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Anime and the Future of Digital Animation
Glog writes: "According to Wired Magazine Manga Entertainment has announced the release of their first digital anime feature Blood: The Last Vampire to theaters. The movie showcases a unique blend of japanese anime and computer animation. It will be streamed live for 24 hours all day Tuesday (August 28, 2001)." Jump straight to blood.sputnik7.com to see the movie; Real and Windows Media only.
I also think it's so stupid to have names like "The Last whatever", especially as it's the first bloody release. Make a stupidly cliched name that only tries to make it look like they are not newbies. At least in Final Fantasy I he thought it was going to be his last game, but come on "Blood: the last vampire" is a bit over the top cliche. It's not a great way to create a respected house IMHO, and is a bit goddamn pretentious.
A name, a year, something different. Why not just go all out like Microsoft when they released "Fury 3": hello? Where the fuck were the first two? NOWHERE. Trying to create the impression of a solid history is lame-o-central I think.
But hey I'm nitpicking. It might be good. I just hate names like that one.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
...attracts our best and brightest!
Any doubts, see the posts above.
Good idea, post it on slashdot, and now ladies and gentlemen, it *WAS* going to be streamed for 24Hrs.... :)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
The Power of /. can squash a web server hosting vanalla HTML...
:-P
:-)
So posting a link to a steaming movie will surly not degrade the ability for them to operate this service.
Maybe I'll try this link next week after everyone who's trying to watch it now gets done with the movie.
What's a sig?
I don't like Real at all, and I resent having to either download it or reboot to Windows. So I won't bother watching at all, until someone somewhere warezifies it into DivX or something.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
You are technically correct. Anime=animation in japanese.
As a medium, anime and cartoons are no different.
The major difference is the content. Most cartoons(at least now adays) are mindless comedic fun for little kids.I feel sorry for little kids now a days, no big action shows(a-team, knight rider, airwolf) or cartoons G.I. Joe, Transformers like in the 80's.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
In the Grim Future of Hello Kitty there is Only War!
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
I caught the "American Premiere" at the 2001 Anime Expo in Long Beach that happened this July. (If you were there, I was in the group of guys shouting "BLOOD!" at the top of our lungs in the front of the line.) I put "American Premiere" in quotes, because as I understand it, the movie was released well over a year ago in Japan, and has been seen extensively in the US in the form of fansubs.
As far as the animation goes, it was as good as any other anime. If I hadn't known it was computer generated, I would never have known. Unfortunately, that was a problem. I was disappointed by how little they used that to their advantage. One time that I can recall did they use a moving background, a behind-the-head shot that was jerky and strangely disorienting. I was expecting massive and motive backgrounds and fewer of the static camera angles common to Anime. The movie doesn't make enough use of it to be really noticeable.
As for the movie itself, I enjoyed it. The movie's action is strong and well done, but the plot feels like it's been taken from the middle of a TV series without context. It's also very short and ends rather abruptly. All in all though, it was very good and worth the four hours spent in line. (Though you lucky SOBs just get to stream it. What's up with that?)
Think about it. By sticking to stuff that requires closed-source (or preferably Windows-only) code, and requiring things like registration, you protect yourself very effectively from the /. effect.
I mean really, how many things really benefit from being featured on slashdot?
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
Beauty and the Beast, Titan AE, I can think of a lot more scenes but I can't remember what shows they were from. Now "Blood". Gee golly, something new?
No.
And if you don't like violent people in school uniforms, don't watch Japanese cartoons! Shall I complain about the awful special effects in I Dream Of Jeannie? Why bother?
Pokimon has one great aspect: Young people with concealed weapons going around helping people and defeating badguys. Morally speaking, it's a gun-control freak's nightmare!
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
It's already Wednesday here!
Anyone that wants to buy it (and can handle PAL recordings) may wish to buy it from an Australian online DVD retailer, it's been out here for about 3 weeks.
Didn't Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) use digital animation in it as well? There are a couple of scenes with that super-clean look that you get from mixing traditional animation with computer animation. Heck, Futurama uses that blend all the time!
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
Amen. I'd perfectly happy to see Microsoft take over the world of streaming media, since they couldn't make something secure on the most securingest day of their life with an automatic securing machine (blatent Simpsons ripoff).
ASFRecorder is a godsend. I just wish someone would update Streambox VCR to work with the new Real formats so that I can have a solution for those few remaining sites that don't offer streaming video in both formats.
