Forum

I noticed a decided lack of blame placed on fansubs...

All of the blame should be placed on Fansubs and fan translations. As well as the recession. Simply put, if there weren't fansubs, Geneon would still be around and ADV flims would have completed Yotsubasa this year.

tiredgamer wrote:

I noticed a decided lack of blame placed on fansubs...

Why? Why does there need to be blame placed on anyone? Sure they take revenue away but blaming it on them isn't going to solve anything there are far more productive things to be doing then blaming.

Last edited by bayoab on Mon May 04, 2009 11:58 pm; edited 1 time in total

Teriyaki Terrier wrote:

All of the blame should be placed on Fansubs and fan translations. As well as the recession. Simply put, if there weren't fansubs, Geneon would still be around and ADV flims would have completed Yotsubasa this year.

Keep dreaming. Geneon was blowing money left and right that they would never had made back and ADV was buying crappy licenses left and right that would not have sold well outside the initial buying bubble. Remember them licensing thousands of volumes of manga when the market was already flooded?

This has very little to nothing to do with fansubs. This is about the Japanese market, not the american market for the most part. There are tons of other factors than piracy going on. Changing demographics, poor content (when you have 60 shows, most are going to be crap), etc are all to blame.

...Is there some reason that we can't just say...

"The rising amount of fans that used to exist don't anymore. Anime, while a recognized hobby/culture, is no longer explosive in popularity."

Sure, we have conventions, more titles getting brought overseas but... I don't see the industry sinking entirely...

And so it needs restructuring, boo-****ing-hoo, things will be figured out, companies will solve their problems and in the end, anime will still be accessible.

This is just another big/important person saying something we already know. Anime is not MASSIVELY popular anymore.

Somebody should tell this guy to stop looking in the OLD NEWS section of teh innerwebz.

Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Tue May 05, 2009 12:08 am; edited 1 time in total

Quote:

He said that Japan should emphasize quality over quantity

I wish the shrinking market would teach them that, but you can't teach an old Japanese new tricks.

Quote:

"because fans realized that more and more of the releases are the same kinds of titles with bishōjo and mecha elements added just because they are said to sell."

I hear this one come up quite often, touted with "generic" or "extremely average". If the majority of shows are those or worse, why should they sell?

The reason why anime was so big in 2002 and 2003 was because of how much of it was on TV at amazing times. You get home from school and bam, Tenchi and Gundam. Now if you want to watch anime on TV, the best way to get it to mos people, you have to stay up until 1:30 AM on a Saturday to get something that isn't Bleach or Naruto. Say what you will about fansubs, but poor TV showings are as much if not more to blame.

Teriyaki Terrier wrote:

All of the blame should be placed on Fansubs and fan translations. As well as the recession. Simply put, if there weren't fansubs, Geneon would still be around and ADV flims would have completed Yotsubasa this year.

The problem with this argument that a wide portion of people who download fansubs have stated that they wouldn't buy DVDs if they couldn't get fansubs, they'd find something else to do. Sure that doesn't make them "fans", but do they care? No, because it's a meaningless title. And it might not just be fansubs, people can download DVDrips as well, thus completely negating the possibility of buying the DVDs because now they have the precious dub as well.

walw6pK4Alo wrote:

Quote:

He said that Japan should emphasize quality over quantity

I wish the shrinking market would teach them that, but you can't teach an old Japanese new tricks.

It's hard though. Cause you take something like Strike Witches which is pretty much exactly what is described as just adding mecha so it would sell, and then if you compare it to something as creative as Kaiba, a quality anime in my opinion, I'm pretty dang sure the DVD sales for Kaiba don't even come close to that of Strike Witches.

So if the people keep buying this stuff, more of it is going to be made, and if people don't buy actually creative stuff like Kaiba, then it will eventually fall by the wayside.

I'd be curious to know just how much of an impact fansubbing actually had. And the whole Crunchyroll thing, I never really got. I mean yea sure, you can pay to watch it early, but if its just gonna end up being streamed for free later on... isn't that just like fansubbing anyways? That whole thing has always confused me

Quote:

An unnamed producer told Asahi that videos are not selling "because fans realized that more and more of the releases are the same kinds of titles with bishōjo and mecha elements added just because they are said to sell."

I think I have to agree that that goes along with the whole 70% or so of the anime that comes out is usually crap or just like everything else/same old same old. Which I think is a major part. I can definitely see how its falling and that this might have a big part in it.

Last edited by jsevakis on Tue May 05, 2009 12:22 am; edited 1 time in total

Teriyaki Terrier wrote:

All of the blame should be placed on Fansubs and fan translations. As well as the recession. Simply put, if there weren't fansubs, Geneon would still be around and ADV flims would have completed Yotsubasa this year.

