Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Merry Holidaymas
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GATSU
Posts: 15574 |
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[Mod Edit: Baseless and irrelevant and unsupported soapboxing removed.]
Last edited by GATSU on Fri Dec 24, 2010 3:06 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Brack
 Posts: 291 Location: UK |
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The column appears to have parsed the use of Kon (as in Satoshi Kon) as K-ON!
Freudian spellcheck? |
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ss-hikaru
 Posts: 269 Location: Western Australia |
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My first introduction to anime was through fansubs, and like the author of the second question, I knew nothing, and therefore cared nothing, about the industry either. It was only after I started visiting ANN that I realised that fansubs was stealing. After learning this I did actually feel really guilty, but also didn't know what to do, because I had absolutely no clue where I could buy anime or manga. As a teenager, I never really went into any stores that stocked anime or manga (there isn't really that much available in Perth anyway due to it being, well, Perth). It was only once I found about this store called Empire Toys that I actually started buying manga (for up to $20 per volume!). And now that I have discovered sites like JustManga and RightStuf (which are a lot cheaper, when importing in bulk), my manga collection has really grown (and I've started an anime collection too). Someday I'll send pictures of my collection to Shelf Life...someday...
The funny thing about this though, is that once I started supporting the industry, I started being unable to talk about anime and manga to my friends. Anytime I was seen with an actual hard copy of manga, I would get the question "Why do you bother buying it when you can read it for free on the internet". And saying I was supporting the industry/creators was somehow NOT a legitimate reason. I eventually got sick of being treated like I was stupid for not being a pirate (well, as much of a pirate as I used to be, I'll admit that I still watch fansubs of stuff not on Crunchyroll), so just stopped talking about anime and manga. In fact, the only friend I feel comfortable (and enjoy) talking to about anime and manga is one who buys the stuff she really really likes. In the beginning she too was like "Why bother when you can get it for free" but she accepted my reasoning and actually started buying stuff herself. I think that hanging around me is what has influenced her to purchase anime and manga products, sharing shipping costs has definitely been an important factor! She tends to like older stuff with out-of-print volumes, so it's fun trying to track down her missing volumes together 
Oh, the best thing about not reading manga online? Not being devastated by the closing of One Manga  When it closed down so many people were asking me where to find scanlations, and I loved telling them "I don't know, I buy all my manga" and seeing their crest-fallen faces. I suppose that's another reason why I don't talk to many people about anime and manga, they are always way ahead of me due to scanlations (and I avoid spoilers like the plague).
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Weiss_Yohji
Posts: 115 |
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Ah, the terror of the manga cows. I worked in a bookstore once, and we never got those kind of people. Nor did we have anyone so much as steal from the store. At least not while I was there. Even then, our selection was pretty limited--nearly everything we had was Tokyopop titles. Then again, this was in a resort location in southern Delaware, and as such things really die down from fall to spring here (Also happened to be in an outlet center, and those are all intentionally placed in locations the media doesn't know or care about). But I loved that job--being a discount bookstore, that meant getting manga for dirt cheap...well, as dirt-cheap as brick-and-mortar stores get. Only stuff I remember we had that was shrink-wrapped was a few volumes of Great Teacher Onizuka, and even then I haven't gotten near that far up on the manga yet. (I've been watching anime longer than I've been reading manga, and as such I don't buy near as much manga as I do anime.)
Being a child of the '90s, I didn't discover fansubs until a couple years after graduating from high school. But I've always supported the industry by watching the shows on TV and buying DVDs and other paraphernalia, including harder items such as manga, T-shirts, keychains, and even pins. My viewing has long since shifted to watching stuff online, only turning to rips and fansubs if I can't find the DVDs cheap enough or I otherwise don't have a choice (I cut back on the amount of anime I buy, since I'm also repurchasing shows in box set form to reclaim some shelf space). Some of my friends say they'd rather just pirate everything. In light of this, I've gone through stuff I'm repurchasing and then giving away the single discs I bought before. Helps get them off the fansubs and rips and doesn't cost them a dime. (I'm old school; I'd rather have a physical product than files downloaded on my computer!) Only times I've ever read scanlations: One chapter of Golgo 13 (Because Viz didn't get the whole series) and a few chapters of Yugo the Negotiator (Unlicensed; seinen manga really needs more love than it gets). |
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MikeWasoski
Posts: 2 |
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The problem with the US anime industry is that companies such as Funimation are selling an expensive and niche product (anime) to a small group of people who lack money because of their age and who can pirate the product easily. Most anime that is licensed is targeted at teenagers and young adults; these people lack money, don't have a full time job and are tech-savvy. Not all anime fans are young but most hardcore fans are and this is the problem the industry faces.
