Forum - View topicNEWS: ICv2 Interviews Funimation Founder Gen Fukunaga
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jel123
Posts: 108 |
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Also I'm not sure why there is so much fear on the part of anime companies regarding making their product available in something like mks format. Almost any computer can rip a DVD into any of the popular formats. How does eliminating the ripping step make illegal downloads less likely?
I think kokuryu puts it well;
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GATSU
Posts: 15583 |
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Porcupine:
If women can go for "Sex and the City" and "Enchanted", then anything can be marketed to them. I don't see the point on lowering your prices for a smaller fanbase, though.
That's more likely because no one goes to Suncoast anymore, not because of ADV.
GITS: SAC seems to do well enough for them.
And they were the worst at adapting to market trends. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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I think that Greed made a good point. Box sets may be cheaper than individual volumes, but for some people they could still pose a problem because they are not willing to pay a larger amount for a series that they are not sure they will enjoy.
There are probably several solutions to that including what Greed suggested. But how about this one? Simply start releasing animes in a format consisting of an individual Volume 1 DVD, then a very cheaply priced boxset consisting of all the remaining volumes. Might sound complicated, but the anime industry has already recently made a similar move in another area...that of anime artboxes. It used to be that they optionally came with Vol. 1 DVDs but companies are moving towards releasing the artboxes with Vol. 2, 3, or final volume DVDs instead. To me that makes more sense. Regarding what dargon and others have said regarding a potential problem with being able to shorten the time being the Japanese release and the domestic releases, to be honest I've never personally considered it as big a deal as many others do. A lot of fans want that, and demand it, and say that they will (illegally) download less if that happens. But I think a lot of these people are just whining or perhaps even lying to themselves. I think that piracy will not be greatly affected even if the delay were reduced to zero. People will still pirate. People pirate Hollywood movies and there are no issues with lag time. So reducing the lag time to zero wouldn't really solve the problem at all. That is just my opinion. I favor leaving the lag time where it is and pursuing other methods of reducing piracy, possibly including lowering DVD prices, and seeking other avenues of profit (television as opposed to DVD), etc. I'm re-reading the article now, and I never noticed this part before:
Gatsu, well I did say that US Manga was coming back (these past 2-3 years). They were pretty dead before then though. At least compared to the olden days in the 90's when they had just as many releases as ADVision did. But is GiTS:SAC even a US Manga release? I don't own the DVDs myself but according to the ANN Encyclopedia the first season was a Bandai Entertainment license. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15583 |
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Porcupine: It's a co-release b/tw Bandai and Manga.
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ZeetherKID77
Posts: 982 |
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"Biggest acquisitions yet"?
I hope they got the full license for Initial D. Tokyopop ruined the dub. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
Posts: 6902 Location: Kazune City |
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I'm glad to see something about the format war shakedown, even though we probably won't see HD anime releases for another 3-4 years.
Regarding Fukunaga's "perception" of ADV's difficulties: Given how secretive these companies are with sales data, licensing fees, etc., who's to say that Fukunaga knows any more about his rival company than we do as readers of the news? I can say I "perceive" difficulties from the ADVocates and NewType USA shutdowns, but does that perception hold any weight? (And if magazine publishing were so problematic for ADV, why are they starting up a new publication instead of simply shuttering NewType and walking away?) |
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AstroNerdBoy
Posts: 413 Location: Denver, CO |
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What does the price of DVD's in Japan have to do with us? A new Hollywood blockbuster release can be sold for $16 in the U.S. (usually one without many extras) and the same movie on DVD is going to be a lot more expensive in Japan. [/quote]
He also talked about consolidating the market. However, his words aren't a surprise though. ADV dropped its support club function. ADV is changing its magazine publication to be more broad-based. Does ADV still do manga? While fans would be disappointed, I don't think this will be the catastrophe you describe. If anything, it may be an opportunity for a company like FUNimation.
Isn't this exactly what fansubbers do? To date, I'm not aware of any automated process for taking the source video and re-encoding it (to include establishing the timing of subtitle scripts) to a .AVI file. That takes time. However (and pardon my ignorance here), if they also have to DRM them differently per platform, that also can take time.
Some people like having both the Japanese audio w/ subtitles and the English audio versions of a series, which the DVD format provides. While DVD rippers will use the .MKV or .OGM container file to encapsulate multiple audio and subtitle tracks, it appears that this file format isn't what FUNimation would use for downloads. I'm sure the main reason would have something to do with DRM (ugh!). Also, I'm not aware of an easy way to convert .MKV/.OGM files so that they can be played on a regular DVD player. Also, while there are DVD players that will play DivX .AVI files, I know of none that will play .MKV or .OGM files. Anyway, others have already discussed this, but at the moment, to get both versions of a release would be a double-purchase. The thing that concerns me about the legal downloads is the big three options listed. Granted Mr. Fukunaga didn't say those were the only choices, but those three would be non-starters for me. I absolutely refuse to use iTunes and I don't own any game consoles, nor am I going to purchase any. So they will need to have another option or not get any money from me on the download front. As to the issue of reducing the time factor from the release in Japan to the release in the U.S., I think that would help somewhat. Clearly it wouldn't remove all piracy but I think it would help since that seems to be a common complaint among fans is the lag time. As to the big deals/announcements, FUNimation scoring some of Geneon's titles would be pretty big, in addition to any new series they might license. |
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ilikehotaznz
Posts: 28 |
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What if there was a digital rights tax that collected billions of dollars every year, and then distributed the money to the rights holders based on popularity of download? As piracy increases, the pool of money gets larger.
