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Bandai Entertainment Responds to ANNCast Comments


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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
Posts: 3085
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 7:16 am Reply with quote
But the problem is that this goes beyond free advertisement, you claim that fansubs don't represent lost revenue, what do you say to all those people who room is full of hundreds of disc of anime who just downloads everything.

It was lost revenue for me, as I didn't buy a single dvd during my fansub watching days.
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Erunno



Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 7:35 am Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
It was lost revenue for me, as I didn't buy a single dvd during my fansub watching days.


Please don't try to project your questionable morals on other people. In our household watch a lot of fansubs but we also *buy* most of the series we did like if they are available at all. We own several hundred Euros worth of Anime DVDs. The simple truth is that without fansubs we wouldn't have started this little hobby at all as we came across a good anime fansub by sheer accident which sparked our interest in the genre. Believe it or not, but here in Europe many anime DVDs are horribly overpriced compared to the US prices so we pick our purchases more carefully and mostly only stuff we already know.

If fansubs were to disappear from the face of the earth we wouldn't start buying more DVDs because we already spent what we can afford on anime. Our disposable income won't magically multiply and I'd be far more hesitant to buy anything given the high prices if each time I had to fear that I just bought a dud.
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torreyjs



Joined: 16 Mar 2010
Posts: 76
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 8:14 am Reply with quote
poehitman wrote:
All I can say is that if they stop making dubs, I stop buying their DVD's. I won't buy sub-only releases as they are just glorified fansubs.


This is my thought process too. I wont buy DVDs anymore if its subs only. Ill just drop this collecting of Anime I've been doing and move on.

Why would I support / buy subs only when thats a product I have no desire for and will NEVER consume?
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JohnnySake



Joined: 22 May 2008
Posts: 582
Location: Auburn Hills, MI
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 8:25 am Reply with quote
Getting back to Bandai, I, for one, am glad to hear Bandai has no intention of going anywhere anytime soon. Over recent years I've enjoyed a variety of their releases, to the point where they were one of my favorite publishers. Lately Gundam 00 and Hayate have been hitting the spot for me. Yes, they delay their releases, and I've complained about it to the point to trolling. But now I just add 30 days to their initial release date, and when their revised release date comes out, it ends up matching my initial 30 day+ estimate. Wink

If they need support by picking up the various upcoming Haruhi releases, I'll be glad to oblige. We would be the worse off not to have Bandai around releasing anime for all of us.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4369
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 8:28 am Reply with quote
Dark Elf Warrior wrote:
Well, that was the impression that I got. Bandai isn't closing, but if things don't work out, they would be sub-only. Anime isn't exactly fading away, but it isn't getting bigger either. But I didn't really think Bandai was going to close, at least not anytime soon. Now if only I knew what was going on with Media Blasters, I hear they're on ice.


Well MB is not on ice i believe. They did release both Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny & Great Guardians with a dub and their about to do the same thing with Queens Blade and Dokuro-chan which i am looking forward to , though i really though they were giving them the sub only treatment too.

I doubt they'll be another anime boom like what happen when pokemon came to the US. However one might happen soon and hopefully during where theres no market crisis or recession happening. But in the mean time, Companies on both isles need to handle the illegal streaming sites and downloading sites fast.
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_V_



Joined: 13 Apr 2009
Posts: 619
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 8:37 am Reply with quote
luffypirate85 wrote:
Oh man this is the best drama since ADV went under.


ADV going under was a long, drawn-out process...and actually had some damage control with a weirdly happy ending.

Still, the real sign for me that "ADV is in life-or-death trouble" was December 31st 2008, when it was announced that FUNimation got Rebuild of Evangelion, not ADV; Eva was ADV's flagship series.

But after 2008 ended, we kind of went into a "numb" period in 2009 without too much big news...other than CPM shutting down, but frankly that was a fait accompli since 2006 (though it was fun to see ADV get Grave of the Fireflies)


Still...the ADV shutdown was gradual, which meant there was always another bit of news each week to yell about; Geneon shutting down was so sudden it was like a nuke going off.

Biggest industry news since 2008, yeah.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 8:48 am Reply with quote
Erunno wrote:
Charred Knight wrote:
It was lost revenue for me, as I didn't buy a single dvd during my fansub watching days.


Please don't try to project your questionable morals on other people. In our household watch a lot of fansubs ...
...
If fansubs were to disappear from the face of the earth we wouldn't start buying more DVDs because we already spent what we can afford on anime. ...


The big Internet Machine is both a threat and an opportunity. There are proliferating opportunities to watch shows on legit streams that do not have the big budget impact of buying DVD's.

And if fansubs were to disappear from the face of the earth, the hits on those legit sources would get a major upward spike, making it more lucrative to license material for streaming, bringing an even larger share of material out on legit streams.

This "if fansubs were to disappear" argument is a 2007//2008 argument that has not been updated for 2010.
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writerpatrick



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 670
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 9:10 am Reply with quote
Fansubs disappearing would actually be bad because it would mean fandom and the interest in anime had declined to the point where people don't want to fansub. However, greater restrictions in fansubs would be good. Something as simple as a 6 month delay between the release of a show and the production of the fansub would give the licensees time to license a show and get it onto the market.

