Forum - View topicThe Future State of North American Anime
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10円
Posts: 605 |
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Anime Nation's John Oppliger has been singing this same tune for years now, over and over again, and he's just one of several folks who appear to be under the same impression. I have an exceptional amount of respect for John and I'm convinced that anything he says is what he truly believes. For those of you who are unfamiliar with who we're talking about, you really owe it to yourself to check out his column. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Oppliger#John_Oppliger http://animenation.net/news/askjohn_archive.php
Sales numbers might be steady or even way up, but if we're all waiting to buy until the singles close out at $5 each then the profits will still take a major nosedive. Even though I scored big on the $5 Geneon sale I could tell that this sort of thing probably won't last forever. It will probably last a few years, but eventually people will get wise to it and stop buying early so they can clean up at the last possible moment. Randall's solution seems to make a lot of sense because it recognizes that there is more than one type of North American anime fan. There are folks who won't ever spend more than $10 per disc and folks who will easily drop $50 without ever thinking twice. Series that don't have a large appeal will probably only be offered at the higher price points while extremely popular series could possibly be released with as many as a half-dozen price points. I'm not sure anyone will actually adopt such a strategy along their entire catalog line, but the reasoning appears to be sound.
The company line is just that, the company line. We need to take it at face value. Focus groups, dubbing costs, reverse importation and the like are just what they're willing to tell us. Perhaps BVUSA just happens to be the most frank and honest commercial enterprise ever created, but I wouldn't take everything they say as being the entire truth just yet.
If I was going to attempt to make any distinction at all I'd probably have to choose fansubs as being the more damaging of the two. Having seen both, fansubs obviously have the greater appeal since they are typically quicker, easier, and cheaper to acquire and they usually have a better translation and a higher visual quality than the bootleg DVD's. They also have this completely irrational and unfounded air of faux honor about them that bootlegged DVD's do not.
This is a very good point and one that is even more true of anime than video games. Video games improve very quickly compared to anime. I can watch anime from the 1970's and 1980's and still get as much out of it as I do from today's anime, but if I tried to play any video game from that far back it would have to be absolutely soaked and dripping with nostalgia to keep me the slightest bit interested. |
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Spotlesseden
Posts: 3514 Location: earth |
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i would like to know where do you get that? what source? for example, like total anime dvd sale of 2005 compare to 2006. |
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The Seventh Son
Posts: 380 Location: Where your missing socks end up. |
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anime? mainstreamed? yea right! its more known about, but to the point that its accepted by the general public....um, no. there have been attempts but these are by Toonami and 4kids, so they only make it worse, as we have all seen.
anime isnt popular the world over, and it will never be. more people will be into it, but theres a reason why anime is revered to as a SUB culture. personally, unless the pricess skyrocket, which it doesnt look like thats the way its going, i say bring the popularity decline on. anime has blown up way too much. its collapsing because of it blowing up, as said. i dont like so much public attention on anime. im for going underground. |
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indrik
 Posts: 365 Location: yonder |
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Fear my authoritative sources. Fear, I say. If only I kept these things, so that when a conversation came up, I could link to the sources. I apologize- feel free to ignore my unsourced ramblings.
I read an interesting (!) argument recently as to how fansubs hurt the industry. The first thing you have to do is pin it down to people who watch fansubs, and then buy what they like, excluding all other fansub watchers. The basic idea was that those people would have, at some point, bought a first volume of a series or two or three that they wouldn't have continued with. Apparently this sort of buying adds up to a significant portion of the income for some companies. My own summation: they're willing to license crap out of the hopes that somebody will buy even a little bit of the crap. With fansubs, that's less likely to happen. My counterargument would be that I can do that by hanging around internet forums, whether I watch fansubs or not. And basing some portion of your projected profit on fooling people into buying crap seems like something of a tenuous business plan. I've also read arguments that the current downtrend in anime buying is only slightly worse than the general downtrend in media purchasing, which has generally been blamed on filesharing. I think it's more an indication that people don't care about hard copies any more. I wonder if sub-only digital distribution might be the next wave, but I dimly recall reading that it's not working out so well for anybody that's not iTunes. I would not be happy about going back to paying what we paid for VHS tapes- I have kids to feed now, and I can't make the decision that everybody can live on peanut butter for two weeks so I can buy anime. If everybody goes to BVUSA's structure, I will be out of anime buying fandom and probably exclusively rental, as opposed to mostly informed purchasing and a little renting right now. There's also the problem that I tend to look on the outside edges of these things- I recall the OP does, too. I would rather have the selection available, mainly because I don't usually happen to like the "really popular" stuff. It does me no good to have cheap anime if there's nothing there that I want to see. I wonder if we'll see more things like Right Stuf, small companies picking up a series here or there that 's kind of on the fringes, and that they don't expect to be their primary source of income. (At least, I think that's how TRSI does it- I'm figuring retail is the money maker, the anime releasing end is essentially a side business, from an income point of view. I could be completely wrong.) I can't think of who would do that, though. Best Buy? But overall, if licensing fees are the problem, that will go away as more companies in the US are unable to compete, and the amount of money able to be paid for a series diminishes. Assuming, as always, that licensing fees are driven by economics. Although I don't know what else could be driving them, except the previously mentioned fear of reverse importing.