Trying to fight digital hyperdistribution of content is a futile effort. The governments of the world should embrace it rather than trying to fight it. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15583 |
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Zalis:
Because people who watch anime for the picture quality aren't really anime fans, but tech whores?
That's awful logic! That kind of mentality nearly cost FUNimation One Piece, because they chose Detective Conan and Kodocha over it; and it's kept niche titles which are low-investment, but have bigger returns-such as Mind Game and Nasu-from being licensed in the near future! In fact, part of the decline of the domestic industry is due to R1 companies buying and flooding moe-themed series onto consumers who clearly do not go for it like the Japanese.
Exactly! They've outlived Streamline, CPM, and Geneon. The only company which has lasted longer than them is Animeigo. There's no way they're going down, especially since they've got new deals with Capcom and WB. |
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Nobuyuki
Posts: 536 |
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:facepalm: That's Manga Entertainment. US Manga [Corps] is Central Park Media. |
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Espeon
Posts: 105 Location: Australia |
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Illegal Downloads like copies off English DVD is bad and I never have anything to do with them, But when it comes to Fansubs I will download them as they release in japan SO i can see if the shows gonna be worth the money i'll pay for it once it's released in english. Sure so many people says it's bad and some will say it not we wont go into that right now..
I like the look that the releases will be faster and more episodes per disk, But if i dont know enough about the show other then the hype and it ends up sucking i'm gonna have a flop of a show in my collection they may never get watched again. |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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What is becoming apparent from Fukunaga and Zak's interviews as well as what's going on with BVUSA is that the current price point scheme is not working. As mentioned by Zak there are a bunch of casual anime fans that are wondering why they can buy a whole season of Lost for the same price as 7-8 half hour anime episodes. On the other hand there are always collectors out there who are willing to spend $50 for 3 half hour Gundam episodes.
I think the best thing to do is to try to appeal to both markets as Funimation has been attempting with booklets and slipcases in their new releases and ultra cheap Viridian editions. I wouldn't mind if they continued this practice and would love to see new releases at the $35 price if they were packaged like those gorgeous Gonzo digipacks. I also think they are doing the right thing by keeping cost down to a minimum for their cheap Viridian editions. I think this is also a trend that can be seen with ADV since many of their individual discs like Utawarerumono, D'Eon, and 009-1 have inserts while their thinpacks lack most extras. These companies need to pander to their collectors market and make an affordable edition for the casual fan by making the nice editions nicer and the cheap editions cheaper. I personally loved BVUSA's Patlabor movies limited edition releases and am willing to spend more than the typical $5-10 difference in price for something really nice. |
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mike.motaku
Posts: 160 Location: Indiana |
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Oh yeah, that'll really set the anime world on fire. I hope that is not what they consider a big title or we're all in deep doodoo. |
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jel123
Posts: 108 |
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I usually watch an anime DVD two times - first with subs then in English but I only need to buy one DVD. Downloads should be no different. Then again I'm probably just dreaming to think that it will ever happen |
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CCSYueh
Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Wow.
All he said was they "perceive" difficulties on ADV's side. That could be the same as Chrysler making guesses about Ford. We all see ADV cutting fat. MAYBE they're trying to avoid losing major amounts of money in the coming recession. The things they're dumping maybe were ok in the day, but not now. One doesn't know until one tries a 24-hr anime channel in America, but they've been running it long enough to have good figures on whether it produces enough profit to justify keeping it going or putting it out of it's misery. I know my cable network seemed to drop their on-demand channel a year ago. Newtype was a gorgeous zine & I loved every issue, but the detractors always screamed about the cost & with more zines popping up cheaper, do they keep the luxury liner or go economy to compete? They also know how the freebies to anime clubs is working out-again, is it worth the cost? When they were making Newtype, one could even see thjem just pressing a few more of the give-away dvds & sending those out to clubs, but they're dropping the dvd with the zine, so why continue this charity svc? Is there even enough demand? I know my teen was hot to start her own anime club, but it lasted 2 meetings (4 yrs ago). No one knows how many people are asking for these discs. 100? 1000? Has there been a drop-off from when they started? Is this all that different from ADV making a huge fuss about licensing 50 manga titles & then abandoning 90%? Businesses try stuff & then they drop them when they don't succeed. Companies keep an eye on their competition, looking for opportunities. ADV is Funi's closest neighbor so their actions probably would impact Funi more than others (VAs would be impacted. ADV vanishing would mean these actors would either look to Funi for work, move to a different market area, or go back to their day job) Funi would be stupid not to eyeball everything. |
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