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zachwritesstuff · 5 years
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Dragon Pilot: Old vs New
Warning: This article contains spoilers to Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan’s later parts and ending.
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Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan is, in many ways, a fabulous series. The animation is great, the characters are lovable, and the story hits emotional high points in strange and unexpected ways. It’s probably one of my most recommended series of the Summer Season, and possibly of the year! But I could spend paragraphs talking about how much I loved this series, when really, I want to talk about one specific thing that stood out to me about it.
I don’t think it’s a controversial statement to say that anime has changed in the last decade or two. In fact, it has to change, or else it will stagnate and die. But in recent years, there has been a different kind of change happening, not on screen, but behind the scenes. While reports come in on Anime shows and franchises seeing record high profits, more reports are coming out about the troubling financial and personal conditions that animators and production assistants on shows have to live in, and the treatment from upper management and fans alike that people inside the industry have to go through. It’s no surprise that more public figures, like voice actors and idols, become traumatized and sick from all of them issues they have to deal with outside of their control.
It’s reassuring to see that things might be looking up for the lower workers in the Anime industry, from more affordable dorms and housing being crowdfunded, to new avenues of production opening up new ways to get anime to an audience, doing away with the strict and punishing guidelines. And creatively, more challenging shows are starting to be made, ones that poke fun and challenge the classic cliches and tropes of Dumb Big Breasted Women, Blank Slate Heroes, and Marketing Driven Shows. Instead, we are seeing more uses of Absurdist Comedy (Pop Team Epic, Asobi Asobase); Introspective shows about the creators of anime and the people who indulge in anime (Shirobako, Wotakoi); And shows that take classic romance plots and apply them in new, inventive ways (Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, Recovery of an MMO Junkie).
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A wholesome slice of life comedy~
Even outside of the industry, Japan is seeing political change, with more protests against militarization of the country and support for LGBT rights popping up to challenge the instilled conservative views that have been a mainstay in Japan for so long.
I bring all of this up because I believe, whether purposely or subconsciously (And I do believe that it’s mostly on purpose), Dragon Pilot is a reflection of the changing industry and how it’s dealing with these issues, especially when it challenges the classical/traditional way of doing things.
The first major clue, and the thing that caught me on to this theory, is the design of the show. From the get go, it stands out from other shows in how it lays out it’s world. It strays away from the use of Key frame animation and highly detailed backgrounds, instead using a much more fluid movement and watercolor spaces to give everything a more down to Earth feel. And even when they use newer technology, like CG animation, it’s only used sparingly, as to not interfere with the natural flow of the animation. The two styles are used complimentary, instead of as a way to fill space.
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Inside the actual designs of the Military base, everything looks old and lived in. There are spots of dirt everywhere, doors are uneven, and equipment has been put through the ringer. Even the character designs themselves seem to carry this style, many of them being a mismatch of character archetypes from the 60s, 70s and 80s. This all in spite of being in the modern day, and many of them having smart phones and updated Military hardware, like the parts that make up the Dragon’s disguise.
This, I feel, sets up the main conflict, even before you learn what the series is even about. It’s an establishment that has done things in one way for many years, and even though it tolerates minor advancements around it, it always sticks to its core values, never straying too far from what they believe to be the proper path to success. This could be applied to the Anime industry, as even when experimenting with new ideas, core ideas have always been forced in: Fanservice, merchandising ability, storyline tropes, etc...
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Awkward situations is the main staple of modern anime
Which brings us to the main plot of the show. In a quick summation, the main Pilots, called OTF pilots, must control dragons, disguised as planes, to lead a world destroying God Dragon to it’s new resting place, a tradition that they must do every 76 years. They do not find out until after they begin, however, that one of the main parts of the journey involves sacrificing a shrine maiden, in order to ensure safe passage. This appalls the main characters, and they hatch a plan to prevent it from happening, eventually succeeding with much hardship.
This, I feel, reflects the current state of the Anime industry. For years, it’s been leaning heavily on the things that made it the most money, like shows with heavy fanservice, shonen shows that were played into the ground, harem series that allowed the viewer to place themselves into the empty husk that is the main character. While they allowed little changes in technology and storytelling, the core values have roughly been the same since the 70s. But it’s not the 70s anymore, and things do have to change, lest they get eventually outdated and left behind. Of course, the people running things do not and will not agree, so sometimes you have to be a bit more forceful and creative with how you make those changes.
It’s not just the overall plot that clues into this either. Even the smaller side plots play with classical tropes in interesting ways. Romance ends up being a leading factor, as the Pilots end up not able to link with their dragons properly if they are feeling love for someone else. While it’s mostly played literally straight with Hisone and vaping engineer Haruto Okonoji, things play out slightly differently with the other three pilots.
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The biggest crime of the entire anime, promoting vaping...
For example, let’s look at the other focused romance between the hard nosed dragon pilot Eru Hoshino and the perverted male pilot Yutaka Zaito. On the surface, they are introduced as a very played out idea: Perverted, somewhat sexist boy falls in love with a girl that is sickened by his attitude, yet still falls for him when he starts to become less sexist and perverted. And though it’s pretty much done word for word as it’s done in the past, they do pull one interesting twist out. Because she fell for him, she’s unable to pilot, and despite the man’s best wishes, he actively sabotages the relationship, making her hate him so as to complete the mission successfully. Though it works out in the end, it’s a surprising route to take for a show that has romance as a main plot mover.
And speaking of romance, let’s talk about the other two pilots: The motherly Mayumi, and the sullen Liliko. When they are analyzed for their possible romantic links, they are simply written off as “not a concern”. While it’s never openly stated, the coding for the two characters  seems to be that of an aromantic type, and at least in Liliko’s case, asexual. Throughout her time on the base, Liliko seems to show no romantic interest in anyone, and when even asked at the end if she was interested in anyone, she simply mentions “Kingdom”, the manga she reads. Mayumi is a little harder to tack down, as her interests seem to lie in caring for someone rather than having an active relationship, shown in her way she deals with her dragon and how she only seemed interested in someone else because they seemed well fed and groomed. When you have an industry filled with strict guidelines for relationship (Shonen has only hetero relationship, romance is either m/f, m/m or f/f, no crossover), it’s very refreshing to see a mishmash of different ideals represented.
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One of the funnest characters, btw
Even the way that Hisone reacts to her choice between love and duty is different. Hisone is forced to choose: Either stop loving the engineer boy Okonoji-san, who represents her personal life and self worth, or else never be able to pilot Masotan ever again, who represents her dedication to her craft and what she’s built her life around. When faced with a final choice, she initially chooses neither, instead choosing to quit. This gets a negative reaction from her higher up, who somewhat literally throws her out, yelling insults the entire time. But soon after, she chooses to actively follow the plan, only to go against it at the last moment when she learns about the sacrifice, ultimately deciding to take things into her own hands and perform the ritual herself, risking her own life.
This, in a sense, could represent the constant struggle of newer animators, producers and voice actors face when breaking into the industry. They are told the traditions and things they have to do, and to question or reject them could lead to their abilities being insulted or questioned, their job threatened, and in some cases, termination and blackballing from the entire industry.
