It's a good thing, but it doesn't have to be a good effect.
On January 15, 2022, when everyone was still immersed in the joy of the upcoming New Year, a message about the classic domestic animation "Go Boy" suddenly spread throughout the domestic Internet and triggered a huge discussion in many online communities - the "Go Boy" series of animations will launch the third animation "New Go Boy" and release the latest promotional PV. "New Go Boy" will also take the stage to meet the audience in 2022.
Source: Weibo @ Sun Xiaosong's Sky (Note: Screenwriter of "Go Boy")
Although the popularity of "Go Boy" in the domestic Internet is definitely not low, it is inevitable that people will feel a little like a world apart when they hear such a news related to "Go Boy". For the "post-90s" and "post-00s" who now occupy the majority of "surfing", "Go Boy" is a childhood memory, but this also shows its quite obvious "sense of the times". The most recent "Go Junior" series of animations is "Go Junior 2", which aired in 2009, fourteen years ago. Since then, the "Go Boy" animation, like most old domestic animations, has no following, and has been placed in a corner of childhood memories by the grown-up audience. The publicity PV of "New Go Boy" can cause such a high degree of discussion on the Internet, which is largely due to the surprise of netizens who "reunited after a long absence" for "Go Boy". After all, everyone has a strong affection for childhood feelings, and they also value these classic animations that accompany their childhood.
However, as mentioned before, the last "Go Boy" animation has been fourteen years ago, and most of the children who watched the animation by the TV set have also crossed the 18-year-old hurdle and entered the adult world. It is true that the news that "New Go Boy" will be broadcast in 2022 is enough to make those netizens who like "Go Boy" excited, but in fourteen years, there are too many things that can be changed - the progress of technology, the aesthetics of the audience, the requirements of the public, these have undergone earth-shaking changes. Audiences who have experienced various Japanese comics and domestic 3D animation "bombardment", the requirements for animation quality will only become higher and higher. The sum of many factors undoubtedly makes this "New Go Boy" born under strong pressure.
In fact, this is also the case, the publicity PV of "New Go Boy" has just been released, and there has been a trend of "polarization" in online evaluation. Although the duration of this promotional PV is only one and a half minutes, the art style, scene storyboarding, and even action special effects are quite completely displayed. The main characters such as Jiang Liu'er, Fang Baihua, Demon Sword King, Chess Ghost King, etc., have all appeared. Undoubtedly, the most discussed by netizens is the art and character image of "New Go Boy". Compared with the first two "Go Boys", the character image of "New Go Boys" has undergone great changes.
Image source: Central video
Taking the protagonist Jiang Liu'er as an example, jiang Liu'er in "New Go Boy" is more aesthetic and can also match the aesthetics of most netizens, but compared with the "realistic style" of the first two parts, there is less heroism and boldness. Netizens are naturally quite sensitive to the change of character painting style, especially these characters that touch childhood feelings. This is also a problem that many classic animations have to face when they make sequels or remakes.
In addition to the changes in character image and style, there is also a controversy about 2D animation and 3D animation. Nowadays, looking at the entire national animation market, 3D animation has become the mainstream, and most of the large-scale domestic animations will choose 3D animation. However, "New Go Boy" still maintains the style of the first two films and does 2D animation. For this point, the support and opposition voices on the Internet are more obviously divided. However, in the domestic netizens of the general aesthetic fatigue of 3D domestic animation, it may be a better choice to change the taste of a 2D animation. Besides, the first two "Go Boys" are 2D animations, and if "New Go Kids" is hastily changed to 3D animation, it will have some impact on the childhood feelings of netizens.
Incidentally, the sequels to "The Adventures of Jackie Chan", which are also regarded as childhood classics, have been changed to 3D animation, but most viewers do not seem to buy these two sequels.
Regardless of the painting style and production technology, the characters in "New Go Boy" have also become a hot topic of discussion among netizens. Logically, as a sequel, as long as the "New Go Boy" keeps the previous work's character unchanged, it will basically not "overturn". But ideas are often simple and beautiful, but reality is mostly complex and cruel. Judging from the official information, the Jiang Liu'er in "New Go Boy" has grown up, and after the baptism of years, the Jiang Liu'er in his youth must be different from his childhood in terms of mentality and cognition. This will inevitably modify the personality of Jiang Liu'er to a certain extent. On the other hand, it is the "historical legacy problem" left by the broadcast of "Go Boy 2" in 2009 - in "Go Boy 2", the main character Chess Ghost King was added, and the settings of characters such as Jiang Liu'er and Fang Baihua were very different from the first part. This once led to the reputation of "Go Boy 2" plummeting, so the persona in "New Go Boy" must be cautious.
"Go Boy 2", which was questioned by the audience because of the plot, can be regarded as a turning point in the reputation of the "Go Boy" series from prosperity to decline. Facts have proved that "feelings are greater than the sky", and arbitrarily changing people is a "big taboo" that touches the bottom line of the audience. In the comment area of the "New Go Boy" promotion PV, I can see many netizens, hoping that this animation can "correct the chaos" in the human setting and return to the initial setting of the first "Go Boy".
However, this does not mean that "New Go Boy" can succeed as long as it reproduces the setting of the first animation. In fact, the first "Go Boy" itself has many problems, such as painting collapse, chess game errors, and even scenes that violate the rules of Go. Although many viewers watched "Go Boy" when they were young, the light rushed to burn and the plot, but after so many years, looking back at "Go Boy", I found that in the main business of Go, it happened to be the most flawed. This even once caused the "Go Boy" to copy the "Chess Soul" on the Internet, and even the screenwriter of "Go Boy", Teacher Sun Xiaosong, has mentioned it.
Source: Zhihu
Teacher Sun Xiaosong also promised that he would focus on taking care of the chess game in "New Go Boy" and solving the problem of chess game errors. "New Go Boy" will hire professional chess players to guide, and strictly requires the storyboarder and the mid-term company to follow the chess score, so that the characters in the animation fall one by one. At the same time, he also clarified that the first "Go Boy" was guided by Go, but due to the limitations of the construction period and technical strength, the chess sheets in the animation were not checked in the end. This is also one of the changes he strives for in "New Go Boy".
By the way, netizens also specially linked up with Ke Jie, a well-known domestic Go player. According to Ke Jie's date of birth, it is most likely that he has seen "Go Boy", and he himself has been jokingly called "Genius Go Boy" by netizens.
Although the promotional PV of "New Go Junior" was only released not long ago, the planning of "New Go Boy" was implemented as early as 2019. Teacher Sun Xiaosong contacted the original team of the first two animations and tried to recreate a new era of "Go Boy". He mentioned all of this in Weibo. In addition, "New Go Boy" is 52 episodes long and maintains a duration of more than 20 minutes per episode. Judging by the quarterly standards of Japanese animation, this is already a proper "year". There is no doubt that this will cost a lot of human, financial and material resources, let alone music, to promote this.
Teacher Sun Xiaosong and teacher Wei Xiaohan, who scored "New Go Youth", did not hide the embarrassment of tight funds, but hoped that the audience could give "New Weiqi Youth" more tolerance in this regard.
It is true that from this promotional PV alone, "New Go Boy" still has many problems and many places that need to be optimized. In the eyes of netizens who have watched various animations, it is impossible to leave a stunning impression like "Go Boy" in that year.
But from the efforts of the creative team and the choices made in innovation and retention, I can feel their determination to restart the animation of "Go Boy". This makes "New Go Boy" a little different from those deliberately emotional sequel animations.
Let's leave a little more time for New Go Boy.
After all, it's only out of a propaganda PV right now, isn't it?