Forum - View topicNEWS: Last 6 Shangri-La Single DVDs Dropped for Box in Japan
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Interesting. I wonder if this is a series specific blip or some kind of sign that even in the Japanese market, the single volume release strategy is giving away to larger collections. If anybody has any insight, I'd love to hear it.
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kokuryu
 Posts: 915 |
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In Japan, the price of DVDs have not changed from the price of VHS tapes from 40 years ago. Here in the US and most of the rest of the world, the prices dropped significantly with the release of DVDs. The Japanese consumer has been feeling the pinch for a LONG time, which is why in the Asian sector, pirating of videos is actually 5 to 10 times higher than anywhere else in the world. The need and want for cheaper DVD media has been prevalent for a very long time in Japan. There have been many re--releases over the years of everything from movies to anime tv series to ovas from the original format, to thinpack formats. This is what the Japanese consumer is hungering for. Cheap DVDs and cheap series sets.
Unfortunately, the studios in Japan have a certain way of doing business, and they are stuck in that mode. It is very hard to change how the videos are priced. But every time something cheap is released, the sales go through the roof, but they dont make that huge profit margin they want on every single sale, so they consider it to be a loss, rather than saying "look , we made an actual profit on the sales" - they are looking at the profit margins per sale. So, in the end, the Japanese people are revolting in their own silent way, trying to force a price change within their own society. It will take the demise of companies that "just dont get it", and the start up of companies staffed with the newer generation of people to begin the process of changeover. It might take a generation of such changes in order to change things around entirely within Japan. In the meantime, with the current exchange rate, it is cheaper for Japanese to buy US box sets and have them shipped to Japan, than to buy the box sets locally produced. The disparity of the Yen to Dollar ratio is actually causing a ton of problems for their economy. The US is no longer buying the large quantity of goods from Japan anymore, and Japan now has to actually rely upon its own citizens for it's economy. And the local prices are far too high for the local citizens to afford them, so money is increasingly being spent overseas. The government is crowing that their currency is now valuable, but their entire underlying economic infrastructure is quickly collapsing. Companies in Japan need to take a very hard look at their current reality. They need to drop their prices within Japan significantly now on everything to about 1/5th what the current prices are - because the money is now flowing out of Japan and not in to Japan. They need to cut wages, cut workers, and clean house. It is an impossible task, but since they never did this over the years, they are sitting on top of an inverted pyramid. As the value of the Yen increases, the internal buying power of the yen gets smaller. That internal buying power is at the bottom of the inverted pyramid, and can no longer support the weight of society above it. Japan is at a crucial time in its history. The way things are going, they are going to have to scrap the Yen as their currency, and go to something different and more stable, like Euros, and then re-align all the prices to match those in other countries. |
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pparker
 Posts: 1185 Location: Florida |
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Well, here's some stats via Googling. Looks legit enough based on my own occasional notice of official sales figures (the Strike Witches one was widely reported), but I can't read the Japanese reference credited. Shangri-La's first volume apparently sold less than 1,000 copies. No reason to expect more from later volumes. Considering Gonzo's financial condition, I imagine they just avoided losing more money on it.
Pretty sad considering it featured Range Murata characters and artwork (but I did drop it after 2 eps, myself). That would explain this instance--and still specific to Gonzo. If it happens again from another publisher, then we might wonder if the old business model is really beginning to fail. |
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hikaru004
 Posts: 2306 |
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The series probably tanked. The thread on another forum that normally follows the sales doesn't even have it listed. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Ouch. Not a lot of confidence in this series selling, I see. According to your comments, that's justified.
So I stopped watching this after about eight episodes because I just lost interest; did anyone finish it to tell me how bad it got? |
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relentlessflame
Posts: 188 |
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Well, I can at least say that the release strategy Kadokawa originally used here is pretty much the most expensive in the R2 DVD market: 12 volumes for a 24-episode show, marketed with a Regular Edition at ~6000 Yen and a Limited Edition at ~8000 Yen. (In the R2 market, nearly everyone buys LEs.) From what I've seen, the first volumes haven't even hit the sales chart at all, which means that sales were likely below 1,000 copies per volume. It probably wasn't worth releasing 12 more SKUs in this manner for a show that people obviously aren't buying; it would barely even justify the cost of doing the packaging. So this is probably mostly show specific, but it's also worth noting that Kadokawa (like Aniplex) have been among the last of the R2 anime companies to offer Blu-Ray releases. So when you consider the fact that a Blu-Ray box for this show is certainly coming down the road (it's definitely a show produced in HD), it becomes harder for collectors to justify Kadokawa's old, expensive DVD pricing scheme, especially over 12 volumes. It looks like Kadokawa is finally starting to slowly move towards Blu-Ray (I wouldn't be surprised to see Kiddy Girl-and announced for day-and-date Blu-Ray release starting in February), but it's been a really slow transition for them -- I guess old business models die hard. I think some people will try to pitch this as a "death of Gonzo" story, but this is more Kadokawa's problem. |
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pparker
Posts: 1185 Location: Florida |
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I would add, though, that the fact any Japanese anime publisher would do this is significant. If Gonzo were in a better financial condition, I suspect they would not have done it and just taken the losses (which are not unusual in entertainment). It sends a message and opens a door that I'm sure is unwanted and scary for the industry.
