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FUNimation April 2013 Solicitations


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Tony K.
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 1:52 am Reply with quote
SpacemanHardy wrote:
And really, most of you store your DVD sets on bookshelves, right? With the spine facing outwards? In that case, you're only gonna be looking at the front or back when you take the discs out of the box. What's the big deal about how pretty it looks anyway?

It's not about the "look" of the box, but ultimately how everything "fits" together. Let's try this analogy:

Say you wanna' buy a pair of shoes. You've got your eye on a particular pair that look great, have long-lasting quality, and are available at a very decent price. You buy the shoes, take the left one out of the box, and it fits perfectly. But then you take out the right shoe and it looks slightly different. It's the same shoe model, but the material is different and the size is a little bigger than what you actually wear. But that's okay, because it still fits when you put some stuffing at the tip of your toes to fill in the gap. Surely, you wouldn't exchange that right shoe for the exact same thing as your left, 'cause it still covers your feet and sorta matches the other one, right?

Who care's if the shoe on the right is made out of plastic instead of leather, that it's mahogany colored instead of brown like the left one, or that it's one-and-a-half sizes too big. It's just a shoe, and nobody really looks at other peoples' feet anyway.

Would you do anything about the shoe?
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SpacemanHardy



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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:08 am Reply with quote
See, that's not a good analogy, because shoes are sold together in a pair at the same time.

Whereas in a lot of situations, different seasons of anime aren't licensed at the same time, and therefore are subject to artwork changes. A lot of times when a company picks up a certain title, they're not even aware that a second season even exists. So when they do get around to licensing the continuation, their release model might have completely changed. Are they just supposed to drop the current model that might have been saving/earning them money JUST to accommodate the handful of extremely particular collector types who buy their stuff?

Also, you can't really compare anime collections to shoes. Shoes are something that you wear on an everyday basis. They're something that people see you in constantly. Of course it's important for them to match up consistently.

But with an anime box, that's not the case. Most of the time, the only person who's going to be looking at the box is you, plus whoever lives with you. Above all else, the most important thing is THE SHOW ITSELF, right? Am I wrong?! Are you buying the show JUST so you can own the cardboard that it comes in? If that's really the case, as long as it's not put into a package that could potentially damage the discs, who gives a flyin' fark what it comes in?

The bottom line is this: It is FUNimation's job to sell anime to customers in Region 1. It is NOT their job to fulfill the OCD-ridden desires of anal-retentive fans who get upset if their volume 1 boxset is forest green while their volume 2 boxset is taupe. While consistency among packaging is indeed nice and encouraged, it is FAR from the most important thing when selling the product. Ya'll should worry more about the quality of the show itself instead of the shell it comes in.
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Tony K.
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:39 am Reply with quote
Okay, you don't care for aesthetics. I get it. All I wanted to point out was the inconsistency in packaging, and you've acknowledged that it exists. Thank you.

My point is that the inconsistency shouldn't have even existed because there was nothing wrong with model they were using to begin with. And since then, they've gone through 3 different ones for who knows why the hell. It was so easy to just do nothing, but they did it anyway, and then again, and who knows how many more times.

Am I not allowed to question this?

EDIT: Added some stuff and fixed some grammar.


Last edited by Tony K. on Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:06 am; edited 2 times in total
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:04 am Reply with quote
SpacemanHardy wrote:
Are you buying the show JUST so you can own the cardboard that it comes in? If that's really the case, as long as it's not put into a package that could potentially damage the discs, who gives a flyin' fark what it comes in?

[raises hand] Actually I give a flyin fark what they come in. I like nice attractive artwork on the boxes and I hate ugly design or bad art on boxes. I enjoy it when companies get creative with their boxes--I enjoy my Beck amp box and the Black Sphere that holds my Gantz collection (maybe it has something to do with my art degree). Obviously you care too since you don't seem to care for spindle cases (stackpacks) and you like pretty boxes as you say here:
Quote:
As far as I'm concerned, as long as they don't put it in a spindle case or a ziploc bag, I could care less what sort of packaging they put it in. Sure, I like nice pretty artboxes just as much as anyone, but I don't get all huffy and curse the company's name if they don't give me one.
Now you probably don't care as much as other people do about packaging, but for some fans packaging is part of the whole experience and something to get excited over. There are some people that just want thinpacks in order to save space on their shelves and that's their preference. Are you going to shake your fist at them too and say any case will do? Sure I think a few of the complaints might be nit-picky to me and then there's a few that I agree with, but it also comes down to people's preferences. Of course inconsistent packaging is just going to reinforce the idea that Funi is clueless and frustrate fans. It defeats the purpose of calling something a limited edition with a box to fit 2 seasons and 1 of the seasons doesn't fit right in it. What's so special about that then?

