How in the heck is AnimEigo still in business? As near as I can tell, they still adhere to he old 80s/90s "sell huge series for $30+ dollars a volume" model, yet near as I can tell, they very well may be the longest running US distributor still in operation.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I'd wager because they don't take big risks, like Manga. They stick to very key serieses, and rely on their sales.
Quality over quantity. More publishers could take a cue from them.
Looking at AnimEigo's prices they don't look that bad at all. 8$ for movies. Bubblegum Crisis at 35$ (they have the total runtime as 453 minutes so there must be a lot of bonus material as the 8 episodes only total ~330 minutes), You're Under Arrest at 35$ per 13 episodes, Urusai Yatsura OVAs at 8$ for 2 episodes. Maybe not competitive with mainstream TV shows, but definitely nothing like the old 20+$ for 2 - 3 episodes worth.
EDIT: That and the fact they mainly sell well regarded older shows that mainly appeal to long-time anime watchers that might be more inclined to spend money rather than pirating might be enough to keep them going, though with nothing new it's a miracle they've not reached pretty much the entire market for said shows by now.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
The Bubblegum Crisis set includes the complete Hurricane Live concert, I think.
Anyway, the problems of the anime industry have nothing to do with piracy, especially as defined in the OP as people ripping R1 dvds. That's not even a fraction of a fraction of an effect.
The simple fact is that the business model they have is not workable. There are basically three products that they can produce that anyone would actually want:
1) Dubbed anime on normal TV. This has to compete with original Western animation, and if from the looks of it, it can't except for a handful of series.
2) Simultaneous sub-titled releases on the internet.
3) Collector's edition boxed sets with lots of extras.
I would not necessarily agree with #1. Certainly there are niche titles that would not appeal, but I think there are many series that are marketable enough if they were actually shown. (And some terrible ones that should have never made it onto Adult Swim...)
You also left out collectable merchandise for the franchise (wall scrolls/posters, figurines, etc) and music sales, which tie back into the anime partially.
If licensing and dubbing end up costing more than just making a series, however, it doesn't matter what their audience might be because they will not be competitive.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
It makes no sense when FMA:B gets better - it has sucky ratings in Japan, its losing to a series that is mostly Blu-Ray only (Quaszar) and fanbase has mostly left it. Its doing OK in the states but that isnt saying much.
Look, the fanbase and the "business men" need to go at it and let all there anger out. On why its not selling and all the rest. When that ends, then the fanbase has a choice - they can split the industry i.e. they dont touch what is dubbed or licensed and they "take" what isnt dubbed/licensed. Or, they (the pirates) can agree to get bought out by the dubbers and in turn work for the industry. Or, the fanbase needs to split - into those into the fashion and tropes of anime (Cosplay/Gunaplu/Model), those who are intellectuals, those who are fans of the anime themselves, and the perverted ones. This way - the companies know where they are working towards. If there smart - and many are dumb, Funi would start working with clothing companies and market Cosplay items along with the DVD/Blu-Ray - the lifestyle branding I talked about before.
But i fear many people say the industry is dead too soon. The next time anime comes back (and I have on good authority that if there is a next time DC and others will NOT be jumping on the bandwagon) if the "reboot" of the Kids TV industry fails to produce fruit - the dubbers who do survive will be Disney/Warner/Paramount/Hasbro's biggest competitors and those former four are in HUMONGOUS trouble. So if they survive this, they can survive anything and that has some in the big 4 worried...
Do you have a link? I'm interested in getting a source for TV ratings for anime.
Piracy isn't the issue that killed domestic anime sales, though it certainly didn't help. Wasn't even price as that steadily went down last decade, it was lack of TV exposure and various distribution companies paying too much for shitty anime properties. It's the reason why Funimation basically controls the US anime industry now; they bargained hard and didn't overpay on anything and concentrated on titles that would make some money no matter what.
That and I'm pretty sure all of their VAs are non union, which helps the bottom line considerably.
This is what I think is likely a major factor. It seems that most companies did this during the anime boom of the 90's (mostly due to DBZ). The market size of the anime industry was never sustainable in the long run. The industry inflating in response to a fad didn't help matters, either.
I admit it's mostly conjecture on my part, but it seems that this was a huge factor. You can't really expect a company to stay afloat with dozens of series when only about handful of them will even make a profit.
