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Answerman - Is There A Point In Suggesting Titles for Licensing to Publishers?


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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2532
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:23 pm Reply with quote
In other words, stop standing on companies' lawns & shouting out stuff to license at their closed windows. If they want license requests, they'll ask for them via surveys, like what Seven Seas does every month, or the rare ones that Sentai or HiDive offers.

Though, to be fair, a some anime companies do offer "License Requests" as an option on their "Contact Us" pages, though I guess it can be argued that they offer it mainly as a bit of goodwill towards or as a placebo effect to make fans think that they're actually doing something genuinely helpful.

What is sad, though, is the previously mentioned deluge of requests people make whenever a new license is announced, and this isn't exclusive to anime, either. Just like how people keep responding with "How about these titles?" whenever an announcement is made on Facebook, anytime Microsoft's "Major Nelson" announces new Xbox 360 titles for the Xbox One's backwards compatibility service, he's immediately inundated with "Okay, now these next!". It's really sad to that, instead of celebrating a new unlikely license, they'd rather respond with the equivalent of "But why wasn't THIS licensed instead?".
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Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
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Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:27 pm Reply with quote
Was there an similiar previous answerman column like this?
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:06 pm Reply with quote
There is a reason that industry panels I go to typically start with ground rules that include: "Don't ask about licenses."
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OjaruFan2



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 659
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:24 pm Reply with quote
On Twitter back in August, translator Zack Davisson tweeted a really great point about the whole "License this series next!" response from fans: https://twitter.com/ZackDavisson/status/1032787080890310656

Zack Davisson wrote:
So, awesome. More Go Nagai and Leiji Matsumoto work in English now than every before! And lots of people saying "Next you gotta do XXX or XXX!!!" Great! But FIRST we gotta sell what we already made. We can't always focus on next, next, next....


So like he said, don't focus too much on what series anime and manga publishers should license next. Support what's already out now! Strong sales and response from fans will give them a bigger incentive to license more and more series of a certain genre that's proven to fly off shelves (maybe your favorite unlicensed series will end up being licensed one day). Why do think they're constantly going after, say, shonen action-adventure series and cute-girls-doing-cute-things series? Because people in the West are actually buying them/watching the official online streams.
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Merxamers



Joined: 09 Dec 2013
Posts: 720
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:33 pm Reply with quote
On this note, i have to wonder about the specific reasons Konosuba hasn't been licensed yet for english release. I can only assume that either the Japanese companies want an obscene amount of money, or the NA distributors are locked in a bidding war for it. Regardless, i hope to see some kind of announcement soon...

I agree with Justin that we have an embarrassment of riches with regards to available anime, manga, and even light novels. It's unbelievable how much new anime is available to legally watch, and that almost all of it becomes available to purchase later, with english subs or dubs. It's a great time to be an anime fan.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:40 pm Reply with quote
OjaruFan2 wrote:
On Twitter back in August, translator Zack Davisson tweeted a really great point about the whole "License this series next!" response from fans: https://twitter.com/ZackDavisson/status/1032787080890310656

Zack Davisson wrote:
So, awesome. More Go Nagai and Leiji Matsumoto work in English now than every before! And lots of people saying "Next you gotta do XXX or XXX!!!" Great! But FIRST we gotta sell what we already made. We can't always focus on next, next, next....


So like he said, don't focus too much on what series anime and manga publishers should license next. Support what's already out now! Strong sales and response from fans will give them a bigger incentive to license more and more series of a certain genre that's proven to fly off shelves (maybe your favorite unlicensed series will end up being licensed one day). Why do think they're constantly going after, say, shonen action-adventure series and cute-girls-doing-cute-things series? Because people in the West are actually buying them/watching the official online streams.


Exactly. It's easy for people to say that they'll support a show if it's licensed, but we're talking about businesses, so they have to have at least some level of confidence that they can make a profit. The nice thing about the amount of legal streaming available is they've got a solid way to tell if people are at least watching.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5407
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:44 pm Reply with quote
Merxamers wrote:
On this note, i have to wonder about the specific reasons Konosuba hasn't been licensed yet for english release. I can only assume that either the Japanese companies want an obscene amount of money, or the NA distributors are locked in a bidding war for it. Regardless, i hope to see some kind of announcement soon...

Crunchyroll should have it. They have not released it on disc for whatever reason. Remember how long it took them to start releasing Re:Zero.
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dark_bozu



Joined: 03 Sep 2012
Posts: 208
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:54 pm Reply with quote
Dear Justin, maybe you would be able to explain me - what's the reason that none of type-moon's light novels haven't been released in NA? Are japanese publishers asking too much money? I know that fate/strange fakes and fate/prototype were published by Kadokawa that owns 51% of yen press, so are they really can't reach an agreement?
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OjaruFan2



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 659
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:39 pm Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:
The nice thing about the amount of legal streaming available is they've got a solid way to tell if people are at least watching.

And a good amount of those legal streams are free! So people can't always use the excuse "I can't/don't want to pay for it."
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2165
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:39 pm Reply with quote
Okay but Psyren anime when?
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IanKen



Joined: 16 Mar 2018
Posts: 34
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 5:33 pm Reply with quote
RE: the giant pile of Anime we have.

Try being a fan in the 80s. LOL. You got to see some at cons, maybe. With no subs.

GET OFF MY LAWN YOU PUNKS!
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JustStopPlz



Joined: 29 Aug 2018
Posts: 48
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 5:39 pm Reply with quote
Aca Vuksa wrote:
Was there an similiar previous answerman column like this?


Probably. Occasionally he re-uses the same question/answer combo with a slightly different title.


Anyway, the only time you should bother telling any anime/manga/light novel/visual novel company what thing you want licensed is if they do a community license survey. Sentai did do one awhile ago. Seven Seas regularly does a survey for manga and light novels every month. Others that I can't remember do that too. But otherwise just don't bother.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:20 pm Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
Merxamers wrote:
On this note, i have to wonder about the specific reasons Konosuba hasn't been licensed yet for english release. I can only assume that either the Japanese companies want an obscene amount of money, or the NA distributors are locked in a bidding war for it. Regardless, i hope to see some kind of announcement soon...

Crunchyroll should have it. They have not released it on disc for whatever reason. Remember how long it took them to start releasing Re:Zero.


There are many other titles during that 2+ year partnership period where Funimation agreed to be the home video publisher for those Crunchyroll licenses that hasn't been released yet. They did state in general those are still coming out, but who knows how long it'll take. Lots of delays getting those discs out
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Lord Vaultman



Joined: 03 Mar 2017
Posts: 810
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:53 pm Reply with quote
I just wish I knew what it would take to convince funimation to dub the extended edition for season 1 of Psycho Pass (roughly a half hour of new content)
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Fluwm



Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 881
PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 8:16 pm Reply with quote
So who is to blame for the catastrophically stupid $800 LOGH box, the Japanese licensor or the Western licensee?
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