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Akira discussion?

GreenCupGreenCup
edited February 2010 in Manga/Comics
Hey forum. Was there any discussion here on FRC on the DH vs Kodansha Akira release. If so can I get linked please.
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Comments

  • AprecheApreche
    edited February 2010
    I have both. They are effectively exactly the same, except for the logo of the publisher.

    However, the Kodansha Ghost in the Shell release has issues. It has the same cover design as the newer DH GitS release, but it is censored like the original DH GitS release.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • SailSail
    I have this one.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    DVD is for chumps, LaserDisc is for champions.
  • GreenCupGreenCup
    edited February 2010
    Sweet, thanks Scott. Wasn't sure whether to purchase DH or Kodansha.
    Post edited by GreenCup on
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    Sweet, thanks Scott. Wasn't sure whether to purchase DH or Kodansha.
    DH is out-of-print, anyway. It's much more cost-effective to buy the Kodansha volumes.
  • GeoGeo
    DVD is for chumps, LaserDisc is for champions.
    Watch Tron on Laserdisc. I knew a friend who had an LD player and he had it. It's such a spectacle, it's unholy.
  • SailSail
    Tron is quite a spectacle in it's own right.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    edited February 2010
    Watch Tron on Laserdisc. I knew a friend who had an LD player and he had it. It's such a spectacle, it's unholy.
    I was just kidding about LaserDisc superiority, but I can see how that'd be true. Isn't there a Tron release on DVD?

    Also, my original jest was made in the vein of the audiophile's "analog > digital" argument, but then I saw this on Wikipedia:
    Some Laserdisc proponents believe analog laserdisc is capable of higher quality than the lossy nature of DVD. Early DVD demo discs often had compression or encoding problems, lending additional support to such claims at the time. Proponents of Laserdisc argue that Laserdisc maintains a "smoother", more "film-like", natural image while DVD still looks slightly more artificial. This is similar to the CD versus LP sound quality debates common in the audiophile community.
    lol wut
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • GeoGeo
    edited February 2010
    Watch Tron on Laserdisc. I knew a friend who had an LD player and he had it. It's such a spectacle, it's unholy.
    I was just kidding about LaserDisc superiority, but I can see how that'd be true. Isn't there a Tron release on DVD?
    It is much a better watch there is no doubt. But I really don't want to see it in Blu-Ray because it would look terrible with how washed-out the images would look, plus any restoration would be extremely expensive so since many changes would have to be made to a film like this.
    Post edited by Geo on
  • SailSail
    I'm not much of a Tron fan, but I am excited for Tron Legacy for the sole reason that it means new Daft Punk.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    edited February 2010
    that it means new Daft Punk.
    Daft Punk makes everything good. Dub Homework over Plan 9 and it'd be the best movie ever.
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • GeoGeo
    edited February 2010
    I'm not much of a Tron fan, but I am excited for Tron Legacy for the sole reason that it means new Daft Punk.
    As awesome as Daft Punk is, I honestly that's a rather shallow reason for seeing Tron Legacy. But, to each his own.
    that it means new Daft Punk.
    Daft Punk makes everything good. Dub homework over Plan 9 and it'd be the best movie ever.
    I'm actually a legitimate fan of Ed Wood and Z Films because of terrible and cheesy they are...without a MST3K commentary.
    Post edited by Geo on
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    I'm not much of a Tron fan, but I am excited for Tron Legacy for the sole reason that it means new Daft Punk.
    As awesome as Daft Punk is, I honestly that's a rather shallow reason for seeing Tron Legacy. But, to each his own.
    Not as shallow as a reason for enjoying any other type of big, mainstream Hollywood film that breaks nowadays.
  • SailSail
    edited February 2010
    I'm fine with that, considering I've never really seen Tron as anything worth appreciating in an especially "deep" way anyway :P

    Chances are I won't even bother to see the movie and just download the soundtrack.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • chaosof99chaosof99
    Quite strange of a coincidence. I started to re-read Akira yesterday. However, I'm reading the german release by Carlsen Comics, which is decent enough, even though it is flipped.
  • FunfetusFunfetus
    even though it is flipped.
    Flipped is better. To say otherwise is rank weeabooism.
  • AprecheApreche
    Flipped is better. To say otherwise is rank weeabooism.
    Mmmmm, not really. Usually flipped is not better because it can mess up certain panels where left and right are significant. For example, if you flip Hokuto no Ken, suddenly the seven scars are reversed. Instead of the big dipper you won't know wtf it is.

