Well, it's been a while again. Sorry for not updating the blog in forever. This one is an update on things going on with the YouTube channel, future uploads, and a hiatus based on grief and other family issues.
With regards to the channel, I've had some issues with uploads and the wonderful "Where's the Fair Use" situation. I've had to switch my original uploads of my first three reviews to private because of a potential loss that would've been dealt to me by Universal Music Group. When I made a copyright appeal to UMG, they decided to issue a takedown notice on the video I chose to test the appeal with. This forced me to switch the original uploads to private and create reupload versions of the first three reviews I had ever done.
Along with that, I've been in the middle of another copyright claim battle on the My Little Pony review, this time from Sony Music Entertainment because they have the distribution rights to the soundtracks, which they didn't have at the time I worked on the review.
I do have a couple of videos in the works, but it will be a while before they do get uploaded. One review I actually moved up from a proposed Fall release.
I'm also uploading future reviews to DailyMotion while facing these YouTube issues. I will release the reviews to YouTube a week after I upload to DailyMotion.
Now for a subject no YouTuber ever wants to discuss, hiatus. After I released the Senran Kagura review in March, I was waiting for the right time to start recording again. While I had plenty of content recorded for a review I wanted to have done this summer, I had to place editing on hold for quite some time due to a major family emergency. Around the end of April, we had an emergency call come in about my brother-in-law collapsing in his home and being rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately he passed away during the attempts to get his heart started again. This forced me to enter into a hiatus that would then lead to pushing a project up to being the next review to be released this summer. This video will be dedicated to him, even if he had no influence on my videos. There will be an "In loving memory" card placed at the end of the video, something I never thought I would ever include in any of my videos. The grief has been rough, and I'm still not 100% back to my old self, but I know that he would want me to return to working on the things I love.
After I get the next two videos done, I will officially enter into another hiatus as I wait for that moment when I can officially move out of my current residence. I won't go into details about my current living situation, but just know that I will return to videos sometime next year. This will allow me plenty of time to draft up more scripts to work with when the time comes to return.
Until the next review, have a nice day!
-NapoleonJonamite
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Please Rewind Napoleon: Where's the Fair Use?
It's something that many YouTube critics or entertainers are asking. The situation regarding YouTube's current copyright system scares a lot of users, and is currently making me want to not become a partner if this is the case. Oh, I think I am getting way ahead of myself here. Let's start off with the basics of the topic of Fair Use.
What is Fair Use?
Fair use is defined as a legal doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted materials without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, research, and parody. YouTube content creators like Nostalgia Critic, I Hate Everything, Anime America, and even Please Rewind Napoleon are examples of critical and commentary based fair use content, while TeamFourStar and "Weird Al" Yankovic are major examples of parody creators. Whether the release is YouTube or the open market, the content made with use of copyrighted material is protected because some form of transformation was made to what was being used.
Why Are We Talking About This?
Recently, some of the big YouTubers, Nostalgia Critic, I Hate Everything, and TeamFourStar to name a few, have been hit with copyright claims and strikes under the current copyright system being used by YouTube. Many companies or users claiming to "represent these companies" are placing these claims on the users mentioned stating that they own the content being used. With this, any money earned by the YouTuber through ad revenue goes to the copyright claimer, and a potential copyright strike is placed on the user's account.
TeamFourStar makes a parody of the anime series DragonBall Z, which has multiple owners in Funimation, Toei Animation and Fuji TV. The Nostalgia Critic creates critical content on various movies. The former channel was recently terminated due to a large amount of copyright claims made against them, despite their content falling under fair use, while the latter had monetization removed from their channel due to numerous claims made on many of his reviews. These users make their living through the content they produce, and with a lost income, they can't pay their bills or any sort of production crew they may have.
Sometimes, the company that makes these claims aren't even true owners of the content being claimed. Anime America, an anime review channel on YouTube, had many of their videos claimed by an Italian company that claimed to own some of the content that was seen in the video, which even included the users' avatars and commentaries in the videos. This sadly forced them to block their videos, including new uploads, from view in Italy until things get fixed.
How is Please Rewind Napoleon Affected?
