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Tales Of The Industry - They Shoot Their Hostages, Don't They?


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merr



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 462
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:26 am Reply with quote
EDITOR'S NOTE (apologies to Merr, this will be the first posted comment in all Tales of the Industry columns moving forward): We would very much appreciate it if people kept their speculation as to who is telling the story and what the show is to themselves.

This column exists due to anonymity - the idea is to impart stories about what can and has happened in this industry, without jeopardizing anyone's career.

We realize that guessing who's telling the story and what the show is is the natural human response to the column, but it can't exist if we don't attempt to preserve the anonymity of the speaker and the property they're discussing, so we have to discourage speculation. The mod team will be removing posts that speculate the identity of the show or the speaker telling the story.



I assume ID'ing the show in question is a no-no for this thread, right? (Though it's pretty obvious what the real title is.)

Either way, it's a bummer. All this time I thought the show failed because it was too old. Sad to hear that licensor approvals are what actually did it in. Despite the ADR writer's complaints, this show had an amazing dub, and it's a shame they never got to finish it.
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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:36 am Reply with quote
What a bizarrely fetishistic approach to merchandise.
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JonLa



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
Posts: 55
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:40 am Reply with quote
I thought it was pretty well obscured. I was around at the time and I couldn't work out which distributor and which title it was!
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23665
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:48 am Reply with quote
Oh man, I loved that article. I mean, it was utterly horrifying, of course, but what an insight into what R1 distribs sometimes have to deal with. Something to keep in mind in the future when something goes hinky and no explanation is forthcoming - it may very well not be the distrib's fault.

This column is quickly becoming one of my fave ANN features!
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:51 am Reply with quote
We would very much appreciate it if people kept their speculation as to who is telling the story and what the show is to themselves.

This column exists due to anonymity - the idea is to impart stories about what can and has happened in this industry, without jeopardizing anyone's career.

We realize that guessing who's telling the story and what the show is is the natural human response to the column, but it can't exist if we don't attempt to preserve the anonymity of the speaker and the property they're discussing, so we have to discourage speculation. The mod team will be removing posts that speculate the identity of the show or the speaker telling the story.


Last edited by Zac on Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:25 am; edited 1 time in total
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:20 am Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
Oh man, I loved that article. I mean, it was utterly horrifying, of course, but what an insight into what R1 distribs sometimes have to deal with. Something to keep in mind in the future when something goes hinky and no explanation is forthcoming - it may very well not be the distrib's fault.

This column is quickly becoming one of my fave ANN features!



Agreed. At least there is some small way to get word out about what actually happens in these business relationships. Like "Brad" said, fans still have issues with what happened, and the R1 company is not allowed to even mention that it wasn't their fault, and that they did the best they could at the time. When the people with final authority don't/won't give you what you need to be successful, it isn't exactly a fair situation. Seriously, a full recall that puts everything behind schedule even when it was approved beforehand? At the very least, there should have been an offer to help with the costs since this met with approval before. I get that the Japanese company has final say on these things, but a dose of reality goes a long way. I'd say, "They shoot their Hostages" is a pretty accurate title here.

But at least he pointed out that most of the time the licensors aren't anywhere near as ridiculous as this one was. I would hope that most of them would acknowledge when there was a mistake on their end, or at least understand when correction of an error was financially viable.


Last edited by Greed1914 on Tue Mar 10, 2015 12:52 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Penguin_Factory



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 732
Location: Ireland
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:24 am Reply with quote
This is fast becoming my favourite piece of content on ANN. Keep it up!
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:31 am Reply with quote
I don't hear about merchandise kerfuffles often, home video issues, I hear a lot but merchandise issues, that's something I don't hear a lot.
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rizuchan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:40 am Reply with quote
It's driving me crazy trying to figure out what show he's talking about.!! Laughing

I really enjoyed this entry. I had heard rumors of licensors in Japan's unreasonable requests... it's a shame more of it can't be aired to the public like this, because when a release gets botched over here it can be so damaging to the already struggling companies that license shows here.
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Hameyadea



Joined: 23 Jun 2014
Posts: 3679
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:46 am Reply with quote
I literally LOL'd at that "treating the matter like a 6th grader". At the same time, it is sad that this how a professional representative of the rights-holders acts, despite clear explanations on the matter, over an issue that cannot be fixed (recall all the units in existance? What, the plushied-keychains were held in the same status as Atari's E.T.?). He basically, practically and single-handedly dragged the license to the ground, despite the clear financial losses.

