(no subject)
This is mostly posted because someone on dgrayman asked me to.
As some of you may know, D.Gray-man anime was canceled this week in Japan. Many fans may claim 'good riddance'. Others may rejoice. Opinions may vary. Personally? I'm amazed and frustrated that it lasted this long. The series suffered from poor ratings and reviews. It had little presence on the fanwork market and minimal merchandise. 2channel hated it.
Why? Obviously, because it was terrible. This may be a terrible thing to say, but D.Gray-man anime is pretty much a tutorial in how to not produce a decent action anime. Even someone without an education in animation can say tell that. Allow me to explain the reasoning.
First of all, D.Gray-man anime lacks ambition. Ambition is an important thing because it shows how much effort you put into being noticed. You have to be ambitious or you'll be buried. One Piece and Naruto are ambitious in their faithful rendition of manga atmosphere. Fullmetal Alchemist and Soul Eater went beyond that by trying to develop their own unique personalities.
Bleach is not ambitious, but unlike D.Gray-man, it doesn't show off despite being half-assed. More on that later.
First of all, adapting the atmosphere is very important. It demonstrates your respect and love for the series. All series listed above managed that. Bleach got pretty lazy and cliche about it, but it still succeeded. It kept the original designs, at least.
D.Gray-man anime failed at that. In fact, it altered the character design for the protagonist, abandoning his wide-eyed, bishonen appearance for the sake of a generic shonen face.
It also ignored most weapon coloration. The light effects on all Innocence in the anime, including Crown Clown? Are off and show that they didn't bother asking Hoshino for guidelines. This demonstrates their lack of care and scares away hardcore fans of the original source.
Filler episodes enhance that outlook. As many can confirm, many people dropped the series once it hit the fillers. Among different fillers, there were two particularly glaring issues.
First of all, fillers took several stories from light novels and altered them into generic action. Second, several original stories ignored the setting rules established by the manga. This disrespect for the original showed even less care for it and scared off even more fans.
They probably attempted to be like Fullmetal Alchemist there. What they ignored is that Hiromu Arakawa personally requested for FMA anime to be different from the manga and said so in a public interview. Unlike with FMA, they had no backing from the original author.
Next! Next part would be sound. Music in D.Gray-man is completely boring and simply utilizes Generic Gothic Music Sound. It's not awful, but it lacks ambition. The Musician's Score is easily remembered and played, but doesn't provide the atmosphere and complexity required from such an important piece. Theme music for Allen attempts to resemble circus music, but it lacks the hopeful, gentle outlook expected from the character. Earl's theme lacks menace. All music is too slow to be used for action, which is crippling for an action series.
Voice acting is a worse can of worms. In every shonen, you can approach the choice of seiyuu in two different manners. You can simply go and choose perfect available voices from the generic seiyuu roster. It won't provide a unique sound, but it will prove effective in the long run. Bleach and Naruto did that, and they succeeded nicely.
On other hand, you can really dig around, attempt to recruit rookie actors and cast certain people out of type, and create a new, fresh sound with its own personality. Fullmetal Alchemist and Soul Eater did that to critical acclaim.
D.Gray-man half-assed that. It attempted to cast seiyuu out of type, but it used a generic seiyuu list and it did that sloppily. It succeeded with Kanda and Lenalee because it hired seiyuu who voiced such roles before, thus making them the most solid actors as far as acting goes.
But then, it went and hired Sanae Kobayashi to voice Allen Walker. Sanae Kobayashi is best known for voicing Lucy in Elfen Lied. Most of her time is spent voicing generic fourteen-year old girls with boring squeaky voices. I understand that she was cast out of type in order to provide a fresh sound to the protagonist, but she was glaringly struggling with the role for most of the series. In the end, casting her out of type wasn't worth it. They could hire a generic name like Akira Ishida and the character would become much more attractive.
In 2007, Code Geass came out and became famous for its unusual acting process, where numerous seiyuu were forced to drastically alter their voice in order to create a unique sound for their characters. D.Gray-man obviously saw that method and attempted to cash in on it. So they hired Saiga Mitsuki and Hiroki Tochi, seiyuu known for their deep, soft voices, and made them force excessive screech into their roles as Debitt and Cross Marian. However, Osamu Nabeshima is not Goro Taniguchi, seeing as his entire existing record consists of directing Hamtaro. He obviously failed at this.