The anime industry needs new blood to survive and here's what I think is the things currently blocking them from coming:
1) No television presence. Adult Swim's not enough and kids' cartoon blocks usually star butchered anime that no one with half a brain wants to watch. People want to watch something first before buying it on DVD and if they can't get it legally then they'll turn to getting it illegally. Hopefully the increased amount of legal online anime streaming will help with this.
2) Bad fansubs. Fansub groups don't give a shit about professionalism and being correct, they just want to be the first kids on the block with a sub, even if it's absolutely terrible. If someone's trying to get into anime by way of fansubs they'll be scared away by the terrible grammar, tons of untranslated Japanese words, and honorifics all in confetti-colored subtitles covering half the screen.
3) Moe. The current (thankfully dying) trend in anime scares away people just by looking like what you'd expect a pedophile to get off on.
4) Anime conventions. Filled with people who have seemingly learned how to interact with others from the anime they watch, these put up a stereotype that people desperately want to avoid becoming, so they never even attempt to watch anime.
5) The word "anime". Anime has a ton of negative connotations attached to it (mainly from the 90s goldrush) that aren't as prevalent today, namely bad dubbing, animating at 10 frames per second, and $30 for 2 episode DVDs. I think a rebranding of some sort is needed to entice new people but I honestly don't know how it would be done.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
The animes that got the most positive buzz were the mature ones like Vampire Hunter D and Ghost in the Shell.
Basically they should stop doing harem anime #4315 and start doing meaningful ones again.
I have high hopes for Despera, the Lain team's next project, though I really have no idea what it's about.
2) Bad fansubs. Fansub groups don't give a shit about professionalism and being correct, they just want to be the first kids on the block with a sub, even if it's absolutely terrible. If someone's trying to get into anime by way of fansubs they'll be scared away by the terrible grammar, tons of untranslated Japanese words, and honorifics all in confetti-colored subtitles covering half the screen.
People who are not already anime fans are probably not even aware of the existence of fansubs.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I buy lots of DVDs but I buy pretty few anime ones. Price is the major reason. I rarely watch tv, I never rent movies and I only go to theaters once a year. Generally speaking I know little about any dvd before I buy it and some I never even knew existed. With the exception of just released on dvd movies and the odd television series most dvds are at a low enough price for me to impulse buy them and not feel totally burned if I don't end up liking them. This is not true with anime so I purchase very few and only those that I've heard good things about. With a lower cost I would buy much more but understand while companies can do alot to lower their price they may be too niche to get it down to my impulse buying price. Online distribution, focus on sell-able titles, getting content out sooner, negotiating better licensing deals from the creators, setting up NA tv contracts all seem like things to help improve their situation.
The problem is that piracy doesn't equate to 100% lost sales, but neither does it equal zero percent of lost sales. The problem comes in estimating the number in between.
Then again close to 100% of pirates, whether they would have bought the show if there were no alternative or not, will come up with some sort of bullshit rationalization for their actions.
"I wasn't willing to pay for the shows because I do not have the money or they are not worth it to me, but it was easy enough to watch anyway without causing harm (theft) so I did."
That's a rationalization and it's not at all bullshit. It does undermine the rationalization for intellectual property law though.
Sorry that's a bullshit rationalization. You have obviously attached some sort of value to the show or you wouldn't spend the time obtaining it and actually watching it. If the free option didn't exist or your morales disallowed you to use this option there would be some (while possibly very little) probability that you would actually pay money due to this value. Taking this and understanding how probability works in aggregate for a population means some lost sales are the result of piracy. I'm not going to claim any of that music industry bullshit that one download equals one lost sale or that its even close to that but claiming piracy causes no harm ignores the whole concept of probability.
Piracy isn't the issue that killed domestic anime sales, though it certainly didn't help. Wasn't even price as that steadily went down last decade, it was lack of TV exposure and various distribution companies paying too much for shitty anime properties. It's the reason why Funimation basically controls the US anime industry now; they bargained hard and didn't overpay on anything and concentrated on titles that would make some money no matter what.
That and I'm pretty sure all of their VAs are non union, which helps the bottom line considerably.
This is what I think is likely a major factor. It seems that most companies did this during the anime boom of the 90's (mostly due to DBZ). The market size of the anime industry was never sustainable in the long run. The industry inflating in response to a fad didn't help matters, either.
