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Studio Ghibli Animation Software Going "Open Source"; Details Pending (toonzpremium.com)
Michael Tiemann writes: Digital Video, the makers of TOONZ, and DWANGO, a Japanese publisher, announced today they have signed an agreement for the acquisition by Dwango of Toonz, an animation software which was independently developed by Digital Video (Rome, Italy). Digital Video and Dwango have agreed to close the deal under the condition Dwango will publish and develop an Open Source platform based on Toonz (OpenToonz). Effective Saturday March 26, the TOONZ Studio Ghibli Version will be made available to the animation community as a free download. Not yet clear is which existing open source license will be used for the software, if any. If it is properly licensed as open source software, then we should all celebrate this event by drawing unicorns and rainbows. If not, many will be dis-spirited away. Animation World Network also reports this news, and adds a few more details, but is similarly vague about the license terms. I hope the terms are such that we'll soon see Toonz in media-centric Linux distros, and in widespread classroom use.
In addition, OpenToonz will also include effects developed by Dwango that utilize its artificial intelligence technology, and a plug-in feature that enables anybody to add original effects to OpenToonz. ...
With the aim of building an environment where research labs and the animated film industry actively cooperate with each other, Dwango hopes to develop a platform via OpenToonz to help the animation industry instantly apply various animation production-related research results acquired in the field.
If it's BSD we'll see animation houses suck up any research output and not contribute much of anything back.
Dwango will publish and develop an Open Source platform based on Toonz (OpenToonz).
So what are the differences between Toonz and the open source derivative?
I think Ghibli is a model of Maserati (Italian sports car) from the 70's
What it means is that I downloaded (torrent) all the Studio Ghibli movies for nothing...
Multi-award winning animated movies from east Asia. Studio Ghibli is basically Disney with fewer lines of merchandise and theme parks.
No, it is "a piece of animation software" or "an animation software package." Would you say "a hardware" or "a clothing"? Do you have "an information" ? Check your grammar.
...if you like Japanese culture and haven't seen Totoro (or is it "My Neighbor Totoro"), do so - you won't regret it.
You must be very proud. Thanks to people like you Ghibli are going to stop making movies entirely:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11001081/Studio-Ghibli-may-stop-making-films.html
Of course, Ghibli were one of the more fortunate studios and other people in the industry are in far worse a state. The animators work absurdly long hours for low pay and the studios are permanently on the verge of going out of business. Scum like you always come up with an excuse like, "all the money goes to the rich executives", but the reality is there is no money to go to the "rich executives". AnimeNewsNetwork post the anime Blu-ray sales each week and the sales are generally terrible:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-11-24/japan-animation-blu-ray-disc-ranking-november-16-22/.95738
Bear in mind that those are the Blu-rays that sold well, and many releases sell in the hundreds. Four thousand Blu-rays is considered a success, and titles can get a sequel even with sales as little as 3200 per volume. Blu-rays sales are the main source of income for the anime industry and the only reason it can stay in business is because of the occasional hit title that sells 20K-40K per volume.
Ultimately the reason animators are working 16 hour days six days per week is become of scum like you who enjoy the product they offer but refuse to pay for it. As if you couldn't sink any lower you then post on forums boasting that you pirate anime.
Please just kill yourself. The world would be a better place without people like you who just want to take and refuse to contribute, even when an industry is in desperate need of money.
I think it's more likely that most people just don't particularly care for anime.
Grave Of The Fireflies, Arietty, Laputa, Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke and Tales From Earthsea aren't "gay" or "fap crap", they are actually astoundingly great movies.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Mine was this: http://www.onlineghibli.com/on... (Chage & Aska - On Your Mark)
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Ghibli might stop producing feature films, but I don't think they've yet confirmed that. The reason why they've been on hiatus has nothing to do with piracy or sales. It's because they've lost Hayao Miyazaki. He retired from feature films in 2013, and he was Ghibli's breadwinner and most famous filmmaker, almost being synonymous with Ghibli itself (Isao Takahata is the other famous filmmaker at Ghibli, and he will probably not make another film either). Pricess Mononoke became the highest grossing film of all time in Japan until it was bested by Titanic, but then Miyazaki came back with Spirited Away which became the new highest grossing film of all time and still remains so (both films also won the Picture of the Year Oscar-equivalent in Japan, i.e. won against even live action films, until animated films were shoved into their own award category). His last film The Wind Rises was the highest grossing of 2014.