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No pressure
When Hisone reenters the Air Force, apologizing for what she did, she is showing her respect for what the tradition is, and how it has helped their country for centuries. She feels that she can balance work and her personal life if given a chance, despite the heavy toll it takes on her, like having to work for dozens of hours on end because that’s the expectation of her; Having to follow ridiculous order after ridiculous order, with little explanation of why or what the benefit is; And any question she places against it being shot down. These conditions which might resonate, not only with production workers, but also many other jobs around the globe…
But when faced with the horrible idea of having a person losing their life, she knew it was the final straw. She saw a young person forced to take the fall for an institution that consciously and knowingly lied to and built up this person for failure, something they had done for years. Hisone knew it was too far, and instituted change herself, despite those around her telling her it was a suicide mission.
And what happens? Hisone does it, and everything works out. Despite being told for eons that this thing must be done one was, and any other would destroy everything, when Hisone tried a new, inventive, and more importantly, less toxic way of doing things, it worked out fine. Hisone lived, the Air Force learned that their lesson, and everyone was left to figure out how to live their lives with this new way of doing things.
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And being fucking adorkable while doing it all~
Ultimately, Dragon Pilot is a show of hope. It shows that, even against overwhelming odds, the way things have been done before are not the way things must always be. The world evolves, so with it, an industry must as well, or else they’ll simply be left in the dust. And even if it might seem hard, impossibly hard even, sometimes that’s just a sign that you must work even harder to make it happen. So hopefully, the Anime Industry learns a lesson from it’s own show and cleans up its act a little. A little less of shows like Darling in the Franxx, and a little more of shows like Dragon Pilot.
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zachwritesstuff · 6 years
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Digimon Adventure Tri: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
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I’ve been a fan of Digimon ever since I was 11, back in 2001. Though I’ve had a rocky relationship with it, I’ve always admitted myself as a fan of those weird little monsters and their wacky adventures.
It’s why I was so excited by the announcement of Digimon Adventure Tri. One of my favorite seasons was, of course, the first, and I was excited to see what they could do with these characters in a more modern setting, with them a bit older and tastes and themes in anime having changed since the heyday of the monster partner genre. Heck, I was even excited by the rumors (that ended up being true) that the season 2 characters would have very little involvement in the plot. I had long stated that Season 2 was my least favorite season, so that felt like the icing on the cake for a great show.
Having recently finished the last movie, and hearing the news of more on the way, I have to say that my view on this revitalization experiment is not as shiny and bright. While I will say it was an interesting thing to watch, especially after such a long time, it was hard to say if it was good or not. So I’m going to go over some positive and negative aspects I found over the several years it took for this entire series to come out.
By the way, as this will be talking about this series as a whole, there will be spoilers
The Good
1.  It was good to see them again
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Let’s get that out of the way real quick. Despite overall problems I had with this series, I will admit that the fanboy in me did really like seeing new material with these characters I loved as a kid. Hell, I even kind of enjoyed their appearances in Digimon Xros Wars, even if that was the most pure pandering of all time.
I also liked their updated look, even though it was a bit controversial that they moved away from the classic big head/hands/feet look from the old shows. It helped deliver the message that they were maturing and would be presenting a different kind of story from the original. But with the original voice actors of the Digimon returning to join a brand new cast, it at also said that it wasn’t going to stray too far from the original. Different but not too different. It could work… Right?
But while we’re talking about the characters, let’s talk about…
2. Character Growth
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With the maturing characters, they couldn’t really be the same precocious children anymore. It would seem weird to have this people in their teens acting like 10-12 year olds still. So they had to grow up in some way, and to the credit of the writer’s, much of it felt very sensible.
I think the strongest among them is probably Tai. It makes the most sense, as he is the main character. Whereas he was formerly headstrong and first to enter action before, by Tri, he had become more level headed and questioned his motivation a lot more. This made the series a bit more interesting, as it helped give depth to his decisions and not make it as cliche and repetitive that Digimon tended to be sometimes.
Along with Tai, characters like Izzy, Joe, Mimi and Sora also expanded emotionally, though theirs is a little less obvious. Izzy and Joe are shown to be studying and working in their fields a lot more heavily, while Sora is opening up more and Mimi is becoming more of a headstrong leading type. Unfortunately, since Digimon has always had problems with letting specific characters shines, their character advancement didn’t get much notice, and they weren’t given much room to stretch. Because of this, we only got bits and pieces of who they had become after a few years of development.
The ones that came off the worst of the original crew were probably Matt, TK and Kari. Not to say that they didn’t also advance a bit, but they probably had the least of all. Matt still was cool, and was just now older and cooler. TK seemed like he was supposed to be an auxiliary leader of the group, but with Tai and Matt taking most of the leadership positions, he was left with nothing much to do. And Kari, well… I think she said maybe 20 words in the first couple of movies, and mostly stood around and smiled. For a long time, it seemed like she would get no development, but she did finally get some storylines after what felt like forever. Which leads me to my next point…
3. Kari’s Importance
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Kari has always been my favorite character of the Digimon series. She came during my favorite arc of the original season, and her character felt a bit different from the other known female characters, who were the archetype Girly Girl and Tomboy. She had weaknesses in her often recurring sickness (always unnamed), but it was soon revealed that she had a deeper connection to the plot, and possibly even revealing a much more perplexing story behind the Digital World and what it might hide.
Then… Nothing happened after season 1. They hinted at her connection to the Digital World during Season 2, including the introduction of the Dark Ocean involving her, but through the rest of the series, she just ends up being fodder for Davis’ crush and generally just being Another Character.
That’s why I was glad to see them actually touch on it. They didn’t go too deeply, but they showed that not only did she have a much stronger tie with the Digital World and Digimon, but she also might be able to go beyond, to communicate with Digmon in limbo and help those that might need help. I really do hope that they continue to dive into it and bring her whole deal to a head in future material. And speaking of future…
The Bad
1. Season 2’s Epilogue
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This is honestly a little hard for me to think about, and it won’t be the only time in this article I talk about it. So let’s get it out of the way: I, like pretty much every fan in the Digimon fandom, hate the final Epilogue scene to season 2. It made no sense, it gave random jobs to people that didn’t fit their personality, and basically threw an active grenade into the whole shipping side of the show, making that a basically banned subject if you talk to any fan of the series. So when, at first, it seemed like it was going to retcon all of the epilogue, I was over the moon.
But just like epilogue itself, they give hints to it at the very, very end of the last movie. They talk about Matt’s desire for space, TK is now writing journals of his adventures and Tai’s change in career focus. Despite everything fans have said about it, they are going to stick to their guns, and justify the dumb as hell ending they made.
And you know what? I can respect that. They introduced that bit of canon, and for better or worse, they’re going to stick to it. They’re going to try as hard as they can to try and make sense of what was set forth for these kids future, even if it does seem like an impossible task. A really impossible task, to be perfectly honest…
Okay but seriously, they really wanted to try to justify this? It’s basically like badly written fanfiction. Everyone in the world has a Digimon, Matt is an astronaut, Davis has a ramen stand, Mimi has a cooking show, it feels like a madlib. Even the little hints they put in at the end of Digimon Tri felt like more like a mandate than an actual attempt to be inclusive to the original canon.
And if we are going to talk about the consistency, than you have to really wonder about the things they now have to retcon INTO the epilogue. Namely, Mei, and this whole Digimon shadow government organization. Where do they factor into this idealistic future? Sorry, I’m ranting a bit, but it felt like a big misstep that they could have easily written out with little argument, and yet they felt the need to include it. Hell, they didn’t even physically show the characters of Season 2, and yet they still feel the need to bring back the worst part of that season? It’s just dumb, though to be completely fair, that might just be my own disdain coloring my thoughts.
