Notes and Jottings

Stephen King… 54 years of age… I read a rumour on Slashdot, an isolate
comment, I won’t even repeat here, I’m going to need further confirmation.

How’s about that for timing? Slashdot just added an article about
the golden age of animé so I got to use all the information I gleaned
yesterday in a post, which went like this:

Is it not interesting though just how much editing had to be done to alter
what was originally a shojou anime, directed solely at girls, into a cartoon
which was meant to appeal to both boys and girls? The timeline of the story had
to be changed radically, including skipping to episode #8 of the original to
start the “Cardcaptors” series, where the strongest male character enters the
show. This changed the focus of the series, but they opened up massive plot
holes, as well as causing mystification on the faces of most people who watched
the series, feeling that they were dumped straight into the middle of the
series, rather than at the beginning.

The rationale for this change was given by WB Kids! as that the demographic for
cartoon watchers is 75% male. The question can be asked, that if they orient
all these stories towards boys, what will be there to entice girls to watch the
series? And is political correctness going too far, when a series HAS to be
modified to try and appeal to both sexes?

Sigh. Anyway I’m buying the Pioneer set of DVDs of “Cardcaptor Sakura” -
subtitled with the original story and dialogue. I’ve enjoyed the Nelvana
version of Cardcaptors, but now I want to see all the episodes and stories I
missed, and see the story without glaring loopholes.

Enough CCS, already! Time to join Niall and Liam in Mahaffys… And
that reminds me, the last time I was there during the week, Jim gave me
a free New Years drink on the house - I was very surprised and pleased -
I guess my good custom has been recognised

The general theme of discussions on the Internet is Nelvana did not do a
good job. A more general question is whether it was better for animé,
and this one instance in particular, for it to have been dubbed, so more
people become familiar with it. Even if it is a lesser version, hints of
greatness do shine through, and I did enjoy the series Though reading
through some short reviews of some Japanese episodes, I realise just how
much of the story is different/missing, and I do wish that my first version
had been the Japanese one. But then I’d never have heard of it… and I
will be checking out the Japanese version (with subtitles) in just a week
or two, and very looking forward to it!!!

Oh dear! I’m reading this page
about one of the CCS episodes. And I remember it from watching the
Cardcaptors version - and so much cute stuff was just taken out!! And the
storyline changed as well - as the say, “allies, schmallies”… sigh.

Some anti-Nelvana articles. Well not really anti-Nelvana. Just anti-what-they-did-to-Card-Captor-Sakura… I’ve been reading through all the Japanese synopses, seeing the differences etc… sigh! A lot of original episodes winging my way over from Amazon right now!

Cherry Blossom Link
belldandy.net
Cardcaptors Uncensored
CCS vs CC

Animé coming next week… Sunday 27 January I do believe - a
whole eight hours of “The Vision of Escaflowne”…

I go to discuss “bodging” with Juan a bit more, and chat about other
miscellania.

John also seems to be quite fond of the Rioja wines (pronounced Reocca), and
indeed they do seem to be quite nice