No, this is as much about the Japanese market than the American market. Nobody will deny they're a factor in the industry's current woes, but hardly 100%.

But! This is an industry thread, so we all know where this discussion is going. Hell. Straight to HELL.

Whats your excuse for when things were selling well and fansubbing was already around? Sure fansubbing is a huge contributor, but you can't blame everything on it. There's a reason why anime fell after 2006, everything that comes out now looks like it should be illegal for underage children fanservice or just really bad ideas or ideas that have been done a million times already. There are of course exceptions, but mostly I don't care about newer animes that looks like it's for pedophiles.

Wait, you mean the Japanese market isn't completely at the mercy of a small group of teenagers in an American market that barely even has an otaku niche?

It's not just a Japanese thing. DVD sales across the map are falling because the novelty of owning a series/movie has worn off. Entertainment executives everywhere are freaking out because they can't fathom how to make money in the broadband era.

There will be fewer anime series made, but quality should rise when not every idea pitched gets its own OVA. Will bad anime still be produced? Sure, but it'll be less frequent. Plus, maybe these execs will learn to harness the power of the Internet when they listen to fans at sites like ANN and produce series based on what we clamor for on the forums.

Kyogissun wrote:

This is just another big/important person saying something we already know. Anime is not MASSIVELY popular anymore.

To be honest, anime was never "massively popular" or even just "popular" in the general sense. Sure, there were properties like Transformers, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, but those were individual titles and not representative of the genre's success as a whole. In reality, anime is still niche, with its popularity ebbing every so often, but never penetrating the mainstream on a sizable level or with the sort of titles that were big with the fandom.

As for the "bubble", I thought that was old news, since it was brought up a few years ago (happened on both sides of the Pacific). Whatever the case, I always thought that this sort of talk was overblown because there are have actually been a great deal of good shows produced within this decade. You'll always have a few duds each season and to the studios' and producers' credit, they have tried to lower the number of productions done and heed more to quality (though "otaku-baiting" has gotten in the way with some, with varying results). Also, the industry is beginning to move out of its rut (business, distribution, and economic-wise) by embracing better working relations with international companies and newer technology and practices.

The turnaround hasn't been a year old, but I think the overall outlook for the industry is largely positive. Fighting fire with fire concerning fansubs and illegal distribution should also help them quite a bit and be worth the resources and effort in the long run.

Couldn't the the problem be we put out 306 shows but only X number did well. So later we put out less because people didn't like them?

There's so much in this. It is probably a combination of a lot of things...the lack of good shows coupled with the prices of said shows.

Or the fact that even if I pick up Action-palooza 23 on DVD it's going to be released in blu-ray ten minutes later.

tiredgamer wrote:

I noticed a decided lack of blame placed on fansubs...

Because they're mostly happening at somewhere else before you jinxed it.

You want to start something irrelevant, then go somewhere else and hop onto another band wagon along with the rest of the trouble makers. Because anime piracy due to fansubs and scanslations has nothing to do with Japanese domestic anime market.

Now, back to the business at hands...

The original article in Japanese did mentioned about fansub being one of the factor for the decrease in international anime DVD market:

Quote:

ＤＶＤ不振はネットでの違法配信が一因。日本で放映された数時間後には、ファンが字幕をつけ動画投稿サイトやファイル交換ソフトを使い配信してしまう。

However, since ANN decided not to venture that hot potato, I won't either.

So instead, this got my attention:

Quote:

Yamguchi concludes that Japan is already falling behind China in the number of titles produced every year. He said that Japan should emphasize quality over quantity, such as teaching anime production in national universities and raising better workers, as the way to strengthen Japan's economy.

Two things need to make clear: 1)animation companies in China had also been doing works for the Japanese domestic anime industry for years now due to decrease in the anime production quality in Japan, also 2)education might be a good idea to improve overall anime quality, but to ensure quality production they need to improve their current working conditions. Otherwise nobodies in their right mind would want to waste away their talent on a dying Japanese domestic anime industry while being unappreciated.

Forum - View topic
NEWS: Industry Group Head Says Anime is a Bubble that Burst

This Week in Anime - So, Is Sound Euphonium Queerbaiting or Not?

Wonderful Precure! Episodes 1-12 Anime Review

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: The Ways of Monster Nation Manga Ends Due to Artist's Health

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Dips to #3 in 4th Weekend, SPY×FAMILY Film Debuts at #5 at U.S. Box Office

Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction Part 1 Anime Film Review

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Game Review

Forum - View topicNEWS: Industry Group Head Says Anime is a Bubble that Burst

Forum

Forum - View topic
NEWS: Industry Group Head Says Anime is a Bubble that Burst