 |
|
I am
your spirit animal guide to The Other Side and we have
come to lead you on a journey of discovery. |
 |
Yeah. It's going to be deep and wild. Let's go to the
desert. |
 |
Guys, I'm
really tired and I'd like to just sit here and watch the
rest of THE OMEGA MAN and then go to sleep. I'm
not really into discovering anything tonight. |
|
I'm with that. |
|
No!
Come on! You must do at least some discovering! Where's
your adventurous spirit? We came all this way to give you
visions of the future and you can't just turn us away
now! |
|
Yeah. If
you don't groove on at least some of our jamming you'll
have to hang out in a Roman wilderness of pain. |
|
Uh...
yeah. Is he always like that? |
|
(sigh)
Yes. The spirit world is not an easy place to deal with.
The Unreal Characters and Dead Celebrities Union forces
me to work with him and he's always saying things that
nobody understands. Stuff about crystal ships and
snakes. |
|
Hey...
Aren't the visions supposed to come on Christmas and
there are three ghosts? |
|
We were
supposed to be here on Christmas but were delayed because
our third, Dionne Warwick, never showed up in the spirit
world. Sorry. |
|
Well, I
suppose that's for the better. OK. How about you just
show me some visions of the future and then leave me
alone. |
|
Groovy. |
|
Well...
we can't show you anything but a year's worth of future
if we stay here but we'll give it a shot. Can I have one
of those cookies? |
|
Evil... |
|
The
cookies? |
|
The
color of your blinds. |
|
OK.
Let's get to it. Here are visions of the future for the
upcoming year. |
|
Suddenly the room was filled with hundreds of
floating shiny discs. |
|
In 1999, DVD outsells Laserdiscs.
Producers will see that DVD titles, mostly TV
episodes and re-released movies, are selling well in
comparison to other formats and companies with large
libraries will try re-releasing older shows on the new
media. Some of them will be followed with merchandise and
soundtrack re-release. They will start at ¥5800, see
that nobody bites and end up selling them all for ¥3500.
This has the potential to offset the lack of sales
from the dying LD market and could help the industry
weather the economic problems. It will be a good time. |
|
Can I
keep some of these discs floating around here? |
|
No. You
have to buy them like everyone else. |
|
The discs suddenly disappear and I see what look
like fiber-optic lines filling the room like a spider's
web. Each line carried many shining points of light. |
|
Somebody's Web marketing pays off.
One of the companies marketing anime titles on the
web—I'm not going to say who because that would blow it
and ruin the surprise—will find that their website
marketing pays off in a big way. There will be a lot of
electronic monetary units flying around and the
interaction will be beautiful. They'll find what it takes—contests,
lower prices, whatever—and it will happen.
The populace will be satisfied and grateful. |
|
Wait...
Are anime fans ever grateful about anything? Are you
sure? |
|
I am the
Lizard King. I can do anything. |
|
He's
starting it again. |
|
(laughs) |
|
The light-lines thicken and become like pipes. |
|
A lot more anime studios go digital.
More studios will realize that traditional
cel-based production is causing them to hemhorrage money
(about 30% of their budget actually) and that they can
get better results, have more control and have images
that can be indistinguishable from cels—even by
experts—if they use 2D production
systems like Animo. Some of the best
anime work available has been done with it already but
nobody knows it. The use of it will increase dramatically
in 1999. |
|
So they can
spend their budgets on better animation rather than
retakes and the directors can have complete control over
every single element of the imagery? Wow! But what about
cels? |
|
Nobody
will use them anymore. |
|
But that
means that there won't be any more to collect... |
|
Look,
pal, do you want to buy cels or have new animation shows
to watch? It's getting to the point where there aren't
going to be anymore cels because of digital production or
bankrupt companies. Which do you pick? |
|
OK! OK! I
was just asking! |
|
There will be more 3D animated stuff out there as well. Some
overlap will happen but there will be only one or two
shows that really get it right still. The somewhat happy
convergence of 2D and 3D
animation is still at least two
years away. Although a lot of fans will cringe when they
see the hip new 3D shots, average viewers will be much
more attracted to the shows because of them. Because
people keep asking for it they do more even though it
costs a lot more than traditional. It's that Catch 22,
man. |
|
Wow,
that's really weird. |
|
You
should know, man. |
|
Huh?
Why? |
|
You're
writing an EX article about it later this year. |
|
Oh. I
don't suppose you could show me that article... |
|
Sorry,
that will be one of the hardest ones you've ever done.
Especially with the oxygen tubes - |
|
Oh,
don't tell him about that, guy! It's such a downer! |
|
!!! |
|
We're
just kidding! Ha ha! |
