Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,907
edits
Executive Meddling/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions
Executive Meddling/Anime and Manga (view source)
Revision as of 15:59, 15 October 2020
, 3 years agocopyedit
m (update links) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (copyedit) |
||
| (7 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
Sometimes in the Anime/Manga world orders [[Executive Meddling|come from on high]]:
----
* Executive Meddling by the editors of ''Shonen Jump'' resulted in some drastic plot changes to ''[[Dragon Ball]]''. For example, they're the reason the Cell arc kept constantly changing villains (first it was Android 19 and 20, then 17 and 18, then Cell, then suddenly Cell had two more forms that looked completely different and quickly transitioned from the second to third). Both his current editor and his former one basically kept telling Toriyama the villains he picked for the arc weren't good enough, so he kept having to shoehorn new villains or new looks for the villains in. Honestly, in hindsight, the changes were [[Tropes Are Not Bad|probably for the better.]]
Line 7:
* Ikumi Mia blames part of the failure of ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]] a la mode'' on her Nakayoshi director limiting her to two volumes and telling her not to focus on the previous series's characters.
** Executive Meddling actually produced the original series as well; Ikumi-sensei wanted to do a horror series focusing on a much darker [[Catgirl]], without a [[Sentai|colourful cast]] of [[Petting Zoo People|Kemonomimi]] friends. Ichigo's predecessor wasn't even a [[Magical Girl]].
* In ''[[Digimon Savers]]'', there is an episode where a bomb-shaped digimon called BomberNanimon attempts to blow up an amusement park by throwing bombs everywhere. When dubbed, its color was changed to orange, [https://web.archive.org/web/20100502060509/http://www.duckfeather.net/digimon/index.htm the bombs were turned into ''fruit juice'' and it was re-named "Citramon."] English producer/writer Jeff Nimoy stated that he had to do this or Disney would cut the episode.
** However, once you get past the utter randomness; [[Pragmatic Adaptation|it becomes a fitting]] [[Homage]] to Don Patch of [[
* Speaking of ''[[
* Rumor has it that ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' was cut short because Yuki Judai's voice actor was fired and the show's developers didn't want to spend the extra cash to replace him in the middle of a season; as a result, the show was forced to wrap up half-way through its run, and its successor, ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'' was rushed to air to make up the difference.
** The ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' manga suffers the same fate as the anime, as it had to rush its ending to make room for ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh Ze Xal|Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal]]'''s manga, despite how well the GX manga series has been received by the fans.
** At the beginning, ''Yu-Gi-Oh'' wasn't about the infamous card games, but since the game was quite popular (not to mention conveniently marketable), Kazuki Takahashi had to continue with the card games.
* The translators working on ''[[Initial D]]'' originally wanted a straight translation, but [[Tokyo Pop]] executives demanded various changes, resulting in the translators writing an [http://www.animenewsnetwork.
** The big, big beef was the "Fast and the Furious"-ization. You can see it in the hip-hop dialogue and cheesy nicknames (gradually done away with in the later volumes). Given the Love It Or Hate It nature of FaF, this is understandable (although still a bit extreme). Strangely enough, without this executive meddling, it's unlikely that any American manga company would've taken a chance on a title as unusual as Initial D at all.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' suffered this from Day 1. [[Sunrise (company)|Sunrise]] initially had little to no faith in the show because of director Goro Taniguchi<ref>Reports variously blaming his being relatively new and untested or his perfectionism</ref>, giving him 25 episodes rather than the originally requested 50 and severely limiting the staff's resources, forcing them to piggy-back off of other Sunrise shows being made at the same time. After it became a runaway success, Sunrise gave the staff more leeway, but still interfered in other ways.
** The initial series plan involved an idealistic rookie soldier and his ideological conflicts with his battle-hardened C.O. (which was recycled as the base for the idealistic Suzaku vs. the hardened Lelouch conflict); when Sunrise rejected this concept, the creators took it back to formula and after some retooling (introducing new elements like the Geass power and C.C. herself) made it the show it is today.
** According to [[Word of God]], the show being moved to an earlier time slot screwed the staff up in two ways, firstly by forcing them to tone down the content and secondly by making them feel like they had to take time out of the plot to get new viewers acquainted with the premise, which is usually blamed for the first handful of episodes feeling like rehashes of parallel episodes from the first season. This also forced the staff to essentially throw out their original plans for the show's second half, adding in a one-year [[Time Skip]] and starting from there.