I admit it's mostly conjecture on my part, but it seems that this was a huge factor. You can't really expect a company to stay afloat with dozens of series when only about handful of them will even make a profit.
in addition to that the standard these days is to have huge long running series which are impossible to keep up with unless you have it steadily on a channel. DVD series get absurdly expensive in this format and most stations tend to give up about half way through with a series and this just kills any interest anyone could have.
The problem is that piracy doesn't equate to 100% lost sales, but neither does it equal zero percent of lost sales. The problem comes in estimating the number in between.
Then again close to 100% of pirates, whether they would have bought the show if there were no alternative or not, will come up with some sort of bullshit rationalization for their actions.
"I wasn't willing to pay for the shows because I do not have the money or they are not worth it to me, but it was easy enough to watch anyway without causing harm (theft) so I did."
That's a rationalization and it's not at all bullshit. It does undermine the rationalization for intellectual property law though.
Sorry that's a bullshit rationalization. You have obviously attached some sort of value to the show or you wouldn't spend the time obtaining it and actually watching it. If the free option didn't exist or your morales disallowed you to use this option there would be some (while possibly very little) probability that you would actually pay money due to this value. Taking this and understanding how probability works in aggregate for a population means some lost sales are the result of piracy. I'm not going to claim any of that music industry bullshit that one download equals one lost sale or that its even close to that but claiming piracy causes no harm ignores the whole concept of probability.
This is nonsensical. It is not a matter of probability. If a DVD is too expensive, I don't stand there and go "I'll roll a d100 and if it comes up higher than the price of this DVD, I will buy it!"
That's not how you make decision. There is some price which you are willing to pay. If the sale price is above this value, you won't buy it. Pirating it at that point has no effect. At most, you can argue that piracy depreciates the value by making the price you are willing to pay slightly lower. But the magnitude of this effect is questionable.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
on a related subject: What do you guys make of the arguments that fansubbing and whatnot will harm the industry in Japan? That, somehow the Western industry has become so intermingled with the Japanese industry that if one is harmed, somehow the other is too?
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I don't think fansubs do much harm. If a show is that good and it actually gets localized, then the fans will support its US release in some form or another, if only to critique the dub.
Those that don't buy it likely wouldn't have done so anyway.
on a related subject: What do you guys make of the arguments that fansubbing and whatnot will harm the industry in Japan? That, somehow the Western industry has become so intermingled with the Japanese industry that if one is harmed, somehow the other is too?
I think it has more to do with the fact that the shows don't make it to the states in an accessible form until it's already become un-popular.
Japan needs to realize that they should be tapping in to the much bigger American market more so, if not as much, as they focus on the Japanese. This would mean a nearly simultaneous American release of Japanese shows which should be possible for a studio, since it's already being accomplished by individuals from a basement.
One problem is that a lot of people still think that dubs suck, when the reality is that the majority of stuff being dubbed these days is pretty well-done, and most are faithful to the original. But the pure hatchet jobs that lots of anime used to get did a lot of damage to the concept of the english dub.
One problem is that a lot of people still think that dubs suck, when the reality is that the majority of stuff being dubbed these days is pretty well-done, and most are faithful to the original. But the pure hatchet jobs that lots of anime used to get did a lot of damage to the concept of the english dub.
The problem is that the most mainstream studio with the most TV exposure, 4Kids, did HORRID dub jobs for great material like One Piece. (Although Pokemon was actually good)
It's mostly sub snobbery though. There's always been gems in the dub realm, such as Cowboy Bebop, Virtua Fighter, and Golden Boy having amazing dubs that could be considered better than the sub.
Not to mention the NEW One Piece dub, which is freakin' excellent. Unfotunately, the 4Kids dub ruined the show's chances of being taken seriously by kids and wrecked the show's ability to get a TV deal. So now we have a series that's DBZ-popular in Japan, but a niche title here.
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I'd be more pleased with dubs if they kept high quality audio on the DVDs. But it's usually only the JP track that has good audio.
Also, while offensive JP seiyuus have rarely ruined a show for me, a mediocre dub voice in a particular role HAS. Also, the damnable decision to dub a Kansai accent as Southern.
2) Bad fansubs. Fansub groups don't give a shit about professionalism and being correct, they just want to be the first kids on the block with a sub, even if it's absolutely terrible. If someone's trying to get into anime by way of fansubs they'll be scared away by the terrible grammar, tons of untranslated Japanese words, and honorifics all in confetti-colored subtitles covering half the screen.
