Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Is Online Streaming Doing in Japan?
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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So, what about anime? Where do Japanese otaku get their anime? Not everyone has the cash to buy those ridiculously expensive BDs and DVDs, and I doubt people are staying up till the wee hours of the morning or even DVR'ing multiple shows. Piracy seems much more...illegal in Japan. There has to be a legal streaming option for anime if there are any anime fans who want to watch shows casually and/or can't afford discs.
Crunchyroll obviously doesn't have service in Japan. How much legal anime does Niconico have? What about that Yahoo streaming service? Is anime really harder to watch in its country of origin than in America? |
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vanfanel
 Posts: 1242 |
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The last couple times I've been in the US, shopping malls were not nearly as fun to visit as they used to be because digital services had killed off all the shops I wanted to visit (book/music/video) there.
I have no desire to see my local Tsutaya, Tower, and Kinokuniya get shuttered as well, so I find Japan's continued lack of interest in these services heartening. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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The biggest service for anime streaming domestically is docomo anime store. https://anime.dmkt-sp.jp/animestore/tp_pc It's 400 yen a month for 1500 series and 27,000+ episodes. Bandai Channel used to be the biggest for anime but has faded. But the other big domestic streamers like gyao all have large anime selections. There are a lot of smaller players, too. Niconico has a lot of anime but each episode is usually only available for subscribers for 1 week, afterwards you have to pay to see the older eps. Exclusives are rare in Japan so most shows are available on more than one of the services. But also since most shows are on TV, usually there is a holdback of a few days before its available for streaming. Often the crunchyroll simulcast streams are faster than the domestic ones. |
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vanfanel
Posts: 1242 |
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I did watch Fate: Unlimited Blade Works this way from week to week, since it wasn't broadcast in my region. Wanted to watch Ushio and Tora that way for the same reason, but could find only pay services in that case, and I'm shy about giving out personal info on-line. No worries; I'll just rent the disks when they come out later. Pretty much everything else I DVR. |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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I find it kind of funny the idea of watching shows on TV these days is such an inconvenience. I'd love to have Japanese television at my fingertips. Though I technically do since there's programs that let you watch Japanese TV on your computer. Not legal at all, I assume. -Stuart Smith |
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Spotlesseden
Posts: 3514 Location: earth |
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Video rental is still very popular in Japan.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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They were notoriously stubborn about DVD and Blu-ray, and are usually three years behind us. (Except in HDTV, where they were ahead of us.) Japan doesn't particularly see a reason to throw out old technologies, particularly when laserdisc and VHS rental stores were still too popular to see a reason to adopt DVD's. This is in contrast with the US, where people, ahem, apparently LOVE having streaming "pushed onto them"  by cheapskate studios like Disney and Warner who dream of never having to sell another hard disk on store shelves--And which will do everything they can think of to throw the disk industry on the bring-out-your-dead cart, and try to convince us it was really our idea all along.
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Wandering Samurai
 Posts: 875 Location: USA |
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I believe that anime companies do upload their episodes onto Nico Douga. Premium membership is 534 yen or whatever the number is. Back in the summertime Gyao was running a big ad campaign and I noticed that they put a strong emphasis on anime series being available. Since I'm in Japan I can't watch Netflix, Hulu, Daisuki, Funimation or Crunchyroll on my American connection, but Gyao has provided more than enough for my anime needs. More like I'm watching what is out right now.
The way Gyao works is you can stream stuff for free for a limited time, which means you can't just wait on the stuff. You have about a week after the episode goes live. If you want more access then you have to join Gyao's premium service. They focus mainly on current series but they will stream older series from time to time, and they just made Monster available, which I'm definitely going to take advantage of. The only drawback to using Gyao is that it is Japanese only with no subtitles, so if you're going to use the service better brush up on your Japanese. |
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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Tell me about it. I personally don't like the general attitude of "streaming is better than TV/disc media" or "the new is better than the old". There are pros and cons to everything. Honestly, if Japan refuses to adopt streaming, so be it. No need to condescend or mock them for taking their time to adopt a "superior" technology. (It always seems to be a sense of cultural pride and superiority that's behind everything.) This might be a little tangential, but personally? Nothing beats owning a physical copy of something. There's no DRM, no dependency on an external server, nothing. You own it, it's yours. Not to mention, there's resale value to be had. One of the reasons I always buy physical copies of all my games. |
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Ali07
 Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Very true. Hell, I came across it today! I was about to start watching the first season of FMP! on DVD, and was surprised to see that the warning screen at the start of the disc actually has one of the characters giving a little speech. Tweeted it, as I had not seen anything like this before, Madman retweeted it...and someone came along and said "This is why I don't want anime on DVD anymore". *Sighs* Will be interesting to see how streaming grows and changes over time. But, I doubt the way I go about things will change. The anime I love will end up being purchased (pending on home video releases), and the rest can just stay up in the cloud...as I only buy shows that I know I will re-watch. |
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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I find it really ironic that countries that want to push, push, push digital streaming are the ones who live in bigass homes with plenty of room space to keep physical media. Especially the US which has the most inconsistent internet connection across the world. If y'all want to advocate for all digital, then you better push for excellent internet coast to coast
That said, I don't really like how Japanese streaming sites offer new episodes free only for a week while you pay for archived episodes. Doesn't make much sense since most people only watch an episode once. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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Paiprince wrote:
No one here is able to speak for the US as a whole. For every one who is an enthusiastic supporter of streaming there are a few of us reactionaries who continue to buy and use physical media. I strongly suspect that many who advocate for streaming are in areas that are well served by high speed internet. They lack the understanding of just how slow it can be in some places. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13552 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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It is also somewhat ironic that Japanese companies have been working with the simulcast format for years but it is often for the foreign nations. What about the native Japanese people who don't have Japanese cable or satellite? I think in that case, their popular streaming sites would serve as perhaps their only legal viewing format.
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Every time I want to sit down and watch a show that's been on my Netflix or Hulu catalog for a while......I find the rights have been pulled off and it's expired.
The streaming pitch of "All Your Movies, Forever(tm)" is a shameful baldfaced LIE. Two of them, in fact. I'd add "...And the studios know this", but to be honest, I don't think they do. It would be a lie if I wasn't pretty well convinced they actually believe it themselves, because they don't use it themselves all that much. (Of course, as Paiprince points out, streaming should work well in other countries outside of NA, where disk licensing and rental/sales is behind the times, where it's harder to get your movies on disk, and with less evenly distributed populations that makes cable harder to saturate...If even a Japanese or European farm town can get the Internet, it's easier to stream over the air than trying to wire them for a cable channel.) |
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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Most people I know who are dumping TV/DVDs for streaming are doing it because of the costs. I was paying $210 for internet and cable with no premium channels. And I hardly watched it because they had no content I was interested in. Now I pay half that for Internet, Crunchyroll, Funimation, Hulu paid, Netflix, and Amazon prime on my Roku 3. I have everything I want to watch. I don't have to watch ads (see Southpark this week). I can watch it anytime I want, in HD. If people don't want to do it it's up to them, but I would suggest everyone at least look at what they're paying and see if they can get better value for their needs some other way. |
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