IRC-Galleria

IRC-Galleria is now officially open for anyone who is over 12 years old and speaks Finnish. The ethical implications of producing, distributing, or watching fansubs is a topic of much controversy even when fansub groups do not profit from and cease distribution of their work once the series has been licensed. The non-IRC-users registered in IRC-Galleria are sometimes ironically called galleriairkkaajat (gallery IRCers) due to the fact that many of them frequently refer to IRC-Galleria with the acronym IRC without necessarily even having a clue what the actual IRC is. Watching subtitled Japanese versions is usually seen as the intended method of watching anime by enthusiasts. The administrators responded by introducing some features which aim at the minimization of the biggest problems related to the non-IRC-users. Although it is a violation of copyright laws in many countries, some fans watch fansubs, recordings of anime series that have been subtitled by fans. The unwillingness of the administrators of IRC-Galleria to exclude non-IRC-users has caused some schism, driving a few users to found their own alternative gallery services with a mandatory IRC-based registration. DVD releases often include both the dubbed audio and the original Japanese audio with subtitles, are typically unedited, and lack commercials.

The service is financed with banner advertising, SMS-based services, T-shirts and optional VIP privileges which can be bought with SMS. For the fans who may object to the editing and dubbing of anime, DVDs may be their preference. IRC-Galleria is now maintained and developed by Dynamoid Oy, a company founded solely for the sake of IRC-Galleria. The anime may also be edited to alter cultural references that may not be understood by a non-Japanese person and companies may remove what may be perceived as objectionable content. Comments are only visible to those who are logged in. Licensed anime is modified by western distributors through dubbing into the language of the country. Some of the communities are named after IRC channels, and joining them requires IRC-based identification. Anime is available outside of Japan in localized form, referred to as licensed anime or Dubs.

Each user can be a member of at most 40 communities. Prequels and alternate stories are commonly adapted from the original. The communication in IRC-Galleria is based on short messages, comments, each of which is associated with either a picture or a community. Not all successors to an anime are a sequel to the original story. The maximum number of visible images per user is 60 (only for VIP-users), and the so-called default image must contain the face of the user. Originally an OVA, it spawned three movies, three television series, and several spinoff titles and specials. Despite all the features, IRC-Galleria is basically a photo gallery and it is not possible to have a user account without at least one accepted image. A good example is Tenchi Muyo!.

However, only about 20% of the users have identified themselves as actual users of IRC. A title that starts as a popular television series might then have a movie produced at a later date. About 85% of the users are active users who use the service on a weekly or daily basis. It is very common for one title to spawn several different releases. As for February 2006, IRC-galleria boasts of over 302,000 registered users and over 3,600,000 images. Most anime can be categorized as one of three types:. It was founded in December 2000 by Tomi Lintelä as a photo gallery for the Finnish users of Internet Relay Chat. Many non-Japanese cartoons are starting to incorporate mainstream anime shortcuts and symbols to appeal to anime's tremendously growing fanbase and cut costs.

IRC-Galleria is the largest WWW-based virtual community in Finland. This approach combined with Otsuka's "money shots" make key animators important individuals in the style and production of an anime film. The Hakkenden is particularly extreme, showing constantly shifting styles of animation based upon the key animator that worked on that particular episode. The most extreme examples of this can be found in Mindgame or The Hakkenden. In Japan starting with the animation director Yoshinori Kanada (as a means to save time and money) each animator brings his/her own style to the work.

In most animation produced around the world animators are all forced to conform to a set style by the director or animation director. Another unique aspect of anime not found in other commercial animation markets is the lack of a directoral system. In contrast, titles such as Only Yesterday, a film by Isao Takahata, take a much more realistic approach, and feature no stylistic exaggerations. Some titles make extensive use of common stylization: FLCL, for example, is known for its wild, exaggerated, stylization.