People who are not already anime fans are probably not even aware of the existence of fansubs.
I don't think it always works that way.
Hypothetical here:
Someone tells you "Anime X is awesome, you should totally watch it!".
You go "Ok, sure".
It's not on TV. Damn, can't watch it there.
The DVDs are horribly expensive. "Fuck, I'm not paying that much for a show I don't even know if I like."
So you hit the torrents. Download the first episode.
BAM, fansub. "WTF is this? This is crap. I thought this was a translation, what's with all the fucking Japanese etc etc etc".
I don't know, maybe I'm full of shit, but I can see this kind of thing being not uncommon. The non-availability of Anime through normal channels could push people towards getting exposed to fansubs whether they even know what fansubs are or not.
Many people will purchase things when purchasing is the only way to have access to them. Many people don't even realize this about themselves.
And many more people don't.
When you put money on something you tend to be more lenient towards it's flaws. Gurren Lagann would be a show I would have picked the first volume of up as soon as I saw it on the shelves had I not seen it fansubbed first. Because the name Gainax carries wieght in my mind, theyre good guys. But since I saw the whole show fansubbed and ultimately decided that it wasn't quite for me, this was after happily watching through the entire show mind, I never did pick up any of the dvds.
There's probably a good handful of titles Ive watched the entirety of and never put money on, though their flaws wouldnt be deal breakers had I bought them.
Somewhere deep down I'm justifying to myself why I shouldnt feel bad about this.
Though I will say that a few months ago people in the anime thread were posting their physical anime collections, and I definitely had a bigger pile of disks than alot of them.
I'd be more pleased with dubs if they kept high quality audio on the DVDs. But it's usually only the JP track that has good audio.
Also, while offensive JP seiyuus have rarely ruined a show for me, a mediocre dub voice in a particular role HAS. Also, the damnable decision to dub a Kansai accent as Southern.
Glaring american accents in dubbing are the reason I watch everything (bar Bebop) in Japanese. Not out of voice acting snobbery, but because man, AMERICAN ACCENTS.
It's the difference between something you don't understand but which sounds pleasing and lyrical to your ear versus something you do understand but which sounds slightly, subtly off (I'm Australian, for disclosure).
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I don't see how American accents are any worse than Japanese accents
I find a lot of Japanese VA work annoying, quite frankly. It seems like there's about three or four different male voices, and 3/4s of the female characters have the same high-pitched, squeaky, whiny-sounding voice. And then there's engrish. I hate how terribly-pronounced english is jammed into every damn anime these days. It sounds awful.
Some people here have mentioned that we could see more and more shows released with no dub at all...I think that would pretty much kill my interest in anime. I can enjoy the japanese versions decently enough, but in the end I would much rather have a real translation. I aint buying a DVD without an english dub, I'll say that right now.
's just a difference of opinion. So while I find some Japanese VA work annoying I find almost all American voicework annoying, so I don't even bother. That said, I appreciate that a lot of more casual fans (or just ones less annoyed by accents everywhere) would rather be able to listen to their shows naturally.
It might be possible to release seperate DVDs with subs and then DVDs with subs and dubs, but the subbed ones would be available faster, or something like that.
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OtakuD00DCan I hit the exploding rocks?San DiegoRegistered Userregular
The anime industry needs new blood to survive and here's what I think is the things currently blocking them from coming:
1) No television presence. Adult Swim's not enough and kids' cartoon blocks usually star butchered anime that no one with half a brain wants to watch. People want to watch something first before buying it on DVD and if they can't get it legally then they'll turn to getting it illegally. Hopefully the increased amount of legal online anime streaming will help with this.
2) Bad fansubs. Fansub groups don't give a shit about professionalism and being correct, they just want to be the first kids on the block with a sub, even if it's absolutely terrible. If someone's trying to get into anime by way of fansubs they'll be scared away by the terrible grammar, tons of untranslated Japanese words, and honorifics all in confetti-colored subtitles covering half the screen.
3) Moe. The current (thankfully dying) trend in anime scares away people just by looking like what you'd expect a pedophile to get off on.
4) Anime conventions. Filled with people who have seemingly learned how to interact with others from the anime they watch, these put up a stereotype that people desperately want to avoid becoming, so they never even attempt to watch anime.
