Abridged Shenanigans



I've been watching TeamFourStar's HFIL series. After the finished Dragonball Z Abridged, I actually unsubscribed from them, mostly because I wasn't interested in their top 10s, reviews, podcasts, etc. Some of their DBZ shorts were...okay.

And honestly that's about where I feel about HFIL, too. I can't put my finger on what it is, exactly. The computer animation isn't bad for an amateur studio. The voice acting is top notch as always. But while there are some zingers, I find the overall pacing just isn't as good as DBZA. For all the talent they have, I guess I expected something original to be better than this? I can't put my finger on what exactly is wrong with it. It's not BAD, necessarily. It's just kinda dull.
 
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Nov 28, 2008
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I've been watching TeamFourStar's HFIL series. After the finished Dragonball Z Abridged, I actually unsubscribed from them, mostly because I wasn't interested in their top 10s, reviews, podcasts, etc. Some of their DBZ shorts were...okay.

And honestly that's about where I feel about HFIL, too. I can't put my finger on what it is, exactly. The computer animation isn't bad for an amateur studio. The voice acting is top notch as always. But while there are some zingers, I find the overall pacing just isn't as good as DBZA. For all the talent they have, I guess I expected something original to be better than this? I can't put my finger on what exactly is wrong with it. It's not BAD, necessarily. It's just kinda dull.
If you want to feel better about it, it's not just you. I haven't watched their stuff in a while. I'm honestly surprised that they can make stuff with Dragonball without getting flagged on YouTube.
 
If you want to feel better about it, it's not just you. I haven't watched their stuff in a while. I'm honestly surprised that they can make stuff with Dragonball without getting flagged on YouTube.
It likely has to do with not using the original animation. For these shorts, they've been using their own animation, which probably helps shirk at least automated copyright claims.
 
Jan 30, 2009
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Nice country, too bad it's inhabited...
Copyright abuse is almost never punished, so why would they.

What i was saying is that without the animation it's likely that Toei's own lawyers probably told them it's a waste of their time, since they'd not even have anything to argue about in front of a judge.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Half the battle here is that by using their own CGI animation, they avoid YouTube's automatic copyright triggers, which is half the battle. Google hates to do anything that requires a person to actually perform an action, so if you put the onus on proving the copyright violation happened instead of proving your use of digitally cataloged footage is legitimate, it can go a long way.

Ironically this falls more into the category of derivative work than parody, because it is reusing existing characters and established settings to tell a new story, so it may not actually be as protected as straight up parody. It's just that Google hasn't set YouTube up to automatically catch derivative works because that's not something you can automate right now.
 
Jan 30, 2009
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Nice country, too bad it's inhabited...
it is reusing existing characters and established settings to tell a new story, so it may not actually be as protected as straight up parody.
The "new" story still relies on making established characters more ridiculous, so i wouldn't agree with that myself.


they avoid YouTube's automatic copyright triggers, which is half the battle.
Yeah, i was not disagreeing with that.

But, it was on this forum that i recall learning that the 4Star peeps where also getting industry roles during their last season of DBZA, and how that probably influenced them not doing the Buu Saga.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Dec 6, 2008
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My Hero Academia Season 2 in 8 minutes



I've never seen this show, the 8 minute version makes it seem like it's just a reskinned Naruto.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I've never seen this show, the 8 minute version makes it seem like it's just a reskinned Naruto.
It pretty much is.

I stopped watching it at some point, I forget where, but yeah. The constant jokes of calling the protagonist "Green Naruto" were right on the mark.

But hey, there's a formula for maximum profitability in Shonen works, and so that's what they went with.
 
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Jan 9, 2009
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I still watch MHA... the quality's still there. The manga is supposedly approaching it's end, so the show has maybe... 3 seasons left before they'll need to adapt Vigilantes or one of the other side projects.

One mark in MHA's favor? It's not afraid to address the elephant in the room in regards to supremacy (though it's "powered" supremacy and not "white" supremacy for obvious reasons) and it's society destroying power.