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A revelation

posted by [personal profile] cathyr19355 at 10:46pm on 29/08/2009 under ,
Slept very late today. Spent way too much time watching episodes of Bleach on hulu.com.

Bleach is an anime TV series. As I've been watching, it's occurred to me that the main difference between American TV and Japanese TV that situation comedies are typical of American TV, but not Japanese TVs. Instead, a lot of anime series are a kind of ongoing situation drama, usually among characters with some kind of martial arts or supernatural background. American TV doesn't have anything like that....

Oh wait. Actually, we do have a type of show that is very like that.

We call it soap opera.

Boy, am I slow sometimes.
Mood:: 'contemplative' contemplative
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There are 6 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] vakkotaur.livejournal.com at 04:24am on 30/08/2009
That would explain (one more reason) why I find anime so very uninteresting. I find soap operas very uninteresting. Changing them from bad live action to bad animation doesn't change the core problem and adds a new one: the jerky, flickering gives me headaches.
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posted by [identity profile] cathyr19355.livejournal.com at 05:07am on 30/08/2009
Whereas I have found some soap operas interesting in the past. I was a fan of "Dark Shadows" as a kid, for example, and in some ways this is very similar to it.
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posted by [identity profile] kallisti.livejournal.com at 05:01am on 30/08/2009
Bleach is a good series. Although comparing it to a soap opera is like comparing Babylon 5 to a soap opera.

I've watched anime since the 1980s, and unlike most American TV, but more like Canadian and British TV, they have long story arcs. Most episodic TV on the US, each episode is a self contained story, with little, if any reference to previous episodes. The one of the reasons that B5 was ground breaking TV in the US is because it had multi-episode story arcs. It was the first time that a popular US TV show did it on a regular basis.

Now, some *have* compared B5 to soap operas, but I think it is more that US TV industry thinks it's audiences have a much shorter attention span than those in other countries. There may be some truth in that, as I know in the publishing industry that it is a fact that thick books do better in Canada than the do in the US.

ttyl
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posted by [identity profile] cathyr19355.livejournal.com at 05:10am on 30/08/2009
I agree that Babylon 5 isn't a soap opera, but I don't think that means that Bleach isn't one. Babylon 5 doesn't have the intensity of focus on the minor -- as well as the major -- emotional issues of the main characters. That is a characteristic Bleach shares with the "soap operas." Also, you get a much bigger slice of the main characters home/personal lives in Bleach, and in a soap opera, than was the case in B5.
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posted by [identity profile] landley.livejournal.com at 04:54am on 01/09/2009
> US TV industry thinks

Objection! Supposition!
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] cathyr19355.livejournal.com at 01:34am on 02/09/2009
Sustained. :-)
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