Forum - View topicRecent Ask John column
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Iron Chef
 Posts: 487 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Yes, yes, I know that Animenation and ANN are different, but this seems to be the appropriate place for this particular topic. Mods, if I'm wrong, please move the thread.
So Mr. Oppliger had this to say in today's Ask John column:
Now then. I ask you, our wonderful and loyal anime fans, what would be the response to subs-only releases? If they were both faster and cheaper, they would still sell, right? Isn't that kinda/sorta/maybe the solution to the neverending fansub problem? Release a barebones subs-only DVD months ahead of a full-scale-release with all the bells and whistles? If you ask me, this works because A) the "I GOTTA HAVE IT NOWWWWW!!!!!" crowd get their wish and the studios take a bit of coin and cred away from the fansubbers, plus they can then B) take their time on their Super Awesome Special Limited Artbox edition and release it *correctly* which would keep them from digging into our pockets several times (like with Evangelion's 2,347 different versions). Anyone see a problem with this? [Edit: Moved to Anime Forum -t] |
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Steventheeunuch
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I think it's an entirely subject-to-title argument and kinda silly.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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We Asian fans have been enjoying sub-only, cheaper, faster (and LEGAL) anime DVDs since the birth of dual-audio DVD technology. Like I said before, I don't understand why
This thread should be in Anime forum, by the way. "Talkback" forum is focused on feedbacks of news, columns and reviews provided by ANN. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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I agree with what he is trying to say, but to ideally work effectively it would have to start at the originating studio in Japan to be effective. I'm just surprised that that concept hasn't sparked in those studios executives yet.
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10461 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Several. 1) Higher Production cost You need to author two different DVDs, then you need to pay replication costs for them (like any manufacturing process, making 5000 copies of two similar products costs a lot more than making 10,000 copies of one product), then you need to pay to market and advertise two separate copies. You need to do all the data work, cataloging, inventorying, UPC work twice, selling and shipping twice. 2) Lower sales ranking Believe it or not, the ranking that anime achieves in various sales charts is somewhat important. If each product sold half as many copies but there were twice as many products, it would decrease the genres visibility. It great when there are two versions of Harry Potter in the top 10, but anime barely makes it into the top 100, splitting sales in half could drop it right off the chart. 3) pissed off retailers Which version do I buy, what do my clients want, do I even want bother stocking this if it's only going to sell half as many copies? If I wait for the complete version will a certain percentage of my customers go elsewhere to get it ? I have to order this bloody thing twice ? My staff have to enter and inventory twice as many products from this manufacturer, this costs me money. 4) Confused customers ANN readers need not worry, but what percentage of the anime buying public keep up to date with the news? "!&^%@!!!! I bought this DVD 3 months ago only with English subs because I though that's all there would be, and now the manufacturer is screwing me with a new dubbed version??? %^!!!! that, I'm never buying from this manufacturer again. What many of us have hoped for would be to see more Japanese releases with English subs on them. Of course, these would be expensive and probably R2. Would it be worth it for the Japanese to make these products if they'd only sell a few ? They wouldn't be able to make them for the prices R1 customers expect because it would drastically lower their Japanese income. Also, if the idea cought on, and a lot of copies shipped to North America, R1 licensers might be annoyed. Licensing fees might have to be decreased to assuage the R1 licensers and the decrease in R1 licenses would possibly be much more than the increased profit from R1 imports of the subbed R2 DVDs. Still, for those of us willing to spend the money, this would be the best alternative, it's been done a few time. -t |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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Tempest is correct, the difficulties and effects of doing so would do more harm than good. Plus with the overabundance of fansubs right now they'd be taking a large risk to please a fanbase that very often already has their hands on subtitled versions before licensing talks even started.
Due to the issues involved it would only push the prices of anime higher and it's still rather unlikely the release dates would be pushed forward much as it's the act of getting licensed that usually takes the most time. Stores would start carrying less anime as they'd then have to inventory twice the titles and it would push anime into an online purchase or specialty store only market which would only hinder or even negatively effect the genre's growth. |
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Iron Chef
Posts: 487 Location: Seattle, WA |
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See, this is why I ask these questions. You guys know what you're talking about! Thanks for the input, especially you, Tempest. Cheers!
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6901 Location: Kazune City |
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Sub-only may work for a few obscure/niche titles, but I think it's been established that the general market wants dubs on the DVDs. For some shows, like Sentimental Journey, Seraphim Call, Sukisho, the second Sakura Diaries release, the first 2 Sailor Moon seasons, and Cardcaptor Sakura, I think it's appropriate. No matter how much faster they manage to be, the companies still can't beat the fansubs that come out a day to a month after airing in Japan. People who own fansubs might not have any incentive to buy a sub-only DVD, since they already have a subbed version and not see any need to buy another, especially given the attitudes towards "official" translation, song subtitles, and cultural notes. Having dubs on DVDs might encourage some downloaders (assuming they aren't sub purists) to buy DVDs, on the lines of, "I like this show, I want to support it, the video quality of these fansubs isn't that great, and I can get an English language version as a premium."
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Emerje
 Posts: 7413 Location: Maine |
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I believe when John referes to American consumers sending their message he's refering to the VHS days when sub-only tapes sold for more in lower numbers. It just didn't seem like a viable solution at the time and I'm doubtful it would be one now. Also i think the industry actually likes to spread out their releases, it gives them a longer life and more time to generate interest. Even if sub-only DVDs were a possibility I doubt they would speed up releases for them.
