Forum - View topicEditorial: An Open Letter to the Industry
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R315r4z0r
 Posts: 717 |
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Do you know why? Well it is because they are using, as you said, the SAME animation. You can say a sentence in Japanese and time how long it takes you to say it, then say the same sentence in English and time that. Most of the time, it will take different amounts of time to say. Because words in one language won't be the same as in another language. The original animation is meant to be used with what the Japanese writers had in mind. So, however easier it would be to actually dub an Anime in English if they just copied the subtitles, they simply cannot do that because the dialog wouldn't match who is speaking. Could you imagine watching an Anime, in English, where one character is speaking, then all of a sudden the picture shows another character speaking, but the audio is still from the person who was already speaking? It would become highly confusing and annoying, and chances are no one would bother watching. This is the reason why dubbing episodes in English is a much harder job than people give it credit for. Writers need to first have the original audio translated, and each scene needs to be fixed up so that when the English voice actors speak, they can actually fill in what the Animation is doing, not just copy some translation from the original audio. Last edited by R315r4z0r on Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:05 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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To Case:
Um.. you know that someone can make a typo and still know how to spell a word. right? Using spelling as some kind of measure of education or intelligence is very ignorant even if it's not a typo because of all the examples of people who can't spell who are intelligent. Dyslexia is not that uncommon (I know 3 people personally who are dyslexic) and neither are everyday people who just aren't great at spelling. Last edited by Xanas on Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:04 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Talon87
Posts: 89 |
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Still ... to think that my LE purchases put me in such a small camp -- 1 in 30,000!? -- ... it just boggles my mind. Abso-f***ing-lutely boggles my mind. The state of anime is really quite poor when somebody who spends as little as I do yearly on all anime-related products (~$500) is considered one of America's top 30,000 loyal consumers to the Haruhi franchise. Jesus H. Christ. 30,000 is like the number I would have previously guessed as being "how many Americans, like me, own the Haruhi light novels." Now I can only imagine how small that number must really be: 5,000? 500? Man. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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... and I have a PhD in theoretical physics, but that doesn't mean I can SPELL. Anyway, while people are throwing out numbers for Haruhi, I think it's interesting to note that downloads of that show were around 100,000 through bittorrent (no idea how many people only used youtube), but that was only for the pre-license torrents. If you take the batch that was re-torrented after the fansub group took down the original because of the license that new torrent got another 30,000 downloads.
Then recently released DVD-rips only have a measely 7,000 downloads or so (I think this is mainly because it hasn't had much time to get downloaded yet) So assuming that the 30,000 figure for Haruhi DVD sales is approximately right, that's only 1/4 of the people who downloaded the show through bittorrent. The figure I'd really like to know is... how many people bought the DVD without seeing the show on fansub first? Out of the 30,000, what was the percentage that had not watched the show? 30%? 20%? 2%? I really have no idea. Does anyone have any data for that? In a way, that would help measure the size of the core "otaku that doesn't watch fansubs" base. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I don't think you know how small the anime fanbase is. The average dvd is estimated to sell around 10k these days, or at least this is the figure I've seen often. So Haruhi was not much greater than average, but many series do worse.
I again think the only solution is for the industry to find more ways to make money off it's existing fans, and to do the best it can to expand that base. Providing alternatives to fansubs accomplishes part of this, but only for those not already buying dvds (those already buying are probably going to spend at or near the same amount regardless). I have no magical way of expanding the fanbase. It may not even be possible, there is a lot of competition and it may just be anime is truly destined to be niche. |
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Case
Posts: 1016 |
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You can spell physics. And any person with any kind of business experience should be able to spell the word business. I'm not asking for the moon here. If we want to quibble, I'll be more direct then: ikillchicken's has no authority to question my business expertise when he doesn't even know how to spell the word. Last edited by Case on Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:22 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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R315r4z0r
Posts: 717 |
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I had another idea that ~might~ work.
What if the Japanese cooperated with the other languages that wished for the Anime, and before one language is released it was completed in what needed to be done. This way an English version would be released at the same time as the Japanese version. This eliminates one of the reasons why people download fansubs. The reason of not wanting to wait for their language to license it and have it done professionally. Quick entertainment. And the only problem I really see with it is longer waiting time for episodes to be brought to the public. However this won't be noticeable if they simply don't advertise the series until they are almost ready to release it. If people don't know it exists, they won't be waiting for it. 
