the anime repair team
Categories: anime, belldandy, commentary, gundam, higurashi, magikano, mai hime/otome, rec
Tagged: belldandy, da capo, gundam, higurashi, ichigo-mashimaro, magikano, mai hime/otome, rec, shuffle
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I guess one of the running subplots of this blog is how Kyoto Animation should fix up pretty much all anime out there. I guess they developed a reputation for improving on the original by preventing Gonzo from turning the original FMP into a complete disaster, making the twins lesbian, incestuous females in TSR, and, of course, their upcoming Kanon reclaimation project. This has given them a rep for being the fixer-uppers of anime leading me to exclaim stuff like, “I demand Kyoto Animation to start the remake project for Higurashi ASAP.”
(BTW, 26 more days ’till Kanon… not that I’m counting or anything…)
The problem is that they’re just one company and can’t handle all the project we wish them to tackle (especially the upcoming 1,000 episode run of Haruhi Suzumiya, for instance). Well, there’s help. In 2006, a crack commando unit was forced to endure crappy anime that butchered prime source material. These fanboys promptly starting bitching about these shows from IRC to their blogs. Today, still wanting to improve anime, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a crappy anime series, if you can’t figure out how to end it without introducing father-daughter incest, and if you can find them on irc.rizon.net, maybe you can hire the Anime Repair Team.
For example…
There’s only two options. The first is just to start over, pretend Otome never happened, and reboot the series with Mai Hime‘s tried-and-true principles: over-the-top lesbians fighting each other with superweapons. Plus, give us more Natsuki, Shizuru, and Mai and significantly less of Anty, Nina, Mashiro, and especially Mr Wong. And for Oharuhi-sama’s sake, ditch the father-daughter-classmate love triangle and change it to a meido-meido-meido love triangle instead… who wants to see a fourteen year old girl having angst over her friend’s dad when they can have a meido catfight times three? The second method is to take what we have already and create a dub cast centered around Courtney Love as Arika, William Shatner as Nagi, Paris Hilton as Nina, Lindsay Lohan as Ers-chan, Star Jones as Haruka, and Sylvester Stallone as Mr Wong. You know where I’m going with this, hopefully.
(I’d also spin off Kazu and Akane as yet another fanservice harem comedy. Can’t miss.)
Step one would be to put poor Binchou-tan out of her misery and cancel that show and devote an entire 24 minutes to the Flame Haired Seiyuu. Then they need to decide what direction to take REC… either as a fun romantic, fanservice comedy (like the manga) or try to turn it into some more serious romantic series (bad idea). There’s a lot of good source material like how Tanaka from accounting ends up blackmailing Matsumaru that never properly made it into the anime. Oh, yeah, of course, hire someone like Younha, Masami Okui, or even Yoko Ishida to sing the OP. Any of them would be an upgrade over Sakai Kanako… or better yet, drop in Shana/Louise’s seiyuu to say, “Muri!” everytime Matsumaru tries to put a move on her.
The first priority would be to give Kei an extreme makeover. He’s no longer going to be some sickly boy who mysteriously becomes an uber-pimp. It’s anime and not real, but there’s a believability boundary… even though I can imagine giant robots, talking cats without ears, pirates who never go “Arrrrg matey!”, and even time travelers, aliens, and espers, Kei just takes the loser harem male just one step too far. In his makeover, he’s going to become a hikikomori and lose ten pounds. The next step, of course, is to replace Mizuho-sensei with MKM‘s Kayahara-sensei. We’re going to put the comedy back into “romantic comedy.”
Watching ãã‚Œãžã‚Œã®ç¿¼ has been painful at best. The problems are numerous but not insurmountable– first, stick with the manga’s canon. Belldandy does not work at a convenience store. Second, improve the animation quality and bump the show to a HD network like WOWWOW. One of the big appeals of the manga is that Fujishima knows how to draw and this aspect is sadly not carried over. It’s like buying a Corvette only to find that it only has a three gear automatic transmission… what’s the point? Third, speed up the show a bit. They’re trying to milk an episode per chapter, but while that’s okay with Mushishi, Belldandy needs a faster pace especially if the anime is aiming for more of a romantic comedy than slice-of-life type of series. Fourth, make Hild look less like a whore and more like the demoness that she is. Fifth, purge all bagpipes from the OP.
