Do you pay attention to anime DVD menus?

[Harbinger-5]

I am wondering about what you guys make of the menu designs done for most anime releases. Do you pay any attention to them at all? And if you do, would you prefer that they be simple and "static" in most cases, or fun and moving?

I sometimes find it rewarding when I stumble upon a release with a well thought out menu theme, although I won't make a big deal if the menu consists of only an episode screenshot as a background (usually with the opening theme playing). As long as I am also able to navigate with ease, I wouldn't mind the design in most cases.

But with that said, I found the menus for Azumanga Daioh to be particularly eye-catching. While the menus were consistent for all six volumes of that show, having to see Sakaki being bitten by the kamineko in every volume sort of sets the comedic mood for my viewing.

Funimation does a good job with providing really nice static menus. Especially when it came to Shuffle!, where navigating through the colorful graphic design was eye-candy in itself.

[Njr Scrawl]

Easy use, all-in-one & no English language voiceover, (silence is better still), are all that concern me.

Looping music is irritating, as are animated scenes. The background can be plain colour if the above are there & it works. The less sub menus the better.

I do like to go to a menu by default on loading, rather than play straight away -latter not usually a R1 feature -. DVDs that have unskippable pre-menu trailers come from hell.

[Rev. Doc]

I don't mind moving menus but it drives me nuts to have a menu that utilize scenes from the show and it takes 30 seconds to get to where the menu loads up.

[Suwako Moriya]

While a pleasant menu can be nice sometimes, the main thing I want is the following two things. Easy Navigation so it doesn't require a miracle for me to find things. Minimal Loading times so I'm not spending forever in the menu. In other words the menu is there so I can watch the anime. The second it tries to replace the anime itself it becomes a problem.

[something]

I am wondering about what you guys make of the menu designs done for most anime releases. Do you pay any attention to them at all? And if you do, would you prefer that they be simple and "static" in most cases, or fun and moving?
The simpler and quicker loading the better. Prefer no animation because they'll probably spoil something and/or increase access times.

I spend no more time on menus than is necessary to set the languages to Japanese/subtitles. If I watched dubs, I'd be hitting "play" immediately and not fooling around with the menu at all.

The Spiral menus may be the worst menus ever, for replacing the names of options with bizarre mostly unrelated words. Idiotic idea.

[Draneor]

Do you pay any attention to them at all? And if you do, would you prefer that they be simple and "static" in most cases, or fun and moving?

I like well-designed and aesthetically pleasing menus. Ideally, the menu design should also be in the spirit of the show.

[halo]

I don't mind moving menus but it drives me nuts to have a menu that utilize scenes from the show and it takes 30 seconds to get to where the menu loads up.

I'm going to echo the people who don't like long wait times for the menu's. Scrapped Princess is one of the worst. I could have selected the languages and been skipping the OP by the time it finishes it's dumb animation.

[ZhenJi]

I like simple menus and easy navigation. I don't like looping music, I find it irritating. I also hate unskippable trailers - most of Funi releases have this.

[The Great Bear]

The simpler and quicker loading the better.

Exactly. Menus are just tools. I'd rather they be straightforward and cause as few problems as possible.

[Doom85]

I like menus like Gurren Lagann and the later Naruto sets with clips and music, though in Naruto's case they showed some major "spoiler" moments for those who hadn't seen the episodes yet. Though I'm perfectly fine with just music though.

Favorite menu of all time goes to Transformers 2007. That was just incredible, kudos to whoever did that.

[ArcticMech]

While a pleasant menu can be nice sometimes, the main thing I want is the following two things. Easy Navigation so it doesn't require a miracle for me to find things. Minimal Loading times so I'm not spending forever in the menu. In other words the menu is there so I can watch the anime. The second it tries to replace the anime itself it becomes a problem.

I'd have to second this, with easy navigation being more critical of the two. Without both components, the annoyance level runs extremely high. Aesthetics as well as the music can enhance or detract from the overall experience depending on how they are handled, but they are secondary factors.

