Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence 344
timbloid writes "I spotted on Ain't it cool news that Mamoru Oshii's new anime Innocence Ghost In The Shell 2's website is now open! The trailer is beautiful! But I can't help thinking a translated version is some time off from the 2004 Japanese release... Maybe it would be faster for me to learn Japanese?"
Translations... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's better to watch a film in the language it's created in [planetmirror.com]. Who knows if the translation is correct? Isn't it better to hear the real actors, and listen to the sounds they make, as opposed to some translated version?
A large piece of the meaning and fluidity of a film is lost in translation.
I can remember sitting around a table of French friends of mine, not knowing a word of French myself, and it was still interesting to listen to them, like a fly on a wall. You don't know what's being said, but the experience has it's own merits.
There's something really cool about watching anime in Japanese that gives a kind of simplicity to the plot and idea of the film. Because you have no idea what's being said, you can kind of guess, and that adds some of your immagination to the mix. It delivers a kind of Zen, IMHO. And with the visuals in the trailer of Ghost In the Shell 2, who cares what language it's in!! Gimmie!! Gimmie!!
Re:Anime Sucks.. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some great and funny, not to mention hardwarming movies and series in this genre. Open your eyes, and stop being so discriminating.
Older than that (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Anime Sucks.. (Score:5, Insightful)
My personal preference of Anime is that I feel animation is a more solid medium to present a story. And japenese animation has historically been better than many of the US attempts. Likewise, Japenese animation is more likey to show the darker side of things: people die, blood is spilled, war, etc. Meanwhile, US animation is too "Disney-esque", pandering to the G-rated demographic, or trying to get kids to buy their merchandise.
Some people prefer black-and-white films, other like musicals, and I even know a few people that like silent films. It's just a preference on how the film is portrayed, and I personally like a WELL drawn animation so long as it has a good story and isn't some lame kids show.
In movies, you have wooden actors playing the lead roles because teenage girls think they are cute, and a bimbo playing the leading lady because she has big cleavage.
And most importantly, there are some things that actors can't do (mostly stunts). Sure, you can add special affects, but they sometimes don't look too special.
The settings are another benefit. Some of the greatly drawn anime has settings that you cannot replicate on a stage without it looking "tacky" or fake (CGI), and in some cases look almost heavenly. Lush forests, planet-scapes, buildings, some of it are works of art.
Animation CAN allow a story to be truly delivered the way it was meant ot be delivered. The character can look exactly like the author originally imagined him/her as. The stunts can look more fluid (all-be-it impossible to perform in real life). Essentially the entire film can be presented in a pure unadulterated form.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad animation out there. And, like anything else, it can be watered down to some fluff that only kids like (such as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc). And the tentacle thing (while a stereotypical description of anime) occurs in more "shady" shows, it's not like its everywhere. You must just be downloading some porn like "La Blue Girl" or something.
All I ask is that some of you people not just label it as some kiddy-show or porn. There's a lot of anime out there that's deep and meaningful, all-the-while being beautifully drawn.
Biggest problem with anime (Score:4, Insightful)
People expect anime to be childrens cartoons, because that's all american cartoons are (in general)
or
People look for a traditional western storyline, and they can't handle characters who are both good and bad, and stories that deal with multiple social issues, without offering panaceas at the end.
It takes a unique type of American to enjoy an anime, and until the rest of the country realizes the walls they have up, and takes them down, and appreciates anime for the beautiful deep art it is, anime won't be widely accepted.
What does this have to do with GITS? I would love to see that movie on a big screen, but unless I catch it at a local college, I've got no chance. We need to change American preconceptions so that we can watch our movies the way they were meant to be watched!
I often show friends the movie Princess Mononoke(sp?), and they say, "Wow, that was incredible!", and I tell them, "There are more movies like that, and a lot that are better than that." But no one has ever heard of it, because the american public can't understand or be bothered to try and understand an animated cartoon not aimed at children, or that doesn't hinge on humour. Sure, Pixar has gotten animation into the mainstream, but all of pixars movies are considered "Funny" and "child-safe".