Great source material (I love the manga). Great concept (how can you go wrong with meido?). Great expectations… all shot down. The problem was that Gainax approached He Is My Master like it were Mahoromatic, but they’re very different beasts. HIMM is a gag comedy series that just so happens to incorporate meido. Mahoromatic is a sci-fi, harem, fanservice, comedy, action, romance series. They’re not the same thing. Get rid of that silly debt owed counter at the end. Speed up the pacing by condensing two manga chapters into one episode like Keroro‘s a-side and b-side. And, of course, animate Mitsuki’s concert sequence like Kyoto did with God Knows… just to prove that you’re still the top dog, Gainax.
In Soviet Russia, the bunny girls molest you! When did Bleach turn into a magical girl-type show like Fairy Musketeer Red Riding Hood, Powerpuff Girls Z, and Pretty Cure? They needed to pull the plug on Bleach like thirty episodes ago… now it’s in the “Kenshin after Kyoto” stage, the “Jose Canseco’s all-star debut… as a pitcher” stage, or the even more depressing “The A-Team season five” stage. (In other words, Fonzie would have been eaten by the shark by now.)
(By the way, suddenly introducing like forty new shinigami characters over five episodes was a bad idea especially since they all looked about the same. Like drinking warm milk on a hot day.)
As I touched about it in Muteki Kanban Musume 4 (I got off-topic… again…), I’d show the arcs from all the girls, only insert some sort of emo trigger that causes them to hunt and kill Rin-kun while making emo facial distortions. For instance, I’d have Kaede snap and dice up Rin and Asa. Then we’d reboot and have Sia dice up Rin next time around. There’s no mystery… just whatever girl Rin picks will trigger another girl to kill him. And, for the final arc, he announces that he’s really gay causing all the girls to console themselves in a massive… well, you get the idea. I’d keep the topless scenes while introducing Asa’s new twin sister, Ara. Properly executed, this can’t miss. Since I don’t care about Shuffle‘s canon, I don’t feel bad about completely rewritting it.
Oh, sorry, this post is the wrong one for you. The Anime Pantheon post is that way. Two doors down on the left. There’s balloons, cake, and lemonade right outside… can’t miss it.
The best course of action is probably to try and turn this series into a Kanon clone. The problem is that all the characters, except for Kotori and Yoriko (who’s not around anymore, much to my dismay), are highly boring… and Nemu is just such a wet blanket beyond wet blankets. So something more drastic is required… giant mecha! Kotoriganger-punch!
(… actually, screw it. The only way I’ll be happy is if they killed off Asakara and Nemu and made Yoriko the star.)
Sci-fi shoujo? That’s the genre? Problem is make an anime version of American Idol set in 2017 without Simon? This series needs a huge injection of attitude… make the girls even bitchier than they are against Tomo… like Jigoku Shoujo-class mean. And improve the music. While I have nothing against Ryou Shihono, they really whiffed on this casting… Full Moon‘s Myco had some pipes and could actually sing. Or they could have gone the Aquarian Age route and had singing doubles for the songs.
To Heart 2 was like the budget anime to end all budget anime. The animation quality is crap, so that needs to be improved. Then I still haven’t watched an episode that featured more than five seiyuu… what’s the point of introducing a healthy girl and not see her again for ten episodes? Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one? Then I’d improve the loser male lead to “Wataru in RePure” status… in other words, a few hundred notches higher than he is now and about a million notchers higher than Onegai Teacher‘s Kei. Lastly, I’d condense all 26 (?!?) episodes into a six-part hentai OVA. That’s the only way to save this series– censored sex and lots of it. (That’s why more people were buying To Heart 2 X-Rated than XBOX 360s, remember?)
Oh, this fix is an easy one. Just combine it with the next series…
… and they would combine to become the Best. Anime. Series. Ever.
Let me get this straight… the source material depended on fairly adult storylines, inappropriate jokes, nudity, sex, and wanton violence… and then they decide to strip them all away from the anime adaptation? Someone with common sense needs to ask, “Hey, why don’t we try making this an OVA so we can put in the stuff that made the manga readable? It’s not like the plot will carry this show.” I pity those fools.
Nothing really wrong with the series beyond (1) it’s too short and (2) the ending sucked. I prefer episodes where the girls fight amongst each other trying to seduce poor Haruo rather than all the girls fighting against Demon Haruo. That’s just not as fun. (But still infinitely better than Love Love, DearS, Iro-iro Senkitan, and Rizelmine.) I’m only tossing Magikano into this post because I miss Maika’s emo mode.
There is nothing to repair. As in in order to repair something, there must be some sort of plot-like substance to repair. Can’t find it here… +10 fanboy points for whomever can guess what show this is.
