Gurren Lagann, and ADV’s Streaming VoD In Review
Posted by 0rion on December 20th, 2007 - 11:25 pm
So I finally got around to checking out ADV’s new online streaming video service, and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed.
There are some issues with the player itself, as well as the translations, but hey, you can’t complain too much when it’s free. Overall it seems like an excellent first foray into the wild world of digital distribution; one that has huge potential for growing the number of fans who follow newer anime, and thus the industry as a whole.
Detailed breakdown and analysis after the jump…
New episodes are uploaded every Thursday, and are available online for 28 days before they are removed.
The service is 100% free, supported entirely by advertising. As you can see, there are banner ads above and to the right of the player itself. In addition, a 20-second-ish advertisement plays before the episode starts, another in between the eyecatches, and then a third at the end, assuming you’re watching all the way to the end of the ED.
I loaded up several videos to get a feel for what kinds of advertising were supporting the site. Advertisements I saw included a trailer for 5cm Per Second and a couple of silly ads for ANN, as well as several seemingly out of place ads for mortgage refinancing and debt consolidation.
All of these, however, paled in comparison to the unintentionally hilarious ad for the upcoming Kanon release, in which the announcer said, “From the people who brought you Air, and The Melancholy of… Hoo-RAH-hi Suzu-MAH-yah…” I kid you not. Hoo-RAH-hi.
I think I stared at the screen mouth agape for a good five seconds before I recovered enough to laugh my butt off. It seriously sounded like they just dragged a random VA into the studio and handed him a script to read with no advance guidance on pronunciation. In the narration, there’s an audible pause where you can just see the poor guy struggling to figure out how to say the name before he blurts out the aforementioned botched pronunciation. I seriously wonder how that got past QC, and how they expect to be taken seriously with a gaff of that caliber.
Aside from that, they also seem to have some problems with the way their ads are handled. A number of times an advertisement would start to play, and then suddenly get cut off and the episode would resume. In addition, it’s obviously possible to skip over the eyecatch, thus avoiding the ad trigger there, as well as closing the video before the ED finishes, thus avoiding the final ad. Clearly Anime Network has some issues they will need to work through if they intend to properly attract advertising dollars.
As for the actual episode…the player seems to work just fine, essentially the same kind of interface as Youtube. When you mouse over the screen, the controls pop up and allow you to jump to any part of the episode at any time. Quite handy, really.
The video resolution is 640 x 360 and seems excellent in terms of clarity, with only minimal artifacts.
The translation was actually surprisingly good; I found myself very impressed. Whoever translated this did an excellent technical job, of course, but also managed to keep the translations very straightforward, much closer to literal translations than is usually the case in official releases. All too often they try too hard to “localize” the translation into American-sounding speech patterns and idioms, and it just has a tendency to fall flat and ruin any distinctiveness the original may have had.
As much as I like to hate on R1 subtitle jobs, however, there’s not that much even a hardcore fan like myself can complain about here.
That said, there were a few translation issues that bothered me:
Gunmen? Gunmen??
What happened to Ganmen? I should think it would be fairly obvious that they’re called Ganmen (顔面) because they have huge faces on them (ganmen basically means a human face). Of course, English speaking audiences wouldn’t be expected to know that, but why change it? It’s not like it makes any more sense this way; only a few of the Ganmen use actual guns, anyway.
EDIT: Sixten has kindly pointed out that this romanization is the “official” one as decided by the Japanese copyright holders, and thus the U.S.-based licensees have little choice but to use these spellings. It’s still a bit odd, but nothing that I think would ruin the enjoyment of the series, even for hardcore fans who have already watched the series.
They can also be shot. Or so I hear, anyway.
And what does he mean “they”? They don’t know that there’s more of these, or that the big Ganmen have beastmen inside of them yet, so he shouldn’t be using a plural pronouns. Oops.
A perfectly fine translation, but it lacks the punchiness of Order’s “I ain’t runnin’!”, which I feel does a much better job of capturing Kamina’s rough chimpira-style Japanese. (”Ore wa nigenee!” was the original.)
Again, not a bad translation, it just doesn’t do justice to the mostly over-the-top dialogue of this series. Mundane, everyday translations just don’t cut it when you’re working on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That’s not the Gurren-dan way!
Speaking of which…
*sigh*
Of course this was an unavoidable part of the localization, since most English-speaking viewers wouldn’t understand the meaning of “Gurren-dan”, but it still rolls off the tongue rather awkwardly.
Fortunately, at least the signature Gurren-dan mottos remain unchanged!
Overall, my impression of the service is pretty positive. The player works smoothly and the audio/video quality is fine. The only major complaint I have is that the timing of the subtitles was off in several places, which is both confusing and unprofessional.
At any rate, this subtitle-only, streaming digital delivery is exactly the kind of thing hardcore fans have been demanding for ages. If they can clean up some of the rough edges and make a viable and profitable distribution model out of this service, it will likely introduce sweeping changes in the anime industry. Serving new anime for free online is a sure way to grow the consumer base, as more and more people will be willing to give new shows a try.
In an article on The Anime Network, ADV President and CEO John Ledford is quoted as saying:
“We know there’s a demand for fresh, unreleased anime on the Internet. Through Anime Network’s First Look broadcasts, we can engage fans in a lawful way and at the same time help build the audience for our DVD releases. Everybody wins.”