Finally, animation. Animation in D.Gray-man is special because it manages to fail terribly at most basic animation rules. Normally, when the series' budget is too limited to provide fluid motion, it will resort to stylized still frames and highly stylized jerky animation in order to preserve a sense of style. It will then channel spare budget into particularly violent action scenes, thus making them look particularly vivid and memorable. It's a simple method that worked numerous times.
Animators in D.Gray-man used another famous method. It's known as 'turn down the brightness in frames and make them almost black in order to save money on detail'. It's a method that works on a technical level, but looks terrible on the aesthetic one. Normally, it's only used by complete amateurs in series like Shining Tears X Wind that nobody watches anyway. Even series that happen mostly at night, such as Trinity Blood and Soul Eater, avoid that method because it's terrible and makes the scene both blurry and boring to watch.
And because they don't bother pacing themselves, they end up not having enough budget for brightly lit and colored scenes that require more complex artwork. As a result, colorful scenes like the Ark look horrible because of awkward anatomy. Fail.
In conclusion, there is a certain moment of merchandise failure in D.Gray-man. This moment is called Lenalee Lee, the female lead of the entire series. You see, it is law that anime is watched both by men and women, no matter the genre. As such, you need characters who all kinds of audience could associate with. You need to give them merchandise accordingly. You need to reach out to everyone.
Lenalee is largely ignored by the merchandise staff in favor of her male companions. She is eerily absent from most keychains, bookmarks and everything else beyond group posters and trading cards. As the main female lead, she would be a perfect character for the teenage female audience to associate with. However, she is given zero merchandise, thus making it difficult for fans to show their appreciation of her. Even in the filler episodes of the anime, she is treated as nothing more than the generic romantic interest. By focusing on bishies, the production team alienated the female audience. Good job, guys.
And that's about it. As you can see, my opinion on D.Gray-man anime and its production methods is largely vicious and sometimes insulting. Unfortunately, little could convince me about it being wrong. Everything about its production was wrong and we can only hope that some other studio will intercept the rights before the series hits the TV screens again.
That is all. Sorry for tl;dr.
As some of you may know, D.Gray-man anime was canceled this week in Japan. Many fans may claim 'good riddance'. Others may rejoice. Opinions may vary. Personally? I'm amazed and frustrated that it lasted this long. The series suffered from poor ratings and reviews. It had little presence on the fanwork market and minimal merchandise. 2channel hated it.
Why? Obviously, because it was terrible. This may be a terrible thing to say, but D.Gray-man anime is pretty much a tutorial in how to not produce a decent action anime. Even someone without an education in animation can say tell that. Allow me to explain the reasoning.
First of all, D.Gray-man anime lacks ambition. Ambition is an important thing because it shows how much effort you put into being noticed. You have to be ambitious or you'll be buried. One Piece and Naruto are ambitious in their faithful rendition of manga atmosphere. Fullmetal Alchemist and Soul Eater went beyond that by trying to develop their own unique personalities.
Bleach is not ambitious, but unlike D.Gray-man, it doesn't show off despite being half-assed. More on that later.
First of all, adapting the atmosphere is very important. It demonstrates your respect and love for the series. All series listed above managed that. Bleach got pretty lazy and cliche about it, but it still succeeded. It kept the original designs, at least.
D.Gray-man anime failed at that. In fact, it altered the character design for the protagonist, abandoning his wide-eyed, bishonen appearance for the sake of a generic shonen face.
It also ignored most weapon coloration. The light effects on all Innocence in the anime, including Crown Clown? Are off and show that they didn't bother asking Hoshino for guidelines. This demonstrates their lack of care and scares away hardcore fans of the original source.
Filler episodes enhance that outlook. As many can confirm, many people dropped the series once it hit the fillers. Among different fillers, there were two particularly glaring issues.
First of all, fillers took several stories from light novels and altered them into generic action. Second, several original stories ignored the setting rules established by the manga. This disrespect for the original showed even less care for it and scared off even more fans.
They probably attempted to be like Fullmetal Alchemist there. What they ignored is that Hiromu Arakawa personally requested for FMA anime to be different from the manga and said so in a public interview. Unlike with FMA, they had no backing from the original author.
