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Hey, Answerman! [2008-08-08]

01N10A01N wrote:

The plain truth is that Anime is still twice as expensive in most cases to acquire than domestic series. This is better than where it was 10 years ago where 2 to 3 episodes would run you 22- 30 dollars. Or a season of Ranma 1/2 would cost you over $200.

(underscore added)

This is a point that people make quite often. And it is pretty much true, except it kinda grinds my gears that people have to go back ten years to make it. Hell, go back two years(probably the minimum amount of time to compare anything correctly in the entertainment business), and tell me we aren't leaps and bounds above the pricing schemes we had then. Anyone who has been into anime more than recently can certainly account for this. I would say that over the last four years, not including this one, anime has dropped on average about 10% a year in price. With this last year anime prices falling even more than that most likely. Anime is no longer expensive. You can find 125 minute plus anime DVD for about $18 on a regular basis, which will probably cost you less than a 100 minute special edition Hollywood movie. Pretty darn good for an import. I don't know how much more we can expect the industry to drop in price.

I see $29.99 more often which is what box sets cost a few years ago. Now I see box sets going for $45 or more, a good amount going for $60. Not saying that $45 is a ton to pay, but when there's nothing too terribly good on the market [which I think is a problem that R1 Industries are facing- Nothing good is even coming out in Japan and when something does, they license it too late and miss the wave of fans.] I'm not willing to waste $45 on something I'll probably watch once.

Cicatriz wrote:

I see $29.99 more often which is what box sets cost a few years ago. Now I see box sets going for $45 or more, a good amount going for $60. Not saying that $45 is a ton to pay, but when there's nothing too terribly good on the market [which I think is a problem that R1 Industries are facing- Nothing good is even coming out in Japan and when something does, they license it too late and miss the wave of fans.] I'm not willing to waste $45 on something I'll probably watch once.

-$30 boxsets were out a few years ago? Where in the world were you shopping?! The cheapest ones I ever saw was the $40 "Anime Legends" Bandai boxsets.

-quality of anime is subjective. Personally, I think the ratio of "Good to bad" is the same as it always was.

-well, there's always the "rental" option.

What's R1?

But that's simply ignorant of them, and here's why:

1) The fanbase of a particular anime will be FAR smaller than the fanbase of most live-action shows on TV. Even hits like Naruto and Bleach will have trouble competing with sales of shows like LOST and Heroes.

2) In terms of ANIMATION, anime is often CHEAPER than American cartoon DVDs. Buying 20 Avatar episodes in a boxset costs $50, or buying 22 Simpsons episodes costs $40, whereas you can get the majority of anime boxsets (which'll have 24-26 episodes) for $40.

3) They have lowered the price, and quite a few shows are going straight to boxset (or getting boxsets released almost immediately after the singles are released, like Viz is doing), even short series like Ouran High School. Lowering the price/increasing the episode amount any further would most likely be financial suicide.

4) Yes, TV shows go on sale, but so does anime. Best Buy will occasionally do an anime sale, FYE almost always has an anime sale going on, and most websites have sales every week.

So as far as I can see it, the industry (or, brace yourselves, we fans could do it) simply needs to explain to the masses why anime pricing is where it is, and how it's actually cheaper than ever, unlike certain other entertainment (*cough* video games *cough*).

Quote:

1) The fanbase of a particular anime will be FAR smaller than the fanbase of most live-action shows on TV. Even hits like Naruto and Bleach will have trouble competing with sales of shows like LOST and Heroes.

If there is less demand then the price should be lower- That is how economics works in a free system...

I agree with your point overall. However, on this one point I must disagree. Price is determined by where the curve of quantity demanded vs price meets the curve of quantity supplied vs price. However, with something like anime it gets complicated. The curve of quantity supplied is essentially irrelevant because the cost of producing individual units is minor. The vast bulk of the cost is the fixed one of creating the material in the first place. Therefore, price becomes much more complex to determine. In actuality, price can often be forced higher to compensate for a smaller audience.

ikillchicken wrote:

I agree with your point overall. However, on this one point I must disagree. Price is determined by where the curve of quantity demanded vs price meets the curve of quantity supplied vs price. However, with something like anime it gets complicated. The curve of quantity supplied is essentially irrelevant because the cost of producing individual units is minor. The vast bulk of the cost is the fixed one of creating the material in the first place. Therefore, price becomes much more complex to determine. In actuality, price can often be forced higher to compensate for a smaller audience.

R1 companies don't pay the production price. Their costs are licensing the show, subing the show, dubing the show, (In the case of DVDs) pressing the disks, distribution, marketing, etc.

License costs went up, in part, because the competition to license titles drove it up. I suspect that several R1 companies licensed shows that barely broke even, or even lost some cash.

Any show that has stopped selling or has low sales is money not earned to go against the licensing costs for new shows/profits. Digital downloads have a very low fixed cost per copy. Digital downloads or syndication would derive some income if the price was low enough to the buyer. $1 more in income is better than $0 more. Shows like UY , Scrapped Princess, the original Dragon Ball, Remi, Lian, Haibane Renme, Trigun, Nadia, Saber Marionette, Etc would have some value to Independent/loosely affiliated stations Eg; all the old UPN stations or WB stations that became MyTV stations, if the price was right. What Colours and Funimation did wasn't very smart- air about 1.5 months of content over and over again for about two years.