silence is deafening...

[Brockway]

I like Megas... Not for the art, or the characters (its Jay and Silent Bob, with the lady from Dogma thrown in...) but because its funny. Not in a smart, "oh, what a funny play on words!" but like "OMFG! He's wearing voltron like a tshirt and socks!" Its stupid funny.

[K-Dawg]

I have a theory this forum was created because once a bunch of spacer anime geeks kept the GD forum cluttered with anime threads. Then they got this one, and, of course, they left...

As it is, it's almost as useless as the CCAs forum.

I can help fill in some voids, I was around the boards when this place emerged. Couple years back a huge fad started when people decided to make Keenspace dropdowns. There was a Keenspace anime dropdown before this one I think it was like KeenManga or something. It had huge popularity and it was like any comic that was anime influenced wanted to join it. This dropdown eventually fizzled out before it was impossible to keep up with it. After a while I think it was Bryan Wong from Seasons of Constacy that started up Keenime. It just like it's predecessor was very popular and a crapload of anime influenced comics came to join it. After a while I think the admins here decided to give them their own forum. It started off okay but then Keenime ended up fizzling out as too many people were joining it.

[Brockway]

Hee...

Brock is a member of the YDK Spacers and Keen Heroines Dropdowns

8)

[Wp]

How does too many people signing up fizzle a forum?

On the animation note, it's interesting to see how these things evolve. I never really realized what made movie versions of American cartoons look so different until I started watching anime. Movie versions always have more color layers for cell-shading. But they still don't go as far as anime in terms of number of color layers. They also didn't tend to do detailed backgrounds until recently. Well, Warner Bros. had ok backgrounds, but for some anime, the backgrounds are like painted pictures. The first season of Sailor Moon had about the least detailed backgrounds that I've seen.

Oh, and about Robotech. I thought it was Japanese to begin with. Are Americans making the sequel now?

[JexKerome]

Surprised you don't know what's up with Robotech. Or maybe it's just that I'm a geek.

Robotech is an american creation. A guy named Carl Macek attempted to bring anime to the States big time, but the biggest hurdle he found was that most anime were too short to be syndicated, and all the potential sponsors balked at that. So he took three different anime from Tatsunoko: SuperDimensional Fortress Macross, SuperDimensional Army Southern Cross and Genesis Survivor Mospeada and welded them together, through heavy editing, to make Robotech.

History was made then. Comics, novels, toys, and of course, bringing Anime to the masses, in a history where characters doubted, loved and died, and the futility and horrors of war were clearly shown. Robotech was a runaway hit.

Carl Macek had it made, and in the 80's, with his company Harmony Gold, set out to make a sequel to Robotech, animated by japanese but the story being a shared effort. The sequel was called 'Robotech II: The Sentinels". A few episodes were made and then disaster struck: the company lost all funding, the yen gained on the dollar, and the project was cancelled. To recover some of the cost, Harmony Gold stitched the few R2 episodes into a movie, and that was all.

Then, in 2000 Harmony Gold launched Robotech.com. The site's purpose is twofold: first, to sell oodles of stuff to Robotech fans, and second, to create a community for Robotech fans to gather, and run by them the idea of ANOTHER Robotech series.

Of course the fans where foaming at the bit for such an event. Harmony Gold first proposed an All-CG series, dubbed Robotech 3000, firmly based in events that would have appeared in Sentinels. Fan respone and financial setbacks killed the project before it really started. Harmony Gold then felt silent until a year ago, when it began to hint at yet another Robotech series. The fans were wary at first, but the thing seems to be for real, and now it has a name: Robotech Shadow Force.

It's also a direct continuation of Robotech, starting where it left off, and so the fans are more eager to see it. As for how good it can really be, it's everyone's guess: Harmony Gold's very tight lipped about it, and not even character/mecha sketches have been released, though according to the story, the mecha would be Shadow Alphas and Betas for the human side.

[Wp]

I'm 22, so Robotech kinda missed me. When they started showing it again on Cartoon Network, I couldn't really get into it. I have a hard time getting into big robot and space animes because they tend to get pretty involved with politics. I'm no fan of politics.

On that note, the amount of information you provided is just scary.

