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Ashen Phoenix wrote:

Teriyaki Terrier wrote:

All of the blame should be placed on Fansubs and fan translations. As well as the recession. Simply put, if there weren't fansubs, Geneon would still be around and ADV flims would have completed Yotsubasa this year.

While I think mass amounts of sub-par and poor quality anime have also contributed to a degree, I most certainly agree that fansubs and fan scans are the majority of this issue and need to be stopped.

I don't think you can blame more than a tiny portion of the drop on the quality for the drastic drop. Thousands to tens of thousands of people are still watching these "sub-par quality" shows while the DVDs sell a fraction of that. It's not like everything before 2002 was stellar stuff and its not just the "sub-par" titles that don't sell well.

That's usually just an excuse. "Well, I watched th whole thing but it was wasn't very good so I wouldn't have bought it anyway." Of course, they would only have been able to make that judgement after they've seen it, and if they were not able to get it for free, they might have bought it and then watched it.

I've been seeing the same kind of thing in other places relating to games. "I like the game I pirated, but its not worth $X. If developers want people to pay, they should make better games...." It's a load of crap. People used to be willing to buy things they liked that were less than amazing. "Good" was good enough to buy. Now people will only buy the best of the best, if even that, and they lay blame on the people making it for not making a good enough product while they pirate it and watch/play it anyway.

I would also say that the fact that 300 titles were coming out a year, and over 60 in a single season was part of the problem. It was simply too much for the market to handle. People can only afford so much, especially at Japanese prices, and the more titles there are, the more the money gets split. Fans might want several of the titles being released but they can only afford one. This doesn't account for the absolute drop in sales but it would certainly eat into the sales for individual titles, though the effects are impossible to measure.

Another problem is simply fans leaving the fandom without new fans coming in. Eventually, some people stop buying or simply cut back for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they simply loose interest, they can no longer afford it, the titles they like are no longer being made, their tastes or standards change, whatever the case, they stop buying. If you have new fans/customers coming in, this isn't a problem. But if you don't....

Fansubs can account for some of the lack of new customers but not all. The value people place on physically owning their media seems to have gone down all around. People no longer have to own hundreds of CDs, they can download it all through iTunes... and they would be quite happy to do this for everything else as well.

shikage wrote:

Really, for me personally and many people I know, fansubs are not directly a cause for a drop in sales. The outrageous pricing scheme of the companies licensing the anime series in north america is by far a more significant factor.

Quite simply, I can not justify paying roughly $8 - $10 an episode for an anime series. Individual disks of 4 episodes costs as much as an entire season of a north american TV show. Also, being in Canada I don't have options such as what Funimation and ADV stream on their sites, sites like hulu or have for purchase at reasonable prices through iTunes. Even without fansubs I would be left relying on convention attendance to watch anime at the prices they sell for here.

I am certainly glad to see that many of the North American companies (well mostly Funimation at this point) are licensing anime at a much faster rate and even getting it released somewhat more quickly. But if they are going to continue to charge $25 - $35 (again, canadian) for a 4 episode disk than it's not really going to help them much.

People used to pay $35 American dollars for 2 episode VHS tapes. They also used to buy based only on what they read in magazines or heard from other people. At best they may have seen a bit at a convention, a friend's house, or a school club, but they often bought shows they didn't see a minute of before hand. Imagine that!

This argument about overprice single DVDs worked as recently as a year ago, but not so much now. Singles are largely dead. (And even then, if you have a checking account, you are more than capable of taking advantage of online retailers and getting much, much better deals than brick & mortar stores or conventions.) Collections have become the norm and we may well be seeing the last of singles releases this year. Or at least the last from companies not called Media Blasters.

And prices have continuously been going down since, well, a long time. Anime was much more expensive on VHS than DVD. In the early days of DVD, 8 volumes for 24-26 episodes was normal, then it went down to 7, then 6... but despite prices going down, sales continued to drop.

The thing about blaming the price is this: If buying it is your only way to see it, you'll buy at least some of the titles you want to see even if you think the prices are "outrageous". Many people did just that. But when a free option is available, you can just watch that and then blame the companies for unfair pricing when you don't pay up.

(Note that this is coming from someone who watches a ton of fansubs each year, and also spends several thousand dollars a year on anime. And I'm a full time college student! I now use RightStuf to get great deals, but I payed those "outrageous" prices back when I was still in high school, often at MSRP or close to it. I saved my allowance or barely above minimum wage pay from a 10-hour a week job to buy DVDs, manga, and video games. When I wanted something, I worked for it and payed for it with my hard earned cash.)

TatsuGero23 wrote:

4Kids is still around... think about that one. You got beat by 4kids....

4Kids is barely sticking around given they dumped virtually all of their Anime Holdings, pissed off fans, and lost two Major Licenses to boot (Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh)

Last edited by RenTers on Tue May 05, 2009 6:32 am; edited 1 time in total

Quote:

In January, TV Tokyo began streaming popular anime on the Crunchyroll video site to paid subscribers on the same day as their Japanese airings, with free streams available seven days later. Yukio Kawasaki, TV Tokyo's animation business manager, said that the company curbed illegal distribution and responded to the needs of fans who do not want to wait to watch anime.