5) The word "anime". Anime has a ton of negative connotations attached to it (mainly from the 90s goldrush) that aren't as prevalent today, namely bad dubbing, animating at 10 frames per second, and $30 for 2 episode DVDs. I think a rebranding of some sort is needed to entice new people but I honestly don't know how it would be done.
I beg to differ on #3.
Okay. I kid. Moe can burn in hell. Besides that, well, that list is mostly on the money. Adult Swim's really done a lot to kill its anime lineup last year. I heard the director really had it in for anime, or something like that.
Don't even get me started on fansubs. Such a horrible topic to touch upon. For those who don't know how bad it gets, check out Otaking's fansub documentary on Youtube. It's good stuff. That said, someone did make a point earlier here that fansubs aren't something outsiders would really easily stumble upon. For the American audience, TV exposure is usually the first thing. Well, nowadays, it's slowly turning towards the internet, I suppose.
Anime Conventions - I used to want to go to them. Back in the day, they sounded like the place to go! Anime didn't have a negative connotation (I'm still surprised about that. Mentioning it used to stir up great conversations when I was younger.) yet, and you had things like AX 99's cosplay contest. Nowadays it's just a bunch of consex-seeking freaks and attention whores. It's really sad.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I don't see how American accents are any worse than Japanese accents.
The prosody or rhythm of japanese is completely different from english. It tends to be much faster so english va usually need to rush their lines. Almost nobody ever talks as fast as an english line in an anime, most people are slower and more casual. It sounds very odd like somebody has put everything very slightly on fast forward.
In addition their sentences are backwards (or ours are backwards depending on your pov). This leads to strangeness where characters are reacting to the important part of a piece of dialogue well after the actual important part has been said or vice versa, depending on the sentence.
This happens with written fansubs too, but because 1). I have a decent enough knowledge of japanese grammar to be able to tell where the important word should be in the sentence 2). can thusly identify the strange word that is reacted to as important via emotional voice cues, timing and other spoken acting variables I find overall that japanese makes more sense because I can listen to the spoken language for the correct emotional cues after knowing what the semantic meaning should be.
I also don't give a damn about strange english because I know why japanese people can't pronounce words like us without serious effort and training. Knowing why a thing is the way it is and cannot be easily changed tends to result in increased tolerance, at least in me.
That's why I prefer it. It's not a long string of babble to me where I can't work out which end is which because I have a rudimentary understanding of the fundamentals of the language.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I don't see how American accents are any worse than Japanese accents
English accents or bust bro.
Seriously - how weird would it be to pick up a series and find it had been dubbed entirely in UK regional accents? The only thing I can think of that was vaguely comparable was Dragon Quest VIII (with some European accents mixed in) - and it was really refreshing.
I suppose that American dubs do lose an awful lot of their appeal outside America, because half of the appeal of dubs is that they make the dialogue more relatable to the viewer - if you're watching a Japanese show dubbed with American voices and mannerisms, you're that much further removed from the experience. That being said, most dubs are just distractingly bad anyway (even the 'better' ones detract slightly from my engagement) - but I notice the Ghibli films have had a suprisngly large amount of money and effort put into theirs, and it shows.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Seriously - how weird would it be to pick up a series and find it had been dubbed entirely in UK regional accents? The only thing I can think of that was vaguely comparable was Dragon Quest VIII (with some European accents mixed in) - and it was really refreshing.
As far as I know the original Hellsing anime was dubbed into British accents, although I haven't seen it.
I don't see how American accents are any worse than Japanese accents
English accents or bust bro.
Seriously - how weird would it be to pick up a series and find it had been dubbed entirely in UK regional accents? The only thing I can think of that was vaguely comparable was Dragon Quest VIII (with some European accents mixed in) - and it was really refreshing.
I suppose that American dubs do lose an awful lot of their appeal outside America, because half of the appeal of dubs is that they make the dialogue more relatable to the viewer - if you're watching a Japanese show dubbed with American voices and mannerisms, you're that much further removed from the experience. That being said, most dubs are just distractingly bad anyway (even the 'better' ones detract slightly from my engagement) - but I notice the Ghibli films have had a suprisngly large amount of money and effort put into theirs, and it shows.
I'd like to see their studios working together with western IPs. How often do we see something like The Boondocks? I don't think anybody calls that an anime. Same art, no stigmas. Probably because it's written by someone who can...write.
I don't see how American accents are any worse than Japanese accents
English accents or bust bro.
