PhedraTibbetts516
What's Anime Based On
Anime is most commonly based from a manga, which is simply the Japanese word for comics. Usually when people call something manga they imply that it was produced in Japan. Some people prefer manga over anime and vice-versa however the two are usually quite closely associated with each other, if not directly following each other, although in almost all cases the manga comes first before the anime. Unfortunately I'm not keen on the genre and so i don't have much knowledge of reading it, of course with my fascination with anime I've given manga an opportunity in some places however it will never be just like anime to me. Manga has become ever more popular in many parts of the world such as the United States. Manga often is available in magazines that will include a few chapters of several different series, some daily, some weekly, and some much more spread out as well as produced randomly. Whilst not all anime is dependant on manga, I'd venture to say that at least 90% seem to be. It's not uncommon for an anime to become produced simultaneously as the manga it's following, however this often results in the anime catching up towards the manga too quickly which forces the anime creators either to go on a hiatus or create 'filler' episodes which have no real link with the overall storyline. One problem that this creates for fans of anime but not manga is that the manga is definitely ahead, thus those who see clearly knows what is going to happen prior to the anime viewers will, one of the many reasons I have almost always avoided anime discussion forums is because of 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 based on game titles, plus some even have entire franchises of game titles in line with the anime. Among the best examples I'm able to think about 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 game titles have within them, and also to have the entire thing presented to you visually can definitely be rather 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 many more. It actually was a misconception of mine for that longest period of time that the Pokemon anime came prior to the games, it wasn't until about 5 years later that I realized how wrong I had been. Those are just a limited number that were in many cases beloved video games of my childhood that left me wanting more, through an anime to look at that continues or gives me more plot and story is definitely an attractive thing.
Obviously, some anime are even original creations, these however require far more work than simply taking comic strips and animating them together (not a proper explanation from the manga to anime transformation but the gist from it). Original creations require, a minimum of 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 identical name but developed by another animation organization, would be the most often seen types of original anime content. Most OVA's are short long ranging from one to five episodes each, however in some specific cases there are others which are anywhere from 10-100+ episodes in length, obviously this can be a factor of methods enough time and work goes into them. Currently I am following two anime OVA series that are around ten episodes each in length but instead of weekly episodes they merely release about one episode every 6 months, that's right I said six months between episodes. Obviously this seems like a problem, however, many OVA are considered 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 based on 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 these live-action movies was not spectacular, it is quite a different watch and provides you a better check out the capabilities that anime has over what effects can do for a movie. Having seen the live-action Dragon Ball, Detective Conan and Great Teacher Onizuka movies and other specials, I must say that I was quite disappointed together, but mainly due to bad acting and low budgets. Earlier I mentioned the Cowboy Bebop live-action movie, that 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 set of actors I have seen in other live-action things. Hopefully Cowboy Bebop does well in American markets therefore we see more big name actors starring in live-action anime based movies, it's my belief that situations are leaning that way since I've noticed an increase in actors like Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Andy Richter, and Will 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 was able to recognize popular television and movie actors voices, however that movie comes complete with stars including Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, Betty White and many more, which was very unlike the usual a couple of actors you might recognize.