Right now, Please Rewind Napoleon is a non-profit, non-YouTube-partnered review series, so it isn't affected at this time. However, this does make me nervous regardless of whether I choose to go into a partnership or not. Prior to my recent revival of the channel, I had claims placed on my earliest reviews. Universal Music Group claimed my videos because of the music used in my original intro, Billy Preston's "Nothing From Nothing." Time Warner claimed my Swat Kats review because Swat Kats was owned by their Cartoon Network Studios. And recently I had to dispute claims made by Viz Media on my Sailor Moon review and deleted joke idea, both of which used footage from the DiC and Cloverway dubs. I won against Viz's claims mostly in part of them not responding to the counter claim, but if I had those videos monetized, then I would've lost any money made during the claim dispute to Viz Media. As for my older videos, Universal made my videos unable to be seen in Germany or on certain platforms, and Warner is placing ads on the Swat Kats review to make money off of my video. I argued fair use to Warner, but lost the counter claim, luckily no strike was given to me. If this is what a creator of content that should be protected by fair use has to go through on a regular basis, why should I either consider a partnership or even create more reviews?
There are some major changes that YouTube needs to make to its current handling of copyright claims. Doug Walker, the man behind the Nostalgia Critic, has suggested that a side account be made for the funds that are being held/seized during a claim dispute, so that money goes to whoever wins the dispute. I'm sure there are other things they could do better, but I'm having a hard time figuring them out right now.
Until the next review, I have just one question. Where's the fair use? #WTFU
-Napoleon
Monday, December 28, 2015
Videos Returned
Hey everyone!
Just so you guys know, I did return to video making as of July of 2015. The first new video I posted was a review from the list I made back when I first promised a return in 2014, the other was an unplanned review that I wanted to do for a while. I will occasionally do some posting here, but my main focus is going to be on the videos as I attempt to bring new life to Please Rewind Napoleon. Thanks everyone for your patience!
Until the next review, have a nice day!
-Napoleon
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
PowerPuff Reboot: Pre-Release Thoughts
Well, well, well, things are starting to look up here. When I first heard that Cartoon Network was rebooting the Powerpuff Girls, I admit that I was a bit more than concerned. Partly because after I saw the anniversary special I saw an underwhelming and ultimately disappointing return of the girls to our TV screens. While the original voice cast returned for the special, the art style and writing that we were familiar with did not join them. The lack of any involvement by series creator Craig McCracken certainly didn't help either, but this was pretty much something that couldn't be prevented after he walked away from the series after it ended in 2005.
Cartoon Network seems to be trying to redeem itself with this upcoming reboot and the recently released information regarding the cast, new art style and the new executive producer for the series. Without further ado, let's get to my thoughts on the upcoming release. I'd compare writing styles, but until the pilot of the reboot is released I can't do so.
Art Direction
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| The art for the 2014 special. Oh, God... *Vomit* |
Well, let's start with what we had in 2014, which gave me great concerns that this would be used in the 2016 reboot. In mid-to-late 2013, we were given some sneak preview images of the art direction that upcoming special would take. The plan was to use CGI animation to create the special, and it went drastically far away from the classic art style the McCracken brought with his original vision when the series was first released in 1998. Some characters did retain their designs under this animation style, but the girls themselves and villain Mojo Jojo were drastically changed (See image above for the girls). Needless to say, this should have been the indicator that things would be changing, and not for the better, by the time the special itself was released.
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| The recently released art for the 2016 reboot. Now that's more like it. |
June 9th, 2015, Cartoon Network released some images of the new art style for the reboot. This is what I was hoping for in the 2014 special, something that closely resembles the classic art direction of the original series. Nothing trying to be edgy, no crappy CGI work, just a classic 2-D art that will make classic fans happy.
Voice Cast
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| The new voices of the girls. Not sure about this one. |
This is the hard part of the announcement for me to discuss. As I stated in my notes about the 2014 special, the original cast from the series reprised their roles. For the new series, the only one reprising their role is Tom Kenny, the voice of the Mayor of Townsville. Cartoon Network decided to cast Amanda Leighton of Pretty Little Liars fame as Blossom, newcomer Kristen Li will voice Bubbles, and TV movie actress Natalie Palamides will voice Buttercup. This is a bitter pill to swallow, reading that none of the original actresses are reprising their roles.
"I have NO ILL FEELINGS for the actresses in the new PPG," Tara Strong, the original voice of Bubbles, said on her Twitter on June 8th when she first heard of the new casting. "We were just beyond hurt we were NEVER asked..." We, meaning Tara and her co-stars Cathy Cavadini (Blossom) and Elizabeth Daily (Buttercup). It's a shame that we won't be hearing those same voices that made these characters memorable, but hopefully this new cast will surprise us. That or Leighton will make a "Pretty Little Liar" out of me. ...Okay, I'm just gonna shut up now.