If anything, its not just fansubs that would be "killing" the industry. The fans can be the blame for just being too damn impatient.

Would it kill you to wait for a new DVD/Manga release each month? Viz took action and started distributing the Naruto manga at a much quicker pace. So fast I'm missing out on my One Piece mangas :[

Yet once again they decided to blame fansubs - BUT - I did notice that ONE producer had a mind of their own and listed the REAL reason:

Quote:

An unnamed producer told Asahi that videos are not selling "because fans realized that more and more of the releases are the same kinds of titles with bishōjo and mecha elements added just because they are said to sell."

The studios that produced unique content saw less of a slide than others, but overall as a whole, the anime industry instead of being a medium for story telling like it was in the past, just focused in on two or three genres and became a money making machine, churning out volume instead of quality. THAT is the reason for the decline in anime sales, and nothing else.

It is about time that people in the anime industry got the stick out of their posteriors and woke up to reality. If you produce crap nobody is going to buy it.

Another killer in this area possibly more than any other is distribution rights and licensing. There are many shows which are simply never picked up in the UK, which I would watch, a current example is Moribito. I would happily buy this series, but the US release is borked, and no one in the UK seems interested. Annoyingly its been released in Germany, but only with German subs! I’m not sure 100% but I suspect they couldn’t put English subs on them.

Because the licensing regulations are so narrow in field, its actively preventing sales which could otherwise be made.

The vast majority of what I own, I saw first in fansubs. Fansubs can be used as a parallel to watching the show on TV (the way one would in Japan), with a person discarding and not distributing any series they do not like.

Problems with this system?
1) People use fansubs as alternatives to official releases.
2) Torrents turn everyone into distributors, rather than letting individual fansubbing groups have control over what is released.
3) People don't just use fansubs, they actually rip DVDs and post them online. This needs to be stopped, and fansubbers aren't doing enough to oppose it.

Possible solutionsfor eliminating the need/appeal for fansubs?
1) Streaming. I don't use fansubs for any series that is streamed, and try to boycott groups that fansub streamed series.
2) Wider awareness of how to rent/borrow anime from stores and libraries.
3) A return to the sharing-your-stuff model of anime from back in the days of anime clubs etc. Not only will it encourage anime fans to actual get to know each other in RL, it will also encourage a legal network of sharing anime to preview it.

The more these solutions get implemented, the less fansubs will be necessary, and the more support real fans will give to companies seeking legal action against fansubbers who won't play by the new rules of the game. Note I say "real," because anyone who doesn't support the industry in some way or another isn't a fan, they're a leach.

bzztt...if they made a guilty gear anime i would totally buy it

I was going to say something cynical and sarcastic (same thing) about how everyone should start having uncontrolled sex as fast as possible with as many partners that could be found.

Then I found the forum has degraded to talks of fansubs that had absolute dick to do with the original topic.

Course, I'm speaking in general. Several other good points have been made. I won't point out which ones in order to provoke speculation and mistrust.

What I dont get is: We are in a global market economy, SONY makes DVDs for Europe with 7 to 11 (maybe more) languages on it, why no sell those to the whole world???

Instead they have US releases, Europe Releases, S. American releases.... Hell, if you put English, Spanish and Portuguese subs on a DVD you hava covered a LOT of demographics!

prime_pm wrote:

Then I found the forum has degraded to talks of fansubs that had absolute dick to do with the original topic.

Well, the article did mention fansubbing and DVD-rips as part of the problem outside of Japan.

I would personally love to see the other aspect of the article, too: quality over quantity. The problem is, will that translate into better sales? Or has it truly become a niche-market, where series with (usually unnecessary) bishoujo and mecha tack-ons is what it takes to get something to sell? Will experimental animation (think Kaiba) fall by the way-side because it isn't marketable?

Venturing into didactic animation might work in Japan, but I strongly doubt it will sell in America, so that's an internal, domestic solution.

Ahh, some nice cold hard facts about the anime industry in Japan. It's nice to see they have not suffered as much as the American market, but it's definitely enough for them to change their business model. The new model of distribution through Crunchyroll and Funimation are wonderful, even if it will take me to the end of summer to catch up on every series they offer. Also as someone pointed out, watching a series fully on fansub jades the consumer, MANY series become so so and not the type to permenantly own.

I am sorry ADV and Geneon did not make it to this new age of anime distribution, but I hope other Japanese companies join TV Tokyo and Toei to offer more to Americans through Crunchyroll and Funimation. I do hope 2009 and 2010 see a stablization of global anime and that this new business model works, unfortunately only in hindsight will we know.

jsevakis wrote:

Teriyaki Terrier wrote:

All of the blame should be placed on Fansubs and fan translations. As well as the recession. Simply put, if there weren't fansubs, Geneon would still be around and ADV flims would have completed Yotsubasa this year.

No, this is as much about the Japanese market than the American market. Nobody will deny they're a factor in the industry's current woes, but hardly 100%.

But! This is an industry thread, so we all know where this discussion is going. Hell. Straight to HELL.