To be fair, it can work, and I would even be okay with them going in the middle almost, keeping some of the general ideas from the epilogue, but coloring them in a more realistic fashion. I think the big problem myself and many people had with it was how it was presented. It was basically bullet points that were presented without any context. If they do decide to delve deeper, I’m hoping that at the very least, they try to connect it to their characters and modernize it a little bit (I.E. making Mimi more of a media mogul than just a Cooking Show host, make Davis more of an entrepreneur than just a guy with a Ramen Cart). I don’t like it, but if it must be there, at least make it sensible, right?
2. Season 2 characters
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So as you can probably infer from above, I don’t hold the second season of Digimon Adventure in the highest regard. The characters are no exception. But Jesus Christ, not even I would have treated them as piss poor as Digimon Tri did. Not only did they not even appear as actual characters, they didn’t even bother to update their appearances! I went and looked back at the scene, and as noted in the appearance section of their wiki entries, their silhouettes are basically just wearing clothes they wore in the past (It’s even noted that Davis is wearing his square goggles from the pilot of Digimon 02). They are then barely mentioned until the last two movies, where they are simply props to fuel how evil and twisted the villain is. Never once are they seen as more than shadowy figures, and the fact that they even lived at the end is a couple of lines in the last five minutes.
Now while I don’t love these guys, I do think that this series of movies was their chance to do SOMETHING with them. Either delve into their characters deeper and separate them from the carbon copies of S1 characters, like they were, or turn into the skid and really have fun with people’s perception of them,much like how Dragon Ball Kai and Super did with Yamcha. They could have really done some cool things with this group, but instead, they basically act like they don’t exist until they’re needed as objects to further the plot
Hell, from here, they could even introduce an interesting plot, on how they were literally gone for weeks, maybe months, yet none of the main 8 characters seemed to care that they were near death somewhere in the Digital World. That could make for an interesting dynamic between them, and even play into a meta competition between Season 1 and Season 2. But, deep down, I know that all of those ideas are just fever dreams, and most likely, any further material will continue to leave them in the background.
3. Some Adult Situations May Apply
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When I was told that the Director of these films also directed School Days and one of the Persona 3 films, it was one of the least surprising thing I had ever heard. For a series who’s whole deal is being a “kids with monster friends” show, it does not feel like it was made for that demographic at all!
I can understand wanting to gear it towards an older audience. It makes perfect sense, actually. The people who grew up with the original Digimon Adventure were now adults, so wanting to make something for their sensibilities seems like the most obvious decision. No problem at all!
But it really is only good on paper. Looking at the history of kid focused shows being transitioned to older focused shows paints a rather different, and more ugly, picture. You get the likes of Ren & Stimpy’s Adult Party Cartoon, or more recently, the absolutely atrocious showing of DC’s Titans, based on the popular Teen Titans series (note: as of this writing, only the first preview has come out, so there is still time to save it, even if it looks unlikely). True, there have been some good shows made from kids properties, like Space Ghost Coast 2 Coast and Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, but it comes with the caveat of those shows having nothing to do with what they were originally based on.
On the subject of Digimon, it seemed like they were less interested in making a Digimon movie and more interested in making a Persona movie, even down to the final monster being a giant nude angel beast who’s butt is prominently featured on most of it’s shots. Add in the scenes of Tai heavily injured and covered in blood, and multiple characters either dying or going mad with grief, and you basically have the David Lynch student film that is Digimon Tri.
I think the biggest question is… Why? There was absolutely no need to get this grimdark with it. The people who grew up with Digimon enjoyed it for it’s values in friendship and teamwork, in the world building of this fascinating patchwork world, and in these characters growing up and learning. And especially in an age where streaming services allow for modern audiences to go back and watch the original whenever they want, it seems weirdly outdated to think that they would need to make it more “cool and mature” for the original fans.
I could go on and on about this, but really, I’m just hoping they learn that changing the tone of the story is not necessary. We love the characters, and we want to see them grow and prosper, not suffer needlessly.
The Ugly
1. The Grown Ups
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Boy oh boy, was I not a fan of these two. Two government agents at the Incorporate Administrative Industry (I had to look it up because it’s barely mentioned by name), Maki and Daigo are the two exposition machines of this series of films. They try very, very hard to make these two likeable, but it just comes out completely flat and uninspired. Worse, their misguided development takes away screen time from more deserving characters, like Joe, Izzy, TK and Kari.
Their motivations seemed to just be “We’re the government and we gotta stop Digimon”, and they hint at a deeper motive for them. But the hints are extremely vague, to the point where it seems like they didn’t actually know what they were going to do with them in the first few movies. It wasn’t even until the second to last where we learned that, surprise, they’re two of the original Digidestined! And they’re trying to find their old Digimon! Or Something! I’m actually not sure at all…
Then you get to the last movie, and they’re just… removed. Maki is seen wandering off into the Dark Ocean, and Daigo makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save Tai and everyone else. It feels like it should be very deep and moving, but I found myself not caring much because there was never anything to really draw me into either of them. There were fun moments here and there, but never anything an audience could connect or relate to beyond “These two knew each other growing up and dated a little bit.” Though you can’t blame that all on just the general story....
2. The Movie Format, Animation, and the Big Bad(s?)
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Pretty much every review of Digimon Adventure Tri has touched on this, so I won’t get too deep into it. Needless to say, releasing this story as 6 movies hurt it immensely. It caused the story, the character development, the tones, to all feel disjointed and hard to follow, especially with the long wait times between each of them. They were released over 4 damn years, and even as a diehard fan, I found myself struggling to even remember what happened in past installments.
Of course, part of their plan with having the big gaps was to continually renew interest, causing people to want to go back and rewatch the past movies, or purchase them when they came out on dvd/blu-ray. And this would have worked, if it weren’t for the fact that these movies aren’t, well… Really well made.
The animation wasn’t awful, let’s get that out of the way. But it was very inconsistent, and you can tell where corners were cut to save money. It’s no more obvious than in the opening, where half of it had fantastic animation, while the other half looked like a fan film made in Flash.
All the disjointedness and inconsistent flow didn’t help the antagonists of the films either. It became extremely hard to tell who was good and who was bad at times. Was it Meicoomon, who had this deadly virus in her that was going to destroy both worlds? Was it Homeostasis, who wants to reset the Digital World, effectively wiping everything out? Was it Dark Gennai and the who King Drasil group, who want to just cause chaos? I’m pretty sure ends up really being them, but it’s not really mentioned until after everything’s taken care of. And if King Drasil is really the Big Bad person he’s supposed to be, than why was he defeated off school, during a time skip? It’s hard to really figure out who the baddie is when most of the final movie is taken up by Ms. Big Butt Angel Demon.
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Which brings me to my final, and biggest, problem with Digimon Adventure Tri.
3. Mei and Meicoomon
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These two are a waste of space, and the perfect definition of a Whipping Boy type character. She is not introduced to be particularly strong or special. Her entire purpose seems to be to fulfill two things: To suffer in place of the main characters, and to be a love interest to Tai since Sora marries Matt in the future. She is shown to be meek and unassuming, not talking much and acting shy around other people. At first, things aren’t so bad. Her interactions with Mimi helping her come out of her shell starts to establish a good character arc for her, and it seems like she is organically going to become a part of the group. But then Meicoomon ruins the fun.
