Forum - View topicNEWS: Bandai Visual USA Gets Haruka TV Anime Series
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GATSU
Posts: 15356 |
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Chris has money to blow on imports and high-def upgrades. I still believe that if I have to pay Japanese prices for Gunbuster, I should get the Japanese version. And frankly, their uneven prices and title selections remind me of Raijin, a company I actually liked. They really should prioritize better, because I think that confuses and annoys people even more, when they sell one thing at a more insane cost MSRP than another.
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Emerje
 Posts: 7358 Location: Maine |
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Shouldn't we already expect that from a title with a $30 MSRP? Should we really spend another $20 just to get them to clean up the visuals a bit and clear up the audio? Is that even worth an extra $20? Better looking and sounding content should be standard in any 2007 - 2008 release, not a premium, and booklets should be a bonus, not an additional charge. Titles with these things have been sold at a $30 MSRP (and a dub track) for years and all along fans have said it is still too much. Distributors responded with box sets, incentives, and lower priced re-releases. Then along comes BV seemingly trying to undo all of that, we should have evolved beyond this. Emerje |
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mufurc
 Posts: 612 |
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Pricing problems aside, why is it called "Haruka"? I mean, it'd make some sense if there actually was a person called Haruka in the cast, but no, it's just the first word of the Japanese title, which they've translated anyway. I imagine that fans already know what the title means and don't need a reference to the Japanese title to be able to identify the show. So why? It just sounds stupid, IMO.
As for the T.H.E.M's review, it seems to be pretty spot-on. (Btw, I'm also wary when they judge whole series based on 3-4 episodes, but if a series doesn't improve in 13 episodes, why waste more time on it in hopes of getting at least a couple of good episodes later?) One episode was enough to turn me off, but everyone I know who likes it admitted that they only like it for the pretty boys and the voice actors. (In fact, this show is pretty much like Sukisho and other seiyuu-driven series. There's simply no point in dubbing them, because the fans are mostly in it for the Japanese voice actors.) |
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cloud1989
 Posts: 274 |
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I still don't know why this is such a big deal, I already said 9 disc is just 2 more than a normal 26 episode series, just 2 I mean come on its not that bad, lets not forget that most of the time art boxes are available for tv shows and many of us get them, thats another price increase, and some of us(like me) still buy at places like best buy so then you have taxes to consider, while online stores don't charge tax( unless you live where they are) and have some standard for getting free shipping, with that said the price it would cost me to buy this series online would be about as much as it would cost to buy a 7 disc 26 episode series at besy buy.
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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$20 more? Where you getting MSRP at $10 for sub-only? I believe MediaBlasters is giving us 3-4 eps of yaoi (Was it less on No Money?) for $19.99 & not even a paper insert half the time. So it's $10 more that pays for the dub which, we can assume BV is putting into giving us a booklet. If I order from RightStuf at $22.49, fill my cart carefully (4 Haruka, 1 $9 or less item), I can use their Got Anime Club special of $7 off $97 purchase to drop the price to $21.09 which drops again to $18.99 after my Got Anime 10% discount. $19 for a bunch of VA's I enjoy in a typical shojo harem title? Why not? I've already paid $35 (12 songs) for the character cd from CD Japan, obviously $19 isn't too bad. Gatekeepers was 8 dvds. Wasn't the first Eva Release? Or was that 7? There were 9 in Kyo Kara Maoh I believe, but it was also dubbed & over 30 eps. |
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Ryusui
 Posts: 461 |
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Which brings us to one ugly, previously-unmentioned side effect of BVUSA's shenanigans: the less-literate will confuse them with their cousin, Bandai Entertainment. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I hope you are right and that they are doing this wrong. Sadly, I don't think there is anyway to prove them that they are wrong. (Dargonxtc can prove them that they are wrong apparently, but he doesn't feel like teaching anyone sadly  )
Emotional hyperbole on my part, and you with words like crap, drunk, dashed, and naive. You don't have time to give me anything because you didn't have anything to give in the first place except "sly" insults. If you did have anything, you wouldn't be wasting your time telling me about how you don't have time, which I think is rather ironic.
I think your assumption is valid, and this is why I question words without data. |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Yes, did you even read what you wrote. Really low life if you ask me. 3rd grade Pee Wee nah nah stuff.