    That being said, the flippedness of the DH/Kodansha Akira is perfectly ok because it has the Katsuhiro Otomo seal of approval. Shirow also had a direct hand in working on and modifying the US versions of all the GitS manga. He even corrected and polished a bunch of stuff when they put out GitS 2: MMI.
  • chaosof99chaosof99
    edited February 2010
    even though it is flipped.
    Flipped is better. To say otherwise is rank weeabooism.
    When I say flipped I basically mean that the physical product is read from left to right as opposed to the original from right to left. This does not necessarily mean the pages are being vertically mirrored. Sometimes on pages with rectangular and perpendicular ordered panels, the panels are just reshuffled. However, since the speech or thought bubbles inside the panel can not be changed, this can often result in translation errors, change of meaning in the material or even inhibit the readability of the manga and can cause confusion of the reader.

    Mirrored pages have another set of problems as Scott described them. The meaning of left and right changes and certain aesthetically used asymmetries are changed. A thing I constantly notice in that method is how suddenly the majority of people are left-handed. Mixing both methods which is also often regularly done can also cause additional problems, for example when something changes from one panel into another such as a person holding a gun in his right hand and in the next panel has the gun in his left.

    The artwork is pretty much the most important part of a manga. Else there would be no reason to making it a manga and the story might as well be told in a novel or something else. Flipping the pages is inherently a method of fucking with the artwork and the storytelling of the manga and therefore flipped can not possibly be better but at most the same in terms of quality.
    Post edited by chaosof99 on
  • AprecheApreche
    Flipping without mirroring is obviously bad because it screws up the ordering of the speech bubbles, and worse. Flipping and mirroring eliminates many of the problems of flipping alone. It eliminates so many problems that people think it's just fine. However, I will now visually demonstrate why despite being better than flipping on its own, mirroring is an extremely severe problem in and of itself, and that unflipped is the way to go.

    imageimage
    imageimage

    Also consider something like Watchmen issue #5 "Fearful Symmetry." Imagine what that issue would be like if flipped and/or mirrored it for people who read right to left.
  • ChurbaChurba
    Flipping without mirroring is obviously bad because it screws up the ordering of the speech bubbles, and worse. Flipping and mirroring eliminates many of the problems of flipping alone. It eliminates so many problems that people think it's just fine. However, I will now visually demonstrate why despite being better than flipping on its own, mirroring is an extremely severe problem in and of itself, and that unflipped is the way to go.
    I think there are advantages in both. For example, the top image is probably better, as it were, but now thanks to the bottom one, I won't be able to look at Starry Night now without seeing half of an angry man with glowing eyes and awesome facial hair.
  • FunfetusFunfetus
    Usually flipped is not better because it can mess up certain panels where left and right are significant. For example, if you flip Hokuto no Ken, suddenly the seven scars are reversed. Instead of the big dipper you won't know wtf it is.
    I will allow an exception in cases where left and right really are significant. I think this is usually overstated, though.