Production Team
Right now, we don't know anything about the writing team for the upcoming reboot, but what we do know is that Nick Jennings, the man who has helped direct Adventure Time and Spongebob Squarepants, will be on board as the executive producer of the new PPG. Jennings has won an Emmy for his work on Adventure Time, which already gives me some hope for the series. If he can find the right staff to work with him on this series, we could have a more true to the original reboot than I had feared we wouldn't have.
Bottom Line
With this new information, I'm leaning a bit more towards the excited side of the spectrum than before any of this was released. While I am sad that Cavadini, Strong and Daily will not be reprising their titular roles, I do have good (ish) feelings about this new team. I'm also glad that they did at least go into imitating the original art style for the upcoming release instead of something that would make the 2014 special look brilliant. Let's hope this all holds up next year.
Until the next review, have a nice day!
-NapoleonJonamite
-NapoleonJonamite
Friday, November 14, 2014
Is It Worth It? Sailor Moon Season 1 Part 1 DVD Review
Introduction
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Main Content
If you read my post "Sailor Moon Viz: The Good, The Bad, and Those Ugly Nostalgia Goggles," you already know how I feel about the new dub. If you haven't, I'll give the highlights for this one. The dialog was well written, the casting for the most part was well done, Viz kept true to their word and left the anime uncut, and dropped episodes from the original dub finally make an appearance with an English audio track. The only flaws of note are that the English voice track is too highly defined compared to the music and sound effect tracks, and Shingo (Usagi's younger brother) has a voice that just sounds a little too old for the character's age. I was hoping that these two issues would have been fixed before the release of the DVD and Blu-Ray, but sadly they still exist. I will say that on the DVD the audio issue is barely noticeable while I'm sure on the Blu-Ray it sticks out like a sore thumb. Overall rating for the main content remains at 8/10.
Presentation
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| The DVD case (Left) and the cardboard sleeve (Right) |
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| Funny how you can barely see Sailor Moon or Sailor Mercury while Sailor Mars stands out. |
The discs are a single color with darker tones used to make outlines of the three Sailors we get in this first half of the season. The art is well done, but on discs 1 & 2 Sailors Moon and Mercury (Respectively) are barely visible.
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| The three menus from the first disc. |
The menus seem to share the same trait as the box art, well some of them anyway. The main menu is given a much more eye catching background while the episode select and setup menus could use a bit more. What really gets me is how they show the episodes on screen. Note: I usually have it set to stretch SD footage to fit my widescreen TV.
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| By the way, I'm using a stretch to fit screen option on my Blu-Ray player. |
The episodes have what is called pillar boxing, meaning they kept the footage plastered at a 4:3 scale with black bars on the sides. This would normally be fine, except that it does create some issues with the subtitles for signs written in the Japanese kanji. This is most noticeable in the episode "Scent of a Monster: Chanela Will Steal Your Love." See screencap below.
Overall, the presentation is okay for a first set, but I think that Viz should try a little harder to make the future releases a little more pleasing to the eye instead of the current bare bones art. In addition, the pillar boxing just messes with the video presentation, and while Viz has said they will remove this in future releases, I really wish they had the foresight to fix this before they made this release. Presentation score: 6/10.
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| I think Viz forgot to buy oops insurance. |
Bonus Content
Ah, yes, the major draw to a lot of DVD and Blu-Ray releases, the bonus content. For Sailor Moon Viz, it's kinda sad in both releases. On the DVD set, you are given a quick montage of Anime Expo's Sailor Moon events. Nothing notable there, sadly. The other features are trailers, the first being Viz's official announcement trailer for the Sailor Moon DVD release (Which has been out for a while), and a pair of other Viz Media releases. Weak.
The Blu-Ray offers these same features, plus a behind the scenes featurette of the dub recording and art galleries. The Blu-Ray release also includes an 88 page art booklet. Art gallery feature in the disc and an art booklet? Pick one or the other!
DVD buyers get a smaller set of bonuses leaving them forced to buy the Blu-Ray if they want a behind the scenes featurette. Overall, the features could be better and DVD buyers should not be left out of anything that could be a real behind the scenes bonus, which draws a lot of people to these releases in the first place. Bonus content score: 5/10.
Pricing
Now here's the one I think more people are wondering about, especially during these times of financial hardship, and that's the price tag that comes with this release. For the 23 episode, 3 disc DVD release, it'll run about $30. For the Blu-Ray release, 3 Blu-Ray discs plus the 3 DVDs and the art booklet will cost you around $50-55. Prior to release, Amazon had the DVD and Blu-Ray releases marked at $40 and $75 respectively. Had these been the final release date prices, my rating for the prices based on the content would have been much lower. Considering the fair pricing for what is available as of now, I give the pricing a sold 6.5/10. It's affordable, but not quite worth it for a first half release. Had the prices been what I saw during the pre-order period on Amazon ($40 and $75), the score would have been a 3/10 as those would make this set overpriced for the content being sold.
