BECK is awesome!

[Andrew T. Hingson]

I watched the first episode today and I already have the need to track down the opening song. It was an interesting start and I like the main characters thus far. Man... those foreigners (folks from the US obviously) sure were fowl mouthed. I look forward to seeing more.

[Go-chin]

This show will be 200% better in English.

Their English is pretty good grammar wise, though their inflections SUCK.

Oh, and if ADV gets it, the foreigners will be mexican.
That'd rock.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

I see it either going to ADV or Geneon. It's that kind of show. I can't wait to see it in English. I watched the second episode and it's just getting better and better.

[UberMonkey]

Eh.. the manga's better. There's some rumblings that it might be liscensed soon as well... at least Tokyopop in Germany has got it.

I like the anime, but I can't help but think there's problems with the pacing, and, while the 3D stuff isn't too bad, it still seems out of place. Is it really so hard to animate someone playing the guitar?

Not to mention that some of the music/singing voices... were a bit of a letdown. I guess that's what you get when it was originally just left to your imagination. EDIT: Oh, and Ryusuke and Maho's English is a lot more believable when it's just on the page. :sweat:

[Andrew T. Hingson]

So they did speak English in the manga too eh?

[Lynxara]

I like the anime, but I can't help but think there's problems with the pacing, and, while the 3D stuff isn't too bad, it still seems out of place. Is it really so hard to animate someone playing the guitar?
Actually, properly animating someone playing the guitar is very difficult, and expensive, since it involves repeated fine hand movements that won't be looped and won't be the focus of a scene. I've only ever seen one anime featuring a guitar-playing character that bothered to animate his hand movements correctly... and it dates back to the early 90's, when production budgets for TV shows were far more generous than they are now.

[UberMonkey]

Actually, properly animating someone playing the guitar is very difficult, and expensive, since it involves repeated fine hand movements that won't be looped and won't be the focus of a scene. I've only ever seen one anime featuring a guitar-playing character that bothered to animate his hand movements correctly... and it dates back to the early 90's, when production budgets for TV shows were far more generous than they are now.

Okay, you're right: I know that if you were to accurately animate someone play the guitar, it would be difficult and costly. However... I don't play guitar, so I can't tell, but are the fingerings shown in the 3D sequences matching what's being heard? If it is, okay, that's kind of cool, although I still wish that they found a way to make it sync with the 2D bits better. If it's not: well, that's my point. Surely it couldn't be that much harder to animate a sequence, even involving looping, to give the illlusion that the character is playing the guitar. But I guess, If I just think about it, it's probably to save money. Instead of animating different scenes all the time, build a 3D model once and get it to run through the motions. I'm not even sure if they have different models for different characters at this point.

Although I think there are scenes that will feature a 2D character playing a 3D guitar, too. Which just boggles my mind further.

EDIT: Oh, and to answer Hyper Sensei's question, yes, they did use English in the manga, too. For example, here's a page from the manga.. This happens much later on (who knows if this will even be in the 26 episode anime), but not much is revealed plotwise, but link at your own risk if you're afraid of spoilers. Here. (http://students.washington.edu/jtl3/Beck47/pg111.png) It's, uh, translated... *cough*.. but the flatter text in the first panel is how the english appears in the manga, mixed in with the original Japanese language. The english is very good, but considering the Mangaka's name is Harold, that's not too suprising, eh?

[Karl Olson]

Story - Loving it. Definetely a case of slow-pacing done right. It gives you what you need when you're supposed get it, and it very adeptly captures the indie music scene vibe and real life in general. It's so realistic in it's characterization it's almost something that'd be better suited to Live Action (outside of the dog.) As a guy who tried to do the rock band thing as a kid, I really love it on more personal level as well.

Vocals - The English is a little too Engrish, but the actual singing from Koyuki and Maho is quite nice. They work especially well as a duet, though Koyuki's voice is definitely the stronger voice. In general, I'm liking the voice acting. Very realistic.

Visual - The 3D and rotoscoping strike me as needing to be about twice as many FPS, but hey, they are doing a pretty good job with what they've got. Atleast they've got enough budget to be more direct than Black Heaven.

Overall - Probably one the best shows this season, and of the traditionally-styled TV anime this season (IE: barring OVAs' like Gunbuster 2 and the hyper-experimental titles like Windy Tales,) it's certainly the most unique, and it's a general breath of fresh air as such. It's a very unique, original story. I hope a good distrotributor can licence this and spend the time necessary to make a great english language version.

For now, I can't wait to see some more :anime:

[Go-chin]

I'm sticking by my opinion that I posted a bit ago on the GFAQs board.

The voices annoy the hell out of me.
Japanese people should speak Japanese, unless it's some super robot or sentai show.
English people should speak English, unless we're mocking another group of people.
(Of course, this does not apply to people who can speak both languages properly.)

So until Beck gets released in the US, and the foreigners are given Spanish accents, I'm not going to watch anymore.

And Engrish is one thing. Funny stuff.
GO GO KICKY FAST OK!

But English with bad inflections is different.
It just makes my ears bleed. This is where Beck comes into the equation.