    Maybe I've got the lingo wrong here. When I say "flipped", I'm talking about as if you looked at the page in a mirror. Is that what you mean when you say "mirrored"? That's the only way it should be done. Doing anything to the page internally wreaks havoc on the page composition, and I was stunned to find that Dark Horse did that with Blade of the Immortal, for instance. My main complaint about unflipped manga (R. to L.) is that reading the panels R. to L. while reading text L. to R. fucks up the page flow, and has a tendency to actually be very confusing -- for example, in the case of word balloons that are conjoined diagonally. If you were reading R. to L., it's a no-brainer that you read the on on the top-right, then bottom-left. But in English, which one do you read first? The top one? Or the left one? Maybe I'm just overly picky about these things, but in my opinion, everything is subservient to clear composition and reading flow.
    Flipping the pages is inherently a method of fucking with the artwork and the storytelling of the manga and therefore flipped can not possibly be better but at most the same in terms of quality.
    If you're flipping individual panels, yes. If you're just mirroring the whole page, then no, it's absolutely irrelevant (except in cases where left/right distinctions are actually essential in the story) to the quality of the artwork.
  • AprecheApreche
    t unflipped manga (R. to L.) is that reading the panels R. to L. while reading text L. to R. fucks up the page flow, and has a tendency to actually be very confusing -- for example, in the case of word balloons that are conjoined diagonally.
    It's only confusing to you. All those ten year old kids sitting on the floor in Borders have no problem. I also have no problem.
  • FunfetusFunfetus
    It's only confusing to you. All those ten year old kids sitting on the floor in Borders have no problem. I also have no problem.
    Next time I come across an example, I'll scan and post it. I'm not going to go looking for one right now. I'm not talking about something that's completely impenetrable, just something that's wrong enough to take you out of the story for a second. There's also no way to get around the fact that reading images R. to L. while reading text L. to R. fucks up the flow, regardless of whether or not it's confusing.
  • chaosof99chaosof99
    edited February 2010
    Flipping the pages is inherently a method of fucking with the artwork and the storytelling of the manga and therefore flipped can not possibly be better but at most the same in terms of quality.
    If you're flipping individual panels, yes. If you're just mirroring the whole page, then no, it's absolutely irrelevant (except in cases where left/right distinctions are actually essential in the story) to the quality of the artwork.
    Great, thanks for disproving your own argument and basically stating the exact same thing that I said in the quote. Flipped version can not be better but at most equal to quality and in many cases such as when left-right is relevant, it does screw with the artwork and therefore makes it worse.
    Post edited by chaosof99 on
  • FunfetusFunfetus
    edited February 2010
    Flipped version can not be better but at most equal to quality
    Except in cases where left/right is story-relevant, flipped is superior to unflipped because it doesn't conflict with left-to-right text flow.
    Post edited by Funfetus on
  • chaosof99chaosof99
    edited February 2010
    Flipped version can not be better but at most equal to quality
    Except in cases where left/right is story-relevant, flipped issuperiorto unflipped because it doesn't conflict with left-to-right text flow.
    Such a conflict is entirely subjective. I do not see a conflict at all and most regular readers of Manga do not either. Regardless, your original statement of "Flipped is better. To say otherwise is rank weeabooism." is simply wrong.

    Mirroring pages is always screwing with the artwork and unnecessarily so. Any such interference with the art will always lead to problems and inhibit or change the story that is told or simply look awkward. You seem to think that the meaning of left/right is something that happens rarely in sequential art but even cursory surveying of the material will show that this is far from the case. How would it change if you just mirrored Two-Face from Batman? How often does it change something making a character into a leftie rather than a rightie and vice versa. Some examples from One Piece (because it just came to mind): Luffy's scar under his left eye. Sanji's left eye being covered constantly. Zoro's earpiercings and on which side he carries his katana, etc. Asymmetry is an important part of character design and this is very problematic to mirroring the pages.

    How many pieces of text are incorporated into the artwork regularly? For example, I'm reading Akira right now and on the first pages of Volume 4 we see a Rescue helicopter land and in the version I have, everything on the Helicoper is spelled backwards because they just mirrored the page entirely. This was just entirely unnecessary and stupid.

