Bioware & Funimation Announce Dragon Age Anime
- Categories: Anime, News
- Date: Jun 8, 2010 07:54 JST
- Tags: Adaptations, Bioware, Dragon Age, Funimation, Movies, RPG, USA
Bioware and Funimation have announced they will be adapting the hit Dragon Age RPG franchise into an anime movie, due for DVD release in 2011.
EA furnishes the usual glib press release peppered with vapid quotes – Bioware begins:
“Anime is a great medium for us to continue the robust Dragon Age story. Partnering with FUNimation ensures that we are delivering the exceptional quality and entertainment value that our Dragon Age fans expect.”
Funimation continues:
“We are thrilled to be working with EA and BioWare on the production of the Dragon Age anime feature. We are going to be bringing the classic visual and storytelling techniques found in anime to create a film that will extend the narrative of the world BioWare has created.”
Bioware’s decision to abandon the (presumably expensive) use of Dungeons & Dragons in favour of its own painfully generic “dark fantasy” setting was generally expected to result in a minor mixed media franchise with novels and similar, but an anime adaptation is quite unexpected – although perhaps logical, given the overlap in fanbases.
Funimation for its part is said to be set on creating a variety of original anime-style productions of its own in future – given the rather dismal history of western produced movie adaptations of games, they may have picked a challenging area in which to start.
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Morrigan Disapproves (-24)
She always disapproves.
Tsundere Moe Morrigan and moe Sten who likes cookies. They all get together in a tower to drink tea and have snacks.
Tsundere Morrigan and Kuudere Sten, you mean?
Kuudere means what?
Lol, typical anime stuff XD
I will watch if it doesnt turn out to be just a normal cartoon with cheesy drama and action and not-funny comedy.
Most likely with totally diffrent chars / story - so I don't care.
It will probably suck as Dantes Inferno anime sucked. But maybe not - surprisingly Halo anime was OK, while games sucked. These anime tie-ins have very instable quality.
kinda like how you suck
Funimation will go the way of Tokyopop at this rate.
We can has tsundere Morrigan?
"It-It's not like I'm teaching you blood magic because I like you or anything!!!"
That's the first thing that popped into my mind.
Morrigan <3
Morrighan is definitely tsundere.
Remember that it is western made, so it probably wont have that and will go the way of comicbook adaptations, nothing anime-ish. The only thing anime-ish is the artstyle, if I read this article properly.
Dont look like anime to me.
I hope this doesn't follow the game's plot because that would get rid of the point of having multiple origins by having an anime-canon origin. :/
I must say, calling Dragon Age's setting painfully generic is quite cruel.
BioWare did a lot of interesting things with the fantasy genre. The Darkspawn and Archdemons are really interesting and while the idea of an endless horde of mindless brutes isn't unique, how they executed it is quite unique.
And don't even get me started on mages and demons/spirits. The way they pulled those off is just awesome, easily my favorite part of the Dragon Age universe.
Its as generic as it can be but its still done in the finest way possible. I dont have anything against this kind of generic worlds.
Will watch. I wish Morgan looked as hot in game as she does in that pic.
Yeah...She was a bit on the scrawny side...
I Hope it turns out alright. I know that when america gets a hold of anything Japanese... and or try to turn something Japanese it usualy fails. But I have a felling it will be okay maybe not ground brawling but just okay. Also Fuck!! all you weaboos complaining about how it shouldn't be called anime that's starting to get so fuckin annoying!! Who cares where it's from if it's tight it should be looked at as a higher tier animation than just a retarded cartoon you see on Saturday morn. I mean damn I know it's not but boondocks is like one step away from being Anime.
It just needs to stay away from being a cartoon (like Batman the animation) and actually be fully anime-ish to be anime, which happens to be Japanese.
This should be very interesting.
Funimation doesnt sound too promising...
Yea. I hate funimation. They get mad when people are distributing the stuff they are trying to sell to people for free. I know a great many of you think they are out to rip the consumer off, because they are trying to make a profit. ...
But you know what happens when they don't make a profit? They go bankrupt. When they go bankrupt, that hurts the Anime Studios. Eventually the anime studios go bankrupt too.
I know you like to think that the anime industry is booming and all. But anime's are expensive to make. You might think, "no they aren't". But there are a lot of people that have to be pay rolled to make the anime. That just doesn't include production teams, but Seiyu and, yes Broadcasting companies. A HUGE chunk of an anime's budget is put towards the TV Broadcasters. Until DVD sales, there is no profit in the anime. Usually it's debt.
Since it cost sooo much to broadcast an anime, this is why in recent years, certain titles have been skipping tv broadcasting and have been experimenting with alternate ways of promotion. Think of the Manga+OVA promotions of Negima and To Love Ru. They are trying to bring out a more direct and less middle man approach to bring anime to consumers.
Meanwhile, Funimation has been making huge strides to keep the anime industry over here alive. They have been going for add revenue online streaming. If you go to hulu btw, you will see they have finally started to stram in subs rather than dubs now. (Thank god).
And if your not a total prick and actually try to put money back into the industry by supporting the anime with dvd purchases, You will also see that Funimation prices their DVD's at very very affordable prices. You can generally grab an entire 12-26 episode series for under $30 these days. That is a HUGE improvement from past sales where companies would slap you with a 4-5 episode DVD for $20-$30.
