{"id":2620,"date":"2018-06-24T15:47:06","date_gmt":"2018-06-24T15:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/?p=2620"},"modified":"2018-06-24T15:47:06","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T15:47:06","slug":"animeova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2018\/06\/animeova\/","title":{"rendered":"AnimeOVA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"anime_ova\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been watching a bunch of old anime. Tons available on YT now that I couldn\u2019t get my hands on for so long. Mostly cyberpunk stuff, mostly late 80s up to mid 90s. After that Golden Age, quality goes down hard.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re quite corny. And sexist as hell. But they have a vibe, some good animation. I feel the ambition, trying to be as sleek and movie-like as they could be. I love the use of synthesizers\u2019 \u201cOrchestral Hit\u201d, it\u2019s probably one of the only time ever when they\u2019re appropriate. They just work well with the color palette and the questionable edits. Same with the sound effects. Maybe it\u2019s just early digital audio nostalgia.<\/p>\n

But also, business! I\u2019m fascinated by Japan\u2019s way of doing things. How OVAs came up to exist. How animation was tied to toys (so they had to invent machines, robots and spaceships to not only populate the story, but also the stores; yes that\u2019s why there was so many mecha stuff in 70s\/80s\/early 90s). How they competed to get the contract. How they would struggle to find the best quality possible within a budget. How they wanted to do better than competition. The perfect mix of experimentation, creativity and commerciality of their products. Imagine:<\/p>\n

Big company: \u201chey, we need someone to make us some anime that sells toys too.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

*small companies battle*<\/em><\/p>\n

Big company: \u201cOk small company 001, you won the bid.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Small company: \u201cCool. Here\u2019s the universe.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

*Big company abides*<\/em><\/p>\n

Small company: \u201cby the way, it\u2019s going to be too hard to make it fit for TV. Let\u2019s release this on video in a weird way, like 4 episodes, 2 that are 30mn long and 2 that are 50mn long. We know, it\u2019s weird. But that should work better.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Big company: \u201cGo on. But don\u2019t forget to make cool designs for our toy line!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, tons of those studios died. An amazing amount of work was poured into those anime by anonymous artists. Most of those studios didn\u2019t make it through the 2000s. If they did, it was by pushing commerciality up a notch, and production quality down by two.<\/p>\n

The legacy is huge though. Universes that inspired many artists. The OVA format is the first video format ever made that kind of encouraged binge-watching. The first format that fits perfectly between a TV show episode and a whole movie. Back in 1983.<\/p>\n

Oh, Japan. What would I have become without you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been watching a bunch of old anime. Tons available on YT now that I couldn\u2019t get my hands on for so long. Mostly cyberpunk stuff, mostly late 80s up to mid 90s. After that Golden Age, quality goes down hard. They\u2019re quite corny. And sexist as hell. But they have a vibe, some good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2621,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions\/2621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}