Ideally, the killer lolis would be broken up into two concurrent series, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Alternative. One would be a straight horror series and the other would be yet another harem comedy minus goats minus squid aliens and minus yakuza. For a single series fixer-up, there’s already a great template (the manga… use it… please… even frame-by-frame if you have to), only show three story arcs (Rena’s, Mion’s, and Satoko’s), and hire the people responsible for Black Lagoon to port it over as an anime. It’ll be a shitload better than the current series. Then release the answer arcs as OVAs that cost 5,800 yen an episode. I’d even take the revolutionary step of not having next episode previews for such an endeavor and use the screentime for “Shion’s lingere shopping omake corner” but that’s just me.
Finally, I think this screenshot shows all you need to know about improving this final series. I love it when a plan comes together.
37 Responses to “the anime repair team”
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heh, ‘anime pantheon’ flawless eh?
I guess the plotless anime is probably the new improved and all good gundam seed no destiny anime.I think I see the Non-existing Freedom gundam. Although I may be tottaly wrong.
Maybe its a culture thing…we just can’t get it.
Naaaaah, artistic/narcissisitic ego-driven power-tripping producers, editors, directors & executives placing their “creative” input over the original material – as usual.
>>ditch the father-daughter-classmate love triangle and change it to a meido-meido-meido love triangle instead…
My thoughts exactly.. nekomimi is a requirement too. One of them would definitely need to be Mikuru.. She needs cat ears! (Note to self: I wonder if a realistic emo face contortion is possible for Mikuru? and what it would look like?)
*finishes reading post*
>>That’s why more people were buying To Heart 2 X-Rated than XBOX 360s, remember?
That news just made my day ^^ er.. (looks at clock: 1:10am) morning.. It seems that the console development section of Microsoft will never win against hentai.. what a sad world we live in. ;P
damnit jason what’s the name of that anime that you suggested to be combined with NHK??
TELL ME!!
Is that mystery show Seven of Seven? *shudder*
@ 7 47 4 – the show being combined with NHK is Ichigo Mashimaro.
:Best. Anime. Series. Ever.
And this is our blogger.
Anyways, I wonder what would save Narut… oh, too easy. Just cut out the filler, the other filler, and all that other filler over there in the corner.
The mystery show worth the +10 is Final Fantasy Unlimited.
…I really wish i didn’t know that.
Man, that’s possibly even worse than Seven of Seven. :-p
Looking at most of those series makes you wonder “is all this effort put in producing crappy anime?!” I mean, wouldn’t be better if they just didn’t do anything at all. (but then again, 85% of all anime would be gone :p)
What’s that last series?
I have no flipping idea what anime series that ‘+10 Fanboy pts’ is, other than the fact that there is a Macross Valkyrie toy in there.
Personally, I think the universe will implode if KyoAni got to remake NGE.
To Nemo_N:
That would be Meyrin from Gundam SEED Destiny.
~~~~ ~~~~
I myself would like to know what anime series is the fifteen screenshot from? The one with the girl in the rain.
To Skane:
Thanks! That’s Air Gear *trembles in displeasure* Ugh.
“I’d even take the revolutionary step of not having next episode previews for such an endeavor~”
~~~~ ~~~~
Coyote Ragtime Show already does this, although not the first series to do so.
What’s the big deal with making Oh Great mangas into anime without the violence and sex? You certainly don’t read his mangas for the plot, so why would you want to watch his plot?
Right now I’m trying to figure out how Jason managed to watch all of these anime enough to know what to fix. I usually drop these kind of things within 3 episodes. *Thinks back to Mai Otome*… Oh yeah…
If there’s any one series that needs kyoani… it’s Negima. Whatever noname studio tried doing an adaptation utterly raped the source material. And who does ten remixes of the same OP then tries to sell them as seperate singles?
bd_,
Shaft’s already taking over Negima, and while so far they tend to not really stick to the source material too religiously, they’ve taken some utter garbage and turned it into gold. Their recent big projects have been Pani Poni Dash, Tsukuyomi, and REC (which I’m convinced suffered just because it was so damn short and cramped for time) so you know, they’ve been on a winning streak for a few years now.
>>And who does ten remixes of the same OP then tries to sell them as seperate singles?
Commercialization, my friend. Just pretend the first series never existed in the 1st place.
Support SHAFT instead, like AC says, they’ve been on a winning streak for awhile.
To Skane:
Based on the description, that can’t be anything other than Tenjo Tenge (if I can even spell it right).
