Forum - View topicInterview: Aniplex Inc. President Koichiro Natsume
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24136 |
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@ Mr. sickVisionz:
This was included in a dtm42 quote, but I assume that it is actually your comment that accidentally got caught in a post quote of his:
My main point is that if you look at what it costs AoA per unit to put out a Bakemonogatari release, that cost would be reasonably similar to what NISA's per unit cost would be. Let's just say for the sake of argument that you are correct and NISA wouldn't have supplied the subtitled character commentary - in all other respects the type of Premium Edition that NISA puts out is similar to the type of Bakemonogatari LE that AoA put out. The cost of adding the translated subtitles for the character commentaries would not be high. Plus, keep in mind that if NISA licensed Bake, they might have had to pay a higher licensing fee than AoA did (that is an assumption on my part given that AoA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aniplex, whereas NISA would obviously be a completely unrelated company). So I don't think I'm wildly off base by saying that the per unit cost of physically producing a Bakemonogatari LE for AoA is not much different from the per unit cost that NISA's version would be yet the purchase price is 200% higher. Which all goes back to the fact that I am happy to buy a Ferrari at normal Ferrari prices but not so thrilled to buy a Ferrari for 200% more than it normally costs. |
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omoikane
Posts: 494 |
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I don't even know if this is true. I think you trust Oricon too much. To follow up on that something post, here's a more detail breakdown from ultimatemegax: http://vanishingtrooper.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/guest-post-by-yuyucow-anime-sales-analysis-part-2/ Click on part 1 and you can also find some interesting facts about Amazon preorder trending analysis As an aside that vanishing trooper blog has some pretty neat write-ups on Bones and Sunrise "production lines" if you want to wax on that "production quality"="budget" nonsense some more...
HEAR HEAR |
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rarirurero
Posts: 54 |
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@Blood-
French, German, Italian and Spanish speakers are used to having their content presented to them in their mother tongue, but if Aniplex were to dip their toes in by opening up to international orders on their AoA catalog, they could extrapolate from the "early adopter" sales numbers, which of those markets they should try to make a targeted release for, plus claim the money from the borderless extended English-speaking world, that currently goes to eBay, where a share of those profits inevitably goes to bootleggers. Anywayz: those 4 language regions are serviced by a healthy(?) industry that is still licensing, AFAIK. The problem regions, are small markets, like Norway. A population of 5.000.000 with an obscure language can be a daunting market for companies to try to break into, if they do not consider the fact that Norwegian kids study English at school in some form or another from the age of six. Also, no marketing to speak of is necessary, if you simply allow the Internet to do the work for you and don´t put up artificial barriers to people who want to buy your products. If I go to ANN at least twice a day, you can bet other ´English as a Second Language´ (ESL) speakers do as well. To blow dust off of a tired meme: "Shut up and take my money!" I put it to Aniplex and anyone else that if they want to push Japanese pricing for their wares around the world, then conforming to regions/zones on discs is losing them money AoA got my money for Madoka Magica, but not without me having to jump through the eBay hoop. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24136 |
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@ rarirurero - well, as I said before you bring up a very interesting point. It would never have occurred to me to think about selling English-language anime to Scandinavia and other countries that have smaller national language bases. And as you say, in this era of the Internet, there isn't even a need to have a physical presence there.
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 2215 Location: Springfield, MO |
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Well, he didn't say "We did just fine" with regard to Anime no Chikara. In fact, he admitted it wasn't a success. It would make no sense to use Guilty Crown as one of the counter points if it also wasn't a success. |
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Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3013 |
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Nightmare on Elm street, Lord of the Rings, and Golden Compass have no common thread. Compass/LotR are both fantasy movies based on books, while Nightmare is a horror movie with an original story. Also, according to Box Office Mojo, the worldwide gross for the Lord of the Rings movies is $2,917,506,956, almost 3 billion dollars. Worldwide gross for Nightmare on Elm Street is $25,504,513. Incidentally, worldwide gross for The Golden Compass is $372,234,864. So I assume in your analogy Madoka = LotR, AnoHana = Golden Compass, and Guilty Crown = Nightmare? Right? Oh, wait, I don't think that was what you were going for at all. Huh. Now it's true there are a lot of factors that make Nightmare a success despite those numbers, but if one simply looks at those numbers, it would look like a complete and utter failure even compared to things like The Golden Compass. But as I said, Nightmare on Elm Street was a success. Its budget was under 2 million (according to imdb), it spawned a huge franchise, and who knows how much it has made in dvd sales. It also was released in a completely different era and environment than LotR. Yet despite all these things, from a perspective of solely how much money it made, I'm sure Nightmare on Elm Street is nothing compared to LotR, an insignificant insect. Yet you yourself have no issue mentioning it in the same sentence, as a success like LotR? Why? It's true that Guilty Crown likely isn't a success on the same level as Madoka. So? Neither is AnoHana, even if it's closer it's still nowhere near that level. Yet you aren't objecting to its inclusion as a success. You have no problem including Nightmare alongside Lord of the Rings, despite them being nowhere near the same level. Yet you have an issue with Guilty Crown being mentioned alongside AnoHana and Madoka. Is it because you think Guilty Crown is a piece of crap? Well, fine, but it's clear that he was referring to Guilty Crown being a financial success. Last edited by Mad_Scientist on Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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*shakes head sadly* Ano Hana is nothing like PMMM which is nothing like Guilty Crown. But I wasn't talking about stories or what the source material was, I was talking about profitability. All three were produced by Aniplex. Same with the movie example. A Nightmare on Elm Street was nothing like The Golden Compass or Lord of the Rings. But all three were produced by New Line Cinemas.