[WTK]

The simpler and quicker loading the better.

Exactly. Menus are just tools. I'd rather they be straightforward and cause as few problems as possible.
That is how I feel as well. Fast and simple to navigate is all require. I don't need anything too fancy.

[ricecooker]

The menus only catch my attention if it looks really really nice (see NightJar authored titles) or if it has an annoyance that I'm forced to endure such as repetitive loop music or a snippet of a scene playing before I actually see the episode.

[Buckeye]

While I do like lively menus, I want to make sure that they load quickly. For menus on series like Excel Saga, I don't like the fact that they are playing stuff for like a minute before getting to the menus and that when you choose something, they do something outrageous before finally getting there. One menu that is really annoying is the one for Scrapped Princess since it takes a long time to get to the next menu with the magic casting in between. Menus for Media Blasters titles are also somewhat annoying since to get to the episode you want, you need to navigate through all other episodes preceding it. It's such a pain to do.

[Ty]

Menus in general have gotten less flashy over time and I appreciate the simplicity. I do take notice when they at least make the effort to clean up the screenshot they use for background rather than leave it all grainy looking. On the flipside you can't help but take notice and be annoyed by the long animated lead-in clips that are sometimes used for menus. Death Note comes to mind as a recent example, or the Star Wars collection. Just let me play the bloody thing I'm going to see these scenes soon enough anyway.

[halo]

Also, can we keep the music/sfx volume down in the menu. For example, the Betterman menu starts out with a thunderclap that has nearly blown a few speakers since it's so loud, not to mention it sends the dog running straight out of the room running and I have to go "mop up" after her if you know what I mean.

[meganly_chan]

I don't spend a whole lotta time navigating menus (I usually just pick a language and play), so it doesn't have to be spectacular. I can appreciate fun and thoughtful setups, though (like Trigun) but I don't really like looping music, or when something looks lazy, like it took them two minutes to make it and they didn't seem to care.

[pathos]

I only pay attention when they are annoying (looping menus, blech), or hard to navigate. Otherwise, no.

The best menus are the ones I don't notice.

[Prede]

I acually like moving menues over static images. I mean sure the non-moving menues look nice, but I could make that on my computer. Of course as long as the DVD works I'm happy. It won't ruin my opinion of the company, the DVD, or the show or anything, if the menue doesn't move. I just love stumbling on amazing looking moving menues. It shows a little hard work, and thought was put into the DVD.

CPM used to have some really cool types of moving menues. Every new series by them, was a surprise to me! Also I really liked the how the menue of the TV series of Cowboy Bebop was the opening scene, and of the movie was all CGI created, of whatever town that was. Those were REALLY cool!

It shows a little extra effert, and it really pays off when an anime company does an amazing DVD menue. It just looks cool, and really serves no purpose, but just something I enjoy. Many hollywood movies have really cool menues, and I like it when anime companies take a cue from them to do the same once in awhile (example Terminator 2 DVD's had an amazingly cool menue!) BUT I do not like when the menues are anoying/hard to navigate through, like how Viz did the Live Action Death Note movie. It was a cool idea, but very anoying... I would have rathered a still image, then that though. I never had a problem with a menue taking forever to load, and I hope it stays this way. Better fast loading still image, then long loading nice moving stuff...

As for music, looping is ok. Whatever works, as long as it isn't silent. I really dislike it when the menue has no music. Funimation is good as useing somber/slower menue music, that's not to anoying when looped over and over. ADV sometimes has a problem with not playing their music long enough, and it getting a little anoying (Nadia for example. It plays the intro music, but stops way to soon, and throws you off).

Also while I don't really like the idea of playing a clip before the menue loads, if your going to do it, please don't make it long, and full of spoilers from the show. When I play Death Note, I turn off my TV, until the menue loads. I like the menue, but I hate the lead. Who's idea was it to put a clip in front of the menue anyway? That's completely uncalled for. If they want to play something before the menue, play a clip of the intro, or something...

