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NEWS: Gonzo Works to be Streamed Simultaneously with Airing

I agree that this is great but are these shows going to be streamed in the same quality of video that youtube has now? If so, then I don't know whether fansubs will become obsolete or not because I would much rather watch a fansub instead of a youtube quality video.

Given the titles involved, does anyone else think this sounds more like an experiment than a full-blown commitment? After all, would either of these shows be classified as "highly anticipated" by fans outside of Japan?

Given the titles involved, does anyone else think this sounds more like an experiment than a full-blown commitment? After all, would either of these shows be classified as "highly anticipated" by fans outside of Japan?

Druaga was going to be a MAJOR title in the Spring 08 fansub scene, trust me. It was going to be oversubbed and very popular. They picked a good title to experiment with.

-Tofu

Given the titles involved, does anyone else think this sounds more like an experiment than a full-blown commitment? After all, would either of these shows be classified as "highly anticipated" by fans outside of Japan? This could just be a move by GDH to see if they can boost the popularity of a couple of marginal series while at the same time testing the simultaneous-release market, so I'll be more believing that it's a trend when I see a top-name title get treated the same way.

Just replacing 'unofficial' fansubs with 'official' fansubs, sans any deeper model than that, isn't really going to help the industry much.

It also doesn't address the potentially serious issue of what moves like this will do to traditional R1 licensor's. If the Japanese splitting digital distribution and physical distribution to separate entities means the drastic decline in the value of the physical (DVD) license, then unless internet ad revenue becomes an amazing windfall, the Japanese licensees have needlessly created a bigger problem for themselves.

Okay...maybe I'm just being thick here but how does this solve anything? How do they actually profit from this? I don't see any sort of mention of ad support or payment from those sites. Maybe they're just not explaining it here but if they don't actually have any way to make money off this it seems like a terrible idea to me. It's like a store with a shoplifting problem deciding to allow customers to shoplift as a solution. If they won't profit in any way from this then all they're going to do is encourage people to use free methods which, legal or not don't gain them a cent and then the already insufficient number of people that buy DVDs will further decrease. We might as well just stick with fansubs. At least them the companies aren't wasting money on this when fansubbers will do it for free.

Sorry if I'm being pessimistic here but I just don't see how this is any kind of solution.

Druaga was going to be a MAJOR title in the Spring 08 fansub scene, trust me. It was going to be oversubbed and very popular. They picked a good title to experiment with.

I wonder who they contracted to to do the translations/subtitles.

I just wish crunchyroll wasn't involved. It's such blatant hypocrisy for GONZO to support the world's #1 anime pirate site.

Key wrote:

Quote:

Given the titles involved, does anyone else think this sounds more like an experiment than a full-blown commitment? After all, would either of these shows be classified as "highly anticipated" by fans outside of Japan? This could just be a move by GDH to see if they can boost the popularity of a couple of marginal series while at the same time testing the simultaneous-release market, so I'll be more believing that it's a trend when I see a top-name title get treated the same way.

I wrote something similar in an earlier thread, and while I respect Tofusensei's opinion in regards to 'Druaga' being something fansubbers were eyeballing heavily, I still am inclined to agree with the gist of your sentiment. Especially in light of 'Druaga' also being streamed/simulcast heavily in Japan, and with a big MMO game tie-in.

I'll also agree with something ikillchicken wrote a few pages back, it's nice to see the industry move in ways fans have wished, but money's got to be made somewhere in this for the industry to see better days again. Just replacing 'unofficial' fansubs with 'official' fansubs, sans any deeper model than that, isn't really going to help the industry much.

It also doesn't address the potentially serious issue of what moves like this will do to traditional R1 licensor's. If the Japanese splitting digital distribution and physical distribution to separate entities means the drastic decline in the value of the physical (DVD) license, then unless internet ad revenue becomes an amazing windfall, the Japanese licensees have needlessly created a bigger problem for themselves.

Fansubs that are free were never a problem for anime companies(no matter what they say), just like books in libraries are not a problem for publishers.
The real problem are pirates that sell them and stream them, reducing the money customers can spend on legal anime.
Now that Gonzo is providing a legal alternative it's going to put a dent into their profits and thus return those money to the anime industry.

The R1 industry is going to need to prove its value to the Japanese if they don't want to see their revenues and role decline. Funi, ADV, MB, etc., are all necessary evils to the Japanese as far as they are concerned. I, too, am curious to see how this can be leveraged to benefit both the R1 and Japanese markets.