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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On a good day, probably  . I wouldn't bet on it, though. Count me as one of those "special" people who might mispell mabye consistently for 3 years but can do complex contour integration in his head.
And the "translate it as it's being produced" isn't a new idea, and isn't the problem. It's the intent to distribute such translations, to whom, when, and in what manner and price that are the real issues being discussed. |
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everybody_loves_hypnotoad
Posts: 46 |
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One of best selling anime DVDs this year was Afro Samurai. It wasn't heralded nor did it have a big folowing in the anime community anthing like Haruhi was. Its not like it wasn't available on bittorrent. Episodes were available to stream on SpikeTV. Yet it sold much more.
To me, it looks like the only reason they sold that well was because it was on tv in America, was very well produced, had big names attached to it and had a half decent mainstream exposure level. This just shows that if these companies want their DVDs to sell, it looks like GDH are heading in the right direction. |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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While it's never a bad thing to have a property on TV, 'Afro Samurai' is a show which is much more 'exception then rule'. It's a heavily 'Western' flavored endeavor to start (reminiscent of the old-school 18+ aimed 'Ninja Scroll/Wicked City'-styled OVA's that Japan doesn't much make anymore), and comes across as more of an older-teen/adult aimed samurai-cum-blaxploitation cult film that happens to be animated. It had notable celebrity backing and was on a big male oriented 'Action' line-up. Modern anime, for the most part, is no way made to match up with that demographic taste/profile. Again never a bad thing to get on TV, but 'Afro Samurai' sold for reasons not really duplicative (I'm willing to bet the odd offshoot like 'WitchBlade', with an American comic tie-in, probably sold OK too, though I don't have any evidence of that) in most other anime. Shows like 'Air', 'Full Metal Alchemist' or 'Rozen Maiden' aren't going to make Spike TV's audience tear with joy. |
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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Now if you were a biologist or a chemist though we'd never believe you couldn't spell. One wrong letter and the chemical/system in question becomes something else entirely... |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10421 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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No, ranks copies bought. Unlike Nielson Bookscan and Vidscan, USA Today Booklist doesn't provide numbers, just ranks. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/booksdatabase/2006-06-14-bookslist-about_x.htm |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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In the vein of advertising applied to anime, if the reality is (however remote) the advent of industry-backed free streaming content with advertising placement at the top and 'mid-break' of a show, I can't imagine anybody but the hardcore fringe (which could find a way to complain about water being wet) having an issue with that. Short 'commercial' ads are a far cry from 'pop-ups' and browser re-directs, there really wouldn't be anything to reasonably complain about. |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10421 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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I believe strongly that people reap what they sow. It's Internet publishers fault that people use things like adblock to block ads. If publishers keep ads reasonable, then adblock wouldn't have reason to exist. The problem is that excessive advertising on sites 1,2 and 3 has hurt reasonable advertising on sites 4, and 6 because many people now hate and block all ads. As long as ads are kept to a reasonable (wow, that's a subjective word) rate, I think consumers should put up with them, and even if they don't like them, respect that it's the ads that pay for the content they are seeing. Defining "reasonable" is obviously hard, in the end, "whatever it takes to stay afloat" is reasonable in the sense that anything less would mean no content. On the other hand, "no more than what the average reader would accept" is also reasonable. Hopefully the quantity of ads arrived at in the first definition is less than the quantity arrived at in the second definition. Unfortunately there are some people that think no ads are reasonable, and even more people that really don't care about reasonability and are just greedy so they block all ads regardless. There's really no purpose for websites to bother trying to cater to those people, and if websites want to make it harder for those people to read their website, then that's their right, but that brings us a little close to the whole DRM debate. Anyways, to this on track, free online on-demand anime could work if consumers such as yourself are willing to watch enough advertising to make the venture profitable for the anime companies involved and the companies deliver the right product (anime that's a year old isn't the right product). Likewise, transactional and subscription on demand services could work if consumers are willing to pay enough to make those formats profitable. -t |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10421 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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As I said, 30k is a highball estimate, it's likely lower. Also, don't forget that each volume sells less. Volume 2 sold much less in the first month. -t |
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