    The artwork is the most important part of a manga and therefore should be kept as close to the original as possible. Unnecessarily screwing with the art is simply bad practice.
    Post edited by chaosof99 on
  • FunfetusFunfetus
    Such a conflict is entirely subjective. I do not see a conflict at all and most regular readers of Manga do not either. Regardless, your original statement of "Flipped is better. To say otherwise is rank weeabooism." is simply wrong.
    I thought it was fairly obvious that that statement was facetious. Pardon me. Regardless, you're right, it is subjective. I value reading flow over making sure people are right-handed. If left/right is actually significant to the story, don't flip. If it's not, flipped pages result in a superior reading experience. I'm willing to entertain the idea that I'm just hypersensitive to this kind of thing -- paying attention to reading flow and composition is part of my job.
  • lackofcheeselackofcheese
    Mirroring pages is always screwing with the artwork and unnecessarily so. Any such interference with the art will always lead to problems and inhibit or change the story that is told or simply look awkward. You seem to think that the meaning of left/right is something that happens rarely in sequential art but even cursory surveying of the material will show that this is far from the case. How would it change if you just mirrored Two-Face from Batman? How often does it change something making a character into a leftie rather than a rightie and vice versa. Some examples from One Piece (because it just came to mind): Luffy's scar under his left eye. Sanji's left eye being covered constantly. Zoro's earpiercings and on which side he carries his katana, etc. Asymmetry is an important part of character design and this is very problematic to mirroring the pages.
    I don't really see how those things are problems. Sure, the asymmetry is important, but it's asymmetric whether or not it's flipped. Whether the asymmetry is left-right or right-left doesn't seem to matter, honestly. Left-handed vs right-handed could possibly be relevant, because the number of right-handed vs left-handed people is unequal and so the distinction between one and the other is of statistical importance.
    So, one rare case where this would matter would be some kind of detective story where the detective concludes "The killer must have been left-handed!" Changing this to right-handed wouldn't be quite the same. However, I don't see many examples like this occurring.
    How many pieces of text are incorporated into the artwork regularly? For example, I'm reading Akira right now and on the first pages of Volume 4 we see a Rescue helicopter land and in the version I have, everything on the Helicoper is spelled backwards because they just mirrored the page entirely. This was just entirely unnecessary and stupid.
    Well, this is definitely the best point in your argument. I can agree here.
    The artwork is the most important part of a manga and therefore should be kept as close to the original as possible. Unnecessarily screwing with the art is simply bad practice.
    Oh? Isn't the text important as well? Maybe we should just leave that in Japanese.
  • chaosof99chaosof99
    edited February 2010
    I don't really see how those things are problems. Sure, the asymmetry is important, but it's asymmetric whether or not it's flipped. Whether the asymmetry is left-right or right-left doesn't seem to matter, honestly. Left-handed vs right-handed could possibly be relevant, because the number of right-handed vs left-handed people is unequal and so the distinction between one and the other is of statistical importance.
    So, one rare case where this would matter would be some kind of detective story where the detective concludes "The killer must have been left-handed!" Changing this to right-handed wouldn't be quite the same. However, I don't see many examples like this occurring.
    If something is asymmetric it is of course important which side is which or else asymmetry wouldn't be important. Just being asymmetric doesn't help much when you don't know which is which. Akira is actually a good example here because the flipped version I'm reading has, for most of the time, the wrong arm of Tetsuo replaced but on occasion the artwork is correct and his right arm was blown off. While this has no intrinsic importance on the story, it is an intrinsic property of the character, manga, artwork and product. Sometimes this stuff is very important however. For example there are plenty of baseball manga being produced in japan. Guess how strange it would be to see the runners proceed clockwise.

    And there are plenty of other examples where this asymmetry and the importance of which side is which is essential to the character. Two-face, Captain Harlock, Captain Hook, Kakashi (Naruto), many of the major characters in One Piece, Seras Victoria (Hellsing), Revy (Black Lagoon), Mega-Man, Kenshiro (Hokuto no Ken), in pretty much every baseball and boxing manga there is some weight given to left-handedness with southpaws or switch-hitters, etc.
    Oh? Isn't the text important as well? Maybe we should just leave that in Japanese.
    I guess you missed the parts where I talked about necessity. Translating the text is a necessity as the majority of people you are trying to market the product to would not be capable of understanding what is actually being said. On the other hand pictures are capable of representing information without a language barrier. It is not necessary to change pictures while it is necessary to change the written text.
    Post edited by chaosof99 on
  • lackofcheeselackofcheese
    If something is asymmetric it is of course important which side is which or else asymmetry wouldn't be important. Just being asymmetric doesn't help much when you don't know which is which.
    What? That's simply nonsense. If a character is missing a leg, they're missing a leg - why the hell does it matter which leg it is?
    Akira is actually a good example here because the flipped version I'm reading has, for most of the time, the wrong arm of Tetsuo replaced but on occasion the artwork is correct and his right arm was blown off.
    That's just a consistency issue. If it was entirely mirrored it wouldn't change back and forth

    In the case of Two-Face, I don't really see why it matters whether it's the left or right side that is disfigured. As far as I know, the important thing is that he has two faces and two personalities, not which is left and which is right. I think the same goes for many characters like that.
    Sometimes this stuff is very important however. For example there are plenty of baseball manga being produced in japan. Guess how strange it would be to see the runners proceed clockwise.
    Well, it would seem normal to Australians, since they're upside down anyway.
    Oh? Isn't the text important as well? Maybe we should just leave that in Japanese.
    I guess you missed the parts where I talked about necessity. Translating the text is a necessity as the majority of people you are trying to market the product to would not be capable of understanding what is actually being said. On the other hand pictures are capable of representing information without a language barrier. It is not necessary to change pictures while it is necessary to change the written text.
    No, it's more than just "necessity". If the goal was simply to change as little as possible, high-quality translators would leave the honorifics in and the like. The true goal is to provide the best possible experience, and I have to agree with Funfetus that the flow is messed up when text goes L to R while images go R to L.
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