h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How about '"Voices of a Distant Star" and Shorter Films By Shinkai Makoto'?

Or, more specifically, ' "Voices of a Distant Star" and Shorter Anime By Shinkai Makoto'.

Or, since quite a lot of people don't know what anime is, possibly ' "Voices of a Distant Star" and Shorter Anime Films By Shinkai Makoto'. People who don't recognise the word 'anime' should still be able to work out basically what the Entry is about.

Comments?

Mmmm

Personanly I like the last choice best

Maybe we're looking at this from the wrong angle.

Are the descriptions of the other films essential to the 'Voices' content? Could they be sliced off and made into another entry, then cross link references between the two?

There's no technical reason why not, but it seems more economical to have just one entry in which all the information is present than to have two short entries about short anime by the same person. Either only one entry would contain the information about Shinkai and his working methods, in which case there would seem to be little to be gained from having two entries because readers of one would have to refer to the other to find the relevant contextual information, or the information would have to be replicated so as to appear in each entry, which would be considerably less economical than having just one entry in which all the information on Shinkai's work up to 'Voices' is easily viewable on the same page. I think the various sections do benefit from being together; in any case, 'Voices' and 'She and Her Cat' are the only works on which I have that much information.

Maybe when 'Beyond the Clouds' is available and I'm writing an entry on that I'll create the beginnings of a Shinkai-specific cluster, but for now I'm inclined to stick with a single entry.

We currently have a proposer for the motion that the title be changed to '"Voices of a Distant Star" and Shorter Anime Films By Shinkai Makoto'. Do we have a seconder?

Well, in the meantime, since it appears to be generally agreed that the current title is inadequate, I'm changing it to '"Voices of a Distant Star" and Shorter Anime Films By Shinkai Makoto', which at least has some support. If there are objections to the altered title it can easily be changed again following further discussion.

I take it the new title is satisfctory, then.

Having checked the updates on the Fan Web, I've added some more to the final paragraph of the story section, and added a new sentence to the final paragraph of the Entry; unfortunately it presently seems difficult to find information on 'Haru no Ashioto'.

Another incremental update: a new sentence at the end of the 'She and Her Cat' section. Also, I forgot to mention it in the last post, but the Entry now links to two images of the manga.

The Fan Web has acquired a specific page on the 'Voices' manga, so I've added a specific link to that. I've corrected 'two' to 'three' in the last paragraph, following the addition of the reference to 'Haru no Ashioto'.

I've also added '1997 - April 2004' to the title, the idea being that when I come to write about 'Yakusoku no Basho' I can include details of anything else Shinkai makes after April 2004 without causing confusion. If this Entry is in the Edited Guide by then I'll link to it; if not I'll link to it anyway and enter both Entries here as a linked pair.

This must be getting close to getting picked now? It seems to have been in PR quite a while...

Scouts?

sprout

Please?

Sprout -- thanks for posting and letting me know someone's still reading this thread.

I've added yet another single sentence to one of the footnotes -- yes, my life is that meaningful -- but I'm not stating what I added in this thread. Thus I hope to inspire some flicker of restored curiosity -- or something. Or just to move the entry back to the top of the list.

A smidgeon more information on Haru no Ashioto becomes available, and this Entry gets another incremental update. Since it now refers to an event that took place in May, I've changed 'April' to 'May' in the title.

I've been having a rethink about links to FMVs; currently the Entry doesn't contain any, although an English-dubbed trailer for Voices can be found easily enough on ADV's Voices site. I know of an English-language site that has the Japanese trailer for Kumo no Mukou; I don't think there's anything in the trailer that would make it necessary to remove a link on language grounds. Accordingly I'm adding a link to the page (i.e. to a page wih English content, rather than to the clip itself).

One can find the intros to Bittersweet Fools and Wind - Breath of Heart via the Fan Web, but it would be possible to shorten the journey; however, I'm only aware of Japanese sites hosting these FMVs (which, of course, have Japanese vocals too). (The download link for Tooi Sekai on Shinkai's own site appears to be broken.) Linking directly to files is apparently against Japanese netiquette, so anyone wanting to see those clips -- Wind has a rather good one -- will presumably have to take the long way round.

Since the Kumo no Mukou trailer has no subtitles, I've also included a link to a translation on the Fan Web.

I wonder how many people are still reading this. It's ages since I received any actual comments/suggestions, so presumably my occasional polishing is just gloss.

Following F63189?thread=421594 and some musing, I've attempted to help people find the downloads without including forbidden links. I'm hoping this approach, used at the end of the Entry, will be deemed acceptable.

Still... Absorb the information while it's there, just in case.

Right. Now that there's finally been a fairly major addition -- hopefully the last addition I'll find myself making -- I thought I'd summarise the additions Ive made since the last comment I received (other than sprout's):

*Three changes of the title.

*Links to images of the manga, and a specific link to the relevant page of the Fan Web.

*A mention of the Radio Edition.

*A mention of the Kobe Gakuin Uniersity's theatrical club's performance of a theatrical version of She and Her Cat.

*A mention of Haru no Ashioto, and of its intro's showing at Dream Party.

*An additional note (so now you know) in one of the footnotes explaining the fact that the English title of Voices isn't a direct translation.

*A link to a page at freetype.net about Beyond the Clouds, which links to a trailer (in Japanese) and a page (which was one of my research sources) about Shinkai's other works.

*An explanation of how to find trailers for Voices, She and Her Cat, and Beyond the Clouds (again), and the intros to Bittersweet Fools and Wind - A Breath of Heart, for those intrepid enough to venture into the Japanese sites I can't link to.

So... does anyone have any comments? Have these additions been worthwhile? Do they constitute more detail than you really wanted to know about? Were you thrilled to learn that you can download these lovely trailers, and does being able to watch them make it easier to see what the Entry's on about? Is anybody still reading this, or have my deranged ramblings scared everyone (except sprout) away?

I'm still here, and I reckon this is looking just spiffy. Unfortunately it's not my week for making recommendations. Let's get some other Scouts in here shall we?


Scout

A post! A post! There are still Scouts around!

*Dances around ecstatically*

I'll break my prod,===== / =====>
Bury it certain fathoms in the ,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my .