Although I have a lot of reservations about the way ADV conducts business, it is good to see that they do at least recognize the necessary next step that needs to be taken if the U.S. anime industry is to continue to grow.
Should this become a financial success, it will serve as the acid test needed to help convince other major players in both the U.S. and Japan to expand into the realm of digital delivery. Obviously there’s still a significant delay between this and the original Japanese air date, but hopefully in the future the time difference will begin to diminish as this streaming video approach takes off. If they can solve that problem I can easily see this solution taking a big chunk out of the fansubbers “market share”.
Also, sorry to all you folks outside of the US/Canada who would’ve liked to watch the show this way. I imagine they’re worried that all you evil pirates overseas will find a way to rip off their video and make money off of it. Nevermind that you can already find it online and in much higher quality for free. 
Well, that or the ads they’re trying to serve mostly wouldn’t apply to you, and thus wouldn’t contribute to their revenue stream. I still like the first explanation, though.
I was so hyped up to watch Gurren Lagann from Anime Network but was instantly rejected because I’m not within US/Canada
I wonder if proxy would work hmm….
Mmm, the North America-specificity prevents me from enjoying TTGL legally over a cup of MANLY TEA, but as you say, this is probably A Good Thing. Good to hear that the subtitling’s adequate, too.
Any Hoo-RAH-hiists out there?
Ditto IKnight, only less manly due to my dislike of tea (I’m an embarrassment to my counry).
This kind of exclusion raises the question of whether USA licenses should count for all English-speaking countries. Why should non-NA residents delete their fansubs if we’re blocked from viewing them legitimately like this? Obviously, this relies on the supposition that having fansubs in the first place is ‘okay’ when a show isn’t licensed, which I’ve never been convinced by, but still. Not much of an incentive to go legit.
As for LOLHURAHILOL, I’m glad they buggered it up. It’s yet another dent in Haruhi’s credibility and another reason to mock its shitliness.
I concur with Hige’s disappointment with USA licenses being the one-all-be-all authoritative voice of the English-speaking world. What’s the point of encouraging such moves (which, to all you North American anti-fansub campers, I believe is great!) if the rest of the world gets no love?
I think this is one of the ways the industry can move forward, and harness the power of the Internet to reach out better. It’s a small step, but let’s not stop it there if there are more things that can be improved on.
I haven’t got my chance to watch, just as all GL fans who would like to view this personally for themselves, i believe many wouldn’t be able to do so, since we do not reside in the US/Canada
I doubt if the point to restrict it to the US/Canada was to keep people from stealing the video. They only have the license to distribute GL in the US and Canada, so if people from outside NA watched it they could be liable to other licensors.
On the Gurren Lagann Japanese site in the Pre-Timeslip Mechanic category, the spelling of “Gunmen” (as well as “Dai-Gunzan”, “Dai-Gunkai” etc) is there on the top page links. It’s like “Wirhelmina” in the Shakugan no Shana no Subete series guidebook - you may not like it, but it’s official, even in the Japanese material.
It’s definitely a step in the right direction. I remember when they were talking about charging money for digital downloads…Meh, ads. You get those on TV too. I was wondering how they would market such an unknown show in the US, but it looks like they’re promoting it quite a bit (notice the full page ads at ANN xD). I wouldn’t be surprised if I started seeing Gurren in Newtype either. We were surprised enough when they had Geass.
@ Hige
A Brit whodoesn’t like TEA?? Blasphemy!!
Also, I believe one of the justifications often provided is that as long as there is an English release “somewhere” out there, English-speaking fans in other countries can just import it.
Pretty flimsy, but then of course the entire concept of “stop distribution once the series is licensed” is essentially just a tacit compromise between fansubbers and U.S.-based licensees to look the other way.
@ TP
I definitely agree that this is only a first step. With the continually growing and changing internet driving the distribution model, companies in this arena will have to learn to be continually on their toes, innovating to keep pace with the rapid changes in the market.
@ Calawain
Those last couple paragraphs were with tongue firmly planted in cheek; don’t take it too seriously.
@ Sixten
Ahh, thanks for the clarification on “Gunmen”. Certainly the romanization still comes across as being a bit odd, but at least it wasn’t something ADV cooked up on their own.
That also explains the romanization of “Gulaparl” that I’ve seen used for the successors to the Gunmen.
That raises the entirely separate issue of the Japanese companies wanting to retain control over their product even where it might not make the best sense for a different language market -i.e. “Wirhelmina” or “Nymphet”. While it’s perfectly understandable from a business standpoint, it’s also highly aggravating from a consumer point of view.
@0rion:
That raises the entirely separate issue of the Japanese companies wanting to retain control over their product even where it might not make the best sense for a different language market
Apparently Bandai USA had an uphill battle trying to convince Sunrise that having characters named Quattro Vagina and Jamitov Hymen in the Zeta Gundam subs might not go down too well.
I think Sunrise are among the worst out there for that sort of asshatery.
Incidentally I really wanted to watch this to see whether ADV’s work is actually worth it, but apparently ADV’s map of the internet involves North America and then a big black area marked ‘here be dragons’. They’re clearly not serious about the whole setup as a model for future distribution either, since it’ll only be the first three episodes that they stream. It’s just promotional grandstanding using ANN’s recent soapboxing as a springboard.
I can’t seem to find these videos. All I see in the giant robot section is BASTof syndrome, Godannar, and Rahxephon. Is it because I live in Canada?