Tag Archives: full metal alchemist

What Does an Alchemist Look Like? Thoughts on Design & Full Metal Alchemist 2

Posted on by
3

This is Part II of a series of thoughts on the new second season of Full Metal Alchemist. Read Part I, Seiyuu Politics: Full Metal Alchemist & Voice Actor Idolization.

This morning, I got a chance to listen to Anime Pulse’s podcast of Professor Ian Condry’s panel from Anime Boston 2008, in which he relates his research on the production of Japanese animation in his upcoming book. I’ve known the following sentiment for a fair while, but Ian recalls a feeling that many Japanese animators of anime have expressed for a fair while on the topic of digital animation versus older, hand-drawn productions: the former doesn’t show enough of the human behind the creation. Of course, it comes down to personal aesthetics. But Ian says, “I had an interesting moment when I was in a cab with a couple of anime producers, and we were just coming back from a studio visit, and we were talking about Shrek. And they just marveled at the ways that flowing hair and the kind of detail that could happen in computer animation was really quite mind-blowing. But then one of the producers said, ‘But, y’know, for all the technical sophistication, we feel like it lacks a little soul. Right? It lacks something.’ And I think that’s one of the things that they said… Hand-drawn animation will continue in Japan.”

I personally had this feeling after recently watching the new release of the first episode of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (aka. the second season).

Continue reading →

Seiyuu Politics: Full Metal Alchemist & Voice Actor Idolization

Posted on by
Reply

In the States, there seems to be a strange, cult-ish fan following for American voice actors. Contrary to the past, when early anime conventions hosted a fair number of Japanese guests, today the Economics of Cheap dictate that instead of flying over Japanese voice actors (seiyuu) most conventions host a multitude of American-based dub voice actors. The American voice actors, in the past decade, seem to have accumulated an uncanny number of fangirls/boys that follow their every move. Anime News Networks‘ web comic, Anime News Nina, an occasional source of true-to-earth fandom critique, also identified the overzealous passion exuded by most contemporary fans in one comic at the beginning of Fall 2008.

I wonder if, due to greater access to online resources and subsequently to information straight out of Japan, American fans will begin to follow more news about Japanese seiyuu. This is not meant to be a foreshadowing of catastrophic events, in that the American dubbing industry will collapse in the next few years, but more a question as to whether anime fans today are throwing it back to their otaku roots and searching for every minutiae of news from overseas in the morass of infoporn on the Web. I wonder too if the popularity of American voice actors validates that the American dubbing industry will in fact not collapse and, while not necessarily thriving, is not doing that bad, because fans are buying media to follow voice actors. Otherwise, I can just give up and bow to the fact that fans are just rabid for anything, particularly signatures.

But if fans are actually going online to look at Japanese seiyuu activities, they would have in the past few weeks been caught up in the explosion of excitement that following Newtype Magazine’s announcement about the new Japanese voice acting cast for the new, second season of Full Metal Alchemist.

Continue reading →