Where are you going with this? You're arguing against yourself so much I don't know what position you are trying to hold. A Nightmare on Elm Street was extremely popular and profitable; it was so successful that it played a big part in New Line Cinema's revival in the 80s. Yeah, it didn't earn all that much, but it cost peanuts to make, and it gave the company a vital shot in the arm when it needed it. The movie and its sequels were undoubtedly a success for the company, and far more important than the seemingly paltry millions would have you believe. The Golden Compass may have earned more money but it also cost a vast amount of money to make; it's marketing budget alone was almost certainly more than the entire budget of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
You don't need to use the word "likely", absolutely nobody believes that Guilty Crown was more successful than PMMM. It is impossible to determine if Guilty Crown was a success without looking at the hard figures, which no-one here has access to. Whereas Ano Hana and PMMM were both obvious unqualified successes.
A Nightmare on Elm Street wasn't insignificant. While it didn't make the money of Lord of the Rings, both are unqualified successes. And as I've said plenty of times before, even if we take Natsume's word that Guilty Crown was a success, it wasn't a big one like Ano Hana or PMMM. I certainly wouldn't be trumping it up, unless I was specifically talking about the music and visuals. Fun fact that is only tangentially related to the discussion: New Line had the gall to claim that the Lord of the Rings trilogy had made significant losses, not a huge profit. This meant they did not have to pay out on several bonuses tied to profits to investors and Sir Peter Jackson. (That is, until they were sued.) You can imagine how pissed off we New Zealanders were to hear that. The lesson; don't trust the spin. |
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Fencedude5609
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The fact that he lists Guilty Crown along with Madoka and AnoHana is enough to determine that it was, in fact, a success. If it weren't he wouldn't have included it.
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Mad_Scientist
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 3013 |
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Here's the problem: Koichiro Natsume was. Specifically, he was talking about the fact that there was no source material, that they were all original anime series. He mentioned 3 series that shared a common thread, and you said it would be like mentioning 3 movies that don't share a common thread. Therefore, your analogy was flawed.
My post came out a bit more disjointed than I wanted, but the points I was trying to make are the following. 1) If one simply looked at theater sales, and compared Nightmare on Elm Street to Lord of the Rings, Nightmare would look like a complete failure. 2) Nightmare was not a failure. It was a success, which can be clearly seen by digging deeper or looking at it's long term impact. 3) If one simply looked at dvd/blu-ray sales, and compared Guilty Crown to Madoka, Guilty Crown would look like a moderate failure. 4) Guilty Crown might not be a failure. Though since digging deeper can't yet reveal things like budget, and we can't see what the long term impact of the show is yet, we can't say for sure. 5) In terms of financial success, many, many, MANY movies are going to pale compared to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That's meaningless though, it's possible to be very successful and not do anywhere near as good as LotR 6) In terms of financial success, many many, many anime series are going to pale compared to Madoka Magica. That's meaningless though, it's possible to be very successful and not do anywhere near as good as Madoka.
For all we know, there were weird behind the scenes issue with AnoHana that caused problems with the production and made it go way over budget, and we just never heard about it. Unlikely, but it's possible. No one here knows the cost of any of those series. What we do know is that Koichiro Natsume admitted that Anime no Chikara was a failure and gave Guilty Crown as an example of a success. We also know Guilty Crown apparently sold more than all three Anime no Chikara series combined. Now, I suppose it's possible that Koichiro Natsume decided to admit that Anime no Chikara failed, only to in the next breath lie about Guilty Crown, for some reason. But I don't see why he'd bother lying about one and not the other, especially when he could just avoid the subject of Guilty Crown entirely and focus on how great a success Madoka was.