Don't get me wrong. Good show, but I hate the english. Once they get the inflections down, then I might watch more.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

I think a Canadian accent would be more appropriate since most of the English speaking characters are white. Maybe they could be German if they want to do a whole other language.

But maybe they wont even dub this show. I think it works well in Japanese since it has a good contrast. I don't much care for the random f-bombs but other than that the Engrish is fun to listen to IMO.

[UberMonkey]

Yeah, I'm not sure how they'd handle the Japanese/English thing in a dub. Unless they reversed it. That'd be amusing. Just have bad Japanese to replace the bad English. :D

[Andrew T. Hingson]

That would be interesting. Have one of the US actors try speaking Japanese. I still say German or Canadian is the way to go. Maybe Irish, Scottish, or French as well. Any number of languages as long as the people who speak them are typically white guys (as that's who speak English the most in this). But really the show takes place in Japan so it's just gonna be really wierd no matter how they do it.

[Lynxara]

Okay, you're right: I know that if you were to accurately animate someone play the guitar, it would be difficult and costly. However... I don't play guitar, so I can't tell, but are the fingerings shown in the 3D sequences matching what's being heard? If it is, okay, that's kind of cool, although I still wish that they found a way to make it sync with the 2D bits better. If it's not: well, that's my point. Surely it couldn't be that much harder to animate a sequence, even involving looping, to give the illlusion that the character is playing the guitar. But I guess, If I just think about it, it's probably to save money. Instead of animating different scenes all the time, build a 3D model once and get it to run through the motions. I'm not even sure if they have different models for different characters at this point.
Well, I can't answer this from direct experience because I don't play the guitar. I have had the experience of watching a lot of band anime like Beck alongside musicians, though. Judging from their reactions, most of the fingering you see in band anime guitar-playing is completely, totally inaccurate. Beck could very well be an exception to this syndrome, although I personally wouldn't bet on it just because of cost issues. Why spend a ton of money animating correct finger movements when most of the audience won't be able to tell if it's wrong anyway?

[Karl Olson]

I can field this one as I'm guitar player myself: fingering in Beck is pretty darn good. Some of the more fancy stuff doesn't quite sync up, but all the chords are dead on as far as I can tell. I think there is more inaccuracy from the sorta awkward 3D and rotoscoping than anything else.

[True Noir]

I'm going to have to agree with you on that, Hyper Sensei. I've been watching the show since it came out on ***. The first time I watched BECK, I don't know.....it was so original to me. Usually, I would say it reminds me of "blah", but I can't for this one. I think that the dubbed version might possibly be even better than the original. I do have to agree with Karl Olsen on the "English" part. It's better than most anime, but yet a little strange.

[Ryoutarou]

Finally got around to watching it, I saw the first 3 episodes and it's really good, all though the english...ya could use some help.:sweat: I wonder how long the anime is going to run if the manga is already at volume 21 I think...oh well it should be around for a while, so gotta go watch those two other episodes.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

ANN's page for it says it'll be 26 episodes.

I've seen episode 1, 2, 4, and 5 but for some reason 3 wont work. I guess I have to get it again. :(

[Ryoutarou]

How do you cram that much manga into so few episodes? Finally got my hands on the OP song, really good....just to short though.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

Yeah I got "HIT IN THE USA" as well. It's an awesome song but not much to the lyrics... Pretty much the same thing over and over again but it has a great beat. I'm going to look into more Beat Crusaders music.

I doubt the anime will be as in depth as the manga and they'll probably either not finish the story or leave parts out.

[Ryoutarou]

Yeah I got "HIT IN THE USA" as well. It's an awesome song but not much to the lyrics... Pretty much the same thing over and over again but it has a great beat. Like every other song out there? I still like it, reptative or not it's good.


I doubt the anime will be as in depth as the manga and they'll probably either not finish the story or leave parts out.Unless another is being planned on, but I don't think so...I would have much rather seen a longer anime for this...I've only read a few volumes of the manga, so I'm not that up on the story.

[Go-chin]

How do you cram that much manga into so few episodes? Finally got my hands on the OP song, really good....just to short though. Beat Crusaders is a good group, though I like the other songs on the Beck OP single more.
Super ko Rider in particular.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

Well I'd say the pace isn't rushed at all, so I'm not sure how they are going to work this as 26 episodes.

[Ryoutarou]

Well, we've only got a few episodes so far, so we can't really tell if it will get fast paced later on or not. That's the one thing I didn't like about the anime, knowing how long it was, it's well over 150 chapters of manga, so we'll just have to see if it works out....which I bet it does.

[Lynxara]

The sensical approach to the anime adaptation would be just to handle a particularly characteristic arc (or arcs) of the manga and not worry about adapting it all within the 26 episode order.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

It'll probably get another season if this one does well so they wont finish the story.

[Keldran]

Actually my feeling is that Beck will end about 4 or 5 volumes short of where the manga is currently at (based on some of the footage in the OP) which would leave it in a precarious position of still having more material to cover but not enough for a full 26 episode series. It may just get stuck in the same situation that Fruits Basket got in after it finished its anime run.