Meicoomon is her cat Digimon, based off the Maine Coon. 70% of Meicoomon’s dialogue is her yelling “Mei!” I would tell your more about Meicoomon’s character, but that is it. She exists, then she becomes evil and has to be defeated, while Mei cries for four movies over the fact that Meicoomon is evil. That’s basically the long and short of it. By the end of the second movie, Mei is catatonic, and Meicoomon is a glitch monster who is destroying everything. The end.
What makes it even worse is the fact that, even by Digimon’s standards, her story isn’t that original! It’s basically just a reworked version of Wallace/Willis and Kokomon from the Digimon Hurricane Touchdown movie (third section of Digimon: The Movie in America), of a kid who’s Digimon friend becomes corrupted, and they are forced to destroy them to stop them. The only difference being that Wallace had two Digimon, and his story was over in 1 movie, while Mei’s dragged on for six of them.
All in all, I think that there is still potential for some good Digimon productions, both for Adventure and other continuities. The films seemed to do alright in the limited box office run in Japan, and they were popular enough to warrant another movie being made (which was announced in the middle of writing this). I’m hoping that does better, but I also hope that it’s the final send off for these characters. Two seasons and a handful of movies is enough for them, let’s give another cast a shot!
Also I still hold out hope for a Digimon Tamers continuation. One can dream~
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zachwritesstuff · 6 years
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Awesome Trevor: The Long and Winding Road
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I’m very used to writing things about other people, products and properties. So this one is going to be a slightly weird one for me. It’s a story of hopeful imagination, and disappointment; Of long hours working to make things perfect, and never finding it; And going through version, formats, people, places and ideas just to keep an idea afloat. But, most importantly, it’s the story of Awesome Trevor, an idea that is eight years in the making, yet so far has not given any worthwhile fruit, no matter how hard we tried. In writing this out, I’m hoping to both show the trials and tribulation of taking an idea from concept to fruition, and how impossible it might seem sometimes. Idealism and inspiration can be a hell of a stimulant, while stalling and depression can be a hell of a… depressant. So maybe someone can get something interesting out of it, or at least find the whole saga entertaining, I don’t know. I should probably quit stalling and actually get to the point… It all started...
Part 1: The Movie
The year is 2010. Just barely out of high school, I was now in Community College, and not working, which was a dumb idea for many reasons. I had worked on independent, or more accurately, amateur, film projects a dozen times, both for class and simply because I wanted to. None of them were good. Despite the fact that I was an adult, I still was not a competent film maker (And some might say that I still am not). But I was young, and still had the delusions of being a big shot director someday. All I needed, I reasoned, was a big project to really pick things up and get a bit of a spotlight. I could continue making simple YouTube videos, but if I actually wanted to get anywhere, I needed to make something bigger.
So I had to make a feature film.
I talked to my regular cohort, Evan Greenhoe. I had known him for a few years at this point, having met when I was still in high school, and we had the same thirst for creating. While he was more of the on camera type, acting and performing music (he still is, but he was then too), I always felt more comfortable behind the scenes, writing and directing. We had talked over projects before, as we always loved making ideas and fleshing them out, and when I told him my desire to make a feature film, he almost instantly handed me the idea of Awesome Trevor.
He had come up with the idea with his girlfriend, Sarah, and had held onto the idea for a little while, never fully formed, but when we started talking about making bigger things, he figured it would be a fit. He had never really formed the idea too terribly deeply, beyond making it a video game inspired piece of a regular joe becoming a hero and saving the princess. We talked out the idea over several days, and eventually we had a strong base to work off of.
Now before I go any further, there is one important note I must add. Around this time, Scott Pilgrim vs The World had just come out. This is important because, in the beginning, Awesome Trevor was a rip off of that. In later years, we would change the story around to make it it’s own thing, but to start with, it was a story of a kind of loser dude going on a quest to save his ex girlfriend from a bunch of people from her past, one of which is even a weird ninja girl. It was a copy.
Now that we had our base, the next step was to write out this masterpiece of original fiction. This was no problem, as I had already written out a few feature length scripts before (all of them going unused, of course). While writing, though, I decided to change up the flow a bit: Instead of one movie, I would make it a six part series, and after all parts were released, I would edit them together as a movie! My genius knew no bounds…
So I got to writing this newly formatted script. I filled it with video game references, witty dialogue, and set it in local areas, so that it would be simpler to film. I introduced the amnesiac main character, Trevor; His tired roommate, Mark; The mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Mary; and the 4 mysterious bosses, Kevin Kurochi, Peyote Jones, Stephanie Connor and Samuel Tanner. The story was of Trevor, who woke up after a heavy night of drinking, to find his memories of a former girlfriend gone, and going on an adventure to get them back with the help of his quip filled roommate.
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My wit, it burns....
    The scripts, well… They weren’t great. They weren’t bad for an untrained 20 year old, but I would like to think I’ve come a long way from when I wrote them. But the most important thing was, we had our scripts. Now started the pre-production.
We pretty much had our cast right off, as they were mostly friends of ours. I was going to play Samuel, who was a bouncer at a club with super strength; Evan was to play Mark, the plucky costar; Kevin (a samurai), Peyote (a drugged out metal guitarist) and Stephanie (a cloaked ninja) were going to be played by our friends Ken, Adolf and Amber respectively; And Mary, who appeared as herself in only one scene, was planned to be played by a woman named Amanda Alch. who I was going to school with at the time and was already an established actress (Bad Kids Go To Hell and Claws). It’s likely she doesn’t even remember agreeing to appear in it, which is probably for the best.
Our starring role went to a good friend of mine from high school named Kyle Mason. Then, he was a kid in his late teens with an interest in cosplay and video production. Nowadays, he is a professional cosplayer and video producer, so he’s not doing too shabby. It didn’t take much convincing to have him play the lead role, and we were off to the races!
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A Readthrough of the script, which of course didn’t go through any editing
I had even asked a dude I had met in college named James to be our Director of Photography, as he had had more experience working on original projects and camera work. Our hearts were working faster than our minds, and we skipped over dozens of important steps (setting proper schedules, storyboarding, finding proper funding, etc) in our pursuit, instead focusing on marketing, finding places to film, and practicing our parts. We even had popular content producers Video Games Awesome plug our project on their show, despite the fact that there was not any actual substance behind anything we were doing.
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Timestamp is at 9:24. A preview of what never comes...
The best way to sum this up is that is was an embarrassment to filmmaking. Had we actually started production as planned, everyone involved would probably hate each other, and the entire thing would be scrapped after about two episodes. I was saved by James cancelling his involvement, probably rightly sensing that this all was half assed, causing the production to fall behind and ultimately being cancelled due to people no longer being available.
And so the first part of this story ends with but a wisp of smoke that was our hope for a movie. Though we possibly dodged a bullet, I was still frustrated and disappointed by all of it, so I put the idea on hiatus and started working on other things. It would lay there for 3 years before it appeared again…
Part 2: The First Cartoon
2013. I was out of community college, and at the University of Texas. I didn’t fit in very well, and being farther away from home and friends made me a bit of a sad, lonely hermit. I knew several people at school, and though I would consider many of them friends now, back then, they were just classmates.