Many of those got Anime Classics or whatever they were called releases, putting them on two or three volumes with no extras. Does that count for this purpose? I'm not sure- they were cheaper, no doubt, about $45-60 for a series instead of $140-ish. That's roughly equivalent to many thinpaks, I think, and potentially goes to Randall's points on several different releases, although those were released well after the initial release. |
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Pepperidge
 Posts: 1106 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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Umm, you are aware that anime has been phenomenally popular with mainstream audiences in many countries in Europe and South America for decades, right? The problem with the US market is that, unlike in other countries, it's fallen into a trap where the market has become almost entirely fan-driven. And just to bring in a predictable and obligatory mention of Canada, mainstream audiences seem to be reasonably more receptive to anime up here than they are south of the border. Unfortunately, we're still kind of trapped in the same model, since North America is pretty much lumped together. Maybe they could find a better balance... I don't know. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I cant speak for other countries but the impression I've gotten is that its more popular there than it is here. I guess this all comes down to how you define MainStream. For something to be mainstream i would say it has to be at least known to the vast majority of people. At this point, Anime in North America is getting close to this, but definitely not there yet. In other countries though I think it probably is to this point. If the current trend continues, i think Anime will probly become mainstream here in not too long. One thing I dont think Anime will ever be here though is "cool". (and this is a large part of the reason it hasn't become mainstream yet.) Even if it isnt though, as time goes on it will still become more popular and more well known. |
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The Seventh Son
Posts: 380 Location: Where your missing socks end up. |
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i forgot about the middle east. anime is getting very popular there. didn't know about south america and europe. im just wondering, do they get better editing and dubs than we do? I've heard that somewhere.
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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1)They are ready-made DVDs that can be found easily and bought through seemingly legitimate means. I'm sure a fair number of people don't really want to spend hours downloading, certainly not dial-up users. Some fans don't even realize they aren't an official product. (I know that sounds nuts, but I can't think of any other rational explanation for how fans can bring them to people at conventions to be signed.) 2) Unlike fansubs, where you have that bogus air of honor, bootlegs are clearly a bad thing. If the anime companies go after eBay and other "legitimate" sources for them, it can only be to their benefit. It's nearly impossible at this time to do anything meaningful about the internet-based fansubs, but remove the easily available sources of bootlegs, and at least something has been accomplished that might help to bring a few bucks back into the proper channels. It is much easier for companies to fight companies than for companies to fight potential customers. Fight the battles you can win until you can win the war. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6897 Location: Kazune City |
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1) Bootlegs of series that are either unlicensed or not completely released in R1. These are Japanese audio only, and usually feature English and Chinese subs, with the English subs being Japanese -> Chinese -> English translations, resulting in Engrishy subtitles whose quality ranks below even the most mediocre of fansubs. 2) Bootlegs of series completely released in R1 that rip off the R1 DVDs. This means that they have English and Japanese audio with the official and/or professional translations. The only real "tradeoff," so to speak, is a loss in audio/visual quality from having 7 to 9 episodes on a DVD. I don't really feel like sitting here and comparing the damages of fansubs vs. bootlegs, but I have seen the effects of "Type 2" bootleg DVDs. Some people really do buy them thinking that they're the real thing, just cheaper because they're "imported." Someone I spoke to had a bootleg set of Berserk, and she swore up and down that it was the real thing, even though it only had a summary of episodes 10-13 on the back, aside from the other obvious bootleg signs like the "manufacturer" name, 3 DVDs instead of 6, region free coding etc. But to the less-informed casual buyers, who don't read ANN and AoD every day to get every detail of every release, there's enough to make bootlegs look like the real thing. For instance, the credits sequences of the episodes still have "English Language and Subtitled version (C) 200X by [legitimate company name]" intact, leading viewers to believe that they're watching a licensed product. The packaging often uses some of the R1 cover art or mimics the R1 packaging scheme, like the most significant Fushigi Yuugi bootlegs that used the red/blue/black coloring and Suzaku/Seiryuu/Oni naming scheme. Within the anime-watching populace, there are undoubtedly fans who read a review online or see a series on the shelves and think, "Oh, that looks interesting, I think I'll go DL it and check it out." (They may or may not buy the legitimate version later, but that's beside the point.) However, I believe there are also fans who somehow hear about a series, decide to do some comparison-shopping online, and find these low-priced, compact, complete collections with correct translations and a choice of two audio tracks. They then buy these sets, thinking that they've "done the right thing," and perhaps take them to conventions for signing:
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I hate to see people buying Bootlegs. If youre not willing to pay for Anime when you can download it for free, fine. I dont hold that against people who feel this way. But If you are willing to pay, its such a shame to see that money go to Bootleggers instead of the company.
As for which is more damaging, its tough to say. Firstly you gotta look at what you see more of. id guess fansubs more common. Ofcourse you also gotta consider, if such things were not available would people purchase the legitimate product? if not, then it really hasn't done any damage to the industry. Infact its better to have people download than not see at all because at least that way it creates fans and helps the popularity of the series. Does that make up for the cases where the people would have payed for it? I highly doubt it. Im just saying, because of this Bootlegs may actually be worse for the industry than downloads even if bootlegs are less common. |
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KyuuA4
 Posts: 1361 Location: America, where anime and manga can be made |
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Plus, it is competing with a very dominating US media - composed of Hollywood movies, network/cable TV shows, and sports. Right now, when it comes to entertainment, that is where the big bucks are. This implies, most American viewing audiences do not primarily watch animation. However, one thing anime has done is reduce domestic American animation. If these studios wish to keep up, they'll have to adopt the anime style themselves. |
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The Seventh Son
Posts: 380 Location: Where your missing socks end up. |
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oh great. thats the last thing we need. american animation starting to copy anime more and more.
actually, this could be thought of as humorous. Osamu Tezuka himself copied his style from disney characters with the big eyes, and now, as is being suggested, Disney could copy off of anime in the future if things turned out that way. thats something no one could see comming. heck, something even different than anime could come out of the mixture. but Titan A.E. had an anime-ish style, somewhat. |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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why is that bad? I can certainly see the reverse, Anime becoming more like american animation being bad. But if American animation copys Anime it really doesnt even effect Anime/Anime fans. |
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rainbowcourage
 Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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It is news to me that anime is becoming less popular, but I suppose the facts speak for themselves. The beauty of movies, anime or not, is that they combine things that have been separated for so long: words and pictures. The beauty of anime aside from movies is that they are more often moral-prone, or made so that audiences are forced to think and assess. Perhaps the problem in America is that the average person here is less disciplined, and prefers to be entertained mindlessly; they cannot appreciate anime for its intensity and thought-provocativeness (please take no offense, I'm American too and i am not lumping our fans into this category)
As I see it, another problem is the language barrier. Only giant money-making commercial anime makes it the U.S. (unless a company truly cares about quality rather than income which is rare) because producing an English dub is expensive and time-consuming. This means that anime fansubbed and not released in the U.S. but viewed by citizens is in fact illegal. However the fact is that since anime did start to trickle into the U.S., it has grown a solid fanbase here and there is always the chance that more people will discover this genre of film. Proof of recent triumph for anime fans is Miyazaki! I'm willing to bet that ten years ago nobody in America knew his name, and now many regular people, friends I have who had never even heard of anime before, have seen and enjoyed his movies. It may not seem like much, but often these movies are the first step for inquiring minds who are curious about anime. I have also noticed manga stands appearing in libraries more and more often. I prefer to be optimistic about the future of anime in america, but that's just my 2 cents 
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rainbowcourage
Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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oops, there was a delay on my computer I'm terribly sorry
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