Emerje |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18462 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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One should also remember that Anime Nation is an anime-related business - primarily a store, but they also do a limited amount of licensing and producing for American releases - so Mr. Opplinger is speaking from hands-on experience. He's doubtless personally seen (if not tallied himself) the sales figures for innumerable titles that have gone through Anime Nation. He's also made it no secret that he's as whole-hearted a purist as they come in the fan community, so he would certainly have no ulterior motive to exaggerate on how bad the sales figures are for sub-only releases.
As tempest has already pointed out, doing a quick sub-only release followed by a slower hybrid release just isn't practical or viable business-wise except in rare cases. Zalis116 also made a good point about the probable attitude of fansub devotees towards purchasing sub-only releases; we've seen that here in this forum. I also agree that sub-only releases, while they might be cheaper, are only ever going to be viable in special cases where the sales volume would be expected to be low. Personally, I'd never buy a sub-only release of a series if I knew a hybrid (i.e. sub and dub) version was eventually coming, even if it was cheaper and faster. But I'm also a dub-favoring person who likes the idea of building up a substantial library of anime, so mileage will vary on that. |
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daxomni
 Posts: 2650 Location: Somewhere else. |
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Why not just put subs on the original R2 release? The people who actually want the sub-only version would probably be willing to...
1. Buy an R2 player or crack their R1 player. 2. Pay the standard R2 price and shipping for each DVD Seriously. I know John has already said that adding an English sub to the R2 release would cost too much to ever be worth it, but I'm inclined to call this specific conclusion into question. |
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Steventheeunuch
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The most relative example I can give would be in regards to Takara and Hasbro with their Transformers. While a lot of Takara's market for their reissues and Binaltech are in the west (supposedly 72% of all reissues printed are sent to the US or other English speaking countries), they sold English-market rights to Hasbro, which means that Takara cannot release stuff that would directly appeal to westerners, in the way of English language instructions or details (you can however have names, etc, in English, but they're all "Meister", "convoy" etc as opposed to Jazz or Optimus Prime).
The English on the packaging can be seen as a tool for appeal to Japanese audiences who seem to love bits of English everywhere, so they can get away with it. It's a bit odd, but they wouldn't want to invade on an R1 licensors market, and they wouldn't want to shrink the market in R1 land any further, therefore that's why a lot of releases do not contain English subtitles. Just a theory 
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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While not widespread, this happens every once in awhile. There are a couple of times I've known people to go this route, but most people find the cost of importing prohibitive, moreso then a R1 sub-only release would entail. |
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.Sy
Posts: 1266 |
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If this situation were possible now, I wouldn't care either way. I usually can't buy things right after release because it takes a while for the price to come down. I like to hear the dubs and the subs, so giving one up might be difficult for me, especially if the Japanese dub happens to stink. But my primary concern is what Tempest said about retailers. If it's going to be harder for me to find something in a brick and mortar store, then I don't want sub only DVDs to be a trend. Cheaper is good, but faster doesn't affect me at all.
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Emerje
Posts: 7413 Location: Maine |
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A couple comments, though ultimately they don't change your point. Takara didn't sell the rights to Hasbro, they both own the franchise (equally I believe as a joint partnership), it's not a case where one has control over the other. What Hasbro does (in the case of the reissues) is buy Takaras products for their own use. Takara makes the reissues and Hasbro buys them and makes their adjustments (new packaging, child safe weapons, etc), you might notice that Hasbro uses Takara's decal sheets. Takara does do a majority of the work when it comes to Transformers, but only because they do a better job of and Hasbro really hasn't had much luck with their own figures since Beast Wars, but that's aside the point). Anyway, as for Alternators/Binaltech, it doesn't surprise me that many of Takara's products go outside of Japan, they are better made, but that's not to say Hasbro couldn't do the same figures, they simply chose to put as much work into them to keep the price low for casual buyers. Neither company HAS to do the figures that the other company does, both have done several figures that are unique to their own company. OK, I'm getting way off topic here. Back to what Takara and Hasbro can and can't do, Takara probably could include English instructions and what not if they chose to, but they really don't have a need for it. Takara and Hasbro break their distribution up into regions (so to speak). Hasbro takes care of English speaking countries such as those of North America and Europe, while Takara takes care of most (but not all) of Europe (China and Korea, but not Malaysia and Singapore or some other South-East Asian countries). What they do with their products from there on out is up to them. Takara actually has an entire line called "US Edition" where they actually sell import versions of Hasbro's Transformers. In a very strange twist Takara's EZ Collection uses the same packaging, title and all, as Hasbro's Legends of Cybertron, with the exception of Galaxy Force stickers and different paint aps on the figures inside. Alternately, many years ago Hasbro was doing exclusive online sales of Beast Wars II Lio Convoy and Galvatron to test the waters in releasing imports. Now, to bring it all together, I believe that when it comes to DVDs it's possible for Japanese distributors to do whatever English features they wish (English subs, dubs, booklets, packaging, and whatnot) as long as they're sold primarily in their own region. And really where would they draw the line against it? Remove Japanese tracks because they might cut down on the sales of Japanese releases as a cheaper alternative with more episodes for those willing to wait longer? Emerje |
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