Let me clerify, if there were no fansubs or fan scandalations, the only competition would be between the anime companies and manga companies. I'll agree with you that is more about the Japanese market, more so than the American market though.

I'll admit, fansubs do bare some of the blame for the bad Japanese market, but maybe instead of 100%, maybe fifty or so. But none the less, fansubs have helped the sitution at all.

I agree with you with you one this topic turning into a big arguement, I wonder when it will be locked? It's not going to take long, that much I do know.

HitokiriShadow: relating fansubbing to DVD and game rippers is a bit of a stretch and overall bad association. Ya still illegal but fansubbers get their bad reps more from preempting legal releases rather then taking those legal releases and ripping them to the internet so they can get some attention. Fansubbing is generally a labor of love that works on 2 basic premises:

1) Getting to view a show the same time its released or at least in a speedy fashion.
2) Bringing a show over that may never be licensed in that region and showing others why you think it deserves to be seen.

Unfortunately there are other sub-numbers like ego, pseudo bragging rights/15 minute fame stuff, being cheap and all the other negatives vashfanatic pointed out.

I understand where your coming from with the "hey back then you didn't even have 10% of what we have now" stuff but that's one of the things that happens when something becomes more globalized. As the internet shrank the distances between nations and technology expanded itself it got to the point of being an injustice and cash grab with the licensers. It got to the point of "Hey, you can see this show unless you pay us. But we still won't really tell how the show is even though 'we' thing its good but maybe be lying a bit to get you to buy our stuff. And theirs nothing you can really do about it." and the fans going "F*** you we can do something about it.", putting us in the situation we were back then.

Yeah all that money you spent buying DVDs for that company helps support them and purchase more rights and liscenses. But it doesn't change the fact you just spent $60 - 120 on a crap series or a serie you discovered you just didn't enjoy. $60 being you were smart enough to walk away from the series or wait for a boxset and the $120 being either "sigh, I guess I'll try to support the industry" or "Maybe it'll get better towards the end." Otakus in japan at least have the opportunity to see and make those decisions before shelling out mad money for the series they love. That's what bothered alot of people outside of japan cause although you wanted to respect and support these licensers, they were trying to dupe you into some really crappy stuff just to get your money with higher probability of getting more money since your buying the series blindly. Then you had to deal with the japanese liscensers and their "We will not give you this series unless you take this one too for this much" deal which really hurt the industry because that was also a cash grab on the japanese liscensers end.

In any case anime is going through a transition, learning from past mistakes, communiticating with the source material more, and talking to the fans that it long treated as a source of income and market demographic rather then a community, as well as the world of fansubbing. So what happens in the next decade is still up in the air and no one really knows how long it will really take to find what we need in this day in age or if we do find it, if its where we will stay. Although for fansubber the light at the end of the tunnel isn't what current groups want but older, nobler groups dreamed about. Plus the fansubber community itself, growing more emo, juvenile, and troll infested. Thank you fansubbers of old for bring us some great series. And seriously fansubbers of today, why the hell are you trolling each other and going on with your internet drama? Yeah ignant fans are a pain but seriously, calm down. Their like 12 so just ignore them.

Problem with a lot of shows nowadays is that they don't appeal to me at all. I'm an 80s/early 90s OVA guy and I don't normally buy TV shows since most shows I will only watch them once and won't buy watch them ever again. I buy movies and OVAs when there's something good that's coming out for me (I pre-order the FOTNS movie which is coming out in two weeks). I downloaded Claymore and while it did entertain me it just wasn't special for me. If I purchase the TV box sets I would think it would be a waste of money for me since I won't rewatch them again. While I have a hard time rewatching TV shows I can rewatch movies and OVAs all the time because of shorter length plus OVAs are made with a certain audience in mind. By looking at my VHS tapes, Laserdiscs, DVDs and Blu-Rays it's mostly movies and OVAs in my collection.

I know a lot of people buy stuff from Funi but I never purchase anything from them in my life of being into anime. Mostly because stuff they release I have zero interest in. Mostly because they do current stuff and I just about don't like any current stuff in the market (well, except for the new Cobra OVA series, the Cobra TV series, and the new Ai no Kusabi OVA series which is coming soon but these won't have a chance in hell of coming out in the US. Which also makes another reason: Shows that I would like to buy won't get picked up by a R1 label).

Now here's a list of my favorite animes:

animenewsnetwork.com/MyAnime/?user=Descent123&categ=11

My taste in anime is so different from the current stuff that the newer shows are turning me off from new animes. I don't like moe shows, maids, fan service shows and etc., I like a Kawajiri dark action flick (Wicked City, Cyber City Oedo, Goku - Midnight Eye, etc.) and action stuff that doesn't look too "cute" for its own good (Gunsmith Cats, Bakuen Campus Guardress, etc.).

Or maybe I'm getting too old for my own good......

My sarcasm (re: fansubs) killed this thread. >.>;

I'm really wondering how much the animation industry in Japan really cares about overseas customers. The markets outside of Japan are extremely niche (in terms of entertainment dollars). Is this all businessmen in suits or are we talking real consideration and concern for overseas markets?

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