The OVA boom: Boon Or Curse?

[Daishikaze]

I've heard Patrick Macias say that the OVA boom was the worst thing to happen to the anime industry. And looking back, he does have a point. For all the OVAs that were made in the 80s and 90s, How many of them were complete stories? How many of them would have been better had they been a TV series instead? How many just made no sense at all? and most importantly, How many good ideas were wasted on projects that never finished or never even saw fruition?

Could Patrick be right? Was the OVA boom a gigantic curse that tore the anime industry down slowly? What do you think?

[greg]

For all the OVAs that were made in the 80s and 90s, How many of them were complete stories? How many of them would have been better had they been a TV series instead? How many just made no sense at all? and most importantly, How many good ideas were wasted on projects that never finished or never even saw fruition?

OVAs were great. The quality of animation was by far better than TV quality shows, and since they weren't made for TV, more themes were explored and different tangents of creativity were made. However, it is unfortunate that many were never completed, especially my favorite OVA of all, Bubblegum Crisis.

To be honest haven't seen really a decline in anime in the 15yrs in Japan. Recall when the killed us with Aura Battler Dunbine reruns.

What on earth do you mean? Anime has been in terrible decline over the past 15 years, thus the industry is falling apart. Nowadays, anime is either made for school kids or otaku. Regular folks, in Japan and elsewhere, are mostly stuck with nostalgia. That's why we have this forum. I'd much rather watch Dunbine reruns than the vast majority of modern anime. I don't care for moeblob crap or soulless mecha anime. I'm more interested in the truly fascinating worlds of imagination that were created decades ago.

OVAs didn't kill the anime industry. Anime killed itself.

[Daishikaze]

I just want to say, I love many many OVAs so I wasn't attacking them really, I was just expounding on what Patrick Macias said. No, Ova's didn't kill anime, Anime isn't dead yet but it is hurting quite a bit now. Yes the Audience has changed, I've accepted that a long time ago, as long as some good shows still get made I'm happy, I just wish there were more of them.

The audience changing does bring problems with it, like the pandering to the pervy otaku market, I understand thats where the money is in Japan, but its definitely hurting international sales. Perhaps the companies no longer give a damn about the international market? I don't know, but too much of this stuff just isn't exportable anymore. Now, this is where OVAs should be being used, since they are no longer the engine for innovation like they used to be, they should be using them for this pervy moe market and put the more accessible stuff on TV.

Of course even if they did that, the western market would probably still try to see the pervy moe stuff instead of the accessible shows. I mean look how many of these damn shows got licensed and then sold very little. Why did they license stuff they should have known had a limited appeal? How could they think some of this stuff would sell well in the western market? They say Piracy and to an extent they aren't wrong, but it was the product as well, they have to admit that. Because when the product is accessible, it sells well (ex: FMA, Naruto, Bleach (none of which I like, but they sell very well)), how can they not understand this?

[davemerrill]

I don't know that it was either a boon or a curse. The OVA boom was kind of its own thing, dependent on a lot of different factors all converging at once, and we'll not see its like again.

Certainly when the OVA titles made their way to America, their subject matter kind of reinforced the attitude that Japanese cartoons were mostly ultraviolent schoolgirl porn. Many of them were cheaply animated versions of popular manga titles, fakey wanna-be Gundams, or incomprehensible Heavy Metal-style SF.

But for all the dreck, there are several OVA titles that are flat out wonderful, experimental, and ground-breaking in ways that just weren't financially viable for movies or TV. California Crisis and Birth are two that come to mind. And for a while it was a great medium for really talented people to introduce titles like Patlabor.

I will say the OVA boom made it easier than ever for American anime clubs to get anime on a regular basis - just order it from Japan. Badda bing badda boom.

[Daishikaze]

I think I did a bad job of conveying what Patrick meant ( it was late at night). I think he meant it was a curse because it trained alot anime creators to think on a smaller scale, 3 or 4 episodes max for their stories. So when the boom was over you had studios like GONZO puting out shows where the story works for 4 episodes and the next twenty or so eps has them struggling to find a direction to take it in before fizzling out at the finish line, Because they didn't know how to structure a full on TV show properly.

Though I get the feeling Patrick is the only one who feels this is the case (well Daryl Surat does too to some extent).

[Daishikaze]

I agree about Gurren Lagann, and I'm a big super robot fan, so many people look at me weird when I say that. Oddly enough the revamps of older shows are often the only ones I like because when they are done right they still have that passion the original property had. In the case of EVA, I don't think thats true, its a cash grab and GAINAX knows it, just like everything else they've done for a long time. They are no longer passionate about what they do (can't blame them really), I'd recommend they just walk away from it all, go do something else.

The more modern fare rarely has something that really syncs with me, when it does it turns out to be an adaptation of a much older work, like the case with Ring Ni Kakero. Ironically, RnK survives now as an OVA series, from the 3rd season onwards, making it hard for me to get my hands on.

[raiderfan99]

I actually find some OVA series better than the TV series of some shows, such as Lodoss wars.

The anime industry died well after that 80s-90s OVA boom in the 2000s when the TV series or Movie was much more common to see in a production.

[greg]

I actually find some OVA series better than the TV series of some shows, such as Lodoss wars.

I'd really like to see the Lodoss TV series. I own and love the OVA series, but after reading the comics, I am interested in seeing how the TV series stays closer to the original source. The OVA took the parts of the Heroic Knight epic span and combined it with the original characters, thus having Wagnard abducting Deedlit instead of Neece. While Parn rescuing Deedlit is certainly romantic and charming, it makes more sense to have these events revolve around Neece, Slayn's daughter. (And the artist behind the Heroic Knight part, Natsumoto, did a fantastic job and I love his art style. The only other manga I've seen of his was a two volume Gundam side story published by Tokyo Pop.)

Lodoss is really cool. As much as I gripe about a lack of decent SF anime these days, I also would love to see more fantasy anime made too. It's so fascinating how the Lodoss story was originally derived from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign the author did.

[raiderfan99]

I actually find some OVA series better than the TV series of some shows, such as Lodoss wars.

I'd really like to see the Lodoss TV series. I own and love the OVA series, but after reading the comics, I am interested in seeing how the TV series stays closer to the original source. The OVA took the parts of the Heroic Knight epic span and combined it with the original characters, thus having Wagnard abducting Deedlit instead of Neece. While Parn rescuing Deedlit is certainly romantic and charming, it makes more sense to have these events revolve around Neece, Slayn's daughter. (And the artist behind the Heroic Knight part, Natsumoto, did a fantastic job and I love his art style. The only other manga I've seen of his was a two volume Gundam side story published by Tokyo Pop.)

Lodoss is really cool. As much as I gripe about a lack of decent SF anime these days, I also would love to see more fantasy anime made too. It's so fascinating how the Lodoss story was originally derived from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign the author did.

From what I understand, the TV series is much more accurate to the original work as opposed to the OVA which takes its own liberties. I personally found the TV series kind of disjointed as the first few episodes focus on Deedlit and Parn meeting Orson, then it speeds ahead in time to Neece and company. I thought the animation quality kind of sucked compared to the OVA as well and I disliked the new characters.

I thought the omake segments with the whole "pow pow parn" thing were kind of cute and charming but it really lost my interest after a few episodes.

[llj]

But for all the dreck, there are several OVA titles that are flat out wonderful, experimental, and ground-breaking in ways that just weren't financially viable for movies or TV. California Crisis and Birth are two that come to mind. And for a while it was a great medium for really talented people to introduce titles like Patlabor.

.

I just spent the last several minutes looking up California Crisis. Holy crap do I want to watch this.