To occupy my time, I was doing side work for Frederator Studios, makers of such fine cartoons as Adventure Time, Fairly Odd Parents, and Chalkzone. I had become friendly with Fred Seibert, the founder of Frederator, after interviewing him a couple years prior, and he had let me make some videos for their YouTube Channel. While I was doing work there, they started up their Cartoon Hangover project, where people could pitch their own cartoons with relative ease, and if Frederator liked it, they would produce a full cartoon short.
This seemed like an amazing opportunity for both myself and Evan, who had experience with animation. I talked to him about it, and he was on board before I even finished explaining the whole thing to him. Like we always do, we started discussing ideas, and after long deliberations, we narrowed it down to three: Captain Amazo, the idiotic superhero; Metal Mania, which was about a metal bad traveling through space to be the biggest band in the galaxy; And, of course, Awesome Trevor, back from the dead.
Well, back from the dead is a slight misnomer. We had discussed the idea once more in between, thinking of bringing it back as a comic. We got far in our discussions, but never made any physical items to go with it, and soon it went back into its slumber.
Editing note: After reviewing the article, Evan has told me that he actually made a comic cover that he never showed me. The cover, unfortunately, has been lost to time.
Both of us were still feeling the sting from the failed mini-series/movie, and as we were now a little bit older, we decided to be a bit wiser as well. Not wise enough to not choose Awesome Trevor, mind you, but also hedging our bets by pitching two shows, the other being Captain Amazo. (Note: we did plan to pitch Metal Mania as well, but we never got around to finishing it).
So this process was pretty much a rinse and repeat. I went home and made a script, and from there, we began working on a pitch. This new script, while not a ton better than the originals, was still an improvement, and since we weren’t having to go through pre-production and big planning meetings, we were able to take stuff in stride. We kept the same general story, but decided to make stuff bigger and flashier, as we weren’t limited by the shackles of real life. We also changed around some of the character designs, as we wanted to have new actors play the characters.
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I’m sure I thought of the shirt designs. I’m a comedy genius.
We kept the base designs of Mark and Trevor, but Samuel the Bouncer was changed to match the person we really wanted to play him, Seanbaby. Once Satisfied, we storyboarded everything out  and sent them in to Frederator, eagerly awaiting the approval so we can start again on our dream project.
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I wrote in the dialogue myself, despite my awful handwriting.
As these are the first you are ever seeing of the characters or story, it’s needless to say that we were denied. The problem with it was that, whoops, we had sent a full storyboard, when in fact they wanted a beat board (like a storyboard, but using thumbnails instead of large images). He also noted that the end of this pitch was left as a “To Be Continued”, and that they were looking for standalone ideas instead of pitches for full series.
Part 3: The Second Cartoon
While again disappointed, this wasn’t a denial based on content, instead just the way it was presented. So we went back to the literal drawing board and reworked the idea into a standalone. It was at this point, in the first time since the idea was formed, that we decided to change the story up. While we kept the saving the girl idea (as to us, it felt like a very video-game thing), we made him more of a player-character like character, almost like an avatar battling in a game.
Looking back through the beat boards we made, they were lame. While I had grown as a writer, I focused way too much on trying to make something someone else would like, and wrote in a very cliched way. Instead of trying to introduce or establish characters, I made Mark and Trevor generic, and didn’t even give defined forms to the people they were fighting. The jokes were bad, the characters were one note, and for some reason I felt the need to physically write out the dialogue on the sheet, despite the fact that I have terrible handwriting.
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Seriously, why did I feel the need to write in the dialogue?!
Evan tried his best to work with what he was given, but I feel that I dropped the ball on this one. And of course it showed when I sent it in and got a response from Eric Homan, who runs all the creative development at Frederator.
“Thanks, Zach, for the work and continued interest.
Unfortunately, "Awesome Trevor" is very far away from what we're looking for in our Cartoon Hangover shorts, in everything from character to story to tone.
I may have recommended this before, but I really suggest you take a look at our shorts as we begin to release them in a few weeks. I think they'll give a better indication of the types of cartoons for which we're looking.
Thanks, again.
-- Eric”
In everything from character to story to tone. That said what needed to be said. Even though I was sour at the time, with five years of hindsight, I realized that Eric was, as he often is, completely right about it, in more way than I could have thought. It was a slapdash job on an idea that was already starting to become kind of stale. We tried to change it up, but in trying to rush this idea to get it made (I checked, there was literally one month between the denial of the first pitch and sending in the second pitch), I did a poor job and let both of us down.
I of course blamed people like Eric, who was just telling me the truth, and situations like my school life, which was causing me anxiety and depression, but deep down I knew that I had done poorly. I had taken this idea, that wasn’t even mine originally, and basically ruined it to the point where we felt like we couldn’t do anything more with it. So at this point, I want to make two apologies. One to Eric, who was simply trying to help and harboured resentment towards for years, and one to Evan, who I kind put a lot of pressure on while we were working on these, and probably wasn’t the best person to work with. Um… My bad.
Part 4: The Past and Future
That last one was probably the last major wave we had in trying to produce Awesome Trevor. It pops up in conversations of ideas a lot, but nothing ever comes to fruition. The closest that ever came after the second cartoon debacle was another video game video series related idea I had. The idea was of an NPC in an open world game who breaks programming and tries to fight back against the player character, who repeatedly kills people for no reason. After discussing that idea for a while, we thought of attaching the Awesome Trevor name to it, as they were both vaguely video game related, and even started jotting down some story ideas. But, like many plans, this one faded away, and was soon in the vault, like the thousand other things we come up with…
And, well, that’s kind of the end. There might have been an expectation of some kind of twist or surprise announcement, but that’s not always how things go. At this point, Awesome Trevor is just an old idea, one that had stewed in our minds for years now. It comes up in conversations every few months, maybe trying out a cartoon pitch again, or doing it as a podcast series, but so far, nothing is set in stone. Hell, it’s possible that after this, a new vigor of interests might pop up inside of us, and the world is finally introduced to this plan that is now 8+ years in the making. You never really can tell.
The main reason I wanted to write this was to just put this all out there, and finally view something of it. Maybe I wanted people to finally see this thing that has been on my mind for a portion of my life. Maybe it’s a cautionary tale of not stepping back and taking the necessary steps to make something come to life properly. Or maybe it’s simply my plea of vanity, begging someone to tell me what I made was good. At this point, I can’t really tell. I just hope someone enjoyed it enough to get to the end.
And man, did it get kind of depressing at the end. Well, for those who made it here, here is your secret easter egg ending. Presented in full is the original draft to the Awesome Trevor Theme Song, produced by the extremely talented Evan Greenhoe. Thank you for reading!
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zachwritesstuff · 6 years
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Who Killed Suzumiya Haruhi?
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It's hard to believe that, back in the early 2000s, the most popular anime were Death Note, Code Geass, and a random quirky show about a schoolgirl. But 11 years ago, a show premiered that seemed to break out beyond it's niche audience inside the slice of life genre, and actually gain a bit of mainstream appeal. It's impact could be debatable, but as a person who lived through it, it was hard not to hear about the phenomenon of Suzumiya Haruhi, thanks in part to it's amazing performances, great use in Key Animation, and of course, it's catchy ending theme, complete with accompanying dance.