Next! Next part would be sound. Music in D.Gray-man is completely boring and simply utilizes Generic Gothic Music Sound. It's not awful, but it lacks ambition. The Musician's Score is easily remembered and played, but doesn't provide the atmosphere and complexity required from such an important piece. Theme music for Allen attempts to resemble circus music, but it lacks the hopeful, gentle outlook expected from the character. Earl's theme lacks menace. All music is too slow to be used for action, which is crippling for an action series.
Voice acting is a worse can of worms. In every shonen, you can approach the choice of seiyuu in two different manners. You can simply go and choose perfect available voices from the generic seiyuu roster. It won't provide a unique sound, but it will prove effective in the long run. Bleach and Naruto did that, and they succeeded nicely.
On other hand, you can really dig around, attempt to recruit rookie actors and cast certain people out of type, and create a new, fresh sound with its own personality. Fullmetal Alchemist and Soul Eater did that to critical acclaim.
D.Gray-man half-assed that. It attempted to cast seiyuu out of type, but it used a generic seiyuu list and it did that sloppily. It succeeded with Kanda and Lenalee because it hired seiyuu who voiced such roles before, thus making them the most solid actors as far as acting goes.
But then, it went and hired Sanae Kobayashi to voice Allen Walker. Sanae Kobayashi is best known for voicing Lucy in Elfen Lied. Most of her time is spent voicing generic fourteen-year old girls with boring squeaky voices. I understand that she was cast out of type in order to provide a fresh sound to the protagonist, but she was glaringly struggling with the role for most of the series. In the end, casting her out of type wasn't worth it. They could hire a generic name like Akira Ishida and the character would become much more attractive.
In 2007, Code Geass came out and became famous for its unusual acting process, where numerous seiyuu were forced to drastically alter their voice in order to create a unique sound for their characters. D.Gray-man obviously saw that method and attempted to cash in on it. So they hired Saiga Mitsuki and Hiroki Tochi, seiyuu known for their deep, soft voices, and made them force excessive screech into their roles as Debitt and Cross Marian. However, Osamu Nabeshima is not Goro Taniguchi, seeing as his entire existing record consists of directing Hamtaro. He obviously failed at this.
Finally, animation. Animation in D.Gray-man is special because it manages to fail terribly at most basic animation rules. Normally, when the series' budget is too limited to provide fluid motion, it will resort to stylized still frames and highly stylized jerky animation in order to preserve a sense of style. It will then channel spare budget into particularly violent action scenes, thus making them look particularly vivid and memorable. It's a simple method that worked numerous times.
Animators in D.Gray-man used another famous method. It's known as 'turn down the brightness in frames and make them almost black in order to save money on detail'. It's a method that works on a technical level, but looks terrible on the aesthetic one. Normally, it's only used by complete amateurs in series like Shining Tears X Wind that nobody watches anyway. Even series that happen mostly at night, such as Trinity Blood and Soul Eater, avoid that method because it's terrible and makes the scene both blurry and boring to watch.
And because they don't bother pacing themselves, they end up not having enough budget for brightly lit and colored scenes that require more complex artwork. As a result, colorful scenes like the Ark look horrible because of awkward anatomy. Fail.
In conclusion, there is a certain moment of merchandise failure in D.Gray-man. This moment is called Lenalee Lee, the female lead of the entire series. You see, it is law that anime is watched both by men and women, no matter the genre. As such, you need characters who all kinds of audience could associate with. You need to give them merchandise accordingly. You need to reach out to everyone.
Lenalee is largely ignored by the merchandise staff in favor of her male companions. She is eerily absent from most keychains, bookmarks and everything else beyond group posters and trading cards. As the main female lead, she would be a perfect character for the teenage female audience to associate with. However, she is given zero merchandise, thus making it difficult for fans to show their appreciation of her. Even in the filler episodes of the anime, she is treated as nothing more than the generic romantic interest. By focusing on bishies, the production team alienated the female audience. Good job, guys.
And that's about it. As you can see, my opinion on D.Gray-man anime and its production methods is largely vicious and sometimes insulting. Unfortunately, little could convince me about it being wrong. Everything about its production was wrong and we can only hope that some other studio will intercept the rights before the series hits the TV screens again.
That is all. Sorry for tl;dr.