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Hey, Answerman! - Requiem For a Mangastream

You can't pirate those sexy little PVC figures. I know plenty of people who don't pay a dime for anime and manga, yet will drop hundreds on PVC figures of the characters and other merchandise.

TitanXL wrote:

You can't pirate those sexy little PVC figures. I know plenty of people who don't pay a dime for anime and manga, yet will drop hundreds on PVC figures of the characters and other merchandise.

Give 3D printers a few more years, and I think we'll start seeing cheap homemade knockoffs of the PVC figurines. After that, it'll take time to improve the quality of the knockoffs, but it will happen.

Answerman: do you still go to conventions (aside from for "work")? I only ask because it seems like a lot of ANIME fans (people who watch and truly enjoy ANIME) do not. Why? Because they're full of a bunch of internet-meme spouting brats. How much cosplay now is taken with "Homestuck" or "Ponies" or "Dr Who" or various video game franchises? I'd say your odds are at LEAST 50/50, if you swing your arm out at an anime con you'd hit someone who would have no issue admitting that they either haven't watched any anime in the last 3-5 years or even ever.

Keep in mind the western anime fandom is one of the most spoiled communities on the planet for one simple fact: nothing that happens in the west really matters at the end of the day. Japan doesn't look at sales in America and make it's decisions based on that. What only matters is how much the series does in it's home country. Anime and manga lived for decades before it even got big in the US, and it'll live on even after it leaves (or more accurately, the licensing companies fold, since fansubs will still be going strong). That's the true fault of the comparison: American comics, shows, and video games don't have that luxery, which is why they're so concerned about piracy. All piracy really affects in the US is companies like Viz and Funimation, so people should be more concerned about supporting them than the original creators.

This brings up something I addressed in my own thread in the Manga section. What I believe is a huge potential growth area in terms of capitalizing on digital manga is being overlooked too long. An online version of anything associated with Viz will obviously only cater to mainstream title fans. So why not a online, subscription based digital manga site that caters exclusively to very niche titles that actually make up a large portion of titles released in Japan?

Keep in mind the western anime fandom is one of the most spoiled communities on the planet for one simple fact: nothing that happens in the west really matters at the end of the day. Japan doesn't look at sales in America and make it's decisions based on that. What only matters is how much the series does in it's home country. Anime and manga lived for decades before it even got big in the US, and it'll live on even after it leaves (or more accurately, the licensing companies fold, since fansubs will still be going strong). That's the true fault of the comparison: American comics, shows, and video games don't have that luxery, which is why they're so concerned about piracy. All piracy really affects in the US is companies like Viz and Funimation, so people should be more concerned about supporting them than the original creators.

Past wrote:

This brings up something I addressed in my own thread in the Manga section. What I believe is a huge potential growth area in terms of capitalizing on digital manga is being overlooked too long. An online version of anything associated with Viz will obviously only cater to mainstream title fans. So why not a online, subscription based digital manga site that caters exclusively to very niche titles that actually make up a large portion of titles released in Japan?

Like JManga, which has already published volumes from three different yuri series, Girlfriends, Poor Poor Lips, and Love My Life?

Answerman wrote:

And honestly, I've never really agreed with the argument that there's a large group of fans who just "will never buy anything anyway." Because a pretty solid percentage of those fans whose only exposure to anime is through fansubs and scanlations will gleefully spend the money to go to conventions, make costumes, and so forth. And that's not cheap. It costs a pretty penny to rent a hotel room in Baltimore, or to purchase enough plastic and PVC pipe to construct your own sword from Bleach.

Answerman: do you still go to conventions (aside from for "work")? I only ask because it seems like a lot of ANIME fans (people who watch and truly enjoy ANIME) do not. Why? Because they're full of a bunch of internet-meme spouting brats. How much cosplay now is taken with "Homestuck" or "Ponies" or "Dr Who" or various video game franchises? I'd say your odds are at LEAST 50/50, if you swing your arm out at an anime con you'd hit someone who would have no issue admitting that they either haven't watched any anime in the last 3-5 years or even ever.

This brings up something I addressed in my own thread in the Manga section. What I believe is a huge potential growth area in terms of capitalizing on digital manga is being overlooked too long. An online version of anything associated with Viz will obviously only cater to mainstream title fans. So why not a online, subscription based digital manga site that caters exclusively to very niche titles that actually make up a large portion of titles released in Japan?

Because of physical copies, we have this mindset that something needs to move a lot of copies to be profitable. Something that is very niche, and not attractive to a mainstream audience is not going to sell a lot of copies no matter what you do. Take the advantage of direct to digital (in multiple languages), so that costs to distribute it to reader are negligible compared to the costs with simply creating the title. The one difficulty to consider of course is DRM or other means to prevent unauthorized dissemination to non-subscribers. DRM makes people nervous and really preventing a subscriber from simply screen-capturing those images and posting them on a website is something I don't have a solution for. So yes it has its own challenges.

But I think there are people out there who want to support these niche title manga-ka, and the Mangafox, etc. user will still always be there but at least some revenue is coming from the fans who do care about the objectives of the industry, but importing is too much of an inconvenience/cost. And we can feel good that we are supporting artists of the type of stuff we like to read.

Then there's the idea that your con-goers are your biggest buyers. Like there was a panel last year by JET that was doing a survey on US consumption habits, and when asked "do you prefer to buy physically or digitally," pretty much everyone wanted something physical.

Past wrote:

... The one difficulty to consider of course is DRM or other means to prevent unauthorized dissemination to non-subscribers. DRM makes people nervous and really preventing a subscriber from simply screen-capturing those images and posting them on a website is something I don't have a solution for. So yes it has its own challenges. ...

What you do is don't worry about that dissemination. Either provide the most unobtrusive and invisible DRM or non at all, but worrying about that and trying to prevent that is just unrealistic.

People who think they're entitled to free anything need to be smacked in the head several times.

belvadeer wrote:

People who think they're entitled to free anything need to be smacked in the head several times.

Amen to that

Sippin Coffee wrote:

belvadeer wrote: People who think they're entitled to free anything need to be smacked in the head several times. Amen to that

I second that.