Quote:
And really, most of you store your DVD sets on bookshelves, right? With the spine facing outwards? In that case, you're only gonna be looking at the front or back when you take the discs out of the box. What's the big deal about how pretty it looks anyway?
Actually I have some of my boxes with the art work facing out, which I enjoy looking at on my shelves. I also rotate them when I get a little bored so it changes which are turned out and which are turned in. Works as a good conversation piece too when I have a friend over they see something that catches their eye and say, "hey what's this?"

Quote:
Ya'll should worry more about the quality of the show itself instead of the shell it comes in.

Oh, no I do think people worry about the quality of shows as well as the packaging. All you have to do is look at the rage that goes on in the Aniplex threads over missing subtitles, lack of dubs, price, flimsy art boxes, etc.

Again, you are going to find some complaints that are excessive about any release, but not all complaints about packaging are invalid either.
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lem



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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 5:54 am Reply with quote
Just be glad Funi doesn't do manga? I know I am. Imagine how they'd handle the release of any manga series they owned publishing rights to. So what if it took you years to buy a complete set? okay okay, never mind that. I'm just sayin' If they treated book releases the way they treat their discs...

uh let's see, we could probably expect small format for the initial volumes, but only the first volume would be a hardcover. Then there'd be Over-Size for the remainder, and after that a Complete Edition set with two different sizes would be offered? but only in a soft cover. Or one half of it would be in omnibus format, and the other in singles. To top it all off, another version that wasn't printed on acid free paper would also be offered at a highly reduced cost.

I understand the only constant is change and how variety is the... but damn. To be perfectly cynical here, the choices and decisions one has to make for buying their TV Shows on discs seems to only make "cents" for Funi.

*added Shows*
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victor viper



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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:47 am Reply with quote
I hadn't really paid much attention to the variation in packaging until I read this thread. Fortunately, my shelves are already a mishmash of DVD singles, DVD-size artboxes, blu-ray singles and blu-ray boxes, so the Frankenstein's monster packaging isn't really a big deal for me.

However, I was disappointed to see that Railgun will be DVD-only, especially since Funi's had the license for almost 2 years. But, since Index was DVD-only, I guess it's not a surprise. I'll buy the Railgun DVD's anyway, but I doubt that I'll double-dip if and when we get a US blu-ray release (which I'll conjecture at November 2014).
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Animegomaniac



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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:27 am Reply with quote
Tony K. wrote:
Okay, you don't care for aesthetics. I get it. All I wanted to point out was the inconsistency in packaging, and you've acknowledged that it exists. Thank you.

My point is that the inconsistency shouldn't have even existed because there was nothing wrong with model they were using to begin with. And since then, they've gone through 3 different ones for who knows why the hell. It was so easy to just do nothing, but they did it anyway, and then again, and who knows how many more times.


Much of what Funimation did was logical:

BD only releases get BD cases, DVDs their own.
Limited BD/DVD combos {and regular combos} at first came out in in DVD size cases, to emphasize the DVD end.
Limited half combo sets then came out in BD cases as BD became more prevalient.
Here's an odd varient: full combo sets now come out in BD sizes now except they come with a DVD size slipcover ... to match whichever size you want or need, I'd imagine.

So the problem? Combining different releases and blaming the fact they don't match on the publisher? My Spice and Wolf BDs don't match but I don't blame Funimation; One's BD only, the other is a combo pack, there's no reason they'd look the same.

I'm sorry but I still see this as a nonissue since BD/DVD combos were always a gray area anyway. Was Funimation selling them as DVDS or as BDs? I really think it depended on how costumers complained.

"No, see? They're DVDs. The BDs are just a bonus."
"No, see? They're BDs. The DVDs are just a bonus."
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Kruszer



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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:58 pm Reply with quote
@SpacemanHardy

Exactly, all I really care about is that the discs play, that they come in something halfway decent, and has the title on the spine so I know what the heck it is when I'm skimming my collection of 4-500 discs. I'd be more inclined to criticize other companies for not doing even this like my Geneon released Serial Experiments Lain which is just the 4 DVDs in a really flimsy plastic thing or my Moribito box which does not indentify the show (in English at least) on the spine.
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Tony K.
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 6:32 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
So the problem? Combining different releases and blaming the fact they don't match on the publisher? My Spice and Wolf BDs don't match but I don't blame Funimation; One's BD only, the other is a combo pack, there's no reason they'd look the same.

I'm sorry but I still see this as a nonissue since BD/DVD combos were always a gray area anyway. Was Funimation selling them as DVDS or as BDs? I really think it depended on how costumers complained.

"No, see? They're DVDs. The BDs are just a bonus."
"No, see? They're BDs. The DVDs are just a bonus."