The degree of stylization varies from title to title. Embarrassed characters will invariably produce a massive sweat-drop, which has become something of a stereotype of anime. Male characters will develop a bloody nose around their female love interests (typically to indicate arousal) -- this is supposedly due to blood rushing to the face in an exaggerated blush. Angry women will sometimes summon a mallet from nowhere and strike someone with it, leading to the concept of Hammerspace.

Angry characters may exhibit a "vein" or "stressmark" effect, where lines representing bulging veins will appear on their forehead. Other stylistic elements are common as well; often in comedic anime, characters that are shocked or surprised will perform a "face fault", in which they display an extremely exaggerated expression. Another variation of this style is "chibi" or "super deformed"; which usually feature huge eyes, an enlarged head, and small body. Indeed, through Ribbon no Kishi, Tezuka set a stylistic template that later shōjo artists tended to follow.

^[1] When Tezuka began drawing Ribbon no Kishi, the first manga specifically targeted at young girls, Tezuka further exaggerated the size of the characters' eyes. Cultural anthropologist Matt Thorn argues that Japanese animators and audiences do not perceive them as inherently more or less foreign. Some Western audiences have interpreted such stylized eyes as more Caucasian. Tezuka found that large eyes allowed his characters to better express their emotions.

The most common is the large eyes style drawn on many anime characters, common mainly due to the influence of Osamu Tezuka, who was inspired by the exaggerated features of Western cartoon characters such as Betty Boop and Mickey Mouse and from Disney's Bambi. Some examples have become so common that they are often described as being definitive of anime in general, and have been given names of their own. While different titles and different artists have their own unique artistic styles, many stylistic elements have become extremely common. Some higher-budgeted television and OVA (Original Video Animation) series also forego the shortcuts found in most other anime.

Other animators like Tatsuyuki Tanaka (in Koji Morimoto's Eternal Family in particular) use squash and stretch, an animation technique not often used by Japanese animators; Tanaka makes other shortcuts to compensate for this. Directors such as Hiroyuki Imaishi (Cutey Honey, Dead Leaves) simplify backgrounds so that more attention can be paid to character animation. Some animators in Japan overcome production values by utilizing different techniques than the Disney or the old Tezuka/Otsuka methods of animating anime. These movies have much higher production values, due to their anticipated success at the box office.

Exceptions to these rules are early classic films, such as those produced by Toei Animation up until the mid 1960s, and recent big budget films, such as those produced by the enormously successful Studio Ghibli. Animator Yasuo Otsuka was the pioneer of this technique. These are commonly referred to as "money shots" outside of Japan, where more effort is put into the animation of one scene to give it emphasis over the rest of the work. There are often scenes where the frame rate of the animation far exceeds the quality of the rest of the production.

(See also limited animation.). The overall effect of these techniques, such as reduced frame rate, several still shots and scrolling backgrounds, has led some critics to accuse anime of choppiness or poor quality in general. Anime studios have since perfected techniques to draw as little new animation as possible, using scrolling or repeating backgrounds, still shots of characters sliding across the screen, and dialogue which involves only animating mouths while the rest of the screen remains absolutely still, a technique not wholly unfamiliar to Western animation. This was intended to be a temporary measure to allow him to produce one episode every week with an inexperienced animation staff.

Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation precepts to reduce the budget costs and number of frames in the production, though it should be noted that Disney films made in the west are not anime. This may be due to a philosophy of applying more effort into each of a few drawings than less effort into one of many. The drawing style used in anime is counter productive to the animation process, having far too many details and subsequently making it difficult to keep the number of drawings comparable to other cartoons with design ethics that stress simplicity. Another type of Anime CDs release are Drama CD, featuring songs and tracks which makes use of the seiyū to tell a story, often not included in the main anime.

