Welcome to the wall of text. Ugh. Hopefully I’ll have my banners down nice and neat by the time April rolls around. Anywho, on to business…
The second on my list of (two) features I have planned for THAT, is the ONE-Shot War. I originally had this planned to be a somewhat different feature, but the original just came across as too boring or typical to satisfy my eccentric tastes. So I poured a bit of toxic goo on my idea, and the ONE-Shot war was born.
NOTE: The 1SW (for short) is intended to be a looooong post. Why? Because this is something I only plan on doing once a month. See this as the one time a month that I’ll climb down off my high-horse of sarcasm and attempt something semi-serious.
Origins
Back when I was focused on my new Spring 2008 geared blog, I was trying to develop some unique and interesting concepts to use. I mean, everyone does episode summaries and screen shot posts, etc. Sure I was bound to do that too, but I wanted to be different. So a concept popped into my head one day called “Would I Have Watched it Today?”. The premise here was to go back and re-watch the first episode from an older anime from the perspective that it had just come out or was going to come out with the new season. After watching it, I’d rate/judge it with today’s standards and see if it could still hold it’s own against the newer animes that have come out since it’s time.
That’s the concept that I poured toxic goo all over. From that, I decided it’d be more fun if I set things up from a different perspective. Instead of just reviewing the anime, why not do things as if there were TWO similar animes and I was having to choose which one of them I was going to blog/watch during the “upcoming season”. In my opinion, this makes it less of a boring review, and more of a battle to see which anime is going to grab my attention and time based solely upon the first episode. A battle of first impressions, if you will.
How does it work?
The 1SW is composed of 5 parts: Inspiration, Style, Sound, Intrigue, and The Showdown. Inspiration is a quick description of what inspired this month’s battle and why I picked the shows I did. Style, Sound, and Intrigue are rated sections in which each show scores points on three different components that make up each category. The Showdown is the final battle where the points gained from the other sections are tallied along with my personal rating to determine who wins the 1SW.
The rated categories
All rated categories are based on a 10 point scale, with 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. If more than one thing goes into each component (ie: OP & ED), each item is given an individual score, added to the others, and divided by the number of items (ie: OP score = 5, ED score = 7, then (5+7)/2 = 6 final score).
Category 1: Style (Visual)
The components for the style category are:
- Character Design & Expression (CDE) – The overall appeal of the anime’s characters, and the quality of facial expressions/animation.
- Color and Attention to Detail (CAD) – Are the colors visually appealing, are there a variety of colors used, does the anime show lots of details or the minimum, etc.
- Quality of Animation (QoA) – How much effort went into the actual animation outside of just the artwork.
Category 2: Sound (Audio)
The components for the sound category are:
- OP/ED – How good are the opening and ending themes, am I still singing them? Did they match up to the animation well?
- Voices (VOX) – Appeal of the character/voice combinations.
- SFX/BGM – Sound effects and background music.
Category 3: Intrigue (Story/Plot)
The components for the intrigue category are:
- Memorable Characters (MC) – How many characters did I get attached to within the first episode? How many characters am I interested in seeing more of?
- Setting (SET) – How enjoyable the world that the characters and plot dwell in is.
- Plot (PLT) – Is this story going anywhere? Do I even care after one episode?
Conclusion and Opinions
If you made it through the wall of text, I applaud you. If you didn’t and you just skipped down here so I’d STFU, well…your opinion is wanted as well. The ONE-Shot War is a lot of work and it’s bound to be a big post. It’s an idea I’ve concocted that I’d love to do once a month, just as something different. At the same time, if you, the readers, the people I’m here for, don’t give a rat’s ass about it, I’d rather focus my efforts and attention elsewhere.
This month, I’ve planned a “ONE-Shot War: Fullmetal Alchemist vs. Shakugan no Shana” post, but here’s my question: Do you want to see it?
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10 Comments
sure, sounds neat.
I don’t quite understand the need for the war as such. The concept sounds interesting. In fact, I enjoy reading bloggers doing it in earnest. Nobody is able to see all the old stuff, so someone is always discovering the original Space Battleship Yamato. If you can fake the sincerety of it, you’ll have it made.
I would like to see that. I wonder who would win tough choice.lol. I expect a lot from you
Sounds really interesting to me. I always liked glancing over the older anime – though that does lead to the question, what exactly is your definition of ‘older anime’?
I really think this is gonna be interesting.
It’s one of the reasons, that THAT is one of the best animeblog around.
I’m anticipating this “war”, but i don’t know what Shana has to do with FMA. (i have to admit i’ve never seen FMA, but i’m a huge fan of Shana). Your posts could inspire me to start shows i wouldn’t even think about beginning usually.
I wish you good luck writing and appreciate your “out of the box”-thinking.
This isn’t a wall’o'text. I wouldn’t say it’s longer than 800 words.
This is an insult to wall’o'texts. “I” made wall’o'texts of 3000 words that looked like real wall’o'texts.
Aside of that, your idea looks really interesting. It’s original and very promising. But as I don’t like Shakugan no Shana really much (first anime I didn’t even bother watching the second season), I don’t think I would like a FMA Vs. Shana war. Besides, these two animes don’t really have lots of stuff in common.
One suggestion I have is Soul Eater Vs. Fullmetal Alchemist.
Sounds like an interesting idea.
I mean you could always just do it once and if it doesn’t work out then stop.
But I’d be interested in reading the first battle. I love FMA but have to admit I’ve never seen Shakugan no Shana.
Wow, this approach reminds me of doing a model kit review. hehehe
Interesting, I look forward to these 1-shot “wars”.
Keep it up!
(any thoughts on doing the old-old macross vs the old-old gundam?
)Intriguing. Sounds like something to look forward to.
Oh damn! Now I have to watch Shakugan no Shana first episode. First eps of FMA is pretty hawt. Damn you and your 1337 posts. Makes my blog look like crap. ;[