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Disclaimer 1: I am not a lawyer
Disclaimer 2: The following statements do not in any way represent FUNimation and are my own personal thoughts. Smile

With regard to Handley: in 2003, President George W. Bush signed the PROTECT Act, which did several things, including establishing the Amber Alert system AND prohibiting production, distribution, receipt, and giving of drawings, sculptures, pictures, etc. of minors participating in obscene acts OR are engaged in sex acts that are deemed obscene. ("Obscene," of course, defined by the Miller Test.)

As I, a non-lawyer, understood the matter at the time of the Handley case, this portion of the PROTECT Act had not been tested in court, and Handley may well have decided that he did not want to risk being that test case.

If anyone's more familiar / a lawyer and has a correction to the above, I'd love to have more accurate/up-to-date knowledge on that. ^^

Justin writes:
the Japanese broadcast standard doesn't really support 5.1 audio

I don't believe that is true. From the Wikipedia article on ATSC standards:

Quote:

Dolby Digital AC-3 is used as the audio codec, though it was standardized as A/52 by the ATSC. It allows the transport of up to five channels of sound with a sixth channel for low-frequency effects (the so-called "5.1" configuration). In contrast, Japanese ISDB HDTV broadcasts use MPEG's Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) as the audio codec, which also allows 5.1 audio output. DVB allows both.

(emphasis mine)

It seems more likely that anime production committees just don't see much value in creating a 5.1 audio track when most Japanese homes don't have devices capable of decoding them.

yuna49 wrote:

Justin writes:
the Japanese broadcast standard doesn't really support 5.1 audio
I don't believe that is true. From the Wikipedia article on ATSC standards:

Japan doesn't use ATSC. They use ISDB, which is AAC 2ch.

Last edited by Buster D on Mon Aug 18, 2014 6:19 am; edited 1 time in total

jsevakis wrote:

yuna49 wrote:

Justin writes:
the Japanese broadcast standard doesn't really support 5.1 audio
I don't believe that is true. From the Wikipedia article on ATSC standards:

Japan doesn't use ATSC. They use ISDB, which is AAC 2ch.

Japan using ISDB was already mentioned in the Wikipedia quote you cut out. But at any rate, there are indeed some 5.1 broadcasts in Japan: http://hometheater-s.jp/program/
But not many, so I assume it's not easy to do (it looks like NHK is the only one doing it on terrestrial broadcasts, and not on all of their shows either [edit: looks like there are some TV Asahi and TV Tokyo shows with 5.1 as well that I missed in the above link]). I believe that there are a lot of AV receivers that don't decode AAC (my Onkyo 805 doesn't), so in such situations it must be converted to LPCM and one will need HDMI to hear 5.1 AAC (or use a recorder/DVR that has multichannel analog outs), unlike Dolby Digital/AC3 in US broadcasts.

mdo7 wrote:

Well this week Answerman was very interesting to read. and Justin:

Regarding OVAs:

Yes, I agreed with you on that judging from my observation.

you wrote:

To get back to your question, since OVAs are produced largely as a separate marketing event for a given franchise, they are usually a separate license for international publishers. However, what do those publishers do when there's just one episode? How do you justify the expense of a separate license fee for what's essentially a glorified DVD extra, one that is mostly filler and doesn't contribute anything to the main story? Sometimes the licensor doesn't even want to make it available outside of Japan. After all, the program is an important premium item for Japanese fans, and they risk cheapening it by letting an American company throw it on one of their already low-priced discs for free.

So without some way to package these OAVs into a compelling multi-episode volume, there's really not a good way to package and sell them to the US market right now. Perhaps that'll change in the future, but in the mean time I don't think anybody in the US would be too excited to buy a Blu-ray with a single episode 25-minute OAV on it.

I can understand why OVA are not picked up a lot, sometime the price of licensing can be ridiculously overpriced, also I heard of OVA being Japan-exclusive and not avaliable to be license outside of Japan (again, this show Japanese production look down on their international non-Japanese fans).

Is it just me or you just want make it sound like it's all Japanese fault for not getting some exclusive OVA's in favor of western fan's preference. Why do you think non-Japanese fans don't get respect from Japanese producers? Non-Japanese fans can say they love anime all they like, but the finance statement says the otherwise.

Show them the money. I don't know how much money typical Otaku anime makes in the west, but I'm sure that it's NOT enough for Japanese to sweeten up the deal. It's the Japanese producers who paid EXTRA money for those OVA productions, not some foreign licensees. Japanese have all the rights to do whatever they like and they are not obligated to license it out right away.

whatever bush supports I hate so I'm gonna go back to looking these lolis thanks to fakku.

@reanimator: mdo7 always does that. I highly doubt that bonus shorts and episodes aren't available for the right price; it's just that American anime fans are typically too niggardly to make the price worth it. The separate releases we're seeing might just make some headway, though.

reanimator wrote:

Why do you think non-Japanese fans don't get respect from Japanese producers? Non-Japanese fans can say they love anime all they like, but the finance statement says the otherwise.

