Sailor Star Dust wrote:I have the last 3 episodes of
Nichijou back-logged, but what was the deal with all the hate in Japan? Hilarious series, as far as I'm concerned.
Hate is too strong word. Nichijou flopped hard and had number of small scale disastrous consequences for number of players in the industry. For the few who don't like KyoAni in Japan it also opened up chance to riff on them in a way that had been hard to come by for some time.
The most immediate consequence of Nichijou was that it destroyed "the myth of Kyoto Animation's invincibility". Prior to Nichijou
(Munto has been erased from mankind's collective memory it seemed like you could throw absolutely anything at studio and they'd turn it into gigantic hit and have the investors roll in dough afterwards.
Producer of the show, same guy who produced eg. Haruhi, was obviously confident in KyoAni delivering the goods once again and spend a fortune on lavish promotion campaign and went as far as making obviously highly prioritized and budgeted series two cours from the start. KyoAni on the other hand was in it because they quite simply seemed to dig the manga and it allowed them unusually varied chances to do "art for art's sake" in their animation.
Alas, Nichijou's weirdness ended up becoming the "one bridge too far" even for this studio. It's nothing unusual to have a lot of net buzz before new kyoani series about how they won't be pulling through this time but Nichijou was first time initial skepticism was validated.
There was a number of causes contributing to Nichijou's failure (the 3k+ average sales would be average by standards of any studio buy for KyoAni nothing short of catastrophic) and publisher's horrid overpricing policy certainly was a big one but ultimately what sealed the deal was that show was simply too strange to make it big - and no amount of godly animation could overcome that. Of course the overpricing was partly affect of belief this was going to be the hit of the year of all yers.
As for consequences KyoAni lost their invincibility mandate but apart from that no actual repercursions are apparent. They still do exactly what they want and with characteristic high production quality that has not suffered in the least. It's just a reputation thing and there's pretty common perception that "post-nichijou" KyoAni just isn't quite as impeccable as studio used to be. While I think Nichijou's one of KA's better shows I'm forced to agree: studio considers Haruhi finished and stubbornly passes over guaranteed megahits like further Key adaptations over adapting obscure LNs they have published themselves. Which is good biz, admittedly, as they get all potential profits. Still, only Chuunibyou and apparently Free(?) now meet the expectations of their hit maker reputation. Hyouka sold well but not spectacularly while Tamako Market flopped as bad as Nichijou.
Far more severe the consequences were for the producer who got demoted big time in Kadokawa and has not acted as main producer of any series since. This is big thing because the man oft. in combo with KyoAni was behind many hit series, no more notable than Haruhi. As long as the guy remains demoted I think chances for new Haruhi anime are virtually nill (not thay they'd be that big anyway).
tl;dr: Nichijou doesn't get "hate" per se, it was just too weird to make it big despite hard and obnoxious marketing push for that end and in process series brought KyoAni down a notch. Those who actually have finished the show seem to dig it going my series's high rating on pages like MAL but it's worth keeping in mind it's the kind of series inclined to shrug off disinclined viewers during first couple of episodes so their presence in discussion of and evaluation of series is quite neglible.
pwhodges wrote:Yes, the cuteness is dialled up to 11; yes many of the gags are hilarious; but it lacks any sense of progression or development to hold all the elements together and give context. This is what makes
Azumanga Daioh so great in comparison.
I agree and this is main reason why Nichijou doesn't really threaten AD's status in my eyes (another reason would be supieriority of AD's cast, as much as I like Nichijou's). Still, rare comedy gag series feature much in terms of story (pretty much every animated american sitcom ever) so it didn't bother me that much. I took it as 26 slices of charming madness rather than something that tries and fails to deliver compelling, continuous narrative.
pwhodges wrote:I expect that it works far better watching just an episode a week, rather than marathoned, though, so I may be being a bit unfair because of the way I tend to take things in as a whole. For me it started at 8/10, but fell to 7/10 towards the end because it was starting to get boring - cute boring, funny boring, but still just a bit boring.
This is very possible. I only ever marathoned the series once (final 8 episode stretch) though I found series's at best towards the end. Alternatively it was only towards end I was completely in sync with series's comedic sensibilities and hence the experience was most enjoyable at then.
I started Nichijou back in the day when it first aired and watched first 5 episodes but while I found it pleasantly amusing I didn't care for it that much so I put it on indefinitive hold. I started sporadically continuing Nichijou this summer because Oz liked the show, I had it on my HD and we often needed to watch ep or two of something entirely different to unwind from intense Brotherhood marathoning. So we 1-3 episodes per week approximately untill I went and finished the show on my own few weeks ago.
I'm not sure what the reason was but I appreciated Nichijou a lot more after picking it up again than back in the day.
InstrumentalityOne wrote:Xard should
Astro Fighter Sunred next.
Probably not as funny, but infinitely more charming.
Going by Astrored's reputation for funnyness vs. Nichijou's moe+silly I'd expect it to be other way around, actually. But yeah, as far as comedy shows go I have high expectations for Sunred, whenever I get to it.
chazthesilencer wrote:Every few months or so- I make the same exclamation. I agree that
Cagliostro is good stuff and has aged very well; although I haven’t seen much else out of the decade of disco to call it the “
best annie may of 70’s” with any conviction.
Well, when I wrote that I did think of possible competitors and while I felt tinge of unease due to not having finished
Rose of Versailles yet that (and to lesser extent original Ashita no Joe series) excluded I'm certain I've seen the noteworthy competition. Ironically enough Cagliostro's most serious challenger would be this:
so Miyazaki would be winning da discobowl regardless. Apart from beyond fantastic
Future Boy Conan (which is probably Miyazaki's most influential work in Japan and one of the most loved) that still ranks among the best anime series ever released there's the other great feature of the decade
Galaxy Express 999 but Rintaro's best film doesn't quite catch up with the elegance and surehandedness of Miyazaki's feature film debut, even if its scifi vision is impressive in itself.
Other top pickings of the decade like Yamato, Gundam, Ace wo Nerae!, Lupin III tv series, Harlock etc. while good don't really play in the same league with those three.