[JexKerome]

Man, you silly young people never end to amaze me. Why you came aboard when you did is a mystery to me. You missed Robotech, the original Star Wars, The Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screenings, The Back to the Future Trilogy, the Beatles, Man landing on the Moon...


Wait. I also missed the Beatles and Man landing on the Moon....

[Wp]

Heh, you just call us young people cuz you're jealous.

Star Wars did indeed pass me by, but I have seen them fully. I love Star Wars; can't really get sick of watching them. I'm even horrified if I run into someone my age who hasn't seen the original Star Wars (not the filth they are putting out now). And they do exist.

How "old" are you exactly? I was noticing how you had a traditional old-school anime feel to your art. Like Miyazaki or something.

[JexKerome]

Ah, what an interesting question.

Anyway: What would you call Robotech? a hybrid? anime? japanimation? Bear in mind the art is 100% japanese and the episodes were cut/edited/rearranged to fit the american plot.

And the same would go for the upcoming sequel, and the newest incarnation of Astroboy. Which term would fit it best?

[Wp]

It is a really hard question. I don't think anime at the time was very well established style (correct me if I'm wrong), so I'm not sure you can distinguish anime by culture with Robotech. Especially since it wasn't long ago that the Japanese were influenced by America's own Disney. I would just go ahead and categorize it as a hybrid or even just anime.

Now that anime has been suffused with Japanese culture and mannerisms, I don't think you can call an American-manufactured plot "anime" even though the art is 100% Japanese. There's very little "Disney" in anime these days.

I'm one of those people who categorize all these animations as plain "cartoons," but there are some hardcore fans who would get crazy mad if I called anime cartoons.

[JexKerome]

I know what you mean. A friend's friend, who's 20 if he's a day, tried to lecture us (my brothers and me) on the "evils" of anime and manga. He mentioned being a part of a club where everyone freaked out if you called anime "cartoons", and where you would be worshipped like a god if you brought anything manga related in japanese. We just rolled our eyes and decided not to tell him that:

a) We've been reading manga and watching anime since before he started junior high, and

b) Stuff in japanese has been pretty common for at least a decade, if you just take time to look for it. Which, with the Internet, is no problem at all.

He also warned us manga and anime were black holes that sucked the money off you. Little twerp couldn't even hold on to his allowance...

[Wp]

Geez, you know, I tried to keep this forum alive and kickin', but I just can't think of anything else to say. What can we doooooooooooooo???????????

[JexKerome]

I don't know. Maybe do some polls about anime, then discuss the current anime on cable TV...

[Keffria]

The only anime I ever see on television is crud like Inuyasha and Yu Gi Oh. Bleh. I want to subscribe to one of those nice anime channels.

He also warned us manga and anime were black holes that sucked the money off you.

Well, they are... Around here, manga is generally $15 (plus tax) for one little standard-size book, which you could plow through in less than an hour if you don't take the time to fully enjoy the pretty pictures. An anime DVD is around $40, unless you hunt around for a sale.

(Sure, you can probably find cheap stuff on the internet, but I have no interest in shopping online. And we won't start on downloading...)

[JexKerome]

The only anime I ever see on television is crud like Inuyasha and Yu Gi Oh. Bleh. I want to subscribe to one of those nice anime channels.

How many do you have back in Canada?

[quote=Keffria"]

He also warned us manga and anime were black holes that sucked the money off you.

Well, they are... Around here, manga is generally $15 (plus tax) for one little standard-size book, which you could plow through in less than an hour if you don't take the time to fully enjoy the pretty pictures. An anime DVD is around $40, unless you hunt around for a sale.
[/quote]

$40 canadian for a DVD?! Wow, now I don't feel so bad about the peso ^^!

Around here (the U.S. Border) the little books go for about $10, and the DVDs for $15 or $20. What actually struck me as dumb on his comment was the fact that the kid still lived with his parents, which have no lack of money, so it's not like he ever went hungry or anything because of anime and manga. It's like, for his age, he didn't really realize other people live differently; either that or the guy has no clue about handling money.

Myself, I provide for my household (both parents, two brothers I can't somehow get rid ofeven though the youngest is 27, and three dogs), own (or rather, owned) an Xbox, have DSL Internet and Cable TV (no patience for sat TV), play virtually every single Games Workshop game, and yet find the money to buy manga and anime at a leisurely, yet constant pace. Not bad for a 30-bucks-a-day salary, huh?

