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NEWS: Bandai Visual USA President Responds to 'Open Letter'

But if the quality is unsatisfactory, isn't the cheap price still expensive?

Since the anime market is far smaller than the general DVD market or TV distribution market, we cannot use the same distribution channels as the ones that the major Hollywood studios or TV networks use.

let's buy our products through dot-anime, PLEASE!

Does Kondo seriously think that moving towards direct distribution through websites like dot-anime to solely serve the existing fanbase is the future of the anime industry in North America? Bandai Visual does not seem to be operating with very high aspirations.

The whole problem with this is that the video quality will most likely not be up to the standards that would be regular for broadcast in terms of visual quality. Fansubs are now commonly in HD resolution. While the common solutions that are available from content providers on the web are usually streaming vid in low res with visible artifacts, and grain when playing full screen. If they then make their customers pay for that, I can't see how in any way it would cut down on fansubs. I am of course ignoring quality in other areas which may be just as poor as that of the video.

Woot, go Sevakis! Sure, Bandai's response isn't the end-all-be-all 100% solution that we've been hoping for, but the fact that people are listening is good. And simultaneous released with Japan? GREAT.

The idea that they still support high-quality high-price is a little disappointing; it does sound like they are still afraid of change, as Sevakis pointed out. Japan is nice because they have TWO options-- a cheap (TV) and an expensive one (DVDs), but we don't get anything like that, and the idea that the cheap-ass teens that make up the viewing demographic would be happy with that is absurd. Also, the very fact that YouTube actually is a "threat" to the anime industry proves that not all fans are looking for high-quality high-price (I won't say anything about fansubs because some, but not all, fansubs are actually HIGHER quality than the poor QC'd legit releases).

One step at a time, one step at a time.

Wow, they actually listened over there in Japan! Fantastic news.

Japanese licensors have been told that the US fans don't care about the quality at all

we cannot use the same distribution channels as the ones that the major Hollywood studios or TV networks use

Since the market is small and we wish to have fans watch our shows in good quality, we need to put some higher prices compared to traditional US anime products