Just my 3.5 cents.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biggest problem with anime (Score:2, Insightful)
People do understand that anime is "for adults". They understand it just fine.
Many people don't like anime because, frankly, a lot of anime sucks. The ratio of shitty japanese entertainment to good japanese entertainment is probably about the same as its american counterpart.
For instance, what Cartoon Network tries to pass off as adult swim. I like Bebop, I can watch Trigun, and FLCL is visually stunning, even if the wackiness made it almost unbearable.
And then theres Blue Gender, which is dogshit. There's Kikaider, which is double dogshit. Lupin is boring to watch and completely unfunny.
But there'll be those defending it, "oh look its grownup adult japanese anime!" There are no doubt people in Japan watching reruns of "Perfect Strangers" convincing their friends that it's great entertainment because it's American.
But it's not all great entertainment, a lot of it is shit.
But, of course, not liking something that was animated by a japanese guy must make you somehow culturally lacking. I just dont understand anime, right? I must not be able to concieve of animation that's not for children.
Wrong. I understand it just fine. I just think it sucks. It sucks for all the same reasons Will and Grace or Stargate sucks. Its boring, contrived, and/or insipid.
That said, I didn't care for GITS. And it's not because I don't "understand anime". It's because I simply didn't like it.
Re:Translations... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, hopefully the translator.
> A large piece of the meaning and fluidity of a film is lost in translation.
Well, it depends, who guessed it, on the translator, and the voice actors.
IRC, there are even some films out there, which were more successful in a different language, because of the translation.
The translation is a work in itself, which, depending on the ability of the translator, can be a shallow copy of the original, or even better than the original (Especially, if the original is of poor quality)
I can undestand the other reason, but how can you prefer the original in a language you do not understand over a translated version, on the reason of loss in fluidity and meaning?
I prefer to watch english films in the original, although I have some problems understanding the spoken word. But still, I have the feeling, I'm not quite getting some details of the film. Most problematic are jokes. Partly because of cultural discrepancies, partly because I'm busy understanding the language.
In other words, I'm experience a loss in meaning and fluidity. And I guess that will always be the case, unless one lived a while in that nation, so one has a better grip of the language and culture.
A grip, a translator surely has.
Considering the two or three english dubs of Anime, I've seen, I can understand, why some people are avoiding them. But I wouldn't consider Ghost in the Shell as one of them.
> And with the visuals in the trailer of Ghost In the Shell 2, who cares what language it's in!!
Well, as long it isn't Polish, I'm fine with it
Considering the previous Ghost-in-the-Shell film, I'd say it'd be a loss missing the monologues.
Re:Wait for fansub (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the better fansubs I've been fortunate to watch is Hikaru no Go. An anime about the game of Go--ancient master of Go comes back as a spirit and coexists within a boy. Lots of Go concepts are mentioned in passing in the series but I think the additional subtitle text explain them well.
Re:Biggest problem with anime (Score:3, Insightful)
A prime example of this would be the Final Fantasy movie that came out a few years ago. All of the characters were stock Anime characters (older male scientist/wizzard, disbelieving male action hero, lead female character who is the apprentice to the scientist/wizzard). And the whole story line was centered around a fight between the spiritual and the physical. Add in a character who has unexplained mystical powers, stir and bake for 30 minutes.
There was little storyline in that film, and the mysticism made it very unpopular here. It is a bit of an extreme case in many ways, but is classic of Anime in almost every way.
Ironically with all of the semi-Anime cartoons on american TV nowadays (most of the ones based on trading cards) I think that younger American are becoming conditioned to typical Japanese story customs.
I like Anime, but you can't seriously say that their characters are more complex than those of all American films. There are a whole slew of US films (think of Denzel Washington films) that have fully fleshed out characters. There are an awful lot of one-dimensional characters in Anime... the best of each genre have fully developed characters. I will agree that one of the Japanese stock characters is the Honerable bad guy, but that does not make them deep characters.