Agreed man. But Funimation's dubbing isn't that bad. I mean, Americans dont have the same accent or style of speaking like the Japanese. Actually thats the problem, they like to slang words a lot. Like Orihime, they pronounce it "Oh-ree-HEE-may" (WTF). And it doesnt sound natural.
I think they should experiment with voice actors outside of America, and use people who can say Japanese words properly -.-
i thought Japanese really hates any main hero with bread and main heroine with boobs.
Hmm the story is pretty good and it's not that I didn't see it impossible to be turned to an anime... I wonder what's the hero going to be like... O_o
Considering Funmation wants to make this into an Anime should they first find out if people want this to be an Anime?
Nope!
This will suck but people will buy it in good enough numbers to continue this trend. I just wonder what studio is going to animate it.
Its a popular game that EA manage to Publish.
Correction: it's a popular game, despite being published by EA.
Credit where it's due.
ugh, definitely do not want.
but isn't Funimation only a licencing company, not a production company? Doesn't mean shit unless they get Bones or MadHouse to do it, just saying
get same guys who did the dante's inferno movie
and I am sold.
If Japan is not involved, it's not anime.
agree
Yea Funimation is a US founded company. I seriously doubt they have a studio of their own, and I don't think they've released anything they've entirely made. Anime by definition is Japanese, just like a katana, kimono, etc.
Or maybe Funimation will be Simonizing existing animes.
Bioware & Funimation Announce Dragon Age Cartoon
this will do
Seriously. They themselves declared it "anime" as opposed to cartoon in general. How do they expect the fanbase to acknowledge it as such if they don't even involve any Japanese companies?
What a load of bullshit. Its' an American company so it can't make anime because it won't have the "ghost of anime"?
Whiners
The CEO and founder of Funimation, who happens to be handling this project, is Japanese - I expect that complicates things further for proponents of the "anime nativism" argument.
In any case, the credentials of Funimation seem to suggest giving them the benefit of the doubt - Warner Bros. they are not.
This has absolutely nothing to do with weaboo-ism or however you want to call it. It's a simple matter of definition. An American company does not create anime. Japanese companies create anime if the initiative for the production came from them.
In no way does this hint at the quality or artistic value of the production, that is an entirely different question altogether.
Fact of the matter is, the word "anime" in the western world is being used to differentiate Japanese animation productions made primarily with Japanese audiences in mind from cartoons that originated somewhere else, because of the obvious differences in appeal and aesthetics. It is that simple. Calling people weeaboos who just state the facts will not change that.
Actually Funimation is paying a Japanese Studio to do all the animation for them. They announced co-productions like these a long time ago. Funi isn' doing the animation themselves.
They can let Japanese studios do the animation production and even the character designs all they want, it will still be lacking the aesthetics and genuine feel of a work that originated from within Japanese culture, the "ghost" of anime if you will.
It might turn out to be really great and all, but calling it anime seems inappropriate no matter how you look at it.
Wow, chill out weaboos.
Sorry, could you try to be less of a weeaboo?
what?
are you american weeaboo?
"If Japan is not involved, it's not anime."
Then how do you call series like: Thundercats, transformers, the Galaxy rangers, M.A.S.K. , G.I. JOE, Jayce and the wheeled Warriors, etc.?
Anime by popular definition as a loan-word in English usage means "Japanese animation". Thundercats is just "animation".
O RLY?
Why don't you go to some forum for any of the Saturday morning cartoons you mentioned, call them "anime" and observe the fans rage? Could be quite amusing, actually... ^_^
@12:59
Call it umm, animations.
Anyway guys, Japan uses the word "anime" for anything thats animated.
This is why an animation studio outside Japan should just create a new term for their productions that are similar to "anime" but are not "American Cartoon".
Something like 'Anima'.
And the fact 'anime' is an (English original borrowed word) some should not feel so high and mighty of the origins where their creations came from.
Lastly I think some can agree when we enjoy some animated creations like Halo Legends, Dante's Inferno, The Boondocks, This etc.
We are not fond of calling it a "cartoon".
GI Joe? Transformers? Saturday morning cartoons for the children.
'super cool'
Your choice of words at the end anulled everything before it.
Your choice of avatar to the right anulled everything to the left of it.
Compared to 'High art' like Yugioh, I suppose?
FWIW, the new GI Joe online shorts are super cool.
I'd say the initial/main target of broadcast/marketing will tell you the origin. Anime does use foreign countries, but the release is mostly intended for Japan.
People keep claiming that, but I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that even a single Gonzo production was made primarily for overseas marketing.
For starters, I am not aware of a single release from them that had an English website before a Japanese one. Or an English-language TV broadcast at least simultaneously with the Japanese one, or an original DVD release that hat English subtitles (let alone an English dub) from the get-go. Feel free to correct me if you know of any such instance.
Admittedly there have been a few cases like this involving other studios, off the top of my head Bounen no Xamdou is the only one that comes to mind though.
Then a lot of Gonzo releases were not anime as they were intended primarily for overseas marketing?