Seriously - how weird would it be to pick up a series and find it had been dubbed entirely in UK regional accents? The only thing I can think of that was vaguely comparable was Dragon Quest VIII (with some European accents mixed in) - and it was really refreshing.
I suppose that American dubs do lose an awful lot of their appeal outside America, because half of the appeal of dubs is that they make the dialogue more relatable to the viewer - if you're watching a Japanese show dubbed with American voices and mannerisms, you're that much further removed from the experience. That being said, most dubs are just distractingly bad anyway (even the 'better' ones detract slightly from my engagement) - but I notice the Ghibli films have had a suprisngly large amount of money and effort put into theirs, and it shows.
I'd like to see their studios working together with western IPs. How often do we see something like The Boondocks? I don't think anybody calls that an anime. Same art, no stigmas. Probably because it's written by someone who can...write.
It's been happening more often lately, though usually in a direct to video format. Hulk VS was animated by Madhouse and they're also working on the upcoming Ironman and Wolverine animes. And in the past few years there has been Afro Samurai, Batman Gotham Knight, and that Halo anime thing, all having at least some involvement from the east.
I don't see how American accents are any worse than Japanese accents
English accents or bust bro.
Seriously - how weird would it be to pick up a series and find it had been dubbed entirely in UK regional accents? The only thing I can think of that was vaguely comparable was Dragon Quest VIII (with some European accents mixed in) - and it was really refreshing.
that would be awesome. I'd love to see Dragon Ball Z with all Irish and cockney cast.
I don't see how American accents are any worse than Japanese accents
English accents or bust bro.
Seriously - how weird would it be to pick up a series and find it had been dubbed entirely in UK regional accents? The only thing I can think of that was vaguely comparable was Dragon Quest VIII (with some European accents mixed in) - and it was really refreshing.
I suppose that American dubs do lose an awful lot of their appeal outside America, because half of the appeal of dubs is that they make the dialogue more relatable to the viewer - if you're watching a Japanese show dubbed with American voices and mannerisms, you're that much further removed from the experience. That being said, most dubs are just distractingly bad anyway (even the 'better' ones detract slightly from my engagement) - but I notice the Ghibli films have had a suprisngly large amount of money and effort put into theirs, and it shows.
I'd like to see their studios working together with western IPs. How often do we see something like The Boondocks? I don't think anybody calls that an anime. Same art, no stigmas. Probably because it's written by someone who can...write.
It's been happening more often lately, though usually in a direct to video format. Hulk VS was animated by Madhouse and they're also working on the upcoming Ironman and Wolverine animes. And in the past few years there has been Afro Samurai, Batman Gotham Knight, and that Halo anime thing, all having at least some involvement from the east.
Ah, yes. Gotham Knight is fucking delicious. Afro Samurai is good too. Halo...well there were many parts that screamed anime bullshit to me, mostly involving whenever a female was on screen. (I was like "She's gonna die, she's gonna die, her? Oh, fuck yea she's gonna die") The silly one with Spartan 1337 was the shot in the arm the show needed for me.
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How in the heck is AnimEigo still in business? As near as I can tell, they still adhere to he old 80s/90s "sell huge series for $30+ dollars a volume" model, yet near as I can tell, they very well may be the longest running US distributor still in operation.
Quality over quantity. More publishers could take a cue from them.
AnimEigo always had good translations.
Not dubs. Oh god no not dubs.
Well, Oh My Goddess' was good.
EDIT: That and the fact they mainly sell well regarded older shows that mainly appeal to long-time anime watchers that might be more inclined to spend money rather than pirating might be enough to keep them going, though with nothing new it's a miracle they've not reached pretty much the entire market for said shows by now.
They also do promotions to entice new viewers, such as offering their Urusei Yatsura Vol. 1 DVD for 99 cents.
If licensing and dubbing end up costing more than just making a series, however, it doesn't matter what their audience might be because they will not be competitive.
This is what I think is likely a major factor. It seems that most companies did this during the anime boom of the 90's (mostly due to DBZ). The market size of the anime industry was never sustainable in the long run. The industry inflating in response to a fad didn't help matters, either.
I admit it's mostly conjecture on my part, but it seems that this was a huge factor. You can't really expect a company to stay afloat with dozens of series when only about handful of them will even make a profit.