If I can get the RealMedia file local, there are ways to converting it to an open format (they are all a major pain in the ass but at least its possible). However, I have yet to find a way to watch a streaming RealMedia clip without installing that privacy-nightmare known as RealPlayer.
Anyone have an update on this situation?
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
the site is still working, at least the realplayer option to stream is...but i really think that the story was lacking....its only an hour long, which might explain why they chose to stream it, as opposed to some of the other longer, more satisfying films. I do have to say that the effects and artistry of the film were quite nice, and they raised my appreciation of the film, but not enough to make me recommend the hour-sit down to anyone that has any else to do.
also if slashcode is a content control system, why aren't the useless comments like you can find in this topic super group being dropped...i don't think that its a violation of anyones rights to drop useless comments by anonymous cowards, but maybe the group/moderators are of a different opinion.
No need to get it through Manga. Just go to your local Japanese video store and rent it. It's almost all in English, and the stuff that's in Japanese isn't very important to the plot (not that it has one), although I'm sure Manga won't miss the opportunity to do a horrible dubbing job ( Blood's english voice acting was better than most of the dubbing you get from American distributors).
I don't know what the big deal about the animation is either. It looks very similar to what they did with Ghost in the Shell, and actually I think some of the attempts at photorealistic backgrounds look funny. They are claiming it's "Japan's first full-digital animated feature" whatever.... The art was hand drawn, scanned and then painted and manipulated digitally... I think Ghibli did the same thing with Mononoke Hime.
The REALLY interesting Japanese application of computer graphics is Furi Curi (FLCL) from Gainax (the guys who did Evangelion, Nadia and Wings of Honneamise). THAT is some freakin amazing stuff.
Hey How can you save the streamed video to disk so you can watch it without having it skip, or post it on an FTP site so the rest of us can watch it before the site gets Slashdotted...
The comination of 3D backgrounds and 2D characters was very nicely intergrated.
I liked the story too. It was rather short, and the ending was a bit abrupt, but all in all I think it was a job well done. Not as ambitious as something like Final Fantasy or Titan A.E., but a much more straightforward plot. better emotional content too, IMHO.
I haven't seen a lot of Anime, but I've seen some good and some bad. This is good.
It seems like most of the posters here were reviewing it without having seen it. I thought slashdotters were supposed to be smart.
As far as a marketing concept is concerned, it worked for me. Now I want to see it on the big screen, and I know what I wiil be paying for. Other moviemakers take note. Give us a free taste of something good, and we will gladly pay for the full meal.
And if you like 3D animation, check out my 5 minute streaming movie, ROADTRIP. Quicktime required. Let me know what you think of it.
- Abby Digital -
I saw this with friends about a fortnight ago on video, here in Oz.
We were terribly disappointed because the vid only ran for 60 minutes, and then was followed
by a skin-crawling self-congratulatory "making-of" doco, which padded the overall runtime of the vid to 90 minutes.
So, is the movie longer than 60 minutes? I hope so.
The version we were subjected to was slow; we're talking people walking as if they were on tranquillisers(!),
so that shots of characters going from a car to a building took 10-15 seconds - way too long for an action flick.
We eventually decided they did this to stretch the film to even get to 60 minutes at all, and not for an atmosphere of dense terror.
It just became utterly frustrating, when compared to the pace and intrigue of the opening scene.
Well I'm glad that slashdot posted thist, mostly because I didn't know it exsisted before. I am also bemused that Slashdot managed to destroy the server. Bravo guys! I was hoping to post a review of the movie but it seems that I'll just have to wait for it to come back up, or go find a copy of it myself. ^_^
The Tweak Files: Sanity is for t
"The movie showcases a unique blend of japanese anime and computer animation. " uhm.. i cant even count how many animes do this (and *have* done this). the more popular i can think of would be Ghost in the Shell. does alot of anime and computer animated stuff. whats so special about this one that makes it stand out?
i personally havent been very impressed with anything US Manga has released. ADV seems to be doing better.. or maybe they're just getting the better animes before US Manga.
What good is being able to disable Anime in my prefs if you keep spitting it out in different topics?
*Now* they say its streaming live.....
I only bought the DVD last week..... b*ds!
It is well worth seeing though and on the DVD the making of doco is pretty cool. The way they handled it as a 'project', it was almost like a bunch of geeks sitting around planning a case mod or something [:
----- One piece short of Legoland
He's got a good point, naming is too often overlooked in storytelling. "Blood" is a stupid obvious boring name, like a producer would come up with. "Escaflowne" however is brilliant. "Pod Race" is moronic, "Millenium Falcon" is excellent (don't know what happened there - Lucas did make up both names, didn't he?). It'd be good to see more effort put into naming, but as with everything else I'm sure it will always end up 90% crap.