Despite the word "image" in the CD's name, it only contains music and/or "voice messages" (where the seiyū talks with the audience or about herself), making the listener think that the character him/herself is singing. In addition to the themes, the seiyū for a specific anime also frequently releases CD for their character, called Image Albums. Opening and ending themes, as well as insert songs, are frequently performed by popular musicians or Japanese idols, so in this way, songs become a very important component of an anime program. ED) often make commentary about the plot or the program as a whole, and are often times used to highlight a particularly important scene.

Insert songs and ending songs (abbr. The theme song (also referred to as the Opening song or abbreviated as OP) usually matches the overall tone of the show, and serves to get the viewer excited about the upcoming program. BGM is used to set the tone of a given scene, for example Neon Genesis Evangelion 's "Decisive Battle" is played when the characters are making battle preparations and it features heavy drum beats and a militaristic style which highlights the tension of the scene and hints at the action to follow. The most frequent use of music in Anime is background music or BGM.

Anime series with opening credits use the opening theme song as a quick introduction to the show. Skilled BGM composers are highly respected in the anime fan community. It is for this reason that anime music is often composed and performed by 'A-list' musicians, stars, and composers. Anime soundtracks are big business in Japan, and are often times met with similar demand as chart topping pop albums.

Much like western live-action cinema, anime uses music as an important artistic tool. Hanaukyo Maid Team is based on the French maid fantasy. Ashita No Joe is about boxing. For example, Initial D and éX-Driver concern street racing and car tuning.

Some anime titles are written for a very specific audience, even narrower than those described above. Genres and designations that are specific to anime and manga:. The same can be applied to a romance themed anime in that it may involve a strong action element. It is not uncommon for a strongly action themed anime to also involve humor, romance, and even poignant social commentary.

A show may have a seemingly simple surface plot, but at the same time may feature a far more complex, deeper storyline and character development. This can make categorizing some titles very difficult. Most anime includes content from several different genres, as well as a variety of thematic elements. Such genres include adventure, science fiction, children's stories, romance, medieval fantasy, erotica (hentai), occult/horror, action, and drama.

Anime has many genres, with as many as traditional, live action cinema. Anime features a wide variety of artistic styles which vary from artist to artist and is characterized by stark, colorful graphics and stylized, colorful images depicting vibrant characters in a variety of different settings and storylines, aimed at a wide range of audiences. This term is much more common in Europe since Manga Entertainment started out in the UK. An alternate explanation is that it is due to the prominence of Manga Entertainment, a distributor of anime to the US and UK markets.

Among English speakers, manga usually has the stricter meaning of "Japanese comics". In Japan, manga can refer to both animation and comics (although the use of "manga" to refer to animation is mostly restricted to non-fans). In more recent years, anime has also frequently been referred to as manga in Europe, a practice that may stem from the Japanese usage. Since anime or animeshon is used to describe all forms of animation, Japanimation is meant to distinguish Japanese work from that of the rest of the world.

The term Japanimation is much more commonly used in Japan to refer to domestic animation. In general, the term now only appears in nostalgic contexts. The term survived at least into the early 1990s but seemed to fade away shortly before the mid-1990s anime resurgence. It saw the most usage during the 1970s and 1980s, which broadly comprise the first and second waves of anime fandom.

Anime is sometimes referred to by the portmanteau Japanimation, but this term has fallen into disuse. Anime can be used as a common noun, "Do you watch anime?", as a mass noun, "How much anime have you collected" or as a suppletive adjective, "The anime Guyver is different from the movie Guyver". Hence, the pronunciations "ah NEEM" and "uh NEEM" are generally considered incorrect. As with a few other Japanese words such as Pokémon and Kobo Abé, anime is sometimes spelled as animé in English with an acute accent over the final e to cue the reader that the letter is pronounced as [e].