With all this hype and popularity, it was pretty much certain that the series would go down as one of the mainstays of Anime worldwide. And yet, in 2018, it's little more than a footnote, at best a forgotten groundwork for things that came after it, at worst, a tarnished collection of broken promises, missed opportunities and terrible decisions.
Strong arguments can and have been made for how it ended up like this. The main culprit, as we will venture into, is the scheduling and release of new episodes. It's a terrible thing that has brought down shows bigger and smaller than it. But to say that it was the only reason for it would be, I believe, an oversimplification of just all that went on from the premiere of Haruhi to now. Hell, if that was the only problem, than there shouldn't have been any issue with the series from a couple years back based on Nagato Yuki. And yet, it ended up as a mostly middling show with very little fanfare throughout.
So what, in the long run, killed this series to the point of near obscurity? Well, let's take a look at some of the suspects...
1. Releases
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So let's first talk about the aforementioned elephant in the room: The release of episodes. From the start, the way that they released new episodes for the series was bizarre, but in a fun way. Instead of just doing it normally, they released it in a nonlinear order. And it made an immediate impact too. The first episode, shot in the style of an amateur movie, introduces all of the characters as they are playing other characters, with only hints of the title character Haruhi, who served as the director for this film. From there, we are introduced to her and her quirks, along with the extended cast of oddballs like Mikuru, Yuki and Koizumi.
The first season of Haruhi was, unquestionably, a success. Not only did it bring it fans internationally, it also helped put Kyoto Animation on the map, helping them eventually become one of the major anime production companies in Japan. Though they had some success with shows like Full Metal Panic and Air, Haruhi was the first show that had the success on the level they hadn't experienced before, and influenced all of their shows from then on (not including the Key shows, like Clannad and Kanon, of course).
So that made it even more bizarre that, instead of immediately working on a sequel, there was a three year break between seasons. Other shows take breaks that are that long, and even longer, but what made it so weird is how little information came out between the two. After the release of Lucky Star, which had many references to Haruhi, there was a virtual silence, save for weird clues and ARG-like hints on what might come.
When the second season eventually did come, they did it in their similarly quirky way. Instead of simply airing the new season out of order, like the first season, they instead aired the first season in order, and interspersed the episodes from the second season where they would fit in the first season chronological. A bit irksome, but very much in line with how Haruhi operated up to that point. The first nail in Haruhi's coffin didn't really come until...
2. The Endless Eight
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The Endless Eight was a storyline in the novel series that involved Haruhi wanting the summer season to never end, inadvertently causing her and her friends to relive the same eight days over and over again without them knowing. It was a single chapter in the novels, and had a few repeated scenes to highlight the cyclical nature of the eight days. When it came time to adapt them to the anime series, the producers decided to have some fun. Why not take the eight days, and show how repetitive it REALLY was, by making it into eight episodes?
And so they did. For eight weeks, viewers tuned in to see the same episode played time after time, with only the outfits and a couple lines of dialogue different with each episode. The first couple of times, it seemed funny. By the third episode, one would wonder if they were actually doing what we thought they were doing. And after confirmation by the fourth episode, at least personally, myself and friends simply gave up, skipping the rest until the end, when we would finally get the conclusion without the quirkiness.
This sentiment was shared among many fans, and made one thing pretty clear: Though it was in line with the style of the show, fans really didn't want to watch the same episode over and over, especially since it cut a majority of the season out, leaving only six original episode. It also didn't help that the last five episode of the season were a five part miniseries that had it's own problematic scene of the beloved main character drugging her friend.
The second season of Haruhi wasn't fondly remembered, to say the least. Though the first episode of it is considered one of the better episodes of the show, everything that followed was pretty much downhill, with very little rise after the Endless Eight. It also didn't help that there was...
3. Internal Competition
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The reairing of Haruhi with the second season started on April 3rd, 2009. The same day, Kyoto Animation premiered another one of it's shows: A fun show about a group of girls starting a band in school called K-On!. Compared to the disappointment of what was going on with Haruhi, the simplicity and overall cute aesthetic of K-On! was a breath of fresh air. It overshadowed it's predecessor and spelled out the next step for Kyoto Animation: A much simpler and straight forward way of releasing their shows, free of quirks and clues.
The reaction from Season 2 of Haruhi also seemed to scare KyoAni from ever making more than two seasons of a show, as they did not do so for the next nine years, only breaking their record in the summer of 2018, making a third season of Free! Eternal Summer.
4. Film, Spin-Offs and Novel Releases
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The last hurrah for Haruhi ended up being The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi, the film based on the novel by the same name. Unlike the second season, the film was pretty well received, considered one of the best showings of all of the characters. It, along with the showings of the side adaptions of popular fan series Nyoron Churuya-san and The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, gave the fans some modicum of hope that the series could build it's way out of the hole that Endless Eight dug.
And then another problem arose.
The writer of the original novel series, Nagaru Tanigawa, wrote the novels pretty consistently, starting in 2003. He would release 1-2 novels a year, up until 2007, roughly a year after the first season ended. Not much is really known about the whole situation, as no one has really come out to talk about it. All that is really known is that, after the end of the first season, there was a gap of all Haruhi related content for a few years, until the second season and movie premiered. The next set of novels wouldn't come out until 4 years later, in 2011, before leaving off on an open ending that, to this day, has never been resolved. Tanigawa has not stated that the series has ended, but at least at the time of this writing, there have been no plans for anymore novels.
And that was pretty much the last anyone heard about Haruhi for several years. Little hints and clues would pop up every once in a while, but they ended up being new products and blu-ray releases of the older series. It wasn't until 2015 that another series based on Haruhi was released, this time based on the universe set up in Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi and focusing on the side character Yuki. It was the first time the original cast had been together since the movie back in 2010, which was especially surprising when you consider the fact that the actresses behind Haruhi and Mikuru, Aya Hirano and Yuko Goto respectively, had serious health issues that threatened their careers.
The combination of gaps in productions, memories of the Endless Eight and the constantly changing anime industry spelled out the unfortunate truth for this new show: no one really cared about Haruhi anymore. A series that started as a cultural phenomenon ended with barely a wimper. A truly sad sight.
So now the big question posed by the title: Who Killed Suzumiya Haruhi? Well, looking at all of the evidence, it seems that the ultimate answer is simple: Time. The long gaps and slow followups caused the world to change around it, leaving it behind. Make no mistake, Haruhi was and is great, even today. But you can't fumble too many times without eventually losing the ball all together. It's completely possible that there might be a resurgence of Haruhi in the future, and I would welcome it, just as I welcomed the original show over ten years ago. But for now, we will leave it as a sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, memory of the anime industry, and let it's catchy ending song and dance play it out...
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zachwritesstuff · 6 years
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Dan, Dan, The Ryckert Man
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I sometimes will say that I hate Dan Ryckert. Other times, I will say I love the goofball. But ever since being introduced to him, with the rest of the Giant Bomb cast in 2015, the main emotion I have experienced when watching, reading and speaking of him is simple bewilderment. He is, pound for pound, probably one of the oddest men I've ever been exposed to, and not just in the way he acts. His experiences, his content, and sometimes, his sheer luck is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's as inspirational as it is frustrating, which is why I must say just a couple things about him, and why I find him to be an inspiration for me.
