Q&A WITH ADAM

Follow the trials and tribulations of two down-on-their-luck college guys who join an anime club dominated by crazed yaoi fangirls! (Archived forum section.)

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Neoridgeback
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Post by Neoridgeback »

Hey Adam, do you think that Aoi house would have been different if Uri house hadn't been introduced into the main story? Would it have ended differently, would it have gone on for longer, would Alex still have ended up with Morgan or would there be more war over him?

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Post by Adam_Arnold »

Neoridgeback wrote:Hey Adam, do you think that Aoi house would have been different if Uri house hadn't been introduced into the main story?
Given the nature of the book being about a club of yaoi fangirls, it's only natural that some sort of rival club would've been introduced at some point since "bizarro," opposite versions of characters are a storytelling staple. Aoi House was always going to meet Uri House in the con story arc. The extent of their rivalry is what changed, ultimately, as I was writing the third book. The original view was that Aoi House was good and Uri House was bad-ish...and it just didn't make sense. Aoi House and Uri House are two sides of the same coin. They're like Batman and Captain America. They might meet and beat the crap out of each other for a while, but they're going to eventually team-up. So that's how "the great con caper" story arc ending up taking shape, and it really worked well as the series was a lot more fun because of it. I mean... Sanae and Nina are priceless together.

Now, the "Silent Hill" arc was not something that I had originally planned. Aoi House In Love! Vol. 1 was going to end with the gang getting lost in Silent Hill, but book 2 was going to just open with the gang coming back really worse for wear and us not knowing what the hell happened to them. I felt that was a cop-out and the place I had left Elle at the end of Aoi House In Love! Vol. 1 needed to be explored. Aoi House Vol. 1 and 2 (book 1 and 2) were about Alex and Sandy coming to grips with a situation that they didn't expect to be in and making the most of it...and ultimately, enjoying it. Aoi House In Love! Vol. 1 and 2 was all about breaking Elle down and then building her up again so that she realized that she was a strong, independent woman that didn't need Alex. And that's really where the story was leading me as I was writing it. It was begging for me to make a clean break from the harem mold.
Would it have ended differently, would it have gone on for longer, would Alex still have ended up with Morgan or would there be more war over him?
My original game plan was for the series to be tentatively five books long and broken in this way:
Aoi House Vol. 1 and 2 (book 1 and 2) - covering Fall Semester
Aoi House: The Great Con Caper (book 3) - covering Winter Break
Aoi House In Love Vol. 1 and 2 (book 4 and 5) - covering Spring Semester

My goal from the beginning was to always get Aoi House to Hatsu-Con and go wild showing what an anime con was like. The glitch is that once I got there and started writing this book-long story arch, I couldn't see myself going back to the normal status quo and doing individual episodic stories again for two books. And since I didn't have a full plot anyway for two entire books, I decided that I was going to just write four books and that would be it.

Now here is an excerpt from the side-bar of the Aoi Notes in "Aoi House In Love! Vol. 2" where I talk about how the series might've ended...
BOOK 4’S ORIGINAL OUTLINE
Back before I had finished writing AOI HOUSE IN LOVE! VOL. 1, I had already created a loose outline for what the final volume was going to entail. With the exception of two chapters, the original outline is a very different beast from what ended up being written. So to show you just how different, here’s a peek at that first outline…

· EPISODE 10 would’ve had Elle leaving Uri House and coming back to find Alex and the others already back (albeit, looking like hell). The story would then follow classes starting back up and dealing with the new semester.
· EPISODE 11 was going to focus solely on Uri House and them discovering Luna-P is pregnant.
· EPISODE 12 would’ve focused on Alex and Morgan’s amusement park date.
· EPISODE 13 originally had Alex and Sandy meeting Oniisan. The chapter would’ve ended with a cage door slamming shut, the walls falling off, and the entire room being whisked away on the back of a flatbed truck.
· EPISODE 14 was going to be the big Spring Break finale where Alex and Sandy are put through an MXC-style obstacle course with their chosen girls as the prize.
· EPISODE 15 was always going to be an Echibond side story.
· And EPISODE 16 was always intended as an Epilogue chapter. Though, I was going to end it with the balloon race shot that eventually became Episode 14’s conclusion in the actual book.

Keep in mind that this outline was written before I was done writing “The Great Con Caperâ€

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aoihouselover
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hi again

Post by aoihouselover »

hi sorry for disturbing you agian especially in a different topic area but do know of any animes that are like or kinda similer to aoi house, and how long did it take you to collect everything in your room?