Re:Ghost is great non anime lovers. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are people who will watch anime just because it's anime. Me, I watch good anime, because it's good.
Watch Grave of the Fireflies and tell me that anime not a serious artistic medium. After you stop crying your eyes out.
Re:yes, indeed. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, your plot summar of GITS is somewhat flawed. "The chick" hardly thinks she's ordinary. In fact, she's very consious of how different she is. I think thats one of the plot themes of GITS, how she gets a chance to be normal for a while at the end. Of course, both The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell owe a lot to a common predecessor, Blade Runner. But then, thats true for nearly every sci-fi movie since it was released.
Re:Translations... (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, I think that if you were a Spanish-speaking native who wanted to enjoy television and movies as a new citizen of the United States, you wouldn't be quite so elitist.
Re:Ghost is great non anime lovers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a single one. I've seen a few, but they simply don't cut it for me.
The anime target consumer is a child. The reason full-grown adults in America flock to anime is unknown at this time.
The reason "full-grown adults"--which is, of course, a misnomer; we're really talking about 20-30 somethings--flock to anime is threefold.
Firstly, it's originaly targeted at or near the comparable market in Japan.
Secondly, a good portion of the anime watching crowd grew up watching imported animation from Japan, and so it's logical that they'd move on to more complex stories in the same medium.
Thirdly, anime's been a trendy thing on college campuses for years now.
And, of course, there's always that "do something that's not stupid but that mom & dad won't get" drive.
Re:Translations... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dialog is also sometimes stretched or summarized to match the talking heads on screen... ie, in Japanese it might take 10 seconds of screentime to say "I'm going to the Waterfront to kill the bastard," and in english, it may take 14 seconds to say something of similar effect. The end result is the script gets some rewriting.
As for subtitles, you're basically doing the job of the director and the actors yourselves-- you're reading what you see on screen and either taking it at face value or supplying their subtext. To a certain extent it's possible to interpret the way they deliver it on screen, but it's never as easy or as precise as if you were actually fluent in the language.
That's not to say that foreign films of different languages are a waste of time, it's just important to be aware of how much you are potentially missing in the translation.
Re:Wait for fansub (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I really hate this attitude. Just because you've seen it by fansubbers first, or they are doing it "for love," doesn't mean it's always better. I have seen fansub with atrocious spelling errors and mistranslations. I have also seen commercial releases with problems. In the past, you might have had a lot of folks doing fansubbing for the love of anime and to spread it, but these days, you have more and more groups who are fansubbing to gain notoriety. It's a real shame to see the anime community going this route.
Anyway, commercial releases offer quite a bit more for collectors than fansubs (or digisubs). First, there is the physical item. Yes, some will say I am living in the past, but collectors really like having a physical thing, at times. This is the same reason why some people still like buying albums instead of just downloading stuff.
Although the anime digisubs are getting larger and of higher quality, they still do not compare to DVD, IMO. I enjoy watching my DVDs on a nice home theater system, sitting in a comfortable couch. I don't want to be at my computer. Yes, I can run a line from the computer, but you also lose out on some of the extra control, etc (FF, rewind).
DVDs also offer things such as additional language tracks, optional subtitles, etc. Plenty of companies are releasing liner notes, and there are some extras that are obtainable only via direct interaction with the original licesne-holder.
I also think that your comparison to open source software is off. The only similarity fansubs have to open source is that they are both (generally) free. If they were the same thing, you're basically calling open source a bunch of pirates/hackers/crackers/whatever. A more accurate comparison would be if you found an example of someone creating their own anime and offering it for free.
Please note, I'm not saying all fansubbing is bad, but anyone who knows the "ethics" of fansubbing will know that there are quite a few people who are in clear violation of it.
Not everything in the world should be free. And I think if you have the attitude that everything should be free, you're either deluding yourself or just trying to ease your conscience for not paying for stuff you use.
Re:Soon after there is a Japanese video release (Score:3, Insightful)