Compared to Lord of the Rings, from a purely financial perspective, I'm pretty sure it was.
You're making the wrong comparison. He wasn't comparing it to Madoka or AnoHana. He was comparing it to Anime no Chikara. Imagine some time in the future, some company that has produced video game movies makes three new ones. One is a gigantic success on the level of recent comic book movies like the Avengers or the Dark Knight trilogy, one is a pretty big success though not on that level, and one is just a small success, nothing groundbreaking but still a 100 times better than previous video game movies. The head of this company then mentions all three movies as an example of how they've learned from their previous failed attempts to adapt video games. Would you find it odd that the small success was included?
Fine, but what reason would he have to lie about Guilty Crown right after admitting the truth about Anime no Chikara? Especially since the subject of Guilty Crown wasn't even brought up be whoever was conducting the interview. Last edited by Mad_Scientist on Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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HitokiriShadow
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ultimatemegax didn't write that. As it says in the link and title, Yuyucow wrote it. They are different people. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24136 |
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Well, all I can say is that I'm glad the disappointment of the Anime no Chikara experiment (and I actually liked two of the three: Sora no Woto and Occult Academy) didn't stop Aniplex from making continuing to make original content. I think anime is too dependent on manga, LNs and video games for its source material and I hope more companies follow the original material approach.
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Mesonoxian Eve
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This implies the "small portion" is negligible, and if this is what you mean, I can't agree to this. From reading various information, it is my understanding merchandise is "taxed" higher than other properties in the committee because it is the most profitable. This will include plastic disks. When a committee is formed, there's usually one company that will "bankroll" the significant portion of the production. Aniplex, for example, may pay 80% of a production, but can have 40% of the partnership. I say usually because each committee will differ. If Alter is a partner, they will be required to pay (at minimum) the licensing fee with the agreement a percentage of revenue is returned to the committee for each sale. Once the committee has earned back its initial costs, the committee is then responsible for paying out to the partners the 2/1/1 example as you describe. This only happens, though, if the committee is profitable. Interestingly enough, committees can usually last longer than some contractual agreements of the licensed work. For example, Tokyo TV may have a limited license for airing the broadcast, but their stake in the committee can exceed it by years. This is important, because without this, it's very unlikely Tokyo TV could earn a profit on the advertising alone. This model benefits the station because the show itself is the ad for the merchandise. I can't remember where I read it, but I was surprised to see GSC only earns about $7 for each Nendoroid they sell, which has a market price of around $30. If we assume manufacturing costs are $3 per figure, that's $20 that goes back to the committee and that's not something I would call a "small amount". If that's not convincing, remember the costs of making a DVD, then what the Japanese pay for them. That's why they're $80, because we also know sales in Japan are overshadowed by rentals, and rental stores also contribute a portion of the revenues earned (note: this assumes if rental stores work the same way Blockbuster did). Unless the series bombed significantly, it's reasonable to assume many committees are profitable because of this model. Profitable, of course, doesn't mean "stinking rich", but comfortable enough to allow other committees to be formed so the initial investment can be rolled forward. A far cry than what it used to be, when studios took much of the hit on costs in hopes for a distributor to turn a profit. Finally, before I go... Hitler! For you, willag. 
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crosswithyou
 Posts: 2899 Location: California |
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Haha, this is exactly what I was thinking as I read dtm42's response. Mad_Scientist, the only thing that would make your reply better would be correcting your usage of "it's." "It's" is a contraction of "it is" whereas "its" is a possessive, and I think you meant "its" in a few of your sentences.
Anyway, dtm42, I think you are reading between the lines. I've been saying this all along, but the guy isn't making any comparisons between the three series. He was just saying that they were original series that did well for the company... nothing more, nothing less. |
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reanimator
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It can't be helped. As long as the contents of most anime are way they are, niche status won't go away. Most anime titles are already niche due to their edgy, unusual contents and now western fans are asked to pay high price for it. That's why we hear all these grumblings. Seriously, how many non-anime fans spend $50 for foreign escapist fantasy cartoons loaded with niche subject matters? Late anime have been on streams, downloads, and few TV channels, and yet they're still under the radar as far as mainstream pop culture goes. I would like to see non-core fans show their serious purchasing power on cheaper bare bones releases too. If they want to get taken seriously, then they have to show it. Core fans did. I understand that not all shows are success, but grumblings won't make things better either. @Kougeru When you say that some titles are cheaper to import than buy from the U.S., then you have to show us the source. Please mention the titles and the seller(s). Are they new? Are they from auction? You can't make unfair comparison out of spite. |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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Why would non anime fans be expected to pay any amount for anime? |
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