Show them the money. I don't know how much money typical Otaku anime makes in the west, but I'm sure that it's NOT enough for Japanese to sweeten up the deal. It's the Japanese producers who paid EXTRA money for those OVA productions, not some foreign licensees. Japanese have all the rights to do whatever they like and they are not obligated to license it out right away.

I'm not entirely sure where you are coming from - I'd like to have at least the ability to get the extra products such as OVAs at least with English subtitles and have spent accordingly e.g. Garden of Sinners boxed set and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles OVAs from Madman.com.au - at least Madman are honest with their customers about the viability or otherwise of releasing various titles.

reanimator wrote:

Is it just me or you just want make it sound like it's all Japanese fault for not getting some exclusive OVA's in favor of western fan's preference. Why do you think non-Japanese fans don't get respect from Japanese producers? Non-Japanese fans can say they love anime all they like, but the finance statement says the otherwise.

Show them the money. I don't know how much money typical Otaku anime makes in the west, but I'm sure that it's NOT enough for Japanese to sweeten up the deal. It's the Japanese producers who paid EXTRA money for those OVA productions, not some foreign licensees. Japanese have all the rights to do whatever they like and they are not obligated to license it out right away.

Because I've observe and read reports on how anime licensing can be difficult and also allegation of xenophobia which includes looking down on international fans have also been reported from US/NA anime industry insiders. I mean I believe Justin mention on another Answerman thread that Japanese productions would give the North American distributors a shoddy masters for the US release, while at the same time Japanese release get a better remasters. I mean another ANN user brought this up:

eyeresist on ANN wrote:

Problems licencing certain animes outside Japan have been frequently discussed, and those problems seem to apply to virtually all Japanese entertainment. Convoluted production committees require detailed permission from each stakeholder. And many of the people in charge have a very insular, xenophobic mentality, and will only consider harebrained schemes like setting up their own distribution outlets and demanding ALL TEH MONEYS for standard or less-than-standard product. Anime and videogames are actually some of the more openminded industries in Japan, despite whatever complaints we might have.

I share that same observation with Eyeresist, and after reading what Justin wrote on this Answerman, it confirmed my observation.

reanimator wrote:

Is it just me or you just want make it sound like it's all Japanese fault for not getting some exclusive OVA's in favor of western fan's preference. Why do you think non-Japanese fans don't get respect from Japanese producers? Non-Japanese fans can say they love anime all they like, but the finance statement says the otherwise

mdo7 usually likes to blame Japan for everything.. there's just no reliable money to be made out of western fans. Look at any AoA release thread and see pages of people complaining about the prices and making elaborate guides on how to reverse import the cheaper UK versions. Under the Dog seems like what those western fans who complain always pine for, an anime aimed at western audiences funded by western fans, but the Kickstarter looks pretty doomed. I've accepted America is a peripheral market at best for anime a long time ago.

Lavnovice9 wrote:

mdo7 usually likes to blame Japan for everything.. there's just no reliable money to be made out of western fans. Look at any AoA release thread and see pages of people complaining about the prices and making elaborate guides on how to reverse import the cheaper UK versions. Under the Dog seems like what those western fans who complain always pine for, an anime aimed at western audiences funded by western fans, but the Kickstarter looks pretty doomed. I've accepted America is a peripheral market at best for anime a long time ago.

Well I like to add something: with the tax hikes in Japan, it'll effect the sales of anime DVDs/blu-ray and merchandises overall. I have a grim future over anime sales in Japan, also given the tax hikes next year (which is going to go up to 10%), it's going to effect (and maybe hurt) anime sales in Japan. I mean the hardcore fans/otakus don't even have jobs that can make something equivalent to $100,000 income. So buying anime DVDs/blu-rays are going to be more expensive.

When I think of OVA I think cheap, bad and waste of money.
it is infuriating how so many OVAs have absolutely nothing to do with the original story.

a few OVAs are amazingly great
such as girls und panzer battle of anzio

but most are not

To this day I still wish Sentai added "Another Epilouge" to their Angel Beats release. Sad

it was totally relevant after all.

Covnam wrote:

[*]Second, you have full episodes that didn't air on TV, but are included on the dvd/bd release. The unaired 13th episode of a 12 episode broadcast for example. The chances of these being licensed seems to fall on the same conditions as the smaller extras, imo, but as they are less likely to be fluff, seem more likely to be included.

This is the part that frustrates me most often. I couldn't really care less if a non-canon OVA doesn't make it onto a US release, but it seems like, occasionally, canon OVAs that are actually within the timeline of the story will go unpublished. And that's what I hate. Thankfully it doesn't happen very often, but when it does it completely ruins the entire show. Its basically like shipping a show with a full episode missing.

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