The collapse of the singles DVD revenue model, without a suitable replacement method for generating profits, would I'm sure have a substantial negative effect on anime production. They already depend heavily on efficient technology and cheap labor, so cost-cutting won't make up the difference. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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I watched it all and basically enjoyed it despite its flaws. I especially loved the little money-grubbing girl. Yeah, so it sounds like this is more of a decision based on poor sales of the original singles as opposed to a harbinger of a new industry release strategy. Based on kokuryu and relentlessflame's comment's you have to wonder how much longer the SD single volume release strategy can last in Japan.
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John Casey
 Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
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I second this. Was anyone in here brave enough to assess if the series became worthwhile after say...the second episode? =_= |
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relentlessflame
Posts: 188 |
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Well, Kadokawa is the publisher for this show, not the old GDH, so the way it gets released should be all in Kadokawa's hands. Gonzo's financial situation likely has no bearing, although Kadokawa's situation may be relevant here. While it is true that the timing of this boxset places it right before the end of the traditional Japanese fiscal year, which may be a good way of "writing off" the production, I don't think this in particular is all that scary for the industry on the whole. They've known that sales are down for a while now, and this is a case of a show that just didn't make the cut. I think the fact that this doesn't usually happen is typically because publishers do a better job of predicting demand and picking the appropriate strategy. There are certainly shows that have been solicited in a variety of release strategies, including box-sets (the new Dragonball remake comes to mind). There are other shows that simply don't get home media releases because they don't figure the discs will sell enough copies (and they plan to make their money off of other merchandise). What's more "unprecedented", I guess, is that they changed their mind, but we've seen that happen a number of times over these last few years as well. It's not an easy market. To be honest, I always felt that the entire production of Shangri-La was a bit anachronistic for the current climate. It seems like the sort of show that had been many years in production and was just finally getting off the ground, whereas I sort of doubt that it would have gotten green-lit in today's market if they were starting from scratch. It feels a bit like "old Gonzo". That's not necessarily to say that it's a bad show by any means, but it seemed to me to be a bit out-of-step with what the Japanese market seems to be looking for these days.
I would say that the market interest in SD-only releases is dwindling, especially when you know the show is produced in HD anyway. As is typical of a format transition periods, people are a bit leary of there being a better release just around the corner, especially when you consider the cost of Japanese releases. (Some publishers have been a bit nasty with this, soliciting Blu-Ray boxes immediately after a show's DVD release finishes.) Shows that have had a simultaneous Blu-Ray/DVD release still haven't always been top-sellers, but they've generally at least been able to maintain sales numbers that would have been typical for the show a few years back. And of course, there have been a few "Blu-Ray all-stars", like K-On and Bakemonogatari; it's probably also worth remembering that for every "all-star", that leaves that much less money to buy these other DVD-only shows. So yeah... I think it's all pretty normal format transition stuff, all in all. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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I actually would have imported the limited edition DVDs for this if I'd had the money but I've had to tighten down on importing big time - if nothing else it had some lovely covers and I would have liked to have the booklets also since I'm a fan of Range Murata.
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hissatsu01
 Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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I'm a little surprised by this. Generally Japanese release plans go ahead as planned, horrific sales be damned. But this show was truly selling terribly, at only a few hundred copies per volume. They probably lost money on every volume. And frankly the show sucked. It was supposed to be Gonzo's comeback attempt, but the first few episodes were awful; I think many must have felt the same, as bad as the sales were.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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I'm clearly in the minority on this but I didn't think the show was that bad. Maybe I'm just a sucker for boomerang-wielding chicks. I thought the animation itself was topnotch and it had a fairly interesting plot. I could imagine myself buying a dubbed complete collection at some point in the future if such a beast became available. Which seems kind of unlikely.
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Jkid
 Posts: 197 Location: Capitol Heights ,MD |
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They've finally seen the light. It's way over due that they need to start doing season boxes instead of making single dvd's that only have two episodes per DVD and prices that the average consumer can not afford.
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I watched the entire show and it was okay. The middle of the season was the best, the action was well paced, the story jumped between the characters but not too often, the plot twists were good, but then they added in magic and mysticism and that killed it for me. I went in for a "the world is screwed with global warming, here's what's going on now" story, not, um, let's just say that some of the earlier stuff in the series was actually realistic but by the end it had lost all sight of realism.
This. There were parts in the series where you KNOW that the planes/other mechanical stuff had to be done in 3D but there is no gap between the 3D and 2D, it was perfectly integrated. Shame that Gonzo is dying because I would love to see more shows that can do it right like that. |
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