Steam: pazython
1) No television presence. Adult Swim's not enough and kids' cartoon blocks usually star butchered anime that no one with half a brain wants to watch. People want to watch something first before buying it on DVD and if they can't get it legally then they'll turn to getting it illegally. Hopefully the increased amount of legal online anime streaming will help with this.
2) Bad fansubs. Fansub groups don't give a shit about professionalism and being correct, they just want to be the first kids on the block with a sub, even if it's absolutely terrible. If someone's trying to get into anime by way of fansubs they'll be scared away by the terrible grammar, tons of untranslated Japanese words, and honorifics all in confetti-colored subtitles covering half the screen.
3) Moe. The current (thankfully dying) trend in anime scares away people just by looking like what you'd expect a pedophile to get off on.
4) Anime conventions. Filled with people who have seemingly learned how to interact with others from the anime they watch, these put up a stereotype that people desperately want to avoid becoming, so they never even attempt to watch anime.
5) The word "anime". Anime has a ton of negative connotations attached to it (mainly from the 90s goldrush) that aren't as prevalent today, namely bad dubbing, animating at 10 frames per second, and $30 for 2 episode DVDs. I think a rebranding of some sort is needed to entice new people but I honestly don't know how it would be done.
Basically they should stop doing harem anime #4315 and start doing meaningful ones again.
I have high hopes for Despera, the Lain team's next project, though I really have no idea what it's about.
People who are not already anime fans are probably not even aware of the existence of fansubs.
Sorry that's a bullshit rationalization. You have obviously attached some sort of value to the show or you wouldn't spend the time obtaining it and actually watching it. If the free option didn't exist or your morales disallowed you to use this option there would be some (while possibly very little) probability that you would actually pay money due to this value. Taking this and understanding how probability works in aggregate for a population means some lost sales are the result of piracy. I'm not going to claim any of that music industry bullshit that one download equals one lost sale or that its even close to that but claiming piracy causes no harm ignores the whole concept of probability.
in addition to that the standard these days is to have huge long running series which are impossible to keep up with unless you have it steadily on a channel. DVD series get absurdly expensive in this format and most stations tend to give up about half way through with a series and this just kills any interest anyone could have.
This is nonsensical. It is not a matter of probability. If a DVD is too expensive, I don't stand there and go "I'll roll a d100 and if it comes up higher than the price of this DVD, I will buy it!"
That's not how you make decision. There is some price which you are willing to pay. If the sale price is above this value, you won't buy it. Pirating it at that point has no effect. At most, you can argue that piracy depreciates the value by making the price you are willing to pay slightly lower. But the magnitude of this effect is questionable.
Those that don't buy it likely wouldn't have done so anyway.
(The key words: if it's good)
I think it has more to do with the fact that the shows don't make it to the states in an accessible form until it's already become un-popular.
Japan needs to realize that they should be tapping in to the much bigger American market more so, if not as much, as they focus on the Japanese. This would mean a nearly simultaneous American release of Japanese shows which should be possible for a studio, since it's already being accomplished by individuals from a basement.
And many more people don't.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
It's mostly sub snobbery though. There's always been gems in the dub realm, such as Cowboy Bebop, Virtua Fighter, and Golden Boy having amazing dubs that could be considered better than the sub.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Also, while offensive JP seiyuus have rarely ruined a show for me, a mediocre dub voice in a particular role HAS. Also, the damnable decision to dub a Kansai accent as Southern.
I don't think it always works that way.
Hypothetical here:
Someone tells you "Anime X is awesome, you should totally watch it!".
You go "Ok, sure".
It's not on TV. Damn, can't watch it there.
The DVDs are horribly expensive. "Fuck, I'm not paying that much for a show I don't even know if I like."
So you hit the torrents. Download the first episode.
BAM, fansub. "WTF is this? This is crap. I thought this was a translation, what's with all the fucking Japanese etc etc etc".
I don't know, maybe I'm full of shit, but I can see this kind of thing being not uncommon. The non-availability of Anime through normal channels could push people towards getting exposed to fansubs whether they even know what fansubs are or not.
When you put money on something you tend to be more lenient towards it's flaws. Gurren Lagann would be a show I would have picked the first volume of up as soon as I saw it on the shelves had I not seen it fansubbed first. Because the name Gainax carries wieght in my mind, theyre good guys. But since I saw the whole show fansubbed and ultimately decided that it wasn't quite for me, this was after happily watching through the entire show mind, I never did pick up any of the dvds.