Line 27:
* One might consider the entire post-Raoh ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' story, as covered in the manga and the ''Hokuto no Ken 2'' anime, a product of a desire to keep the story going. Unfortunately the result couldn't keep up to the legendary status of the original, and almost all subsequent licensed works (with the possible exception of a single PlayStation game) have been set in the first half of the manga.
* [[Ken Akamatsu]] got hit with this hard while writing ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' After ''[[Love Hina]]'', he wanted to try something new and do a [[Shounen]] series, but the executives wanted to capitalize on the success of ''[[Love Hina]]'' with another [[Unwanted Harem]] series. As a result, ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' ''looks'' like an [[Unwanted Harem]], but starts adding [[Shounen]] elements around volume 3, which [[Genre Shift|increase in frequency]] until it pretty much ''is'' a [[Shounen]] series with some [[Unwanted Harem]] and [[Fan Service]] elements still hanging around. According to some fans, the combination of genres actually benefits the quality of the series.
** The abrupt ending of ''
* In a minor example, the author of ''[[Skip Beat!]]'' wanted a minor character to be a middle-aged man, since the character was a successful director and therefore logically should be of a respectable age. The editor said no, "This is a [[Shojo]] manga, dammit!", and the character ended up about 30.
* Another minor example: in ''[[Death Note]]'', the editor confused Near and Mello's character designs, so Near became the [[Older Than They Look|deceptively young-looking]] man with [[Shonen Hair]] and Mello the androgynous youth.
** Not to mention that due to this error, it lead to their personalities (as Ohba and Obata first envisioned) being rewritten for the plot with the design swap: The one who became "Near" was meant to be the darker and more vengeful one (and be the elder), while the one who became "Mello" was originally envisioned as being calmer, younger, and more effeminate.
* Weird example: Originally, Clefairy was to be the mascot of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', but Pikachu was chosen because of one of the editors' personal preference for it over Clefairy.
** Interestingly, Clefairy is the protagonist's partner in the obscure <ref> For English fans anyways, the manga is considered impossible to really translate as it relies heavily on cultural humor and puns in Japanese, but in Japan it is well known, and remains fairly popular, and is the only manga other than Adventures to last from the beginning of the series.</ref> Japanese gag manga "Pokémon Pocket Monsters", making it something of a [[Canon Foreigner]]. It also makes a brief cameo in the anime.
** Throughout the first 22 episodes of ''Pokemon: Best Wishes'', a [[Story Arc]] develops concerning the [[Took a Level
* Ironically enough, one could say that Sasuke owes his existence to this status; when Masashi was working on ''[[Naruto]]'', the Editor told Masashi that Naruto needed a [[The Rival|rival]], thus creating the [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad|spotlight-stealing]] [[Base Breaker|divisive character]] we all know.
* ''[[Shaman King]]'' was hit hard by this. Apparently, due to a decline in popularity, Hiroyuki Takei was ordered to HURRY IT UP. So he ended up rushing through the later chapters, resulting in a convoluted mass of plot points and character deaths (which is meaningless as the characters in question usually [[Death Is Cheap|come back to life shortly thereafter]] or immediately come back as a ghost), and culminating in a [[Left Hanging|cliffhanger ending]]. Fortunately, due to fan outcry, Takei eventually finished up the series properly and fixed the rushed chapters.
Line 39 ⟶ 40:
** The series infamous [[Gainax Ending]] was caused by executive meddling as well, mainly because of budget restraints, among [[Family-Unfriendly Violence|other things]], causing the entire final two episodes to be mostly stock footage. "[[Memetic Mutation|Congratulations!!!]]"
* Want to know why Nozomi from ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' didn't make it to the anime version, despite being so important in the manga? Because the anime director hated her, thought that "it doesn't make a difference whether she's there or not" and refused to put her in the anime cast. Which is fairly hilarious, considering ''she's the reason the series is called [[Elfen Lied]].''
* ''[[Angel Beats!]]'' was originally supposed to be a 26 episode anime. However, executives inexplicably cut down the number of episodes from 26 to 13, forcing a lot of subplots to either be cut off or rushed.