And yeah, FFU kind of fell apart somewhere after the first few episodes and just went beyond repair. I think the fact that the funding and the number of episodes being constantly reduced contributed to it.
Gundam SEED Destiny was mind boggling weird because it was almost as if the sponsors went to the production staff and told them that they had to fill 50 episodes and the writers were told they only need to write a 13 episode script, or less.
>>If there’s any one series that needs kyoani… it’s Negima. Whatever noname studio tried doing an adaptation utterly raped the source material.
I definitely agree with that.. Negima!’s one of my latest finds in the world of manga (one of my favs so far) and although I haven’t watched the anime, I’ve read some summaries and reviews and it seems that XEBEC totally screwed it up… in comparison to the manga, anyway.
>>Shaft’s already taking over Negima
That’s good news. ^^
I can’t wait to see how it’s done. Do you know if it’s going to be a remake or a sequel? I’d prefer a remake as I really don’t feel like watching the one that’s out now… Oooh it seems that the OVA by Shaft is released in 17 days, that should give us a decent idea of the quality and style.
You forgot to included Fate Stay Night in animes that need repair.
Sakura and Rider need more screen time.
Some suggestions to help improve Mai Otome:
1) More Nekomimi Akane, her antics with Kazuya and Maya’s ability to trump them at every turn.
2) Improve Nao’s fashion sense. IMHO she’s the most improved character from her HiME counterpart (although that’s not saying much) but the girl must have been abducted by French mimes when she was a child and subsequently heavily traumatized. Get a makeover for her robe as well.
3) Bring in the big guns early, notably Mai and the other Pillars/Columns/whatever structural support title they have.
4) Young Miss Maria ftw. Most awesome Otome of the lot. Have Roberta Gracias, the Mad Dog Meido, be the Head of Security for Garderobe. Watch the Pearls and Corals shake in fear.
5) Get a REAL villain. The Mai franchise may be all about psycho lesbians duking it out but the Big Bad ought to be credible. Standing there smiling while your plans fail or getting stalemated by Tate Yuuchi (who supposedly cannot even do kendo anymore) is NOT the mark of a good villain.
6) Major Sergei Wong should not be involved with someone who could be his daughter’s age. We saw what came of this in Evangelion and its never pretty. Since I hate his guts, I would make his romantic interest the Mad Dog Meido. He was finally killed when he tried to steal her underwear. Or at least we think so, they’ve only recovered 53% of the body. Nina finds solace in her grief with Erstin making Miss Ho a happy, happy girl.
7) On the subject of Erstin, try not to kill off the most sympathetic characters and then get just about no mileage out of it. Or worse, *pretend* to kill off sympathetic characters like Aoi.
8) Reminding us of GSD is not the way to sell an anime.
Example plot: The main force behind recent troubles is really Young Miss Maria who, as a young Meister, had to fight and kill her beloved Oneesama. As tensions rise among nations again, she decides to set into motion a plot to wean countries off their virgin sacrifices for peace. She manages to send Fumi into the afterlife but Akane, who had finally circumvented Maya’s machinations, becomes the new Shinso to spawn a whole generation of Nekomimi-otome. Nao becomes the first of the new Otome as the other Pillars retire and the new Principal of Garderobe. Achieves Maria’s objectives in the end since few nobles trust the morals of someone educated by Nao. Shiho manages to found a new religious cult in the epilogue, further eroding public trust in the Otome. Nao later revealed to have been part of Young Miss Maria’s plot all along as she renames Garderobe the “Eden of Virgins”. Shizuru and Natsuki retire to a villa somewhere and make lots of fanboys very, very happy.
Repair Team implies a simple bandaid, nay the series mentioned here for the most part require damage control teams. I am talking about major refits and pardon my naval terminalogy by the time you have a good series the number of bulkheads, and decks that you will have to re-arrange nothing save the hull will remain the intact. Many of the aforementioned series are like my new office bulding, rebuilt everything…except the upper deck, security system, foundation, the plumbing, sewage, and the comm lines. (American tax dollars at work)
As for Mai Otome I would have no problem bringing back Anty for puni puni attacks on Ers-chan…wait damn I’ve been reading your blog too much. Does that count towards a level up? If Wong is brought back with Nina I demand that they be dragged out, shot, strung up upside down, and spat upon. I guess F/SN just never existed for Mr. Miao.
crusade, took me a minute realize you are talking about Jason and Not me with that Mr Miao.
If they don’t remake FSN or other scenerio they least they could is have kyoto do the sequel with hallow axteria. Threesome with Rider and Sakura FTW.