Remember that in the early days of film the stories were little more than technology demonstrations; eventually it grew into the major art form of the twentieth century.
We have the advantage now of knowing that it can be art. As well, we have many, many examples of what can make it so. We're ahead of the game. Just wait.
We're currently enamored of the tools, because they are new, and seem different. When these become simply the tools one uses, added to the rest of the arsenal, artists will return to concentrating on the tale as the end and the technique as the means.
I'm going to get to see things I've always wanted to see. That's enough for me.
There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line. -- Oscar Levant
is its running time of 48minutes or something.
:) Oh for another hour of anime goodness... and an hour less of inexplicable rambling from Jinroh.
They should have spent less time on Jinroh and more time on Blood. Since everyone knows, vampires and school-girls rule. If you combine the two, its gotta be good right?! Oh and swords... did I forget ze katana?
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
I got through the interview at the end, but then I couldn't get a clear feed. What happened?
Cool story, I will admit, and I like the style. But even broadband + slashdot_effect = miserable viewing experience
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
For those of ya that want to be able to watch this (or any other streaming ASF or WMV) skip-free there's a great FREE (no license, just plain old free) program called ASFRecorder that does exactly that, and can be compiled on just about any platform (but GUI is windows only) called ASFRecorder (what an original name =P). You can get it from http://www.lemuria.org/mirrors/asfrecorder/ (or just search google...original site died cuz author was hired up by some company). Just downloaded an watched the 143MB movie skip free, and damn is it cool =)
There is one scary question arising from this.
/. community comes up with in this regard...
It has recently been an issue in a court trial here in germany. It revolved around child pr0n and is therefore a subject which might offend some. If this might be the case with you, please don`t read on. Or do read on and voice your opinion.
In that particular case, a computer was seized and child pron images were found in "moderate" numbers. Among these mostly harmless pictures/videoclips (they basically showed nude kids playing on the beach and stuff like that)were hardcore pictures of bestiality and rape of children. However, no matter how real these pictures looked, it is proven that they were made by a really talented gfx artist. None of the kids set into real backdrops were real, they were drawn/rendered/raytraced. While making these pictures, no one was hurt, no one was violated in his rights. No one was even touched.
So, what would you consider this digital smut now ? Still within the right of free expression, maybe even a piece of "art" (art deserves a special status by the german constitution, equal to to freedom of speech), no matter how objectionable. Who would or could be charged for these pictures?
It is an ugly question, and most people when confronted with this will say it should be outlawed. People have obviously strong feelings toward this. But when you think about it, isn't freedom defined by the freedom of those who think different?
What is the future going to bring? Will digitally made child porn be available from video stores in the near future? Is there a way to keep this stuff away from the public without interfering with the artists rights?
I would love to know what the
+++ath0
Does any remember 'Ghost In The Shell'? It came out in 1995 and was quickly hailed as the future of Japanese animation. It featured a complex storyline and some really, really impressive special effects and artwork.
Six years down the line, GITS has yet to manifest itself in newer works of Anime. I wonder if this would apply to Blood too. Very often, some very revolutionary animated movies come along our way, but don't seem to influence their successors.
I haven't had a chance to watch Blood yet, but I'm sure that even if this movie is a gem by itself, it will not go a long way in how animation is done.
Posting messages for the betterment of humanity..
well, i guess there's no point in noting your own snobbery, or in explaining that anime is a word that is used to refer to cartoons made in japan. but i'll try.
anime is the word that the japanese use to mean animation (or cartoons, if you prefer). they adopted that word from the french, you see, but perhaps we shouldn't delve too deeply into that, as you seem to have so much trouble with the idea of us adopting a foreign word into the english language....i would hate for you to have to try to understand how a word that isn't even japanese in origin was adopted into english from japanese.
i certainly wouldn't want to confuse you with an involved discussion of how languages are continually evolving.
cartoons (as you would say) from japan do have a rather unique style, on the whole, just as there are differences in style with many forms of art/entertainment, so it's worth making the distinction.
but we won't get into that, either, as i have inferred from your inane comment that you have a difficult time making such distinctions.
perhaps you should run along with your tapwater and bother someone else with your rude and pointless commentary.
What about Ghost In The Shell? This CLASSIC IMHO incorporated CG quite a while ago and did a better job at it (check out the transparency effects for example).
Sal Monella
Gimme that karma...