Final Verdict
Time to tie all of the scores together. The final verdict will be an averaging of the four scores given. The scale will work like this:
1-3/10 = Wait until it's available at a bargain price of $10-15
4-7/10 = Buy when it's on sale
8-10/10 = Buy now, completely worth it
Sailor Moon Season 1 Part 1's average score comes to... 6.4/10 As the next sets prepare to arrive, there may be a possibility of a price drop (Though considering the second half is expected out in early 2015, likelihood of that happening is low), so I would wait until then. If you're a hardcore fan and want to own this set, then by all means go ahead, but realize that for what is given in the video presentation and other content, you're going to feel some disappointment in paying the $30 or $50, depending on which version you purchase.
Until the next review, have a nice day!
-Napoleon
Monday, October 13, 2014
Five Night's at Napoleon's: 1st Night (Toy Story of Terror)
Introduction
When I first saw advertisements on ABC last year for this special, I was intrigued. I was one of those who enjoyed the third installment in the Toy Story film franchise, and was curious about how/if they would continue the stories of Woody, Buzz and the rest with their new family. I also had my reservations, considering that some family Halloween specials tend to play it safe and any terror/horror levels would be so low as to not frighten younger audiences. Now here we are, a whole year later on this one, and it's time for my thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen, toys and dolls, Toy Story of Terror.
Synopsis (Potential Spoilers)
We start off with the gang watching an old black-and-white horror film on the portable DVD player in the trunk. Throughout, we get the usual "Don't go in there" style commentary from the gang, and Mr. Priklepants starts his usual film class lecture on horror film narrative tropes.
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| Frankly, I don't blame Potato Head for this. |
During the trip, the car gets a flat tire, causing a few bumps in the trunk leading to Jessie being locked inside a small tool chest. While trapped, Jessie's fears start to build. What does she have to be scared of? You can either watch Toy Story 2 to get the full story on Jessie, or you can wait a minute to get the explanation.
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| Remember how Jessie was afraid of going back into storage in TS2? |
That's right, this brought back those bad memories of when Jessie was abandoned all those years ago then left in storage by Al of Al's Toy Barn. Since Pricklepants and Trixie (The triceratops) didn't know, we got that explanation. Anyway, we then find the gang in Bonnie's (The new owner as of the end of Toy Story 3) suitcase as they check into a motel as they wait for the car to be serviced. Of course, we get more horror film narrative tropes being predicted by Pricklepants.
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| "BUM BUM BUMMMM!" Yeah, you're kinda taking the drama out of it with your predictions. |
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| Oh good, Woody feels the same way I do about this. |
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| Dang, maybe I should have held on to my Woody toy if I knew he was worth that much. |
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| "By Globatron's ghost, you shall be remembered." She's not dead, just boxed in. |
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| "Are those my daughter's toys?" Busted! |
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| "Told you not to leave the keys in the car." "We got a runner." |
Final Thoughts
After sitting through the whole almost 30 minutes of this, sadly I can't really say too many good things about it. While I do give props to them using the original voice cast out of Toy Story 3, the writing just felt bland and rushed. The "terror" elements were underplayed while they overplayed Jessie's fears, thus making the whole thing feel as if they tried too hard. The humor was weak due to the overuse of Priklepants's constant narrative trope telling, and the good jokes were too few and far between. If Pixar was given more time to try and flesh this story out it could have been better, but as it is this is very weak as a family Halloween special. Final score: 6/10
Congratulations, you survived night one! Join me in night two, where we look at another Halloween special.
Until the next review, have a good day!
-Napoleon Jonamite
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Sailor Moon Viz: The Good, The Bad, and Those Ugly Nostalgia Goggles
On September 5-6, depending on your time zone, Viz Media released the first few episodes of their dub of the original 1990's Sailor Moon anime. To think it was only about three months ago that Viz made the announcement of acquiring the rights to this series and the reboot Sailor Moon Crystal. While we waited for the DVD and Blu-Ray release, we were treated to clips of the new dub audio. There was excitement, there was skepticism, there were fanboys raging at the very idea that the entirety of the 90's anime was being redubbed when a majority of the series was already dubbed. I'll get to the nostalgia goggles issues later, but for now let us look at what Viz did right, and what they did wrong in this highly anticipated redub.
