My Life In Fandom: "Arc" Opening Credits Are Online

The other day I put out the reminder that Getter Robo Arc is coming soon. Here's the Opening Credits, with the new theme song by JAM Project.

I remain enthusiastic about this adaptation. Yes, the possibility that this could turn out to be a disappointment remains; we'll see soon enough. Will we get the full horror aspect of the original manga? Not likely; this is meant for prime-time television, so there are limits, but within those limits I do expect the line to be ridden hard when they need to make a dramatic impact.

Is this opening credit sequence what you want to see for a Getter Robo show? Yes. You know exactly what's at stake and who's going to contest it within seconds, and you know what kind of show you're getting just as fast; these are vital things for bringing in an audience that includes existing Getter Robo fans, but are not already Getter Robo fans.

The same goes for the theme song. JAM Project may be getting up there--over 20 years as the band, and all of its core members were already 15-20 years in when they formed; we're talking folks who've been professionals for 30-40 years and have adult children--but they manage to bring the energy required, even if age is catching up to them. (Just see them live now vs. 20 years ago to compare.)

This is something too many people, especially those in the business, do not appreciate. Your teaser, your OP/ED, etc. are all sales and that means efficiently communicating to prospects what your thing is about at a glance; you've got 5-10 seconds at best, often 5 or less, to snag and hold their attention. Otherwise you have to hope that your word of mouth is good and play the long tail game; you're not Chris Pratt, or Amazon, able to play the big (social) media game for months on end to sell a film. (Yes, Pratt's film met expectations; expect him to do more like it when his Marvel gig ends.)

Whomever is handling the pre-debut marketing online for Arc seems to get the expectations game and is doing a good job managing them so far, because even though none of this is in English--not even Close Captioned subtitles--I do not believe that I'm missing important information and I expect the same is true for others that don't know anything about this but like this sort of thing generally.

Good luck to Arc. You're going to need it, because Armageddon looms large and you'll have to hustle to get out of its shadow.