There's probably a good handful of titles Ive watched the entirety of and never put money on, though their flaws wouldnt be deal breakers had I bought them.
Somewhere deep down I'm justifying to myself why I shouldnt feel bad about this.
Though I will say that a few months ago people in the anime thread were posting their physical anime collections, and I definitely had a bigger pile of disks than alot of them.
FF14: ARR
Glaring american accents in dubbing are the reason I watch everything (bar Bebop) in Japanese. Not out of voice acting snobbery, but because man, AMERICAN ACCENTS.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
English accents or bust bro.
Some people here have mentioned that we could see more and more shows released with no dub at all...I think that would pretty much kill my interest in anime. I can enjoy the japanese versions decently enough, but in the end I would much rather have a real translation. I aint buying a DVD without an english dub, I'll say that right now.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
It might be possible to release seperate DVDs with subs and then DVDs with subs and dubs, but the subbed ones would be available faster, or something like that.
Don't even get me started on fansubs. Such a horrible topic to touch upon. For those who don't know how bad it gets, check out Otaking's fansub documentary on Youtube. It's good stuff. That said, someone did make a point earlier here that fansubs aren't something outsiders would really easily stumble upon. For the American audience, TV exposure is usually the first thing. Well, nowadays, it's slowly turning towards the internet, I suppose.
Anime Conventions - I used to want to go to them. Back in the day, they sounded like the place to go! Anime didn't have a negative connotation (I'm still surprised about that. Mentioning it used to stir up great conversations when I was younger.) yet, and you had things like AX 99's cosplay contest. Nowadays it's just a bunch of consex-seeking freaks and attention whores. It's really sad.
The prosody or rhythm of japanese is completely different from english. It tends to be much faster so english va usually need to rush their lines. Almost nobody ever talks as fast as an english line in an anime, most people are slower and more casual. It sounds very odd like somebody has put everything very slightly on fast forward.
In addition their sentences are backwards (or ours are backwards depending on your pov). This leads to strangeness where characters are reacting to the important part of a piece of dialogue well after the actual important part has been said or vice versa, depending on the sentence.
This happens with written fansubs too, but because 1). I have a decent enough knowledge of japanese grammar to be able to tell where the important word should be in the sentence 2). can thusly identify the strange word that is reacted to as important via emotional voice cues, timing and other spoken acting variables I find overall that japanese makes more sense because I can listen to the spoken language for the correct emotional cues after knowing what the semantic meaning should be.
I also don't give a damn about strange english because I know why japanese people can't pronounce words like us without serious effort and training. Knowing why a thing is the way it is and cannot be easily changed tends to result in increased tolerance, at least in me.
That's why I prefer it. It's not a long string of babble to me where I can't work out which end is which because I have a rudimentary understanding of the fundamentals of the language.
Seriously - how weird would it be to pick up a series and find it had been dubbed entirely in UK regional accents? The only thing I can think of that was vaguely comparable was Dragon Quest VIII (with some European accents mixed in) - and it was really refreshing.
I suppose that American dubs do lose an awful lot of their appeal outside America, because half of the appeal of dubs is that they make the dialogue more relatable to the viewer - if you're watching a Japanese show dubbed with American voices and mannerisms, you're that much further removed from the experience. That being said, most dubs are just distractingly bad anyway (even the 'better' ones detract slightly from my engagement) - but I notice the Ghibli films have had a suprisngly large amount of money and effort put into theirs, and it shows.
As far as I know the original Hellsing anime was dubbed into British accents, although I haven't seen it.
I'd like to see their studios working together with western IPs. How often do we see something like The Boondocks? I don't think anybody calls that an anime. Same art, no stigmas. Probably because it's written by someone who can...write.
It's been happening more often lately, though usually in a direct to video format. Hulk VS was animated by Madhouse and they're also working on the upcoming Ironman and Wolverine animes. And in the past few years there has been Afro Samurai, Batman Gotham Knight, and that Halo anime thing, all having at least some involvement from the east.
that would be awesome. I'd love to see Dragon Ball Z with all Irish and cockney cast.
Ah, yes. Gotham Knight is fucking delicious. Afro Samurai is good too. Halo...well there were many parts that screamed anime bullshit to me, mostly involving whenever a female was on screen. (I was like "She's gonna die, she's gonna die, her? Oh, fuck yea she's gonna die") The silly one with Spartan 1337 was the shot in the arm the show needed for me.