Ghibli has apparently had trouble developing new talent, and they've been too invested in Miyazaki. On the other hand, Ghibli was founded by Miyazaki and Takahata (and producer Toshio Suzuki) so they could make the films they wanted to. They probably just don't know where Ghibli should go from here, or if it should go anywhere (as an animation studio).
You're conflating two very different things here: Ghibli and the television anime industry. Ghibli is a mega successful household name with their own museum that brings in a lot of revenue, they own their productions (not always the case for anime studios), and as a film producer they make most of their money at the box office. In terms of home video sales they're in a very different league than TV anime. Late night TV anime relies a lot on disc sales (there's no ad revenue), but there's relatively few people who buy them since they're expensive, there's too many shows on the air, and most people just don't watch late night anime at all. Daytime anime is watched by many more people, but disc sales are not important.
Low wages in the anime industry (at least in the early stages of one's career) go back all the way to the beginning of anime and have nothing to do with piracy. People don't even have to buy anime in Japan as they can just watch it for free on TV. But for the relatively small number of serious fans that isn't enough, so they buy Blu-rays and merchandise. A show can also profit by making people go buy the source material it's based on (e.g. sales for the KonoSuba series of light novels tripled thanks to the recent anime adaptation).
They're not from "East Asia," they are from Japan.
We'll be sure to make a note of that...
Just note that Grave Of The Fireflies is unrelentingly depressing. It's still a great film, it's just very depressing in comparison to any other Ghibli films. Don't expect more of the same if you've only seen My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, etc...
Who ordered that?
I've been a Japanese anime fan, and I used to think that the philosophy, the background storyline of Japanese anime represents the Japanese culture
I couldn't be more wrong
While anti-war theme does make rounds within the Japanese anime the Japanese society is far from anti-war
Anyone ever stayed in Japan can tell you how war like those rabid right wing Japanese are - and they are the ones which have been controlling the Japanese government 80% of the time since the ending of World War 2
In Japan, the educators have been the ones leading the anti-war movement, but their efforts have been undermined by the powerful Japanese right wing pro-military gangs as well
School textbooks have been changed, history revisionism has become the elephant in the room
All references to the atrocities they have carried out during the World War 2 (such as the issue of comfort women) have been purposely 'forgotten' and 'fairy tales' have been inserted in school texts teaching the young Japanese students that their forefathers were in Korea / China / Siberia not as invaders, but they were there because 'the locals invited them there'
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Also with deeper stories, better character development and more message. Arguably better imagery too. Oh, and better music.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Blu-rays sales suck BECAUSE BLU RAY FUCKING SUCKS, moron. Digital distribution and on-demand is fucking king now days.
>2016
>using spinning shit slow fragile as fuck optical media
>ISHYGDDT
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Anime is the abbreviated form of the Japanese pronunciation/spelling of animation. The word was coined in Japan, where it often (but not always) is just a synonym for animation.
In the West it's used to mean either all Japanese animation, or the certain kind of TV animation that started being developed in the 60s and now represents virtually all commercial Japanese animation.
Referring to it as anime is justified because anime is a very particular form of animation. It has an instantly recognizable appearance; it has its own visual language and iconography; it has its own genres, story conventions and character archetypes; it has its own animation techniques, and it's part of a larger and tightly connected industry that encompasses manga, light novels, games and music. And so on.
