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[TykeJack]

So, I watched this anime a long time ago called Speed Grapher. I think it's on Netflix now but I just wanted to point out something that bothered me about the anime. First, a little back story.

So apparently there's this preteen girl whose saliva has the ability to unlock magical superhuman powers in like 10% of people she kisses. The other 90% of people die a horrible death. Some underground high society cult keeps her enslaved and only permit their most loyal members to chance their fate and kiss the priestess. Think about that Tom Cruise movie Eyes Wide Shut <-- it's that kind of creepy. Well, this investigative journalist ends up stumbling upon the ceremony and ends up kissing the girl, and instead of dying, it turns out he's one of the chosen few. His new power? He can now blow shit up by looking through the lens/view finder of his camera and pressing the shutter button (this is why I can post this on the photography forum).

So what bothers me? Well, later in the series he comes across a really big hyper super telephoto lens. The anime tries to emphasize the power of this lens by increasing the size and scale of his explosions when he looks through his camera. The problem? Well, using a telephoto lens would actually reduce your field of view and the size of the visible area in the lens would be smaller, yielding a smaller area of explosive destruction. I don't expect anime to adhere to reality, but I feel this was a blatantly bad move. Any photographer knows that a wider field of view(generally small lens) would allow the photographer to see more, therefore allowing him to blow up a much larger area. I mean, slap a fisheye lens to your camera and blow up an entire city.

I think the creators wanted to draw a correlation between the size of the lens and the size of the explosion. Have a monstrous tank of a lens and it would yield a monstrous size explosion, but in reality the opposite is true. So I guess the moral of this post is that bigger is not always better and I feel the anime stumbled by trying to reaffirm this sentiment. You hear the saying "It's not the size that counts but how you use it," a lot but when it comes to photography this is certainly the case. Just some food for thought.

/endlatenightrant

[nathancarter]

Perhaps it's the same amount of explosive power, but the resulting reaction is more intense when it's concentrated into a smaller area.

[sukotsuto]

I tried watching it a long time ago, but after a few episodes it got so disgusting, in my opinion, that I couldn't finish watching it. I can't think of another anime that was so bad I couldn't finish it like Speed Grapher. Anyways...

I think they should have made it like a sniper rifle instead of something that produced large explosions. Its easily noticed that that when shining a flashlight from the back of the lens, the dispersion pattern gets bigger with wide angle lenses and smaller with telephoto. Though I don't remember anything about how his powers worked.

[Access]

Tykejack, the question I would ask is, was the show aimed at photographers, or just people who like to see things blow up? Because shows are often written for their audience. Many shows of this nature will have to constantly top themselves (as well as other contemporary shows that are out there) in order to keep their audience. Unless it's one of those large franchises that can go on and on and maintain popularity with much of a plot or much happening -- this doesn't sound like one of those shows.

[sukotsuto]

Originally Posted by Access

Tykejack, the question I would ask is, was the show aimed at photographers, or just people who like to see things blow up? Because shows are often written for their audience. Many shows of this nature will have to constantly top themselves (as well as other contemporary shows that are out there) in order to keep their audience. Unless it's one of those large franchises that can go on and on and maintain popularity with much of a plot or much happening -- this doesn't sound like one of those shows.

Think of grotesque fetishes with photography patched on it and you get the gist of the show.

http://www.hulu.com/speed-grapher

Edit: A better photographer anime would be Flag. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_%28anime%29

[Surfsama]

Phhtttt: Answer these questions:

Battle Star Galactica: Lasers that hit nothing but cause explosions in the void of space.

Speed Racer's Mach 1: Why never had enough oxygen when underwater. Think they'd learn...

Star TreK: Opening the shuttle bay doors caused a light to blink on Sulu's panel but never enough warning to close the doors before the shuttle was stolen.

[TykeJack]

Originally Posted by Access

Tykejack, the question I would ask is, was the show aimed at photographers, or just people who like to see things blow up? Because shows are often written for their audience. Many shows of this nature will have to constantly top themselves (as well as other contemporary shows that are out there) in order to keep their audience. Unless it's one of those large franchises that can go on and on and maintain popularity with much of a plot or much happening -- this doesn't sound like one of those shows.

Oh, it certainly wasn't aimed at photographers. It's just a mature anime with adult themes and violence. If anything, all I was complaining about was a pet peeve. Many times people see a big lens and think "OH MAN, that lens must be sooooo gud," when in reality the lens is only good for a very specific purpose and is rarely a staple in most photographers' kits. It was Nathan's comment about a macro lens on another thread that reminded me of that anime, so I felt the urge to make a topic about something different than what we normally discuss.

I do like nathan's idea about a more concentrated beam yielding a more powerful explosion, but then a macro lens would reign supreme in this instance, though you'd probably blow yourself up if you used one.

For more information about the story, after gaining his powers, the photographer vows to protect the priestess magical kissing power girl from the other superhuman people working for the cult. The ending is actually decent and ironic, so I won't spoil it here, but the anime does drag a little bit in the middle.

[Neddog]

Originally Posted by sukotsuto

Think of grotesque fetishes with photography patched on it and you get the gist of the show.

Which is why I was quite surprised to see it pop up on Netflix (as the OP also mentioned). lol.

But then, Netflix does have porno movies as well I'm told... You just need to know the titles I guess, since they don't organize them.

[mrgetalife]

Ah its all in good fun. Somewhat related to photography. This section gets boring otherwise.

The anime creators were absolutely correct. The bigger the lens the bigger the explosion. Not seeing the anime. So I don't know if the view through the lens is telephoto or wide.

But lets agree two ways this explosion thing works.

1) Concentrated bomb. Ex you put a bomb in a concentrated area and it explodes it does more damage than a bomb just laid on the surface. Telephoto.
or
2) The seeing more destroys more. Wide Angle.
-----

May I present the one lens that can do both so either theory could work. The Bigma. Eg. The Sigma 50-500
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/product/50...-apo-dg-os-hsm

Or for even comical reference. The Sigzilla the 200-500 So while not "wide" if you're far enough away. 200 is wide http://www.sigmaphoto.com/product/20...-f28-apo-ex-dg

Two huge ass zoom lenses that have a wide choice of focal lengths you can choose from and will work at your plot device.

And Netflix when they only had DVD's at one point did have a Skinimax level of "porn" section. But they buried it when they were thinking of going public.

[Hcoregamer00]

If you think that is bad, there are many manga out there riddled with inaccuracies. Now I know that most manga artists are not camera buffs, so they don't know the technical details like us pro/prosumer photographers, but at least show us that you at least do some basic research.