When first hearing about him, from friends who were already fans, I couldn't really understand was the big deal was. He seemed like a normal dude by all accounts, and in fact, a bit dimmer in some accounts (which he admits himself, when speaking of things like Egg Whites and eating out of shoe boxes). I enjoyed his content, and found that we had similar interests, both loving Metal Gear Solid, Pro Wrestling, and thinking that Majora's Mask is one of the best Zelda games.
Diving deeper into his past, though, I started to see some of just the downright odd stuff he had done. Before even joining Giant Bomb, he had already produced several books, almost on a whim. He had been working with video games, making videos and set world records, simply because he wanted to. He worked with music stars like GWAR and Andrew WK, and appeared in video games like LA Noire and Infamous: Second Son. And he had become a bit of a viral sensation, what with his interactions with Jose Conseco and his dealing with Guitar Hero.
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I became a premium member soon after becoming a fan of Giant Bomb, and immediately started watching the many video series they had to offer. Two of my favorites, though, ended up being things that he introduced: Mario Party Party and Metal Gear Scanlon (Drew Scanlon is an amazing person in his own right, but that's for another article.) He also started an advice podcast called Danswers with Danny O'Dwyer, which allowed me to see the more personal side of him, and really gave me an appreciation of what kind of person Dan is. And he even began following a dream of his and got involved in the Wrestling industry as a Manager. Not to mention his scary ability to communicate with brands online, leading eventually to his wedding being produced and paid for by Taco Bell.
It was around this time that I realized what made me focus on Dan, even beyond other members of the Giant Bomb cast, and even above other people in the Games Journalism and Online Video Production industry: He is the kind of person I wish I could be.
For a bit of background, as is obvious from the title of this blog, that I fancy myself a writer. I produce videos and podcasts on a non-consistent basis. I've had dreams of being involved in Wrestling, I've had a desire to act in video games and I've wanted to release full novels for a long time. And, unfortunately, I have been suffering from anxiety and depression problems for years, which I'm pretty sure has affected my ability to do all the previous things in an effective way.
So when I look at someone like Dan, and his accomplishments, his videos, his writing and his stunts, I see something to aspire to. The truth is, I've never really been confident in anything I've done, mostly because the majority of things I've made have not done well. I've assisted on a few things that have gotten notoriety, but almost everything I've worked on myself haven't garnered much of a reaction at all. Many would say it's foolish to expect much of anything to gain a reaction, but it's disheartening to try and produce things for years, only to receive general silence, or even negativity to the created content. It doesn't help that, to even get to the point of making things, I have to overcome the mental hurdles of anxiety and pressure of depression telling me that it's not worth the effort.
So to watch someone like Dan succeed at doing things, in what seems like an entirely effortless way, can seem infuriating. And at times, it did make me a bit upset. But knowing that for many of the things he did, he had to go through many of the same mental barriers that I did and still came out successful, at the very least, tells me that it's possible to accomplish something you love while still being happy. I mean, if a simple boy from Kansas can do it, what's stopping me?
So thank you, Dan Ryckert, for being a weird, lucky, successful writer, video producer, roller coaster rider, taco eater, video game journalist and all around human being (despite what your coworkers claim.) Please continue to be successful in your field for years to come, just so I don't end up looking foolish for writing this.
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zachwritesstuff · 6 years
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What does it mean to be in a Target Audience?
So I used to produce a yearly panel at my local convention called Shit Otaku Say. The point of the panel was to look at some of the more embarrassing and shameful parts of the anime, and general, fandoms. After I started it, a little show called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic popped up, and gave us fuel for the next few years. But in my research of the terrible things the older fans of MLP, known as "Bronies", tend to often do, I've run across a question that keeps popping up in relation to the show: What is the target audience for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? I've always thought that the answer was so obvious that it was useless to even ask, but I've seen repeated arguments from bronies that they are the target audience, more so than the young girls that the show is geared to. Shows like Teen Titans, Steven Universe, Invader Zim and countless others have spawned similar arguments, so I've decided to make a small video explaining what exactly it means to be the Target Audience, and clear up some beliefs or misconstructions about it.
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So first and foremost, I should probably clear up the name of it. While technically correct, Target Audience is more of a marketing term than a TV production term, though we will get into the marketing side of it later. When talking about who a TV show or Movie is made for, the more accurate term is "Key Demographic". This term refers to the general range of age, gender, ethnicity and income that a viewer or group of viewers land in. Basically, it's what dictates how a show is generally written and when it airs, usually along with what commercials air along with it and what products are produced for it.
So let's take a look at My Little Pony. The main argument I saw when defending that older males were the target audience/key demographic is an old and very biased census report, stating that Males about 18 were the heaviest viewers. I'm not going to go into everything that is wrong with how this thing was made, but needless to say, it means nothing. The demographic for My Little Pony is girls, ages 4 to 12. It will take you a maximum ten minutes to figure this out, even if you don't look up the direct numbers. But here are a few different ways this can be figured out without looking at market research reports or observing data on different shows:
1. The two most obvious signs of what the Key Demographic for a show is is what channel is airs on and when it airs. Blues Clues won't air on Fox at 11 at night, partly because the complicated story might confuse President Trump, but mostly because the age range for that area is much older than audience. Something like Blues Clues would air on a young kids network, like Nick Jr., and it would air in an earlier time slot, like the morning or early afternoon. Cartoons like Steven Universe and Regular Show are geared towards older kids, in the 10-14 range, so they are often played later, usually in the 6pm-8pm range. And of course, shows like Rick and Morty and Family Guy are adult oriented, so they will end up playing in prime time or late slots, and they are usually on more adult oriented channels, like Fox or Adult Swim.
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2. The second most obvious sign is the content of the actual show. One argument I saw in the earlier days, that thankfully has died down now, is that stuff like MLP is geared towards older audience because they would put in jokes that only older fans will get. Not only is this wrong, they are missing the actual point of those kinds of jokes, which is usually for the parents of the kids who are forced to watch the cartoon with the kid. But the general content or structure of a show can be dictated by what the key demographic is. If the show skews younger, like MLP or the Lion Guard, than the show is more likely to have moral lessons and spell out whats going on in the episode more often, so it's easier for the kids to follow along. If the audience is older kids and young teens, like Adventure Time or Avatar: The Last Airbender, than the moral lessons are usually more downplayed or subtle, and they even will sometimes introduce grey areas and morally ambiguous circumstances for the characters to deal with. And, of course, if the series is geared towards adults, the morality might be completely absent, and the content is usually more violent and foul than kids should probably be seeing.
3. And now we get to where the term Target Audience came from: The marketing. You will never see a commercial for King of the Hill or American Dad during Saturday morning cartoons, and it would be very strange to see a commercial for Power Rangers during Adult Swim. Commercials for shows are generally advertised during or near the time slot they play in, because that is most likely when the Target Audience for that show is tuning in. On websites, you will see banner ads and pre-play videos that are similar to the video or content you are viewing, because Networks will attach them to the audience they are advertising to. And when it comes to toys, younger audiences will usually get simpler toys, like plastic ponies and big playsets, while an older audience tends to get more decorative toys, like the awful soulless Pop Vinyl line, or apparel, like shirts and socks. These advertisements are specifically targeted to audiences through well placed commercials and media, hence where the name comes from.
