Answerman: Recovery

Salutations, loyal readers. It's been a little while. Answerman went through a serious drought of questions.. and suddenly they came flooding in again. Like the ebb and tide of the sea, my inbox flows with a circular destiny.

…Either that or people were just too busy to send me questions. Let's get busy, shall we?

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All hail the great and wise Answerman. While searching for the best price on the Bubblegum Crisis DVD box set, I came across two different box sets that at first glance appear to be the same thing, but with only different covers. One, called Bubblegum Crisis Collection, is listed as discontinued, and the other, which I can easily find, is called Bubblegum Crisis Mega Series 4-Pack. I'm just wondering what the difference is between them. Thanks.

Right. AnimEigo released a really badly done Bubblegum Crisis DVD set a while back. You can still find it in some software stores, since it was designed to be sold there. It came in a large cardboard box and was stored in four separate jewel cases. The video transfer quality, I hear, was miserable and it was a really awful set with a lot of problems. The new set is widely available at most stores (including the same software stores that sold the first one) and, from what I hear, is vastly superior. Buy the 4-pack.

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Is there a Vandread OVA and is it called Integral?

No. What you probably ran across was the TV movie version of the first season of Vandread that was aired on Japanese TV the weekend after the first episode of Vandread: The Second Stage aired. Basically it was a condensed version of the first season, done in movie format. No new material, just re-edited episodes. You know, like Crest of the Stars. They do that kind of thing a lot in Japan.

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thank again for all the help. My question is this, throughout movies, an even anime movies, sequels are usually worse, can you list a few sequels to anime movies that you yourself thought were good.

Sure I can. Patlabor II was a serious improvement over the first one. The first Patlabor film put me to sleep.. the second one was really well done. The Slayers franchise has a history of making sequels that are better than the previous film. Slayers Return is probably the best of those movies, being vastly more entertaining than the first. The second Urusei Yatsura movie, Beautiful Dreamer, is a masterpiece and substantially better than the film that preceded it. I preferred Tenchi The Movie 2 to Tenchi Muyo! In Love, simply because it didn't have the creepy incest undertones. Tenchi Forever was even better than the first two, even.

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Hey Answerman,

I just finished watching the Rurouni Kenshin OVA series followed up by the Movie. I was expecting the movie to be like the OVA but unfortunately I was wrong. It was horrible, I had to force myself to sit and watch the entire thing. Why such a change in the style of script and animation? I'm not sure which came first (seems to me the OVA since it shows his origins), but whichever I believe that they should have stayed with the OVA style. It was much more entertaining. Also it ruins you for the rest of the story. Just hope you can shed some light on this, because i can see the change in animation as being ok, but making the story and characters humorous is just stupid.

Thanks in advance,
Danny

The OVA was made way after the film. The film is done in the style of the TV series, which is closer to the original manga. The characters have a sense of humor and are drawn in a very different style. The OVA series was intended to bring a sense of realism and history to the franchise, and they did a very good job of it; but the atmosphere and execution was completely different from the TV series. I've found that people who watch the OVA first wind up hating the TV series because it's so different. There's a lot of humor in the series and in the movie (although not so much as to call it a humorous film… not sure where you're getting that from..) and the OVA was completely humorless and took itself seriously. Depends on which one you prefer, I suppose. I found the TV series to be far more entertaining.

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Um...Mr answerman do you know why pioneer has not anounced anything about
the oh my goddess ovas, but they are already releasing adventure of the
minigoddess and the movie. why is that?

That would be because AnimEigo has the rights to the Oh! My Goddess OVA series and they've already released the whole thing on DVD. The rights to the AMG movie and Mini-Goddess series were a little too expensive for AnimEigo, so Pioneer snatched 'em up right quick.

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And, for our final question:

Hello im Ash Li
I have a BIG Q: for you...
...How would I go about if I wanted to get into Anime Production as a career?
<I have lots of time tto plan for it considering im in 10th grade>
I would be vary thankfull if you could do answer that for me
-Ash Li-

Well, I'm not 100% sure what aspect of Anime Production you're interested in, but I'm going to assume Animation; the answers for any other profession (voice acting, sound editor, character design) are pretty much similar.

First get a formal education in Animation; Justin Leach (an American working at the Japanese Anime Studio Production I.G) recommends the following North American school for 2D animation CalArts and Sheridan and Ringling for 3D animation. According to Justin these are the top animation schools in North America.

What you have to remember is that all the Major Anime studios are in Japan (obviously) and that there are thousands of aspiring animators in Japan that the studios can pick from. In order to compete with these artists you need to get some experience first, so after graduating you should look for a job at n American Anime studio and get a couple years experience before thinking about heading out to Japan.

And of course, if you want to work in Japan you need to speak Japanese fairly fluently, you might want to consider doing a minor in Japanese at college or University. Onse you have the experience and can speak, read and write Japanese, you can start aplying to various Japanese studios or maybe even head over there to look for a job, but you shouldn't count on finding on right away.

Not every animator goes the university college route, many Japanese animators skip college altogether and start working at an animation studio as young as 16 years old, but these are very entry level positions that pay peanuts. Their "education" is the experience they gain working in the studio. Unfortunately, according to Scott Frasier (Another American who worked in Japan for several years), "Japanese animation companies are unlikely to hire a foreigner (except for the most basic position) unless he/she can provide something that no Japanese worker can. " Of course Scott himself went straight to Japan before he even spoke Japanese, but his story also involves working as a dishwasher to be able to pay his way and a short bout of homelessness. Sure he skipped the North American University education, but it isn't a route that I would recommend (and neither does he.)

You might also want to look into the online Japanese Animation School Anime Juku (http://www.anime-juku.com/), which recently announced that they would be giving courses in English over the web. You should definitely read Scott Frasier's website at http://www.sockfairy.com/scott/index.htm and Justin Leach's FAQ at http://www.production-ig.com/faq.htm.

Good Luck


Thanks to Tempest for handling this question so well.

See you all on Friday!

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Got a burning question that you can't seem to answer? Maybe the Answerman can help you! Contact the Answerman at answerman (at animenewsnetwork.com) with your questions, and read his new columns every Tuesday and Friday! Maybe your question will be answered!

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