Questions about some anime soundtracks

[depa]

Hi guys, I have two questions for you:
- do you know if there's a big anime soundtracks database on the net like this one for VGM?
- I have interested to buy some old original soundtracks like "Saint Seiya" and "Hokuto No Ken", especially the first editions pressed in the late '80.
They can be easily found on ebay or on other places, but how I make knowing if they are items complete? Do these old anime soundtrack have registration card or other extrax like the ours VGM?
Give me some councils please.

[Gigablah]

We're prepping to extend our coverage to include anime-related albums, since the anime and video game industry have substantial overlap (with respect to both franchises and artists). We'll make an announcement on it when we're ready.

But for the meantime, Studio Neko-Han-Ten is my favourite. It's all maintained by one person (nonchan) and the tracklistings are pretty detailed.

As for your second question, there's no reason that anime soundtracks shouldn't have similar extras as VGM considering that most major publishers release in both genres. I have several anime albums in my collection from the early 90's and some of them have survey cards, calendars, even entire sets of postcards (as is the case with my copy of PCCG-00258). Unfortunately these extras aren't very well documented generally, so you'd just have to ask around.

[Anonymous]

Originally Posted by Gigablah

We're prepping to extend our coverage to include anime-related albums, since the anime and video game industry have substantial overlap (with respect to both franchises and artists). We'll make an announcement on it when we're ready.

What are the prerequisites? Is there more than 50% chance it will be ready this year? Is there anything an average user could help with to make it happen sooner?

[Secret Squirrel]

Hey, anonymous. You've asked a few times about our time-table, so I thought I'd explain.

As it stands, we've got one developer (Gigablah) who is responsible for all of the code. I do some work as well, but I mostly concentrate on secondary features, bug fixes, and prototyping. We've also worked with guest developers like Zorbfish; this works for tasks that are nicely self-contained like the freeDB server. Blah takes care of the big stuff because he's the one with the skills. We have some major features on the horizon, which in rough order include: 1.) product (game) linking; 2.) individual track credits (and more artist roles); 3.) public API. There is a fair amount of low-level work that needs to be completed first, namely cleaning up some legacy code and reimplementing some things from their current prototypes.

So yes, when viewed externally progress can sometimes seem slow, but it's also very steady. I think we've got a good track record of treating things very thoroughly while responding to what the community wants and needs. We could add more coders, but it's not very easy to add someone into an existing project and have productive results.

On the anime side, I've been trying to think of what needs to be done to lay the foundation for the establishment of a user-submitted anime resource. It is clear that the majority of the code and database structure will be the same, so I think a first big step would be to identify a core group of anime music experts who can contribute to the project. Of course, some experts are already here, but it is essential that this project be seen as a collaborative effort involving that whole community from the outset. We learned from experience with VGMdb that you need to start the community outreach very early to prevent difficulties later on.

So in concrete terms, we need to get the word out to other anime music experts, particularly those who run the various fansites, that we're interested in doing this, and we've got what it takes to make it happen. I think that the average person could assist with making these connections. We're probably not acquainted with the important players, or at least I'm not.

One other thing you can do is brainstorm -- just what is different between anime music and game music in terms of how it should be cataloged. All I know for sure is that we need an "anime classification" field parallel to our current classification. Another thing to discuss is just how much integration do we want between the two genres, considering that it seems likely that they'll have a shared database.

[Blitz Lunar]

There's one guy I know who goes by the pseudonym "SonRyu", I imagine he'd be very helpful with regards adding anime albums to the database. That's someone you could contact - or I could contact him, when the time is right. I'm far from an expert on anime music myself, but I'm confident I could also make some contributions that other people may not think of. I might just generally ask around as well, see if I know anyone who knows someone, etc.

Blah mentioned (on IRC) about a possible rebranding as well (Visual Arts and Game Music db, if I remember correctly), which would avoid the confusion of archiving anime OSTs.

It is unfortunate that there's no really good centralised anime music resource, and all the other resources that do exist are weak in comparison to their VGM counterparts, so I'm really looking forward to this when it happens.

[Secret Squirrel]

People hang out in our channel on IRC? I never liked IRC much, so I haven't been in there.

I've talked to SonRyu before, and he's definitely an expert. He's got an account here too.

[razakin]

Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel

People hang out in our channel on IRC? I never liked IRC much, so I haven't been in there.

Yes we do hang on the channel. :P

And that Visual Arts and Game Music db is damn nice name when in the distant future we can start adding anime soundtracks in here.

[seanne]

We have a channel on IRC? What's the connect info?

[Gigablah]

It's on psigenix (irc.psigenix.net), #vgmdb

[Blitz Lunar]

Channel: #vgmdb
Server: irc.psigenix.net

...as previously mentioned ^^;

edit: snap, beaten to the punch

[seanne]

Thanks guys, I must have missed that previous thread.

[KeyLogic]

I look forward to this expansion to include Anime music, I've been searching for a VGMdb-like site that archives Anime soundtracks for awhile now. Looks like my search may soon be over.

[zzeroparticle]

Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel

On the anime side, I've been trying to think of what needs to be done to lay the foundation for the establishment of a user-submitted anime resource. It is clear that the majority of the code and database structure will be the same, so I think a first big step would be to identify a core group of anime music experts who can contribute to the project. Of course, some experts are already here, but it is essential that this project be seen as a collaborative effort involving that whole community from the outset. We learned from experience with VGMdb that you need to start the community outreach very early to prevent difficulties later on.

So in concrete terms, we need to get the word out to other anime music experts, particularly those who run the various fansites, that we're interested in doing this, and we've got what it takes to make it happen. I think that the average person could assist with making these connections. We're probably not acquainted with the important players, or at least I'm not.

Well, the good news is that the anime music scene is pretty disparate and there's no real sort of unity (kind of like the game music environment before VGMdb came along) or more importantly, numbers. And I wouldn't be able to point at any major hubs beyond Gendou and a few subforums scattered here and there on the major anime forums. At least, not yet.

I've managed to round up a few anime music enthusiasts for a little side project of mine and they are aware, at least, that this database exists. It's a starting point at the bare minimum and we can work off of that further once the structure is in place.

Anyhow, I guess you could consider this as a statement of interest in helping contribute to a database's existence.

[Mika]

This is good news, I as well have been looking for anime soundtrack translations for ages and always come up empty. Though my help will probably be pretty small, I have access to some stuff that I can at least provide scans for. Maybe.