McgregorEdison703
What Is Anime According to
Anime is most commonly based off of a manga, which is simply the Japanese word for comics. Usually when individuals call something manga they mean that it had been produced in Japan. Some people prefer manga over anime and vice-versa but the two are often quite closely associated with one another, otherwise directly following one another, although in almost all cases the manga comes first before the anime. Unfortunately I am not a fan of the genre and so i don't have much knowledge of reading it, obviously with my fascination with anime I have given manga an opportunity in some places but it should never be just like anime to me. Manga is becoming ever more popular in lots of parts of the planet including the Usa. Manga often comes in magazines which will incorporate a few chapters of several different series, some daily, some weekly, and some much more spread out or even produced randomly. While not all anime is based on manga, I would venture to say that a minimum of 90% seem to be. It's not uncommon for an anime to be produced simultaneously because the manga it is following, however this often leads to the anime catching up towards the manga too rapidly which forces the anime creators to either continue a hiatus or create 'filler' episodes that have no real link with the general storyline. One problem that this creates for fans of anime although not manga would be that the manga is definitely ahead, thus those who see clearly will know what will happen before the anime viewers will, one of the numerous reasons I have almost always avoided anime discussion forums is due to the spoilers that manga readers inadvertently blurt out and may ruin months of anime viewing for me.
It gets better though, anime is also very commonly according to video games, and some even have entire franchises of video games in line with the anime. One of the best examples I can think of for this is Star Ocean: EX, the anime almost follows the games storyline and cinematic perfectly, some people might not realize how powerful of storylines some video games have within them, and to have the entire thing given to you visually can definitely be quite stunning. Another great current types of games turned anime are Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Valkyria Chronicles, Gungrave, Devil May Cry, Pok?mon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter, and much more. It was actually a misconception of mine for the longest period of time the Pokemon anime came before the games, it had not been until about five years later that I realized how wrong I had been. Those are only a limited number that were oftentimes beloved game titles of my childhood that left me wanting more, having an anime to watch that continues or provides me with more plot and story is definitely an attractive thing.
Of course, some anime are even original creations, these however require much more work than simply taking comic strips and animating them together (not a proper explanation of the manga to anime transformation however the gist of it). Original creations require, at least in my opinion, a truly visionary person to create them. OVA's, or original video animations, while sometimes based solely off an anime of the same name but created by another animation organization, are the most often seen types of original anime content. Most OVA's are short in length which range from 1 to 5 episodes each, however in some specific cases there are others which are between 10-100+ episodes in length, obviously this can be a factor of how much time and work adopts them. Currently I am following two anime OVA series that exist ten episodes each long but rather than weekly episodes they only release about one episode every six months, that's right I said six months between episodes. Obviously this sounds like a problem, but many OVA are thought to become much better than their parent story anime by a large amount of the anime viewing public.
Unsurprisingly some anime even evolves a measure further into having a live-action movie or series made according to it. Many of the popular anime have spawned off live-action creations such as Gantz, Dragon Ball, Detective Conan, Cowboy Bebop, and Great Teacher Onizuka. While the success of those live-action movies hasn't been spectacular, it is quite a different watch and provides a better check out the capabilities that anime has over what effects can perform for a movie. Having seen the live-action Dragon Ball, Detective Conan and Great Teacher Onizuka movies and other specials, I must say which i was quite disappointed with them, but mainly because of bad acting and low budgets. Earlier I mentioned the Cowboy Bebop live-action movie, which is still in development at this time, but looks promising using the Matrix star Keanu Reaves playing the main character Spike Spiegel, that alone puts it over the seemingly random group of actors I have seen in other live-action things. Hopefully Cowboy Bebop does well in American markets so we see more big named actors starring in live-action anime based movies, it's my belief that situations are leaning that way since I've noticed a rise in actors like Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Andy Richter, and can Arnett amongst many others doing the voice-overs for major anime movies (usually the ones made my Studio Ghibli) so that they can bring a wider American audience to anime. I personally watched among Studio Ghibli's movies recently, Ponyo around the cliff by the sea, in English and was overjoyed after i could recognize popular television and movie actors voices, however that movie is packed with stars including Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, Betty White and many others, that was very unlike the typical one or two actors you might recognize.
