Anyone else notice that Madonna is groovin' on a DDR machine in her latest video? Wild.

Well, let's get right to it. No time for monkey business.

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Okay, I'm studying Japanese, and using Anime and Manga to round out the study day (it doesn't substitute for hard drilling on verb conjugations and such, but it's a lot easier to pay attention to ear-training or reading when you WANT to understand what's being said/written.)

Anyway, I liked the Azumaga Daioh manga and Anime, and decided to follow Azuma Kiyohiko into Yotsuba-To!.  I bought a subscription to Dengeki Daioh magazine...

Here's the story list:
http://animenewsnetwork.filmscomplets.org/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4379
An interesting mix, to say the least:
Yotsuba&! (manga)

Some of them pretty definitely Shoujo-ai, a few a little more mature adventure-with-romance, some male adolescent ideal-girlfriend fantasy, a pretty serious study of male culture dominating and using females (nevermind the higher purpose,) a group of overly cute girls doing overly cute things, and a six-year-old who might be in need of Ritalin if she weren't so damned funny.  Quite the mix

My question - What demographic is this magazine being aimed at?

I'd just like to know...

You know, you'd be surprised; target demographic is always really tricky, especially since fans just love to argue about who exactly the target market is for anime and manga series. There's a large (and vocal) contingency of people who will cry bloody murder if you say "Well, Pokémon is for children"; they'll argue that they love Pokémon, and they're adults, so that means it must be intended for adults. I'm sure you can see the faulty logic there, but nevertheless, demographics are a controversial subject. In fact, no matter what I tell you about the demographic for Dengeki Daioh, I guarantee you people will argue it.

Regardless, all of those titles are aimed squarely at the "seinen" crowd, mostly high school and college-aged males (think 18-25). It has a shonen sort of flavor to it; the publication started out as a pure seinen magazine and eventually drifted a little younger, towards the shonen market, but I'd say right now it's a mix of the two. Even titles like Azumangah Daioh and Yotsuba&! are aimed squarely at this (ittedly vague) demographic; sure, they're cute and seem like they might be appropriate for younger women, but by and large they appeal primarily to older boys and young adult men.

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I've been wondering something about older anime series for awhile.  Frequently in older anime series, at the start of a new scene the screen jerks a bit.  What's the deal with this and why did it happen?

Good eye there. What you're talking about is commonly referred to as "frame jitter", and it's most famously seen in the un-retouched version of Utena. It's an error introduced during film splicing by the show's editors; a single frame will "jump" at the top of a new scene after being spliced together with the rest of the film. "Splicing", if you didn't know, is the act of taking two seperate pieces of cut film and taping (or cementing) them together. The jitter is usually caused by poor film alignment or sloppy splicing; given the budget on most anime series, it's not really surprising to see it on older anime series. Since digital animation techniques eliminate the need for film splicing, you don't really see much jitter these days.

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I've got a quick question about background music for anime. I'm under the impression that the reason some animes have different soundtracks when they're localized, is because the dubbing companies have to pay extra for the music used in the series, and sometimes they just find it easier to make new music themselves. I was just wondering if there was any truth to that and if not, why would a dubbing company have new music made to replace the old?

Music replacement generally happens for a number of different reasons, but there are two very common ones.

The first and most obvious is that sometimes the music rights for a series are simply too expensive or unattainable; take a show like avex mode. Their asking price might be a little too rich, considering you're already paying a ridiculous amount just for the animation.

The other reason - and this one's kinda tragic - is that many times, especially when it's being edited for Saturday morning (or after school programming or whatever), the show winds up in the hands of a "creative executive" whose job it is to determine how to make the show more marketable or more appealing to American children. Sometimes these "creative executives" start fixing things that aren't broken; they change the opening theme to an annoying rap song (go ahead and guess which show I'm talking about here) or switch all the background music around so it's substantially more bombastic or ridiculous. These are the same people responsible for shows like "Cardcaptors". It's kind of a shame, really; I've never seen a children's anime that had objectionable or inappropriate music but it almost always gets changed. I think a lot of it has to do with the executive wanting to leave his or her "thumbprint" on the series, something that proves they had a hand in its creation. Kinda sad, really.

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Ok, here's the thing. I love the Marmalade Boy manga series!!! I read them all in, like, two days! What I want to know is this: is the anime version of it available here in the states, or is it only in Japan? I really love this story and I would love for you to answer it!

Yeah, Amazon.com and type in "Marmalade Boy". The DVD sets will be available there.

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Last week I answered a question about the misspelling in the title of franchise. Case in point:

Answerman,

Just thought I would chime in on an issue regarding Chrno Crusade. In a recent column you stated the reason that the series is titled "Chrno Crusade" instead of "Castle of Cagliostro. Mistakes in English are very common, and since Moriyama himself provided the info, I'm gonna go with that.


[What I don't know (didn't ask, sorry) is if the spelling mistake existed in all of Moriyama's original drafts, or just the one document that was used to make the logo. Or even who was responsible for the mistake, Moriyama, an assistant, and editor or.... -ed]

One other thing about the Chrono Trigger thing; for those of you who firmly believe this, why would Square choose to only protect their apparent copyright over the word "Chrono" (which you can't actually copyright anyway) in Japan? Why would they allow the series to be released in America with the proper spelling, where the profit potential is much higher?

And that's one to grow on.

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Now this, I think, is uncalled for!

your kittens are fat and smelly

but i still like them.

in my spaghetti.

yum :D

I wish there were some way of making an angry face over the internet that didn't include emoticons. Instead I shall refute your claim, sir, with a photo of a kitten who is neither fat nor smelly..

See, look, he's even exercising.

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The Inuyasha box set sure did bring out the gutter-minded fangirls. I got more unprintable submissions about Kagome's bicycle seat than ever before.

That said, today's winning caption is courtesy of Jeremy Brannon :

And the runners-up:

Kagome:  "That wasn't very nice what you did."
Inuyasha:  "It's not my fault he dressed up like a fire hydrant!"- Traypaniel Teagle II

Funny stuff, folks. Keep it up! Here's this week's screenshot:

Didn't win this time? Need the sweet nectar of victory to wash the bitter taste of defeat from your mouth? Then it's your job to come up with the funniest caption possible. It could be dialogue, or a line or two explaining what's happening, or anything you like; it just has to make me laugh! A few words of warning:

1. Keep it clean. I won't tolerate any profanity beyond "damn" or "hell". Unless it's ridiculously funny and kinda subtle, refrain from potty humor or overt sexual references.
2. Humor that's only funny if you've seen the show the screencap is from is inherently not funny. The joke should be something anyone looking at the picture can understand.
3. The deadline for that week's contest is always Wednesday at midnight. Winners will be announced in this space every week, and they'll also be notified by email.
4. Winners will recieve their prizes anywhere from 4-6 weeks after they're announced.
5. Entrants outside the US and Canada are inelligible, unless you have a US or Canadian address I can mail the prize to.

This week's prize? Thar she blows:

That's right ! It's ADV's thinpak box set of the entire first season of [email protected].

See you next week!