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Ken Iyadomi on Bandai's Downsizing

While those won't sell as many copies as American-produced discs, the higher price point and lack of middleman can still result in a decent amount of revenue with little additional cost. Bandai Visual Japan recently discovered this for themselves with their release of Gundam Unicorn. "They found the results pretty good, and that's how I think they would like to move forwards," Iyadomi says.

Once again, the typical disconnect between Japanese corporate expectations and American market reality.

The majority of the division's contractors and three of their five full-time staff members will be laid off, and all releases scheduled after the end of January have been cancelled.

Quote:

The majority of the division's contractors and three of their five full-time staff members will be laid off, and all releases scheduled after the end of January have been cancelled.

So wait.... does this mean that the Akira re-release and the Code Geass R2 anime legends set are NOT coming out?


Because..... that would REALLY suck.

"The pricing range for our products kept dropping in Western countries, and people tended only to buy sets with very reasonable prices, which we understand is what fans want, but it lead us to a different strategy than what Japanese licensors wanted," he remarked. "So we always had a problem [with licensors wanting something different than what consumers wanted]."

Quote:

"The pricing range for our products kept dropping in Western countries, and people tended only to buy sets with very reasonable prices, which we understand is what fans want, but it lead us to a different strategy than what Japanese licensors wanted," he remarked. "So we always had a problem [with licensors wanting something different than what consumers wanted]."

Correct me if I'm wrong (As I know little about business), but doesn't this seem like it's more of a problem caused by the Japanese licensors being unable (or perhaps, unwilling) to adapt to the differences in the western market?

I mean I'll be perfectly honest using a recent example - "K-ON!". I'm lucky that MangaUK always strive to sell their releases for as cheap as they can, so each single volume only costs me £11 online ($17.17). When I look at how much the American DVDs retail for ($30; £19.22) that instantly becomes "not worth it" for 3-4 episodes. The reason MangaUK haven't released the series on blu-ray yet is because they simply know that the blu-ray releases won't sell (the blu-ray market here is an entirely different story though. Unless it's a single release or a movie, BD anime will not survive in the UK) - that's why they've instead, detailed plans to release the series as a boxset on blu-ray later this year.

Ryu Shoji wrote:

Quote: "The pricing range for our products kept dropping in Western countries, and people tended only to buy sets with very reasonable prices, which we understand is what fans want, but it lead us to a different strategy than what Japanese licensors wanted," he remarked. "So we always had a problem [with licensors wanting something different than what consumers wanted]." Correct me if I'm wrong (As I know little about business), but doesn't this seem like it's more of a problem caused by the Japanese licensors being unable (or perhaps, unwilling) to adapt to the differences in the western market? I mean I'll be perfectly honest using a recent example - "K-ON!". I'm lucky that MangaUK always strive to sell their releases for as cheap as they can, so each single volume only costs me £11 online ($17.17). When I look at how much the American DVDs retail for ($30; £19.22) that instantly becomes "not worth it" for 3-4 episodes. The reason MangaUK haven't released the series on blu-ray yet is because they simply know that the blu-ray releases won't sell (the blu-ray market here is an entirely different story though. Unless it's a single release or a movie, BD anime will not survive in the UK) - that's why they've instead, detailed plans to release the series as a boxset on blu-ray later this year.

But if a person was smart they could get the K-ON! BD for less than $30.00 each. I paid about roughly 17 for each K-ON BD single. So that cost me less than MSRP on the series.

The interview mentions that there were a couple of titles where returns really hurt the company. Seeing as how several volumes of the Lucky Star limited editions hit Rightstuf's bargain bin, I can't help but wonder if that's one of those titles.