First off, gratz to Rift for correction pointing out FFU quite possibly one of the most pointless anime series ever.
>> What’s that last series?
Meyrin!
>> Right now I’m trying to figure out how Jason managed to watch all of these anime enough to know what to fix.
Caffine, and lots of it.
>> I myself would like to know what anime series is the fifteen screenshot from?
Ten Ten. Not Air Gear.
>> If there’s any one series that needs kyoani… it’s Negima.
As AC pointed out, the Pani Poni Dash team gets a crack at Negima, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. They need to port over Mesousa to become Neggie’s new helper and make Ichijou transfer into his class. That would be the correct thing to do… anything else, I’d be disappointed.
(Though keep in mind they had like ten variations of three songs for the OPs to PPD…)
>> You forgot to included Fate Stay Night in animes that need repair.
There’s a lot more shows that I could have tossed onto the list, but I do have a finite amount of time. I’d work on Tsukihime before F/SN.
>There’s a lot more shows that I could have tossed onto the list, but I do have a finite amount of time. I’d work on Tsukihime before F/SN.
While I wouldn’t be opposed to a remake of Tsukihime since there’s plenty of material to work off, I thought Tsukihime was more than passable as a 12 ep show. Having not played either Hgame (or read summaries until after the series), Tsukihime as an anime by itself was more than passable as a meh anime series but FSN, especially the last few episodes, was nothing but a total abortion. The whole Saber-Emiya romance thing culminating in the date and the whole lovey-lovey proclamations was so out of place and character that remembering the time I spent watching the anime makes me wanna cry :(
>>>Ten Ten. Not Air Gear.
XD
Sorry! Oh Great seems the same to me. :P
You need a cloning machine for this one. One studio can`t handle everything. Maybe you can have them become subcontractor for every other studio. Hence the name Anime Repair Team.
Though it`s sad that there are people who take anime production as pure business, nothing much you can do about it.
Though more can be expressed through OVAs, it`s not as profitable as having them aired. So you cut all those “inappropriate” parts, for profit.
One alternative would be to have the government repeal the law restricting all those obscenities, and cause havoc.
By the way, I have heard of doujinshis, and doujin games, but are there any doujin animes?
“By the way, I have heard of doujinshis, and doujin games, but are there any doujin animes? ”
Anime Fiction vol1-2, Fan made anime-hentai :D
I was going to say “where is Fate/Stay Night”? But that has already been addresssed. I think all the big ones have already been covered (GSD, Higurashi, Mai Otome, Ten Ten) although I don’t know anything about Ichigo Mashimaro that needs fixing.
If we were including older series (as in more than a couple of years), I would add Angel Sanctuary and 3×3 Eyes to the list.
My votes for the anime in most need of repair is Lament of the Lamb series. It needs to be 8 episodes long, not 4, so more details could be given, needs better animations, and they need to stick to the original ending in the manga, which is much more powerful, will to live on despite the difficulties ahead, then what many shallow people claim as better ending, escaping from it all through death. The problem is that I doubt KyoAni would like to handle such dark, intense drama.
A series I would love to see animated into full blown TV series would be Nausica; we have the movie, but there are much more stories in the original manga.
A series I would really like to see remade would be Uruseiyatsura. It’s stories and various devices would still work well, but imagine how much better they can be with much better animation and music. The genre, sci-fi comedy fits perfectly well with recent success by Kyo-Ani, and since it is almost 20 years after episode #218 aired, the time is ripe for a re-make.
A novel that needs to be animated is ‘Armageddon Inheritance’ by David Weber. Since the book is mostly about action and not much of anything subtle or mental, I wouldn’t mind extensive alteration with the plots as long as most of those battle gets animated with enough details to give very clear picture of each side’s objectives, alteration of tactics, sequence of events, and why the outcome came about. What I wonder is that am I demanding too much for the battles and wars to be given attention to the level given in Banner of Stars?
Daaaaamn. GSD wasn’t THAT bad.
I collecting about half of FFU since it was a way to get my friends interested in anime (which mostly failed). I still only recognised the screenshot by Cid’s visor.
i draw anime really well, i think they did a good job on the graphics and the pictures are cool
I eould like to see the last series of tsubasa chronicles and the 146th episode of Inuyasha…
Man they should remake Mai OTome into the manga series its very goood :) like they should add Arikas stepbrother Mashrio since Mashiro is Mashiro’s twin brother =) it would be awsome if they could do this like make a movie or ova like it