So if they are going to do a moving image, or something very complex, it better still be easy to navigate. It's not hard to make it easy to navigate(is that a pun?), but once in awhile they slip up I guess.

[a fist of JUSTICE!!]

The menu is just that- a menu. It should be clean and easy to navigate, with only the essential options. If it's flashy and fun, that's a bonus (see: Cowboy bebop remix), but ease of use should be first and foremost.

[Zalis]

I spend no more time on menus than is necessary to set the languages to Japanese/subtitles. If I watched dubs, I'd be hitting "play" immediately and not fooling around with the menu at all.When I watch the Japanese+subtitled versions on DVDs, I generally hit "play" and switch the options with the remote keys on-the-fly. Even less need to mess around with menus that way.

Normally menus are one of those things that only catch attention when they do something wrong, and for me this is generally:

Overlong load times, unnecessary interlude clips played while accessing submenus.
Cumbersome episode/chapter navigation, like on Media-Blasters' DVDs that don't have top-level access to all episodes, or the previously-mentioned Star Wars DVDs that combine ridiculous amounts of chapters and inter-selection load scenes.
Counter-intuitive arrow-key map layouts: If I press "Down," I'd like the cursor to go in a downward direction, even if that leads to "back to menu" rather than the next chapter on a different row.
Not so much a menu issue as an authoring quirk: if I select episode 3 from the scene selection menu, chances are I want the disc to proceed to episode 4 afterwards, not dump me back to the scene select. I've mainly noticed this on some Rightstuf releases like His & Hers and Shingu. It was annoying enough that I would press Play All and skip ahead to the second episode if that's where I was starting from.

Some standout menus that I can think of offhand were Steel Angel Kurumi, which had a haunting musical background playing over clicking gears, and Vol. 6 of the original Cowboy Bebop singles, which started playing "Tank!" but gave way to modem-hiss/hacking and switched to "Memories," the tune that plays over Spike's flashback in episode 1 and elsewhere. Very fitting for the contents of the final disk. Sadly I don't think the Remix version does that.

[Konoha]

The Spiral menus may be the worst menus ever, for replacing the names of options with bizarre mostly unrelated words. Idiotic idea.

The worst menu I ever saw was on the Blame! DVD. All the options were in an alien language, and 4 or so of them just led to alien error screens. Most $%@^%ing annoying menu ever.

[Daniel_Perales]

The Spiral menus may be the worst menus ever, for replacing the names of options with bizarre mostly unrelated words. Idiotic idea.

The worst menu I ever saw was on the Blame! DVD. All the options were in an alien language, and 4 or so of them just led to alien error screens. Most $%@^%ing annoying menu ever.

I think the most annoying menu that I ever encountered was on the first volume of "Hand Maid May".

Anyway, I don't mind menus that are animated, but the looping music is on a case by case basis (some are nice, while others are so damn annoying). Also, I kind of like menus that acts like a screensaver, too. Especially good for people who still have CRT (I have a CRT RP), and plasma sets.


Danny

[Suwako Moriya]

The worst menu I ever saw was on the Blame! DVD. All the options were in an alien language, and 4 or so of them just led to alien error screens. Most $%@^%ing annoying menu ever.

All right then, I want to know how much drinking is required to make a menu that stupid...

[Puppet Master]

Don't pay any real attention just want to get off the menu and to the show/movie/OVA or whatever I am watching itself. Whether the menu is simple or fancy doesn't matter so long as it doesn't take a long time to load which is annoying.

[Isuzu Inugami]

Usually I hate a long lead-in to the menu (a short one is okay--as in one or two seconds) although very rarely it's done with such genius that I don't mind, like Real Bout High School, vol. 1, which looks like a fighting game.

