Would a Tokyo Babylon anime series be possible?

Jul 17, 2009 02:03

Around LJ, people have been saying there should be a TB anime & I agree, but since the series is nearly 20 years old, is an anime series nothing more than just a dream? Usually mangas are made into anime but Tokyo Babylon was a big hit at the time, but now not so much since it's quite old & people lose interest ( Read more... )

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Comments 28

xlostgeishax July 17 2009, 01:23:50 UTC
I personally HIGHLY doubt it. CLAMP doesn't really seem to care what the fans want anymore, and have taken a new route entirely. One that I feel is lazy and unfair to their fans. People have been practically begging for YEARS that X/1999 be finished. While we do have the anime, it has been said that the intended ending for the manga was different. I have heard people say "It's just on hiatus" but I have also heard it said that it was on "permanent hiatus". The only work Mokona has even done recently has been on the acid tokyo arc of Tsubasa, and that was only as an 'adviser' on the x/1999 characters.
It is my fear that any hope of continuation or expansion on CLAMP's earlier works is...well...hopeless.

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jjblue1 July 17 2009, 02:07:30 UTC
I don't think the problem is CLAMP. To turn it into an anime series we need an anime producer to ask CLAMP for permission to turn it ( ... )

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xlostgeishax July 17 2009, 02:33:00 UTC
You do have a point there. And with that taken into consideration, I'll go ahead and change my answer to yes. If there were enough popular demand, they probably would. But I don't think there is enough demand or marketability for a production company to want to do it (Mostly, for the reasons you listed below.)

I still think they are getting lazy, and focusing more on different types of marketability...like relying too heavily on fanservice, and basically 'reusing' beloved characters from the past, in the case of TRC. I have to admit, I like Holic, but not TRC. I gave up on TRC a while ago, and haven't been keeping up with Holic enough, so I can't say for sure that the storyline is as well thought out and engaging as I feel the earlier works were, but from what I saw, they weren't, (In TRC at least). But in general that's what all fiction forms are doing now. Putting less effort into storyline, and dumbing things down a bit, because when all you have to do is put boys in dresses, or make them gay, and you get the same if not better ( ... )

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jjblue1 July 17 2009, 14:09:03 UTC
If they were to cut/tone down further the shonen ai part and the ending and make Sei&Su just friends TB would be very close to holic... so it could have some chances... though TRC was much more of a hit than holic I fear...

TRC isn't bad... but it's also the most commercial thing I ever saw. It's actually more commercial than good and CLAMP used any trick they knew to make it that way, from postponing the apparence of Subaru a lot (in original he shuld have had the role of hunter and not Seishiro) to inserting lot of 'surprises'.
  • Chara A isn't the good guy you think he is. Infact he's a mindless clone.
  • Chara B had been exchanged with a clone as well.
  • Chara B knows everything but die before telling anyone this. Litterally.
  • Chara C isn't really chara C but his twin pretending to be C.
  • Chara D isn't evil at all, actually he's just a victim and doesn't love B but her original version.
  • Chara A in truth isn't evil at all. It was just drawn that way.
  • Chara A&B are dead but they'll reincarnate and join back the cast and they will actually ( ... )
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    jjblue1 July 17 2009, 01:53:21 UTC
    Sometimes in Japan are produced series based on old anime if the producers think they could be interesting ( ... )

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    darkbandicoot July 17 2009, 14:28:12 UTC
    It's unfair that shounen-ai or yaoi makes a series a better chance of sucess but I believe that it is the case sadly since there are a lot of shounen-ai/yaoi fans out there, which isn't a bad thing, but it isn't needed in order to become a hit. Look at Naruto!

    I like Naruto, though I do believe it is overrated, but my point is that it's probably the best known anime out there!

    Tokyo Babylon has a great storyline & even the slight shounen-ai is enough to satisfy people, though I did wish there was more, but overall it is still a great! In fact, most of my Tokyo Babylon Manga volumes came through the post today. ^_^

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    jjblue1 July 17 2009, 16:00:28 UTC
    Well, I don't think it makes better chances of success necessary. Actually according to the number of fans in Japan it can also make lower chances of success ( ... )

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    naru_kyou July 17 2009, 21:00:30 UTC
    :chuckles:

    Do you think our other conversation brought this journal entry about? :P

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    rose_erato July 17 2009, 03:54:38 UTC
    I don't think the amount of years have much to do with the prevention of an anime of TB being made. A 13 episode series of Ai no Kusabi is coming out this fall and that series is close to be 20 years old.

    I do hope that it'll be made, but who knows.

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    amamiya_rin July 17 2009, 06:28:53 UTC
    maybe ai no kusabi is much more fullblown yaoi genre than tb, therefore the chances for success among yaoifans would be higher?
    i dont know the graphic quality of kusabi anime though^^

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    rose_erato July 17 2009, 06:39:22 UTC
    That could be it. I'm excited about AnK coming out, but I do wonder what made the production company decide to make the anime series. I originally thought that there was no way TB could ever become a full length series because of how old it was, but AnK gave me a tiny bit of hope. I desperately want to see TB beautifully animated.

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    amamiya_rin July 17 2009, 06:56:19 UTC
    right, it was a surprise to me that an old title can make it :D could be that the producer love the series him/herself? or some super rich hardcore fan of AnK willing to sponsor XD

    did AnK have ovas before?

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    shadow_piper July 17 2009, 07:47:07 UTC
    I suspect that eventually there will be an anime, or show, or something new to come out of tokyo babylon. BUT, only as an accessory to X. If CLAMP ever follows through with a story and gives X an ending, there will probably be renewed interest in both series.
    Sadly, the best hope for Tokyo Babylon is probably a live-action X movie (urk;;). Every time a comic is made into a blockbuster style film, they release another edition of the comics, sell more toys, revamp any animated cartoons, and explore the side-stories if it sells well enough...
    But yeah, they'd probably un-ghei-ify it, if they ever decided to bring it back.

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    jjblue1 July 17 2009, 14:16:54 UTC
    There's another thing I forgot to say.
    TB ending isn't very suitable for an anime.
    The message is basically kindness won't be rewarded, evilness won't be punished and self sacrifice will spurn hate.
    There are few anime that dare to give messages that aren't positive. So they either will skip the ending entirely or will have to change it or will have to include an X ending...

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    darkbandicoot July 17 2009, 14:33:55 UTC
    But that's what life is about & if people take it too seriously, then so be it.

    As a manga, people will still know of that message you've just said, so as an anime, I don't think it'll have much of an effect other than it's more realistic in the way that you can see & hear the characters rather than just reading & seeing them in a book.

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    jjblue1 July 17 2009, 16:13:28 UTC
    Consider that the ending of many manga is slightly changed to adapt it to the tastes of a wider audience. An anime must be commercial. Nobody will produce it if it's not sure it'll sell ( ... )

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