Actually, since the rise of Blu-ray just about every other major distributor of North America home media has been pushing their BDs strictly as a BD product. Any BD that included a DVD or Digital Copy of some kind had been marketed and packaged in a BD case, with the rare exception of Disney/Buena Vista who oddly enough packages them in both BD and DVD cases, but they all still have both formats inside each. And I think Universal did the same with a handful of movies, but only for a short period and have since stopped. In addition, DVD-only products from these distributors were marketed and packaged in their own DVD cases and left as a separate format, none of which I recall as having "additional Blu-ray copies" outside of the weird Disney and Universal packages. But that's about it.

Point is, people like Warner Bros., Paramount, Fox, Lionsgate, and all the other major studios that embraced, endorsed, and produced BD media since its creation had already been pushing the model of "BD first, DVD second" because they probably knew HD would be preferred over SD just in terms of its technical capability and presentation alone, but since they had enough money to spare they could at least afford to throw in that extra DVD/Digital copy with the BDs so the consumer could essentially watch their stuff anywhere.

FUNi should've seen this, and did, in fact, use the same sales model during their initial foray into BD media starting in 2008. Stuff like Afro Samurai, Basilisk, Claymore, Devil May Cry, a few DBZ movies, Gunslinger Girl, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, Ouran Host Club, Samurai 7, Shigurui, and Trinity Blood, just to name a few, were all released as BD-only sets. Then in 2011, they released their first combo pack in Ga-Rei Zero, and that's where the whole packaging fiasco started.

Some sets were still released as solo BD products, but then you got these combos with DVD copies that only came in DVD-sized cases. BDs by themselves were merely BDs in BD cases, but any subsequent combo was automatically put in DVD cases. Darker Than Black 2 was the last combo I was stupid enough to fall for buying, so I can't tell you how any other combo since then has turned out.

And then they started their 3rd Generation packaging, which is sort of interchangeable between 1st and 3rd-gen products (all of which are at least BD-sized cases, with the "option" to make it DVD-sized using the extra piece of cardboard or weird slipcase), but it doesn't account for 2nd-gen packaging, which are all DVD-sized. Here's an example:

1st-gen


The way things used to be that had absolutely nothing wrong with it.

2nd-gen


DVD-sized artboxes that only fit DVD-sized items, which I like to jokingly call "media disc segregation."

So if they ever release Darker Than Black season 1 and use their 3rd-gen packaging, it will only fit in that box with the weird DVD-sized slipcase or if you own the brick version of season 1 that is DVD-only. But for now, if you do own the season 1 brick you'll have a complete collection of both seasons on DVD with an additional BD copy of just season 2.

And if you decided to trash the DVD-sized slip, but put both seasons in the box to display on your shelf anyway, this is how it would look:

Awkward...
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SpacemanHardy



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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:01 am Reply with quote
^ So in effect, what you're trying to say, Tony, is:


Tony K. wrote:
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Tony K.
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:41 am Reply with quote
Bingo!

I'll also take note of your maturity level and capacity for rational conversation the next time I see you getting reported.
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SpacemanHardy



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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:47 am Reply with quote
^ At least in not the one throwing an increasingly irrational hissyfit over a piece of cardboard, now am I? Rolling Eyes
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Tony K.
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:51 am Reply with quote
I don't see why you continue to try and defame me as some sort of irrational person. Points have been made by others, and yet you seem to be singling me out the most, which means you're making it personal for some reason...
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SpacemanHardy



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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:57 am Reply with quote
Sorry if it seems that way, but no. I'm not intentionally making it personal at all. I just think it's silly that you continue to constantly go out of your way to mold FUNimation into this evil corporation when all they're doing is changing the artwork on their boxes a tiny bit. At the same time, however, my reactions towards you would be the same reactions I'd share towards anyone in this position.

And if you'd bother to check, points have been made by others which favor towards the points I've made as well.
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Tony K.
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 5:07 am Reply with quote
I'm not trying to mold them as "evil." I'm just saying that the whole package situation is the reason for my hesitance/skepticism in some of their business decisions. If the specs in packaging work out and the price is right for whatever title it is I've got my eye on, I'll still buy the stuff. The examples I listed are merely to illustrate the slight hiccup they had in their sales model and to question the possibility of future screwups.

I get that you're saying people shouldn't worry. But it was still a pretty obvious mistake that some consumers found issue with, otherwise they wouldn't have changed it for a 3rd time. But they supposedly learned from that mistake already and decided to drop the 2nd-gen packing scheme a year later, so good for them. We'll see what happens from here on out.

And this isn't out of my way. Typing stuff up (i.e. praise, complaints, etc.) is a cinch. In fact, it's easier to do when you're fired up (one way or the other). These complaints are nothing compared to when I'm actually in favor of something.
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