[McDuffies]

Guys, why are you so eager to get this forum closed? Or to get it alive for that matter? God knows it's not the only dead forum around here, I don't see you trying to revive a gear forum for instance, or any of dead comics forum. Let it be, it may be the waste of resources, but HD memory is the cheapest resource there is, and you wouldn't know what to do with those resources anyway.
EDIT: CCA forum does it's purpose too. It's active that time of the year. Well, they can't make a new forum every year, can they?

Glad you get it's only the art. I hate it when people say things like "sweat drops and big eyes are a cliche" when they're just part of the style.

I think you're wrong too, sweat drops, chibie faces, etc... are methods, techniques. It comes down to a simple editorial decision of an artist, whether he's gonna use them or not. It's not even so closely related to manga, anymore, it's accepted in comics that have nothing to do with manga too. Often so that artist wouldn't bother with drawing face expressions...

Heh, and naming everything that's manga-influenced a manga... As an ex SF fan, I think it's as much wrong as calling "Star wars" science fiction.

[McDuffies]

Oh, btw, Jex, it was not very fair to ask for termination of this forum knowing that only a few forumers have read this thread. It would be fair if you asked us what we think about it in GD, maybe someone has the reason to keep it that you don't know about. Working behind the back of fellow forumites, eh?

[Keffria]

Feh. The forum does seem a bit pointless right now. What could be discussed here that couldn't be brought up elsewhere?

The only anime I ever see on television is crud like Inuyasha and Yu Gi Oh. Bleh. I want to subscribe to one of those nice anime channels.

How many do you have back in Canada?

Umm... I think I need a satellite dish or something like that to get anything, if anything is, in fact, available. As it is, the only anime I see on TV is on that kids' network, YTV, so it's all crap.

$40 canadian for a DVD?! Wow, now I don't feel so bad about the peso ^^!

Yeah. (The DVD in question being disc 4 of Cowboy Bebop... Pretty standard price.) >.<

But on the other hand, my public library has started to carry anime and manga. Not always the good stuff, but hey... I get to watch Grave of the Fireflies as soon as the the hold comes in (I've heard it's quite good)...

Jex, I'm in awe of your budgeting skills...

[JexKerome]

Ah, Grave of the Fireflies. I heartily recommend to everyone to BUY and treasure this masterpiece. It's poignant and very sincere about the subject matter. I watched it and nearly cried. A couple, friends of mine, watched it and were awash in tears by the time it ended. They have a little girl, see, and so they associated her with the child in the movie... very very VERY powerful stuff.

And Srdjan, what I did was merely ask "hey, you guys know about the Keenime Forum? Are you taking it down?"; I did not go like "Hey, this is Your Supreme Commander Speaking, I DEMAND you take down this forum". I didn't go with the latTer option 'coz I'm not your Supreme Commander YET; when I DO become your Supreme Commander, not only will I have this forum razed, but another one erected to Glorify My Name Forever!!!!!


NYOHOHOHOHO!

[Wp]

McDuffies, it may not be too hard on resources, but it is a useless forum. Look, this is the first surge in comments in literally months. And wow, there're about 5 people who are consistently posting! If you needed an entire forum for every 5 posters... Most of what we're talking about can easily go in Off-Topic.

I don't think JexKerome is going behind anyone's back. Not many forum-goers have seen this thread because no one cares about this forum enough to look at the threads inside. This thread has been going on for about two or three weeks, and now you've decided to peek in? To me, that shows you don't really care that much (unless you've been on vacation or something, but even then, I don't see you posting much on this board). And sure, there's plenty of dead forums out there, but that doesn't mean we *shouldn't* get rid of them. The existence of free HD space is not an excuse to keep this alive. Now, knowing that deleting it would cause major hiccups in the server; that's a good excuse not to kill the forum. Since this is the case, I agree not to kill Keenime.

And I disagree with you about chibi and sweat drops. I haven't seen even close to all the manga there is to see, but I can say with utmost confidence that most manga with comedic elements uses chibi and sweat drops. Certainly, all the comedies I've seen use them. To me, this makes it a stylistic element and not a method/technique. Therefore, I would go as far as to say that they are elements intrinsic to anime/manga comedy. Even though sweat drops have been used in many other works, they are still an essentially Japanese contrivance.