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Adam_Arnold
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Re: hi again

Post by Adam_Arnold »

aoihouselover wrote:hi sorry for disturbing you agian especially in a different topic area but do know of any animes that are like or kinda similer to aoi house,
Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo, Oh My Goddess, Genshiken, Otaku no Video, Comics Party, and Welcome to the NHK are worth looking into.

and how long did it take you to collect everything in your room?
I've been into comics all my life.
Been a gamer since I got an NES for Christmas 1989 (though, I grew up on Atari 2600 and a Tandy computer).
Have collected Batman and DC figures since early 1992.
I got into Dr. Who in April 1996.
And I started collecting anime/manga videos and merchandise in June 1997.

Neoridgeback
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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Neoridgeback »

Hey Adam, I've been wondering this for a long time, will you ever put up an archive of the original run of the aoi house done by artist Jim Jimenez, I had been thinking about it recently and I've never laid eyes on the original 36 episode run of the manga. would it be possible to see that original run again on the site?

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Adam_Arnold
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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Adam_Arnold »

The link's at the very bottom of the Aoi House archive in the section called "Extras." It's the first think in the list. But here's a direct link to the start of it:
http://gomanga.com/webmanga/index.php?s ... nal&page=1

Neoridgeback
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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Neoridgeback »

Adam Arnold wrote:The link's at the very bottom of the Aoi House archive in the section called "Extras." It's the first think in the list. But here's a direct link to the start of it:
http://gomanga.com/webmanga/index.php?s ... nal&page=1
Wow, thanks a bunch my good sir! btw great job with vampire cheerleaders so far

Neoridgeback
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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Neoridgeback »

Hey Adam do you ever regret straying from the episodic individual story chapter formula in aoi house, honestly after reading through the original run of the manga and comparing it to the official ending of the series I realized I missed that format of screwball humor which kept me laughing on tri weekly basis for 4 long years so much, and if you did, would you ever consider restarting the series for a third time and writing the story completely different from the current official print to bring back your brand of geeky, screwball college life humor that we all have enjoyed ever so much but miss terribly in the wake of the ending to aoi house that occurred 2 years ago now?

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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Adam_Arnold »

Neoridgeback wrote:Hey Adam do you ever regret straying from the episodic individual story chapter formula in aoi house, honestly after reading through the original run of the manga and comparing it to the official ending of the series I realized I missed that format of screwball humor which kept me laughing on tri weekly basis for 4 long years so much, and if you did, would you ever consider restarting the series for a third time and writing the story completely different from the current official print to bring back your brand of geeky, screwball college life humor that we all have enjoyed ever so much but miss terribly in the wake of the ending to aoi house that occurred 2 years ago now?
No, I could never relaunch the original Aoi House a third time. I'm pleased with how the series wrapped up as it's exactly where I wanted those characters to be in the end. I know where you're coming from with the episodic early volumes vs the longer storyline-centric later volumes. The idea was originally to do 2 episodic books, the con arc as one long storyline, and then go back to doing episodic stories... however, I had been currently writing 4-koma each month for Newtype USA and had really burned myself out on episodic tales and the book itself was screaming to tell stories involving both Aoi House & Uri House's casts.

About the only thing I would like to have done in retrospect is expand the Silent Hill arc further. But as for totally relaunching and redoing the series... no. I'm in a totally different place now than when I started Aoi House and anime fandom has really speed past me. It'd be hard to recapture that type of otaku magic...

Besides, I'm having too much fun writing Vampire Cheerleaders and Paranormal Mystery Squad... which, you may not be aware, are both totally set in the same universe as Aoi House. The books might be supernatural based, but the series have the same type of humor that Aoi House fans have come to love.

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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Ravenhull »

I noticed that VC has made the transfer to the new server. Is there any plans on migrating the Aoi House archive?
"Don't call me a dirty old man.... Cuz I'm not old... I'm of a fine vintage..."
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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Adam_Arnold »

Ravenhull wrote:I noticed that VC has made the transfer to the new server. Is there any plans on migrating the Aoi House archive?
It took about 3 hours to transfer Vampire Cheerleaders by hand... to transfer Aoi House, it'd probably an entire day. So I'm not sure right now. @_@

The real problem with Aoi House comes from the fact that there are 600 pages of strips and all of them have individual titles and blog posts. If Kisai can figure out a way to easily convert the archive (which is jpgs and php), then who knows. Maybe.

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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Ravenhull »

With Aoi House going active, even if it is reruns, do we want to pull this topic board up to the same level as the other SSE/ZC pages? May increase visibility to those who aren't already looking for it.
"Don't call me a dirty old man.... Cuz I'm not old... I'm of a fine vintage..."
"Get your mind out the gutter... you're crowding me."

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Adam_Arnold
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Re: Q&A WITH ADAM

Post by Adam_Arnold »

Ravenhull wrote:With Aoi House going active, even if it is reruns, do we want to pull this topic board up to the same level as the other SSE/ZC pages? May increase visibility to those who aren't already looking for it.
Hard to say. We kind of don't want it to overshadow Vampire Cheerleaders and Paranormal Mystery Squad, so we'll probably keep it in the current spot as a subforum.

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