Cardcaptors Update and Other News Bits
In a recent article in ActionZine on the upcoming series Cardcaptors, a great deal of new info was uncovered straight from the horse's mouth. Donan Friedman, a WB executive, gives an explanation of the series in general, as well as their plans for marketing it to North American viewers. The article goes over a number of changes to the show, as well as what to expect from it. The series will feature English overlays, similar to those seen on the Eva DVD, and while this practice is certainly questionable, let's just hope they can do a better job with the overlays than ADV. Apparently a LOT of editing was done to the show, and while the names and places remain the same, Sakura's character has been drastically altered to better appeal to an American audience.
Well, we'll be able to find out this Saturday just how many changes were made, but in the mean time, why don't you take a look at the article for yourself. Here's a sample of some of the more interesting quotes in the article:
We decided to launch early because we were really excited about it," she admits readily. "Also, as we do have a lot of new shows coming this fall, we wanted to make sure people did pay attention to 'Cardcaptors.' This way we can give the show its own promotional platform. In the fall it will be crowded.
Right now our main focus is into very much adapting the show for our audience, the U.S. market," Friedman admits. "For instance, we changed the name of the show from "Card Collector Sakura" to "Cardcaptors" because it's really about Sakura and Li being on this quest to capture all the cards. So they both are the cardcaptors. What's also important is Li is the grandson of Clow Li, the magician who captured all the spells and put them into cards originally. Li is part of Clow's family, but he has no magic of his own.
We're aiming for both boys and girls," says Friedman. "We know today that our audience is about 70-75% boys to 25-30% girls. So for us, it's very important that the show has appeal to our core boy audience. We also reshaped Sakura a bit to make her more appealing to American tastes. She's a much stronger, more dynamic character than she is in Japan. We think that has more appeal to both boys and girls over here.
I was just reading scripts yesterday and marvelling at how hard the job really is," says Friedman."The first step is usually editing the actual video. That means removing any Japanese text that might be on the screen, taking out scenes that won't get past standards and practices, and such. The next step is the pacing of a Japanese show is very different from what we are used to in the United States. So the next step is to work on the pacing to make it as tight, exciting, and quick moving as possible, as that's what's appropriate for the U.S. market.
Nelvana has made a considerable investment in Cardcaptors, the LA Times having recently reported that they've spent approximately $100 000 per episode on translation costs alone. Their translation efforts, as well as those made in an attempt to make the series more appealing to the domestic market, include new scripts, making liberal use of rewrites, the dubbed vocal tracks, presumably both English and French, and new music. The Toronto based company has been able to recoup a portion of this investment though, coming as a result of both tax breaks from the Canadian government, as well as subsidiaries elsewhere in Canada and in Europe.
If the usual "school girl saves the world" theme (or at least the city) doesn't fit your fancy, then maybe some professional women "bouncers" will. The movie Gundress, which aired theatrically in Japan in March of last year, will be making its way to video soon. The film was released on DVD in a rental only format on June 9th and will be released to the Japanese retail market on September 22nd for 4 700 yen.
For those of us that don't live in Japan and don't speak the language worth a damn, Central Park Media has posted a few tasty tidbits on their site. They have a few new pieces of box art, one being for the highly anticipated Slayers DVD box set and the other being from the Maze OVA disc. While CPM isn't known for their stellar box art, having released some terrible covers in the past, these two are rather nice, and while they're both fairly busy, they're definitely worth a look. The Slayers box art can be seen here and you can view the Maze box art here.
The Olympics in Sydney, Australia are coming up this summer. What do the Olympics have to do with anime, you ask? Well, not much, but during the Olympics something else will be happening in the very same location. Japanime, a festival celebrating and giving tribute to innovation in the Japanese animation business, will feature numerous screenings of some of the best anime out there, including a high number of Ghibli films. Too bad this won't be on TV in place of the Olympics... an otaku can dream, can't he? ^_^
Well, time to start practicing for the Olympics (I need to get to Sydney somehow, don't I?). What's this? It's too late!? The teams have already been chosen!? Ahhh... well, I'll have to find some other way to get there then. Maybe I'll just watch some anime instead.
Here's one last little news bit to wrap up tonight's update. If you're in New Jersey and want to stop by Rutgers University on June 18th, they will be showing Princess Mononoke at 7:00 PM in Scott Hall Room 123. It'll cost $5 to get in, but for Mononoke, it's worth it.
Thanks again go out to Moridin, the latest addition to AD's staff, for sending in the news.
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