Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - ANTI-PIRACY HYSTERIA
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Kikaioh
 Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
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When I think of the cartoons I watched growing up in the 80's and 90's, I loved em', and I still do. Super Mario Bros. Super Show still has to be one of my all-time favorites, along with Inspector Gadget and several other campy kid's shows.
I'll admit, one of the things I liked about anime when I first got into it back in the 90's was that it came across like animation that could be taken seriously --- it was like I could say "hey, I'm into cartoons, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm childish, because THESE cartoons are serious! Like Grave of the Fireflies, or Galaxy Express!" (though to be truthful, the anime I liked the most were the ones that were cartoony.  shows like Ranma, Slayers, and Dragon Ball Z still managed to have the same sort of charming silliness/over-the-top-ness I grew up with).
Being a bit older puts some of those old feelings into perspective, and looking back I think my desire for others to take anime seriously was probably a bit more about wanting to be taken seriously myself. So I can sort of see how some younger fans might take offense at anime being called "cartoons" --- when you couple your personal identity with the perception that "cartoons are childish, and I watch anime because it's not strictly childish", then when people unknowingly imply that what you're watching is juvenile, you might take offense at potentially being thought of as juvenile yourself. TBH though, I think the older you get, the less you care about what other people think, and whether or not they take your hobbies seriously/understand them. As for piracy, well, I've debated that to death on the forums. so I'll try to stay out of it here. I'll just repeat my oft-stated mantra that I don't like how piracy undermines the artist's right to determine how and under what circumstances his/her creations are shared with other people.
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tangytangerine
 Posts: 439 |
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They're doing that stuff to protect the property that they have licensed from japan. Half the things you mentioned are for people pirating the property. Which costs the company lost revenue and has the potential of them losing money on the license(since licensing isn't free). As for high MSRP, that's usually when they first come out. Eventually those prices come down in the form(usually) of cheaper repackages. All you have to do is wait for it to come down in price. |
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Etrien
 Posts: 525 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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I've always been convinced that the Japanese word, アニメ, originates from the French word, animé. Especially because in Japan, アニメ (anime) is occasionally used to refer to manga and still-drawings, too, similar to (I believe) the French usage. Whereas アニメーション (animeishon) is used exclusively for (moving) animations. But, I wasn't sure, so I just did some poking around on some Japanese sites, and it seems like no one is sure! Even the Japanese wikipedia entry for anime lists both the English "animation" and French "animé" as possible origins. But, the phrase has been used for so long now (nearing 100 years) that it's no longer clear where it came from. So, it could be either. Japanese does use tons of loan-words from French, too, as well as plenty other non-English languages. (The Japanese word for bread, パン, is Portuguese, for example.)
It's more or less true that there isn't a whole subculture in Japan that revolves around American animation like there is with anime in America, but there is still plenty of American animation that is wildly popular in Japan. And I have exclusively only ever heard of these things called anime. One particularly successful anime franchise in Japan? Spongebob Squarepants. Even more so are the many Disney anime films. The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Cinderella... all very popular anime - heck, more so than the majority of Japanese animation. And, as someone else mentioned, even Thomas the Tank Engine （きかんしゃトーマス） is a popular anime in Japan. Once a (Japanese) girl told me (in Japanese) that her favorite anime was Teen Titans. The only times you are likely to hear the word "cartoon" （カートゥーン） in Japanese is a) in reference to a specific name that uses the phrase (such as "Cartoon Network" or "Cartoon Wars"), or b) when a Japanese person is trying to say anime in English. At the very least, I've never personally heard the word used as something to segregate Japanese and western animation. There ARE probably the sorts who might use カートゥーン to refer to western animation in an exclusive manner, but they're also probably likely to be the same kind of right-wing nationalist who already separates everything into "great and Japanese" and "foreign and barbaric". |
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Kikaioh
Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
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This is an interesting point I'd forgotten about that I can also confirm, having been to Japan and talked with quite a number of Japanese people myself. Japanese people do in fact refer to Western cartoons as "anime", though I'd like to add that it seems as though people involved in the field of animation will sometimes (somewhat surprisingly) use the term "japanimation" to distinguish between Japanese and Western animation. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4074 |
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Remember: When using fansubs, be sure to have the shades down and the doors locked. And God help you if you merely "watch", if you know what I mean... I'd be kind of let down by if the stateside Japanese cartoon scene disappears or "japanimation" as its more appopriately known. Mainly because I'd have to find another thing to waste money on and I just don't have the time for that. Piracy, piracy's bad. Don't do piracy. Everyone knows piracy should be left to foppish actors and Japanese schoolgirls. Oh, Ditigal Piracy? I love that band. Ah, digital piracy meaning creative theft. So shouldn't the product in question be creative rather than deriviative? No digital piracy in that it happens to to destroy free speech. So I can't go "here, watch this." to as many people I can find oexcept that it's data rather than a physical copy? No, no, copyright law. Well, it's a copy, right? So what's the problem? Piracy, piracy's bad... |
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FigNewton
Posts: 63 |
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Hah, I like the reference to people crying on USENET about anime not being cartoons.