What would work even better would be a way for Japan to completely shut off the RAWs, although that's nearly impossible. If fansubbers had to work from legit Japanese DVDs they would also be delayed. And if the show was licensed in that time the fansubbers probably wouldn't even bother.

The main reason dubs are declining has little to do with fansubs. Dubs are made for the mass market, and if the shows aren't making it to air then there's little point in dubbing. If fans are interested in a show they tend to prefer, or at least settle for, subs.
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Paploo



Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 1875
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 9:21 am Reply with quote
I think the benefit to legit streams would be a major reason for fansubs to disappear, or at least scale back. Fansubbers have no reason to be subbing any current shows, nor any that have been licsened like Naruto and Bleach, really.
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KanjiiZ



Joined: 28 Jun 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Central Coast
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 9:32 am Reply with quote
I was never and will never be a fan of Bandai. They still have the habit of releasing shows over several DVDs. Hayate the Combat Butler is by far the worst release I have ever seen. Seven sub only episodes for thirty dollars and about 50 episodes in the whole series? That's the stupidest price I have ever heard of.

The only thing that keeps Bandai on my radar was the fact that I got all of Terra e..'s DVD's for five dollars each and it came out cheaper than the actual boxset.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 9:42 am Reply with quote
torreyjs wrote:
poehitman wrote:
All I can say is that if they stop making dubs, I stop buying their DVD's. I won't buy sub-only releases as they are just glorified fansubs.


This is my thought process too. I wont buy DVDs anymore if its subs only. Ill just drop this collecting of Anime I've been doing and move on.

Why would I support / buy subs only when thats a product I have no desire for and will NEVER consume?


The producers know that and factor it in. The main fixed cost for a sub-only release is the license and the initial mastering and pressing. They know that the market is small for a sub-only release, but the target is not market size, its profitability: if the smaller sub-only market covers the license cost and the initial pressing, it breaks even and then sales net of merchandising costs after that point are profit.

If the incremental market that includes you is twice the size of the dub-only market, and the incremental fixed cost of the dub is three times the baseline fixed cost of the sub-only release, then its quite possible that the much bigger market does not reach break-even while the much smaller market yields a profit.
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Erunno



Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 10:26 am Reply with quote
agila61 wrote:
The big Internet Machine is both a threat and an opportunity. There are proliferating opportunities to watch shows on legit streams that do not have the big budget impact of buying DVD's.

And if fansubs were to disappear from the face of the earth, the hits on those legit sources would get a major upward spike, making it more lucrative to license material for streaming, bringing an even larger share of material out on legit streams.


Actually, no. From a European point of view we have very limited options for watching legit streams since most licenses seem to cover the States only, at least this is my impression from getting "This offer is not available in your country" again and again for series which I was interested in. As long as no legit stream source exists which cover a very broad set of series it's hard to argue if it would see an upward spike or not.

Plus, you're arguing under the mistaken assumption, that at least this household saves money by watching fansubs. I can assure you that it doesn't. The money is used to buy DVDs for series we know and liked. Having legit streams would not increase our amount of money we can invest in anime suddenly. If we were to watch paid streams than we'd simply buy less DVDs. The distribution of the money might change but not the total amount spent.

Quote:

This "if fansubs were to disappear" argument is a 2007//2008 argument that has not been updated for 2010.


I am not very familiar with this since I started watching only 2 years ago. It doesn't make it less legit though as I don't like that people who use fansubs as a base for purchasing decisions are thrown together with people who don't intend to pay at all.
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nailszz6



Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 10:37 am Reply with quote
Quote:
we may unfortunately discontinue creating dubs and focus on sub-only releases.


YES YES YES!!! More and more good news just keeps flowing in.
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ZenErik



Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Posts: 392
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 10:52 am Reply with quote
nailszz6 wrote:
Quote:
we may unfortunately discontinue creating dubs and focus on sub-only releases.


YES YES YES!!! More and more good news just keeps flowing in.

While it may be bad for the market, those of us that are generally sub fans may benefit. POTENTIALLY lower prices and quicker turn around times after the licensing announcements. :p

Although I wouldn't really count on lower prices from Bandai...
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JohnnySake



Joined: 22 May 2008
Posts: 582
Location: Auburn Hills, MI
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 10:53 am Reply with quote
KanjiiZ wrote:
I was never and will never be a fan of Bandai. They still have the habit of releasing shows over several DVDs. Hayate the Combat Butler is by far the worst release I have ever seen. Seven sub only episodes for thirty dollars and about 50 episodes in the whole series? That's the stupidest price I have ever heard of.

The only thing that keeps Bandai on my radar was the fact that I got all of Terra e..'s DVD's for five dollars each and it came out cheaper than the actual boxset.


Actually TRSI is selling Hayate Vol. 5 for $24, so your quoted retail price doesn't always have to be just that. Like we've heard in other ANNCasts, Bandai probably has to release Hayate in this current format to make some money over time. Doing all fifty at once and selling it for, maybe for your thirty dollars, may not be economically feasible. People vote with their dollars, if they keep coming out with Hayate volumes, someone must be buying them.

It's too bad they could not put in the liner notes for all the jokes for all the other anime series that they reference in the show (ala Lucky Star and their liner notes). I feel like I only get half of the jokes flying by.
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