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But as with many things, there are exceptions to the rules, and demographics are no different. For one, you get shows that are a bit more muddled with who the show is made for, which spawns creations like Ren and Stimpy and Invader Zim. Made by creators who probably shouldn't have been hired to make kids shows, both shows gained popularity both with their targeted audience and older fans, the former even making an unsuccessful adult themed series to capitalize on it.
And I will concede one thing: When bronies said that they were the target audience for My Little Pony, they were only mostly wrong. While they aren't THE key demographic, they are still a demographic that companies will market to in some way. This is why things like exclusive Comic Con figures get released, and it's not only MLP that does it. Transformers has released figures for hundreds of dollars that probably aren't very kid friendly, and Steven Universe often releases behind the scenes pictures and often communicates with it's older audience. The reasoning behind this is simply too: Why shut out a segment of your audience, no matter how small, when they can help you gain more popularity and make you more money? It's simple business!
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So to sum up, The Key Demographic is what a show is made for, and often why a show has longevity. And just because you aren't in it doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. Just don't be offended of you feel a show literally made for kids is "talking down to you", because often times, it might simply not be talking to you directly.
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zachwritesstuff · 6 years
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MGS 101: An Introduction to Insanity
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Note: This is an opinion piece, and none of it should be taken as hard fact.
There is no real way to sugarcoat it: Metal Gear Solid is probably one of the strangest storylines to come out of video games since Yo Noid. It’s complicated and convoluted progression is one of the biggest points of contention brought up about the game, along with it’s monstrous cutscenes, obsession with ass and piss, and Snake’s complusiveness to parrot anything said to him as a question. And honestly, it’s something that can’t really be argued. Metal Gear’s storyline is not something that can be summed up in a couple minutes. With giant robots, nanomachines, telepathy, hypnosis, actual magic, weaponized bees, cyborg ninjas, cloning, brainwashing and body doubles playing integral parts to the MGS story, crazy is a pretty good word to describe Metal Gear Solid.
So because of this, a lot have believed that it has a bit of a learning curve when it comes to introducing a general audience to the fantastical world of Metal Gear. Those who are hardcore fans believe that the story is actually one of the most important parts of the series, up there with gameplay and how often you are forced to look at Snake’s butt. This is a belief that I even had for a long time, thinking that it was a series that was nearly impossible to introduce to people because of how complicated it was.
This belief was shaken, though, when I entered University. I had a roommate who was pretty much what would be expected of an on leave Army GI: Drank heavily, mainly played Call of Duty online, partied every weekend. He was generally an okay guy, but we didn’t see eye to eye and he was only around for one semester. But one odd thing that we did agree on, oddly, was that we loved Metal Gear Solid. This confused me, because to my understanding, Metal Gear Solid was way out of his wheelhouse, and yet, he had played all the games, and even asked me to borrow MGS4, because he hadn’t had a chance to play it yet.
It was from this interaction that made me step back and observe what Metal Gear Solid actually is. It has a crazy story, yes, but it’s also revered as one of the greatest game series of all time, put on lists with Mario, Zelda, Halo and Uncharted all the time. Solid Snake, and to a lesser degree, Raiden and Big Boss, are often included on lists of greatest video game characters. It really feels like there is no need to “introduce” people to the series, since it’s pretty much in the video gaming consciousness already.
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But this seemed diametrically opposed to the previous belief that you need to know the story and understand the underlying themes to actually enjoy MGS. How could a game that is so complicated and hard to understand be so beloved by the general populous? It was mind boggling.
So, as I do with many other things that I’m having trouble understanding, I take a step back and try to look at the big picture. Instead of focusing on the finer details, I tried to see all elements of the series and why it has such wide range appeal. While I can’t sit here and give you all the facts, here are some random observations I made during my casual research:
The biggest revelation from stepping out is the fact that, well, only the fans really put the story on such a high pedastal. The people who make the game, the people who market the game, and even the creator himself don’t really consider the story the most important part. Hell, Kojima didn’t even plan the story for each game until he starts working on the game, which seems sensible until you consider that there are seven parts to the entire series!
Hideo Kojima has openly admitted before, during and after the release of each of his Metal Gear games that the one he made before was planned to be the last in the series. MGS2 was going to be the finale, MGS3 was his grand exit from the series, and MGS4 was going to be the big one to wrap everything up. Circumstances beyond Kojima’s control basically forced MGS5 to be the end of the series, but even if that weren’t the case, he would probably still say it was, even while he began work on Metal Gear Solid 6.
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So if the story wasn’t the main focus, than what was? Well, that brings me to my next point: The entirety of Metal Gear Solid is basically built on cool looking moments. Because, realistically, the idea of a bipedal tank is kind of ridiculous. They even say so themselves in an optional codec call in MGS3. But it makes for a great visual in the game to have one man fighting a gigantic mechanical beast, and in the sequel, having another man fight an army of them. It doesn’t make sense to have an insane cyborg ninja jumping around and attacking you, but it makes for a fascinating boss fight. And Psycho Mantis is hardly explained in the story, but his fight in the first Metal Gear Solid game is unforgettable.
Sometimes though, to get to those moments, you have to really twist some things around to make it work. The extremely convoluted and factually inaccurate explanation for the genetics behind Solid and Liquid Snake might be a bit of a head scratcher, but it’s a way to get to the “Who is the Better Brother” fight that ends off the first game. Figuring out the motivations for the Boss’ turn on the United States might take some explaining, but it’s worth knowing to feel the impact of the “Mentor Vs Student” climax at the finale of Snake Eater. And honestly, I genuinely still don’t completely understand what Ocelot was at the end of MGS4, but his fight on top of the ship at the end was one of my favorite moments in the entire series.
So how do you introduce someone to this crazy ass story? Well, there is a pretty simple answer: You don’t. That’s the answer that the advertising took for the games. The commercials they make for TV in America are more like movie trailers. Hell, the commercial for MGS4 has the classic movie trailer voice in it!
MGS3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRQ-bvaz5c
MGS4: https://youtu.be/QuIH4rgU_QA
MGSV: https://youtu.be/-GVxhmP8AMw
And the commercials in japan are downright silly. Japanese businessmen crawling through jungles, a world where everyone lives in boxes, it’s ridiculous. But in all of those, they just hint at the story, because that is what they are designed to do. Articles about the games, previews, quick looks and general marketing for the games usually leave the story as a secondhand to other aspects of the game. This is so that a newbie can pick up the game and see it for themselves, deciding what aspects and positives about the game will bring them back for more, and hopefully inspire them to look at the past games as well.
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Which leads me to my last, and possibly most important point: The gameplay. And that’s really the be all and end all. If the games weren’t fun to play, than they wouldn’t be as remembered as they are. Mega fans love the story, but the gameplay is the glue that keeps MGS together. Even if the cutscenes are monstrous, the parts in between are why we keep coming back and giving Konami money. They even tried to make an interative experience without the gameplay, called the Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel. And no one remembers that, because at it’s core, MGS is a fully experience; You can’t have the cutscenes without the gameplay, and you can’t fit together the gameplay without it’s ridiculous story.
So while the crazier and more mystifying parts of MGS can be loved in their own way, the general appeal of Metal Gear seems to be in the fact that it is a weird action stealth game with a compelling main character and a lot of content to play. The best way to introduce a new fan to this is not to expound on how big and strange the story is, but how big and fun the entire game is.
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