Mainly because I may have been one of those people. I don't recall ever making that argument in particular because its been nearly twenty years (!) but its the sort of thing I could see myself saying when I first wandered on to the Internet my freshman year of college, full of idealism and thinking I knew and understood far more about the world than I did. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Oops, your train of argument de-railed ... if the work was really too "derivative" to qualify as a "creative" work, there's be no incentive to bootleg it. There's no point to trampling the original creators right to say who can make a copy if there is nothing worth seeing after the bootleg copy has been made.
Made a large back catalog of series available for free streaming, and started subscription streaming of the majority of each broadcast season, most of it before in advance of or within an hour of the time of the last Japanese free to air premier, a lot of it actually available for free streaming before it even hits the pay-satellite channels that are the only access to most of the "free to air" anime for much of the Japanese population Only to generate another Whaaa-fest ~ "its a day before they see it in Nogoya but over twelve hours after they see it in Tokyo!!" ~ "its only available in 480p / 720p / the 1080p is bit-rate limited!" ~ "two series I wanted to see did not get a streaming license!1!". "Placate" is the exactly right word: it must be like dealing with a bunch of infants who have all spat their dummies at the same time. Last edited by agila61 on Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sunday Silence
 Posts: 2047 |
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Simultaneous releases at a reasonable price point without DRM or in formats people like and want is a good way to combat piracy. If some podunk translator can churn out a scanlation within 24 hours of release with impeccable translations, I doubt a paid translator could do worse with at least a good few days lead time before the magazine or takubon hits the selves.
Except that when compared to domestic releases of TV shows and the like, it's still expensive. It's called pricing for market conditions. |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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I'm not trying to hive mind the community here since where a bit more deserve with our mentality. I'm more referring to chan users that spit out this rhetoric and there is no way of keeping track of those numbers impossible.
Anime will never be on the same price level as Family Guy or House MD because of issues that have been stated in the past, we are lucky enough to get full series under 100 dollars here. Last edited by Cecilthedarkknight_234 on Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:24 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Kikaioh
Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
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I personally think the console gaming industry has had the most successful approach to piracy --- make it as difficult as possible for the average person to do it from the very get-go, and subsequently foster a culture that's accustomed to paying for your product. I think it's one of the reasons the industry has been so successful, and suffers far less mainstream piracy than anime or other media products.
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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Whole you are correct, the console industry has the advantage of working entirely with proprietary systems that are difficult and tome-consuming to mod for playing pirated games, AND automatically han you from their respective online services if you do take the tome to mod your console. TV shows don't have that. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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And yet they'll probably make the money back domestically, so any overseas airings should be pure gravy. And be priced right for the country. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Are you sure that holds true for all domestic US DVD releases that are as niche as anime? Or are you comparing mainstream market to niche market and discovering {shock! horror!!} that pricing for different market conditions in the US (niche and mainstream) is different! |
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Fencedude5609
 Posts: 5088 |
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Some of those are legitimate complaints, and if streaming services want to draw people away from fansubs, they need to compete on two levels: Quality and Speed. And for better or for worse, speed really is the most important one. |
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CrownKlown
 Posts: 1762 |
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Actually yes. Yes it does. To take a very comparable niche market to anime just take British Television programming, especially BBC stuff. Generally the prices are roughly in line with anime prices, both of which are a little higher than domestic releases but not by much. You also see the same thing in gaming. The niche Japanese titles from Atlus and NIS sell for the same price as the CODs and Halos. I agree with the first guy making the quote, you have to look at prices relative to others in the same market, not look at prices across countries. |
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