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lijakaca
 Posts: 37 Location: Toronto, CA |
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Bingo. I think you just answered the question of why aren't they dubbing it. This series is for fans of the games and the seiyuu, who will buy it at that price. I really don't think they're going for a broad audience here. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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When did I lie about you? Where do you get this stuff? You just said "drunk", "bloodshot" and various other little quips and I'm the one who is personally insulting you? What you are saying simply makes no sense, and at this point I think people just need to read our previous posts. I never lied even once about you in this forum, much less in this thread. To go back all the way to where we started at:
You said here that "it's not a theory" that they would "make more if they lowered prices." Yet now you say you agree with Randall where he states that he believes Bandai is doing this because it's profitable for them to do it this way (instead of lowering prices). I didn't miss the post you made where you said "as long as they are in the black" but that still isn't the position Randall posted, which is that they are probably making more this way than they would be making otherwise. |
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domino
 Posts: 373 |
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I think they should at least use the full title as a subtitle or something so the title will be more recognizable... But that aside, it's not really uncommon for anime/manga names to be shortened when they get a US release -- like how they use "Hana-Kimi" for "Hanazakari no Kimitachi e", "SaiKano" for "Saishuu Heiki Kanojo", "Saiyuki" for "Gensoumaden Saiyuki", etc etc. In these cases, the full title is a mouthful, so they just used what Japanese fans use to shorten the series' titles in casual conversation (and English fans like to shorten it with "HaruToki", too -- interesting that they used the Japanese fan-shorthand instead~) |
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mufurc
Posts: 612 |
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Yeah, but HanaKimi, SaiKano, Saiyuki, etc. were all established portmanteau names taken over from the Japanese fandom before the shows were published in the US. Also, as you said, this show already has such a well-known nickname, HaruToki. Using that would've made sense. But "Haruka"...? It's like shortening "Neon Genesis Evangelion" to "Neon." Or shortening "Tokyo Majin Gakuen" to "Tokyo Majin"... oh, wait. ...Seriously, I know that most people who don't speak Japanese or know what the titles mean probably don't give a damn, but still, it's just stupid. There's no way the companies couldn't have dealt with such titles in a more sensible way. |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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By saying that what 'I' was saying, is that I am "smarter than Bandai", and that I "didn't think they went to school" is a complete lie, and a total misrepresentation of what I was saying. Not to mention a low-class diversion. From that point forward it was impossible to take you seriously, and a window into your incomprehension.
I think you are confusing any profit with most profit. The gist of his point wasn't that they are making the most profit, but rather they are making a safe one(as far as anyone can tell). By putting the least effort and planting themselves in a green margin. His ending point was for BVUSA to just drop out of the NA market altogether, and let BV Japan put english subtitles on there releases and sell them over here. I agree with all of this. What you are saying, and to be fair(because I am a fair guy), you didn't say it directly, you just strongly inferred it over several of your comments. Is that their pricing structure is perfect and that they are maximizing there total take, and it would be impossible to take more even if they did change their schemes. And I say that is bupkis*. Now there are lots of reasons why one would choose to take the safe bet rather than trying to maximize profits. Like but not limited to, using a foreign business model(i.e. treating the NA market like a Japananse market), lowering pricing schemes increases the risks for each individual series(this is an essay in its self), hiring of a more effective marketing department, etc, etc. But don't tell me that they are making the most of the material in which they sell, they simply are choosing not to because they don't want to spend the "costs"(No, I am not talking about dubs, it would cost another 200k, and that is a totally different matter) or inccur the risks, or are confined into doing so by Japan. Rolex doesn't make as much money as Seiko, but they do make money. But if Rolex wanted to make more they could in a very short time, they would just have to inccur some risks and put in a lot of extra hard work. Lowering prices would be one of the first steps. Do you understand a little better what I was getting at, and how you mistook it? I was never a TA so it's hard to tell. *Rule of thumb: is only lower prices to a point that you can multiply sales by 2.1 or more. With the size of even this tepid market this is hardly an unachievable goal. |
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Porcupine
 Posts: 1033 |
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?? Not trying to start an argument or anything, but like I wrote earlier I did think that this new Haruka release was priced cheaper than most of BVUSA's previous releases. IMO the current pricing scheme is only approximately 1.5x (MSRP $30 for 3 episodes) more than the average in the USA market. Whereas the old pricing scheme was about 3x more than average (MSRP $40 for 2 episodes). If anything this makes me think that BVUSA's previous sales figures were terrible and that they are trying to lower their prices, even if they are still higher than the average.
But from what I understand, which could be wrong, the domestic versions of BVUSA products tend to be bit-identical copies of the Japanese versions. That's why the video quality is up to Japanese standard, any extras are all the same, etc. If that's true then why not pay a bit less (compared to the import prices) for the BVUSA version? |
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CCSYueh
Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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If I'm typing, I use PotC3. If I'm speaking, I say Pirates 3. I call the first LotR movie Fellowship when I speak of it. It's pretty common to take an identifiable shorter name for things with longer names. Just listen to ANY anime where they use English. They really mess our language up a lot also. |
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