* The ''[[Gundam]]'' franchise has had to deal with this from the very beginning:
** [[Mobile Suit Gundam|The original series]] got it on both sides of the Pacific. In Japan, it got poor ratings in its first run and the sponsors tried to cut it down from 49 episodes to 39, but Tomino and the staff begged for an extension to wrap things up, giving it the highly unusual 42-episode run it ended up with.
Line 50 ⟶ 51:
** Like the original series, ''[[After War Gundam X|Gundam X]]'' was chopped down to 39 episodes, due to the series being tossed around the schedule.
** For the dub, the iconic salute "Sieg Zion" was changed to the more generic and boring sounding "Hail Zeon". All other references to the Nazis or Hitler were also covered with references to fascism instead.
** Rumors claim that Tomino wanted the protagonist of ''[[Turn A Gundam
* [[Executive Meddling]] gave ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross|Macross]]'' its name. Originally to be called ''Megaroad'' (or, to give the sponsor-imposed tag, ''Super Dimension Fortress Megaroad''), one of the producers from Big West suggested changing the title to [[Macbeth]], as he was a huge Shakespeare fan. Kawamori and the rest of the staff weren't keen on the name, but didn't feel they could really outright oppose the man who authorized the checks for production money. So, instead, they suggested a compromise name -- Macross. [[And The Rest Is History]].
* ''[[Warrior Cats]]'': ''Graystripe's Adventure'' was originally meant to be a single volume manga called ''The Lost Warrior''. Then somebody had the idea to release it on the same day as ''The Sight''. The artist was only a third of the way done, so it ended up being split into three volumes, and further manga in the series have followed suit.
* ''[[Gunnm]]'' / ''[[Gunnm|Battle Angel Alita]]'': The author was working on a special celebration chapter -- chapter 100 -- which would be the headliner for the phonebook sized ''Ultra Jump'' magazine in Japan. It was around this time that his publisher's legal department approached him with censorship demands for the reprints, [http://www.animenewsnetwork.
* A fourth anime season of ''[[Slayers]]'' was due to follow immediately from the third, ''Slayers TRY'' back in [[The Nineties]], but [[Megumi Hayashibara]], the actress for the female lead, was bogged down with work, making everyone else virtually lose all interest. It wasn't until [[Uncancelled|eleven years later]] that a new television series was actually released. Now there are no hopes for a new season due to the fourth and fifth season's mediocre ratings.
** Speaking of the third season, the [[Light Novel]] writer pretty much deemed it [[Canon Discontinuity]] because he disliked how it came out (not that it stops its popularity with the fans, though)
Line 60 ⟶ 61:
* ''[[Transformers Armada]]'' was rushed through all stages of development (Especially the [[Off-Model|animation]] and [[Blind Idiot Translation|dubbing]]) due to [[Cartoon Network]] wanting to sign off on a certain amount of episodes before airing. The result - Numerous pissed off Transformers fans.
* The ''[[You're Under Arrest]]'' Manga's quite possibly one of the shortest (and rarest) licenses that [[Dark Horse Comics]] ever published stateside. This was because creator Kosuke Fujishima only wanted a select amount of stories (sixteen in total) released correspondingly with the Anime. The chapters in question were all made towards the end of the run.
▲* The abrupt ending of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' is a result of this. Japanese publishers are attempting to pass a bill that would allow them to effectively ''steal'' ownership rights from manga writers, and the sudden ending was Akamatsu's way of protesting this.
* ''[[Bleach]]'' creator [[Tite Kubo]] mentioned in an interview regarding the conception of his character Shinji Hirako that he'd originally planned for Ichigo's friends to develop powers, but Shueisha ordered him to hurry up the schedule and introduce the Shinigami.
** [[Tite Kubo]] also mentioned in an interview that he had never planned for the Arrancar to become so developed or long-running, but the editors requested an increased role due to their popularity, resulting in the Arrancar Arc running much longer than the author had originally envisaged.
** And much later, the anime was cancelled when the Fullbring arc ended to make room for the new ''[[Naruto]]'' spinoff series ''[[Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth|Rock Lees Springtime of Youth]]'' rather than develop yet another filler arc. This has currently had no impact on the manga, however, which is still releasing on a weekly basis.
* [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], not even this one. Executive Meddling removed a major source of [[squick]] from the anime adaptation of ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'', changing the ages of Tylor and Azalyn (who has a serious crush on him) from 30 and 10 respectively in the novels to 20 and 16 in the anime.
{{tropesubpagefooter}}
| |||