And as I JUST explained and illustrated, anime and cartoons are two different things. Unless you have some legitimate problem with your brain there's no way you can't immediately notice the differences.
https://opentoonz.github.io/
I meant to post this in response to another, nearly identical comment just above, but got them mixed up while battling against Slashdot's inane commenting system. But since they are almost identical my response fits here too.
As I just explained, anime has many unique qualities to it and is a very expansive artform and industry. There isn't anything else like anime in the world of animation. Anime is very different and very distinct from all other animation. If you think animations from other countries need their own names then go ahead and start campaigning for them. I don't care. If French animation has a term of its own like anime, then so what? It's not going to have any effect on me or anime. Whatever.
And as I've also already explained, anime and cartoons are two different, distinct forms of animation. You have no rebuttal to this except to robotically insist that they are the same thing just because you said so.
You seem really upset, and should consider talking to a psychiatrist about why anime makes you so angry.
I did explain. Right here: "Referring to it as anime is justified because anime is a very particular form of animation. It has an instantly recognizable appearance; it has its own visual language and iconography; it has its own genres, story conventions and character archetypes; it has its own animation techniques, and it's part of a larger and tightly connected industry that encompasses manga, light novels, games and music. And so on." The differences between anime and American animation (which is what almost everyone is used to and consider the definitive representation of animation) are so extensive that they have nearly nothing in common. Even the most basic assumptions about what animation is and how it should be made are radically different. You might as well claim that early silent cinema is no different from, say, Inception (which, incidentally, likely took inspiration from Satoshi Kon's film Paprika).
I also provided YouTube videos contrasting cartoons and anime. Again, unless you really have some kind of issue with your brain you cannot fail to notice the differences. There is no way Silly Symphonies is anything like Ghost in the Shell (which, incidentally, was the principal inspiration behind The Matrix).
Here's a simple assigment for you: explain in detail why you think the following two clips are exactly the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Blu-rays, DVD and CDs are still very popular in Japan.
Words have meaning based on their usage. Anime is used to mean something different than "cartoons". Yes, anime is a type of cartoon, but definitely not the same thing. Remember, words only have any meaning because of how they're used. If you ignore how they're used, they're just a bunch of meaningless sounds.
Anime is a juggernaut of the animation world, putting out 40-50 shows every three months (plus movies, direct-to-video releases, and video game animations) sourced from manga, light novels and video games that all together form an aesthetically and narratively coherent and highly interconnected media ecosystem (and no, Marvel et al are nowhere near equivalent to it). American animation is small-time compared to this, and much less coherent. The animation industries of other countries are smaller and less coherent still. The entire anime ecosystem is so vast that it can completely replace everything else in your life.
Anime has its own distinct and instantly recognizable appearance, its own animation techniques, its own genres, story conventions and character archetypes, its own visual language, its own very expansive fan culture (that's practically a smaller scale duplication of the professsional industries that spawned it), and many other defining characteristics that set it apart from other animation. Its high production values and cinematic approach to animation are also unique.
I asked you to explain how those two clips are the same, and you completely ignored me. That's because you know very well that it's impossible to argue that they're the same. Just like it's impossible to argue that the videos I posted earlier are the same. You have zero arguments to support your position. You are just a mentally ill fanatic.
Anime and cartoons are not the same thing. Anime is extremely distinct from other forms of animation. Calling anime anime is completely justified. I've already conclusively proven these facts in this thread, and you have been unable to offer any counter-arguments.
Hey, here's another one little task for you. Explain how these clips are exactly the same:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
No problem, right?
Anime and cartoons are not the same thing. Anime is extremely distinct from other forms of animation. Calling anime anime is completely justified. I've already conclusively proven these facts in this thread, and you have been unable to offer any counter-arguments.
By the way, remind me how this cartoon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Is exactly the same as this anime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
American animated movies are very basic. They have simple stories and story-telling, and are almost devoid of the cinematic sensibilities that are taken for granted in both live action and anime. Their animation is very smooth and expensive-looking, but it's also very limited in scope because almost all of it revolves around exaggerated character acting and is shot in a very flat way.