee.

In the meantime, I’ve got “volume 0″ of Viz’s release of the DOGS manga on preorder and can’t wait to get it~.

Anyway. I found this strange and slightly disturbing article via Slashdot today. There are people trying to combine human with animal DNA. Seriously, what the hell? Okay, okay, so despite what Slashdot implied, they weren’t actually trying to make crazy mutant hybrids — they were trying to see if mixing the DNA would enable them with a more reliable way to grow stem cells. I still find that goal kind of questionable though; even if the experiment had resulted in living stem cells, would they have been able to grow into anything useful? If you’ve suffered third degree burns, would you want a skin graft with skin grown from human-cow hybrid cells? o_o

I’m not really sure anymore what made the catgirl (and catboy, and various other hybrids) attractive in the first place. I find it especially puzzling when so much of the anime community seems to look down at the furry subculture. I don’t think many people ever considered the fantasy any more than just a fantasy with no scientific plausibility whatsoever, but it’s still kind of a relief to know that it’s now proven not to work. I still never thought anyone would be crazy enough to try it for real though.

If catpeople ever came to be, I’m pretty sure they would take over the world.