I won't be surprised if "Kazuhiro"-kun had the backing of the higher-ups over the handling the "Plushy Crisis", given the Japanese companies mentality of "100% perfect and in working order, or scrap the project and re-do everything".

I know someone who worked on a project that was supposed to be shown to several Japanese manufacturers. The internal tests of the prototype unit (it was some kind of electronic device) ran fine, but when they needed to demonstrate the prototype to the Japanese manufacturers, it didn't work. And no matter what they, the presenters and hosts of the demonstration did, it just didn't work. From what my friend told me, they apologised to the Japanese delegation practically all the way to their cars, and later the CEO or COO (someone high-ranking) apologised personally via phone to their Japanese manufacturers equivalent. Some crazy stuff.
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samuelp
Industry Insider


Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 2228
Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:47 am Reply with quote
I don't actually think that "Genon" was being petty at all, they were probably forced to cease any real dealings on the show by the original rights holders.

I suspect that when someone in Japan pointed out the wrong color to them, they panicked, tried to bully the US licensor into doing something impossible, and when presented with proof they screwed up their oversight they were probably told by the original Japanese committee to shut down any communication because "Genon" could no longer be trusted, hence the silent treatment.

In general, when a "licensing window" or anyone entrusted to a particular part of an anime property's sales in Japan screws up badly, they get effectively muted by the rest of the committee. Contractually they still have the rights to whatever they had, of course: no matter of screw ups can take that away from them. But any and all decisions they make start getting default "no"s from everyone else.
Then usually whenever it's prudent those rights are sold to some other party.

What happened here is that "Genon" royally screwed up their oversight , and they likely couldn't have approved anything anymore even if they'd wanted to.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23665
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 12:14 pm Reply with quote
@ samuelp - that's an interesting speculation as well. Who knows if you are correct in your assumptions, but it sounds plausible. Really, it just highlights the periodic difficulties that any Western business in any industry can have when dealing with Japanese businesses.
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Calathan
Subscriber



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 9112
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:25 pm Reply with quote
I thought it was pretty obvious what show was being talked about, though perhaps I'm assuming Justin changed different details than what he actually changed. Anyway, assuming it is the show I think it is, then this was quite interesting since I had always just assumed it didn't sell well on its own. Knowing that the release was basically sabotaged by the Japanese company involved presents the situation in a whole different light.
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DmonHiro





PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:48 pm Reply with quote
You bastards... Laughing I just spent 15 minutes LOOKING for the damn show before reading these comments. You got me good.

But man... because of the goddamn nuance of white? It wasn't white enough? WTH, what were they going to do if it had been the right type of white, and then it got dirty in 2 months? Bitch to the people who bought it to bring it back or at least wash it?
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
Posts: 1746
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:23 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:
I had heard rumors of licensors in Japan's unreasonable requests....


It's not just the licensors, but I would say a good chunk of the Japanese side of the industry, albeit in different ways.

For example, in 2011, a certain convention received original artwork to sell from an animation studio with the money going towards the tsunami relief. Said studio originally wanted to impose the following restrictions on the winners of these sketches; 1) The artwork can not be resold 2) All winners must provide their name/DOB/address/phone number/e-mail address to the company on official documentation (and a studio rep made you present your DL so they could verify) 3) If displayed online, the name of the artist can not be shown. The convention had to point out that there was no way that they could impose most of these restrictions, especially that part about the resale. I won a couple of these sketches and spent a good half hour filling out paperwork, signing off that I would fulfill these demands or face some thinly veiled legal threat. When GoFA used to come to anime conventions, if you bought their originals, they too would make you fill out paperwork too with much of the aforementioned information, with a rep checking your DL as well. Makes me wonder if, somewhere in some file cabinet in the deep recesses of some animation studio's basement, my information resides.


Last edited by Cutiebunny on Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
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