[Lynxara]

Well, that's probably quite tolerable if you're Japanese. It just means you head down to the corner bookstore and pick up the manga volumes that pick up where the anime left off. Always sucks when they do something like from the Western perspective, though, it's like you've been left hanging....

I think whether or not Beck got another season would probably depend on how popular it was, and what its timeslot was like. Just given the kind of show it is, I think a 26-episode run and then OAVs that cater to any remaining die-hard fans is most likely.

[Karl Olson]

As everyone knows, I hate bouncing (it's part of being a mod,) but I just caught episodes 11 and 12 of Beck (finally, I know.)

Awesome stuff. It's by no means a show with great animation, but the story and emotion at points it just flooring. Episode 12's end scenes left me breathless and stunned. I really hope Funi gets it, and then does their best dub work ever. ;)

[Andrew T. Hingson]

There was a long wait for anything after 10 but one day I saw 14 and 15 out of nowhere and then over the course of a few days 11-17 became available. I guess they were waiting to see if FUNi licensed it. I wonder if they just aired 18 in Japan this week or if it's a week behind.

Anyway I've seen up to 17 now and I LOVE this show so much. It's so gripping for some reason. You want the characters to succeed. It truely has a special place in my heart. I can't wait for the manga to come out from TokyoPop and I dearly hope FUNi will follow through and get BECK and give it dub as worthy (or more) as the Fruits Basket dub.

Popularity will probably keep the show afloat if it is popular enough but I really wouldn't know. I just know I love it and I have several friends who I've hooked on it as well. But it's the nichest of niche series in a way but I could see it having some serious mainstream appeal if the distributor plays their cards right. It's also one of the only animes I think should have just a subbed release and no dub but I know that's not going to happen. So I just hope for the best.

It currently airs at about 1:30AM on TV Tokyo (their late night anime slot so to speak) so I don't know what that means... For all I know it could be due to coarse language but that's not the most likely case.

One of the most interesting things about BECK is the little stories within the story. Such as the situation with Luceal and Beck, trying to make the band succeed, Koyuki just trying to get his life together in school and relationships, the culture clash (which leaves poor Koyuki out cold most of the time), the band rivalry, etc. So much is going on and its very compelling... and I'll be danged if the characters aren't entertaining.

[Karl Olson]

Just got episode 21; this show just keeps getting better. I'm digging the new-ish ED, but more importantly, Koyuki's new song sounds like it's gonna freaking rock. It's gonna be awesome to hear at the Greatful Sound festival I'd best. Meanwhile, I've already learned the chords for it. I just need lyrics. I'd love to play it at the karaoke at SakuraCon.

BTW, I've gotta say not only has Beck made me more aware of my guitar playing and things I can do to improve it, but vastly more aware of my vocals as well. Oddly enough, I think Beck has made me a better vocalist somehow.

Seriously funimation needs this and need it done right.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

Every episode builds the great story that BECK is. I hope it gets another season because it looks like they'll end with Greatful Sound (well shortly after).

I'm dig'n the new song Koyuki is working on as well. Karaoke it at Sakura Con eh? I'd be sure to see that. :anime:

Hopefully FUNimation will annouce it this year. But not to sound greedy... I don't want them to annouce it until the first season is completed. I just can't stop now, not now!

I can't wait for the OST's as well. Hopefully they'll show up in Seattle's international district soon after their release.

This series could do very well here. Hopefully it will be handled with care. Though honestly... I don't like the idea of hearing these characters with commonly heard dub voices. It would be really wierd sounding. And I don't just say that about any anime. Though I believe there should be a dub because they aren't likely going to air this show subtitled on CN or MTV.

[Fresh V]

This show rocks. I've never seen an anime like it. I'm currently up to episode 18. Currently the only problem I have with this show is the horrible English.

I love the intro. I keep on playing it over and over.:p All the other songs are so cool, too. Did anyone notice the tracks on the BECK (can someone explain why it's all capitalized?) CD they made? Koyuki was holding it up and you could see the back:

1. TOBASCO
2. Chiba RAP
3. FACE

[Karl Olson]

Every episode builds the great story that BECK is. I hope it gets another season because it looks like they'll end with Greatful Sound (well shortly after).

I'm dig'n the new song Koyuki is working on as well. Karaoke it at Sakura Con eh? I'd be sure to see that. :anime:

The bigger question is do I bring the accoustic, or do I bring the electric? Borh are pretty decent guitars.


Hopefully FUNimation will annouce it this year. But not to sound greedy... I don't want them to annouce it until the first season is completed. I just can't stop now, not now!

You know, SakuraCon would be a very adapt time to announce it. They would have gotten through 26.... (comon Lance. :D)


I can't wait for the OST's as well. Hopefully they'll show up in Seattle's international district soon after their release.

This series could do very well here. Hopefully it will be handled with care. Though honestly... I don't like the idea of hearing these characters with commonly heard dub voices. It would be really wierd sounding. And I don't just say that about any anime. Though I believe there should be a dub because they aren't likely going to air this show subtitled on CN or MTV.


Yeah, I'd want them to get a unique dub cast, and it they dub the songs, they better be able to sing darn well. They really couldn't half-way it, they've gotta nail it.