Anime producers need to start making more anime for adults and I'm not talking about adding some fanservice and violence. I'm talking about something like Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo that is intelligent and engaging. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Within localised fan circles, do "grassroots" campaigns like this prove successful with any frequency? I apologise for my scepticism on the matter, though I'd expect that profoundly adept powers of persuasion would be necessary to alter the habits and attitudes of those content not to spend. Depending on their location, there are many ways — rhetorically valid or otherwise — in which a request to support the industry can be dismissed by those disinclined. |
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Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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Would adults actually buy it, though? At the moment the older anime buying crowd is fairly small. The only two ways to change that that I can see is either to wait until the current crop of teens grow up (and hope they don't lose interest in anime in the meantime) or bring anime into the mainstream. The latter is obviously no easy feat- if there was ever a time that could have been feasible it was the first half of the decade. These days such an endeavor is probably not possible. |
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Melanchthon
 Posts: 550 Location: Northwest from Here |
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I am one of those rare and dying breeds: I am a collector. I buy my anime for one reason and one reason only: To display on my shelves. I am no blind buyer, and I watch nearly all of my anime before purchase, generally with fansubs. Not the most ethical thing to do, but I figure my $100 monthly anime budget is better than pure piracy.
I have different rules for manga. I don't read scanlations. If it is licensed, I wait and buy it. If it is not licensed, I hunt down a raw and translate it myself. Not that I am any good at translation, but I trust my own before some random dude on the intertubes (with fansubs, you can at least hear the Japanese and figure out if it was translated right. With scanlations, they could make stuff up and you'd never know). But I wouldn't give up on the young'uns quite yet. Sure, they might be pirates now, but how many of us have changed from the stupid teens we once were? At some point they will grow up and start paying with money. And while we wait for this, Crunchy can convert some of them to streaming, much like iTunes converted a generation of music pirates. Or something. Anyway, (my) Best anime of 2010: Angel Beats Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 1st House of Five Leaves |
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notrogersmith
 Posts: 194 |
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Wha, what, wait? How is that not hentai?  I'd expect that to have been for 18+ only in Japan, even before Bill 156, let alone in the U.S.
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I've had the exact same problem which baffles me (seriously, fellow members of my anime club, I watch a crapton more than y'all do and know even more fansub sites than you do, I know I can get this stuff for free). I even point out that I want to make a living as a photographer someday, ie someone who sells intellectual work so I feel bad about stealing others', and they still think I'm crazy! Although it does balance out for me, sometimes I'll be talking with other friends and I'll mention I like anime and manga and a few of them have given me strange looks until I assure them that I purchase the stuff I love, glad to know that there still are people out there who don't think that's crazy.
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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Theirs really only one thing anime makers can do, Bend their heads between their knees and kiss their ass goodbye. Nobody cares about quality, no one cares about the people who make them, they want something that at most last 5 minutes, and cost nothing. You can't combat that.
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jyuichi
 Posts: 125 |
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Same, I've had people get angry (seriously!) and try to "convert" me. The fandom is the worst part of this hobby. I've basically stopped talking about anime with anyone but my closest friends and twitter (all hail the glorious block button!). |
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Apollo-kun
 Posts: 1213 Location: City 7, Macross 7 |
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Because it seems obligatory, here are my picks for the best of 2010:
Best Anime: Rainbow Best Manga: Bunny Drop Best Domestic Release: Ayako Oh, and thank you for giving me a clear, concise answer to my yaoi question, Brian. As always, it's a pleasure to see your response. I suspected my teenage peers had something to do with it, but hearing it from a former bookstore employee confirmed that, and the thought of yaoi selling better than hentai was some- thing very obvious that I overlooked  "
P.S: Best Game: Deadly Premonition/Bayonetta (tie) |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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People need to let go of the word "art". "Art" is anything that is presented as art. "Art" does not equal "masterpiece", but people conflate the two all the time. Yaoi porn can be art. My toilet can be art. Your mom can be art. Doesn't make it anything special. I'm also pretty sure porn is a form of entertainment. Anyway, if we purged everything of limited critical value from the manga bookshelves, what is that? Like, 75% of manga revenue lost? |
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YotaruVegeta
 Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
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What happened to Santa? Why's he mad? Where's his moustache?
Oh, Santa. |
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