Forum - View topic

NEWS: TV Tokyo's Iwata Discusses Anime's 'Road to Survival'

Majin Tenshi wrote:

The Japanese needs to think outside the box and take matters into their own hands by including English sub on their releases more frequent . Just like BV is doing for some of their releases, instead of pushing the blame on international markets for not wanting to buy their releases. I am sure that there are lots of fans outside Japan who would love to buy the Japaneses released (DVDs/BDs) for their shows (especially if they're not licensed), but are relucant to do so mostly due to the lack of sub. Of course, with more sales and market expansion the prices will be pushed down gradually.

I would absolutely love for this to become more common. I would certainly import discs of stuff I really like straight from Japan if they included English subs, even at Japanese prices (which are steep). The really sad thing is, it's even easier to do now with something like Blu-ray, where the region coding for Japan and North America are the same.

Here's a thought that cropped up in my mind when he said targeting it to Japanese -- what if that means they won't bring some anime over here in the future in order to cut costs from licensing, which would suck in the long run.

I've fired rounds at the Japanese distribution model before, as y'all know. I can't believe it took them THIS long to realize their model of charging close to a hundred quid for 50 minutes without extras just MAY be straining some people's wallets. Just a little.

Hmm. The original article is not perfectly clear what for what nation these "nationwide" numbers apply. I would have guessed the US, from the companies mentioned in that particular paragraph, but it could have been Japan. I wouldn't have thought it meant Taiwan.

Somethings that I found interesting that were not translated...

- Titles that were developed with an US fanbase in mind: Blue Dragon and Keroro.

さらに、違法配信サイトや動画共有サイトの台頭が、地上波テレビを中心としたアニメのビジネスモデルを破壊。「日本でアニメを放送された翌日には、現地語の字幕を付けてネットにアップされてしまう」ため、日本で放送終了した作品を海外に販売するころには、海外ファンはすでにそのアニメを見ており、視聴率が取れなくなる。「成功の方程式――テレビメディアのビジネスモデルが崩れた」

Also, I didn't like the idea of excessive expanding of Anime worldwide from the beginning. I like Anime - but I don't want Anime on overpriced DVDs!!

@Unit 03.5-ish:
People aren't idiots just because they don't care about watching Naruto on CR and prefer fansubs. Quality on CR isn't really good and fansubs are available in HD-quality. Also I - and many other people - HATE (!) streaming videos.

But I think a shrinking of the anime market isn't that bad. There are way too many new series each season and many of them are just... garbage.
Concentrating on less, better series would be better, I think.

Also, I didn't like the idea of excessive expanding of Anime worldwide from the beginning. I like Anime - but I don't want Anime on overpriced DVDs!!

Further, concentrating on the Japanese marketplace could lead to more series which are aimed specific to a Japanese audience and aren't adjusted to a worldwide audience (which would be good, I think).

And concentrating on the Japanese marketplace could also lead to a boom of fansubs, because if new series are only released in Japan, people will need more fansubs.

DavidShallcross wrote:

] Hmm. The original article is not perfectly clear what for what nation these "nationwide" numbers apply. I would have guessed the US, from the companies mentioned in that particular paragraph, but it could have been Japan. I wouldn't have thought it meant Taiwan.

It is more likely they mean the US than Japan. The numbers for Japan are leaked on 2ch weekly so there are places where you can find compilations of the sales numbers. Very few titles go below 500 in Japan.

Edit: It says "In the Americas" for the DVD sales.

If I'm thinking what you're thinking, maybe they make more of the same because Japanese customers, oh goly, buy the DVDs, and the industry makes more. Such a mind-boggling concept! o.o!

Finally, I've got to comment on the whole "going back to the past." If he means release in Japan only, effectively cutting the global market off, he is essentially saying, "fansubbers, welcome back." It will return and there is very little he could do to stop it (again, monetarily it could only hurt him to resist if he has no global market). I really am not that upset over such a revelation since, well, if I have to I'll live with my free fansubs. It's tough I know. If I have the chance to buy anime and support the company, then I will, but otherwise - what else is there for me to do? But if Iwata means targeting the Japanese audience, then I also really am not that upset. That's really a matter of taste, I think, so it hurts if you just aren't interested. But if I was Iwata's advisor, from a purely economic standpoint, I'd say that do what you think you have to - but if you want a global market, you have the power to do it properly. Don't go blaming the world for your problems when you just fail to come up with solutions. A smart company comes up with answers; those that must scale back are those that simply didn't do enough work.

Iwata is saying nothing of cutting the global market off. He is saying that at the current trend of consumption, there is little demand for anime from broadcasters in US and other regions. If this trend continues, there will be little or no anime broadcast on TV and it will become something that only Japanese people will be able to watch from broadcast.

ZetaEpyon wrote:

Majin Tenshi wrote: The Japanese needs to think outside the box and take matters into their own hands by including English sub on their releases more frequent . Just like BV is doing for some of their releases, instead of pushing the blame on international markets for not wanting to buy their releases. I am sure that there are lots of fans outside Japan who would love to buy the Japaneses released (DVDs/BDs) for their shows (especially if they're not licensed), but are relucant to do so mostly due to the lack of sub. Of course, with more sales and market expansion the prices will be pushed down gradually. I would absolutely love for this to become more common. I would certainly import discs of stuff I really like straight from Japan if they included English subs, even at Japanese prices (which are steep). The really sad thing is, it's even easier to do now with something like Blu-ray, where the region coding for Japan and North America are the same.

This. I'm not crazy about the high price of discs but I would be willing to do this. In fact I've been thinking that if the Japanese cut the North American market, or just every other country out, of the anime market they'll have to do this or find some way of giving us a legal alternative. Otherwise we're just going to watch fansubs all the time and they'll never get anything from the 200,000 or so people who watch the fansubs. I'm not assuming that everyone one of those people will pay in any form, probably like 20,000 of them will, but if they're going to do this something should be done like this. I've got plenty of non-anime R1 DVDs that have multiple subtitle tracks on them why don't the Japanese do this?