WHATEVERRR!!! DON'T EVEN GO THERE! Talk to the HAND!
Yes, I'm not sure what time zone they were in, but it sure didn't last 'til midnight Cali time.
i watched the start and took off, hoping i could fish it outo of Temp files, but noooooooo, noth'n there to be fished, i guess i'll have to rent it or wait for a mirror . . . ?!?
I saw the movie a few months ago at the first screening in New England and it was pretty good! The digital animation is very clean and striking. It's only about 45 minutes long, and I recommend watching it if you get the chance.
:) did the artwork, it looks extremely good; it looks like handpainted watercolors. (A great movie, btw.) Pure digital animation has real potential.
My Neighbors the Yamadas is also all-digital, but the way Ghibli (woohoo
I haven't seen the streamed versions, but to watch it on a computer screen in one of the two worst film formats you can think of can't be all that good...
Since it's more a visual experience then a plot-based movie (nothing wrong with that, though!), it's a bit ironic that they promote a film in way that more or less ruins it.
The new Microsoft DRM uses _real_ encryption. But it doesn't work for live content yet...
I was lucky enough to catch this film on the big screen at Sydney's JAPANIME fesival which was held at Cricular Quay almost 1 year ago to this day.
For those of you who arent heavily into anime or manga, Blood is produced by production IG, who are the same people who made Ghost In The Shell and Jinroh.
Mamoru Oshii, the director of both Ghost In The Shell and Blood was present at the festival. With the help of a translator he was able to give a small talk on his work and an introduction to some of the deeper themes introduced in the movie just minutes before it was screened.
Although Ghost In The Shell still remains my all time favorite film (of any genre), Blood definately ushers in a new dimension in realism.
If you can catch it on the silver i highly recommend it, as with any animation, the more imersive the environment the better the suspension of disbelive and therefore the more enjoyable the experience.
Sorry but DVD just doesnt cut it...
So I call up the local anime movie shop and ask if they've got Blood in yet. Nope, I'm told, it will arrive Friday and there's a strict no-sell policy from the publishers until September 4th here.
Fug.
That would explain why you can't order the DVD from their website directly if you live in Canada either.
Now I gotta wait another week. Argh.
Hope this saves a few people from running down to the local shop only to be disappointed.
Where did this French urban legend begin? It seems to be everywhere now. First of all, the Japanese don't really use French. It would be an extremely unusual anomoly for them to suddenly decide to use the French word for animation, especially when early on there were heavy influences from the US.
Secondly, contractions of English words and phrases are common in Japanese. If you understand how English words are transliterated into Japanese, you can see that:
ANIMATION becomes:
A-NI-ME-SHYO-N (SHYO being SHI and YO contracted)
which in turn becomes:
A-NI-ME
Much like "personal computer" becomes PASOCOM, "convenience store" becomes CONBINI, and "television" becomes "TEREBI".
It is *coincidence* that anime and dessin-anime are pronounced in a similiar manner. Given Typical Japanese contraction methods (which are used for *English* as has already been pointed out) there is no way that "dessin-anime" would have been contracted into "ANIME".
yes, and sexual harrassment becomes seku hara, and word processor becomes waapuro....
but the japanese also use (for instance) zubon for pants (jupon in french), although i believe that's actually from portugese.
abeku is taken from the french avec (meaning with) to mean a couple out on a date.
bakushan is a very interesting word....though it's not so cool to use anymore.
baku is taken from the english word back. shan is taken from the german schoen, which means pretty. put it together, and you have bakushan:
looks pretty from behind (but not up close). pretty weird, huh?
arubaito is part time job, which is taken from german. in german, it just means work in general.
they take pan from portugese as well....to mean bread.
karuta is taken from the portugese carta (sp?) meaning cards).
ramen is taken from chinese.
i guess i have always assumed since french and japanese are both foreign languages i've studied in college that the japanese use of anime was derived from the french "dessin anime." the fact is, though, that no one really knows where anime is taken from....could be engilsh, could be french, could be portugese. it's most likely taken from the portugese (according to my instructor), due to the fact that the portugese were actually *in* japan, whereas the french were not. but it could be english too. the point is that no one knows for sure.
so, to assume that the japanese only borrow words from english is frankly wrong. that's just one of the things about the japanese language: that it so freely borrows from other languages.
unlike the french, who only allow so many words into their language (they like to try to keep it "pure", i guess). which is why, when the rest of the world is using the word computer, they use l'ordinateur.
but it's typical american thinking to assume that everything is taken from the english. ^___^