Some theorize the word comes from the French animé ("animated") or "les dessins animés" (animated drawings) and pronounce it as "ah nee MAY", though the Japanese themselves deny this theory, and the fact that it is written in Japanese syllables as アニメ (anime) rather than アニメイ (animei) further lowers its credibility. The English word anime is a transliteration of the abbreviated version of this Japanese term, and it is typically pronounced as /ˈænɪˌmei/, or "ANN ih may" ("AH nee may" is a less common variant). The term is a broad one, and does not specify an animation's nation of origin or style. Both the original and abbreviated forms are valid and interchangeable in Japanese, but as could be expected the abbreviated form is more commonly used.

It is a direct transliteration and reborrowed loanword of the English term "animation." The Japanese term is abbreviated as アニメ (anime, pronounced: /ɑnimɛ/ ). The Japanese term for animation is アニメーション (animēshon, pronounced: /ɑnimɛːʃɔn/), written in katakana. The 1990s and 2000s saw an increased acceptance of anime in overseas markets. In the 1980s, anime was accepted in the mainstream in Japan, and experienced a boom in production.

During the 1970s, anime developed further, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing unique genres such as mecha. The history of anime begins at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques that were being explored in the West.
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Anime may also be adapted into live action television programs. Anime is often influenced by Japanese comics known as manga. Anime may be broadcast on television, distributed on media, such as DVDs, or published as console and computer games. Anime is aimed at a broad range of audiences because there are a wide range of different genres that any series may be categorised under.

Storylines may feature a variety of characters and may be set in different locations and in different eras. Anime is characterized by character and background styles which may be created by hand or may be assisted by computers. Anime (アニメ) is a style of animation originating in Japan. Opening credits, closing credits, and eyecatches may sometimes be found in OVA releases, but not universally.

Popular OVA titles include FLCL, Bubblegum Crisis, and Tenchi Muyo!. Titles often have a very regular, continuous plot best enjoyed if all episodes are viewed in sequence. As a general rule OVA anime tends to be of high quality, approaching that of films. They are most commonly released directly to video.

OVAs are typically two to twenty episodes in length; one-shots are particularly short, usually less than film-length. OVA (Original Video Animation; sometimes OAV, or Original Animated Video) anime is often similar to a television miniseries. "Eyecatch" scenes are often found in TV series anime and are generally similar throughout the series. Most TV series anime episodes will have opening credits, closing credits, and often an "eyecatch", a very short scene, often humorous or silly, that is used to signal the start or end of the commercial break (as "bumpers" in the United States are used in a similar fashion).

One full season is 26 episodes, and many titles run half seasons, or 13 episodes. Most episodes are about 23 minutes in length, to fill a typical thirty-minute time slot with added commercials. Television series are generally low quality compared to OVA (Original Video Animation) and film titles, because the production budget is spread out over many episodes rather than a single film or a short series. Television series anime is syndicated and broadcast on television on a regular schedule.

There are also theatrical shorts derived from existing televisions series and billed in Japanese theaters together to form feature-length showing. These may, however, be longer than the average movie. Other types of films include compilation movies, which are television episodes edited together and presented in theaters for various reasons, and are hence a concentrated form of a television serial. Some examples of these are Winter Days, and Osamu Tezuka's Legend of the Forest.

Some anime films are only released at film or animation festivals and are shorter and sometimes lower in production values. Popular anime movies include Akira, and Spirited Away. Films, which are generally released in theaters, represent the highest budgets and generally the highest video quality. An example of this style is Gravitation.

This term is being phased out in Japan due to references to pedophilia, and is being replaced by the term "Boys Love" (BL). Shōnen-ai: Japanese for 'boy-love', refers to anime or manga that focus on love and romance between male characters. Shōnen: Japanese for 'boys', refers to anime or manga targeted at boys, for example Dragon Ball Z. Shōjo-ai: Japanese for 'girl-love', refers to anime or manga that focus on love and romance between female characters, for example Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Mahō Shōjo: Subgenre of Shoujo known for 'Magical Girl' stories, for example Sailor Moon. Shōjo: Japanese for 'young lady' or 'little girl', refers to anime or manga targeted at girls, for example Fruits Basket.