The Good
Viz said that they would keep true to the original Japanese release and keep it uncut and uncensored. Considering how heavily edited the original dub was under Dic, this would surely be an improvement over Dic's version. Viz did not fail in keeping their word. Dropped episodes from the first season have been given the dub that they deserve, originally released episodes got the much needed corrections, with no cuts to any scenes or footage from future episodes being repurposed for what the dubbers thought would serve as an enhancement of the story. I remember those changes being one of my biggest gripes regarding Dic's dub of season one, especially since some of those scenes that got deleted could have been repurposed with their censorship changes or they removed some key story elements, such as the original introduction of Sailor V.
Another thing Viz did right was the writing for the dialog. At last, no more awkward dialog that seemed like lines were skipped, no more lines that didn't fit the emotions that were shown in the animation. Viz's dialog seemed to flow more like what we got out of the subtitles for the series, making it sound more like they followed the original scripting than just making up their own lines and hoping they stick.
The Bad
Even the best dubbing companies have their flaws in their work. Sometimes it's an audio thing, other times it's acting/actor choices, and there are mistakes that can make a 4Kids dub look like an Emmy winning piece of art. Viz has made some mistakes, but nothing really on the 4Kids level as Viz has a much bigger focus on accuracy and overall quality while 4Kids... Well, just look at what they did to One Piece and I think you'll get the point. Anyway, let's see what Viz did badly on this one.
The most notable, even in the pre-release clips Viz posted on their YouTube account, is the overall audio quality. While Viz did opt to keep the original soundtrack and sound effects of the Japanese version, the English dialog track is too clean, crisp, and highly defined compared to the other two tracks. This means that Viz either forgot to upconvert the other audio tracks when they were preparing the dub, or they forgot to downgrade the audio of the dialog track to fit to quality of the other two tracks. This is a careless mistake that can make or break a dub, and right now this sounds almost like a low-end fandub than a professional level dub. Hopefully this gets fixed before the DVD and Blu-Ray release in November.
Another element of the work done badly with this is the casting choice, most notably for Usagi's little brother, Shingo. While I can give props to Viz and to Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi for making good English voice casting decisions, my personal favorites being Stephanie Sheh as our titular character Usagi Tsukino, Michelle Ruff as Luna, and Christina Vee as Rei Hino (Still waiting for her first episode so I can hear this wonderful new voice), there was an issue that came with Shingo's voice actor that bugged me. Shingo's actor, Nicolas Roye, gave him a voice that makes the younger brother sound much older than he actually is, and while there are some young 8-10 year old boys with deep voices, this one is kinda hard to forgive.
Those Ugly Nostalgia Goggles
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| Couldn't have said it better myself, Rei. |
Oh man, where do I begin on this one? While I can understand the skepticism that revolved around the voice cast for this new dub, I found it hard to believe that some of it was so bad they would ask "Why redub this series when the original dub was so perfect?" ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME?! There were so many problems with the old dub that I cannot call it anything but garbage. The acting quality of both the Dic (Seasons 1 & 2) and Cloverway (Seasons 3 & 4) dubs was so bad that it made the acting in The Last Airbender movie seem worthy of an Oscar. The writing was worse, the plot holes due to dropped scenes and episodes were big, the censorship had double standards throughout (How can you allow a guy who is in a puddle of his own blood to be in, yet you decide to get rid of a scene where Sailor Mars literally slaps some sense into Sailor Moon?), I could go on but I don't think the blog will work if I do.
One comment that came up on the Amazon pre-order page for the new Viz DVD and Blu-Ray asked "Why can't Viz leave the already dubbed episodes alone and focus on dubbing the ones that weren't?" I can tell you why right off the bat, and it's because of something called "consistency." Do you want a constantly changing voice cast and alternating levels of what's allowed or what names the characters are given? Viz wanted to keep the original Japanese names, while Dic and Cloverway Americanized the names of almost all the characters. In addition, both Dic and Cloverway switched out actors as the series changed hands. Dic even changed Sailor Moon's voice actress partway through the series as her original voice first went on maternity leave (At least, that's what the internet says) before leaving entirely. Would you really want to hear three different casts through 5 seasons of Sailor Moon? No? Good, then be happy that there will be consistency throughout each season.
Final Thoughts
Despite the two issues that were mentioned in the bad section, I found the new dub enjoyable. Viz has done a quality job with the writing and casting. They just need to fix their audio mixing issues and do something about Shingo's age crisis and the whole thing will be great. I can finally swear off the old English theme song and calling Sailor Moon "Serena" and welcome Moonlight Densetsu and Usagi Tsukino! Final score: 8/10
Until the next review, have a nice day!
-NapoleonJonamite
-NapoleonJonamite
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