Too simple is bad also--I don't want to think I'm looking at bootleg quality menus. Although again there are exceptions, and I kind of like the simple, static art nouveau of ADV's Shattered Angels. Looped music can be annoying, although I don't usually spend enough time in the menus for it to loop--although I always thought it would be neat (if problematic in the rights sense) for the full length OP or ED music to be used in the menus. If you can loop 30 seconds of audio, why not loop 4 minutes, right? But generally I prefer ambient audio--nature sounds and the like, something appropriate for the show--in the menus.

I'm in the habit of selecting language options through the menus, since some DVDs play alternate angles depending on your choice, which you wouldn't get switching on the fly. I prefer a simple "Japanese language, English subtitles" as a single option rather than having to select language and then go on to select subtitles. I suppose I should respect that there are a handful of people who want the language without subtitles (or English language with them) and haven't figured out they can change subtitle options on the fly, but still, it gets annoying.

[russ869]

The Spiral menus may be the worst menus ever, for replacing the names of options with bizarre mostly unrelated words. Idiotic idea.

The worst menu I ever saw was on the Blame! DVD. All the options were in an alien language, and 4 or so of them just led to alien error screens. Most $%@^%ing annoying menu ever.
Yeah, those suck. I can think of few other menus with totally nonsense option buttons. The Spriggan movie for example.

[Fencedude]

Usually I hate a long lead-in to the menu (a short one is okay--as in one or two seconds) although very rarely it's done with such genius that I don't mind, like Battle Royale High School, vol. 1, which looks like a fighting game.

The DVD menus are the best part of Real Bout High School

But in general, if I'm thinking about the menus its a sure sign they DID IT WRONG

[Danime]

The more bandwith left for the A/V the better.

[Ty]

This topic reminds me that we never see Nightjar work on anime dvds anymore. Another victim of the Geneon fold, though I recall they did do work for other studios at times.

[Zalis]

I'm in the habit of selecting language options through the menus, since some DVDs play alternate angles depending on your choice, which you wouldn't get switching on the fly.But angles can be switched on the fly as well; I do that with most non-recent Funimation releases. There's only a few random cases like Funi's Slayers sets where playback is entirely controlled by the menu choice.

[Harbinger-5]

This topic reminds me that we never see Nightjar work on anime dvds anymore. Another victim of the Geneon fold, though I recall they did do work for other studios at times.
Yeah, it's a shame since they did great work on a lot of Geneon's titles. Although I also liked 342 Media's work. According to ANN, they have worked on the menus for the Tsukihime and Shana DVDs (both have really good designs).

[Darkex]

Menus aren't that important to me though if I had to choose I would prefer moving menus with music.

[Zeether]

The menu for End of Evangelion is quite creepy...

[KudosForce]

As a minimum, I don't mind having anime menus having anything in them, as long as they have something (I used to own a copy of Variable Geo and its menu was very bland and empty, so that didn't cut out for me).

[Cyber Inviso]

I like the DVD menu from Air (candy eye) & Shakugan no Shana with the moving backgrounds and fancy effects with the music looping. But one thing that was annoying was a long introduction to the menu like from My Neighbor Totoro and Ah! My Goddess: The Movie. Keeping the delays low or none to each menu will be best.

[hikaru004]

Do you pay any attention to them at all? And if you do, would you prefer that they be simple and "static" in most cases, or fun and moving?

I like well-designed and aesthetically pleasing menus. Ideally, the menu design should also be in the spirit of the show.

Totally agree. FLAG has one of the best menu screens. Static screens are okay but show some orignality. I'm neutral on the looping music.

But with the newer players, load time shouldn't be that much of a concern unless people are playing them on computers.

[hikaru004]

The Spiral menus may be the worst menus ever, for replacing the names of options with bizarre mostly unrelated words. Idiotic idea.

The worst menu I ever saw was on the Blame! DVD. All the options were in an alien language, and 4 or so of them just led to alien error screens. Most $%@^%ing annoying menu ever.

Hahahahaha! I had problems with that menu too. I had to remember that it was every other selection. The "fun" degradation became worse when I upgraded my DVD player.