Forum - View topicNEWS: Japanese Anime Market Grew to 242 Billion Yen in 2006
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Really? There were Kodocha digisubs? That's news to me. As far as I know, there were some fansub tapes from back in the day (and those may have been uploaded on the net at some point), but it only covered the first dozen episodes or so. Yeah, there were a decent number of people that wanted to see Kodocha, but fansubs had little to do with it.
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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There were at least 30-40 circa 2003 (which could have been transfered fan tapes), though I guess from your context that was that. I was looking for a fresh example after 'Rozen Maiden' and there was a recent thread about Kodocha being pulled half-way through the run, in which I thought the subtext was popular fan-sub/poor sales. I don't know if it dings my overall point on fan-sub/sales-performance, but nonetheless if I read that Kodocha thread wrong, I'll cop to it being a bad example. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10430 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Most of Kodocha was fansubbed, and despite a lot of excitement when Funimation announced the license, the sales were not good. (Quick bit of trivia, ANN's founder, Justin Sevakis, was the person behind the Kodocha fansubs) Conclusion: Fansubs made Kodocha popular; that popularity eventually lead to someone licensing it; due to the fact that everyone who wanted to see it had already seen it, not very many people bought the DVDs. Funimation believed that the fansubs had created a significant and loyal enough following of "old-school" anime fans that would tell newer fans that Kodocha was a great show. They also believed that the many of the "old-school" fans would buy the DVDs. While certainly both of these things did happen, they didn't happen in great enough numbers. Kodocha is a very odd and special case. Without the fansubs, it would have been too old a show to consider licensing. But despite the popularity of the fansubs, sales weren't very good. Personally, I believe that if Kodocha hadn't been fansubbed, then sales would have been even worse than they were (because it would have been an old, unknown show). So I believe that fansubs probably had a net positive effect on the Kodocha sales. Just not positive enough. However, no single show can really be used as an example of the effect that fansubs have on the market. Certainly there are examples of shows that did well thanks, apparently, to fansubs, other examples(All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku) where fansubs appear to have hurt sales, and other examples where fansubs may hurt DVD sales but push merch sales (Naruto). Unfortunately companies have to try to estimate the effect of fansubs on the market as a whole. And truly judging the effects of fansubs on any single show alone is hard enough, judging them across the market? It's really all speculation. For all their posturing, no company rep truly knows whether or not the net effect of fansubs is positive or negative. But the growing consensus is that the overall net effect is probably negative. Clearly, it would benefit everyone (consumers, fans and companies) if fansubs were rendered obsolete by some method (or variety of methods) that brought anime to international fans faster and allowed them to try it for free (or cheap) before buying it. Those are two of the three reasons fans rely, and will continue to rely on fansubs. The third is quite simply to not have to pay for anything, and no matter what the companies do, bootlegs will continue to exist even if fansubs are rendered obsolete. I've discussed possible measures elsewhere recently (see blog), but another alternative would be for Japanese companies to release "fansubs." If they were to release the first couple episodes (and only the first couple) of a long series subtitled online, they would provide International fans with the intro they need to decide whether or not they want to watch the show or not. Problem is, international fans would then be left with a significant wait for the rest of the show. And releasing the entire show subtitled, even for a fee, might not be in their best interest, since it could diminish licensee interest ("Why should we license this show when you've already sold it subtitled to many of our potential customers?") Until some working solution can be found to render fansubs obsolete, companies are stuck in damage control mode, trying to minimize the need for and negative effects of fansubs. -t |
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ac_dropout
Posts: 88 Location: Newark, NJ |
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The only real solution to stamp out fansub is for an anime company to own a broadcasting block in North America, instead of renting time on various programming blocks. Whereby they could actually get US sponsors to advertise on their blocks, instead of paying other producers to broadcast their shows. Pay per view models aren't as far reaching as basic cable or network broadcast.
However, the pitfall of such a model is that Anime companies would have to produce shows that their major sponsors in North America wanted. Which would take away their unique Japanese cultural aspects and their shows would be no different than any other North American produced venture. Unless we go back to the old school fansubbing model, where fans would pay fansubbers a "maintenance & translation fee"  . Thereby introducing an actual "expense" to viewing fansubs again. So there becomes an actual economic comparison and fans would have more value in owning legitimate DVDs.
It's basically a Microsoft vs. Linux paradigm at this time. Or Netscape vs. Internet Explorer. You can't really beat free when there is only a marginal difference between quality of the products. Unless fansubbers take up a new ethic of release low quality fansubs with 15% deliberate grammatical errors and resolution comparable to a 5th generation VHS tape. |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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I see. I learned something new today. I never saw it on [popular bittorrent hub that only lists unlicensed titles] and I figured that if it had been fansubbed at some point, it would have popped up there. Or did you mean that most of it was fansubbed via traditional fansubs, and not digisubs? Then it would make sense that it never popped up there. I thought that that those had only covered the very early portion of the series, but it could be that the person who had mentioned that was simply unaware that more where available.
There would still be the time lag between the air date in Japan and the air date here. A simultaneous release can (and has, I think) happened for OVAs. But a simultaneous release for a TV series would fall somewhere between "extremely difficult" and "impossible".
Some people are already more than happy to do that for digisubs. Some sites charge for access to their fansubs and people happily pay it. |
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SharinganEye
 Posts: 402 Location: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10430 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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That alone wouldn't do it. Fans would still turn to fansubs to deal with the multi-month delay between the Japanese TV release and the US TV release. What's more, sub-only fans might not have any interest in the TV broadcast, which would be dub only.
-t |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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Before peer-to-peer sharing? No wonder I didn't know about it. I didn't get into fansubs until around 2002 or '03 when P2P was the norm. |
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Gage
Posts: 480 Location: United States |
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I still get the definition of 'fansubs' wrong. TranceLimit tries to explain it to me but when I provide an example of my understanding it's wrong. I don't know what I'm missing.
But it IS good for staying up-to-date with anime in Japan if it is not available in the US currently. I attempted at writing an article about piracy which fansubs play a role in but that's what prompted me to stop writing... until at least I grasp the appropriate understanding that is. 
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ac_dropout
Posts: 88 Location: Newark, NJ |
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Those are the hardcore otaku. I'm talking about a sustainable model to ensure the growth of more general anime fans. Right now the model in North America doesn't seem that sustainable for licensors. Everything is paid for by DVD sales. Buying the licensing fee, buying the airtime, etc. Seems like there are not enough hardcore otaku to keep the model going. What is needed is the model where "casual" otaku are also driven to purchase these DVD.
But sub-only fans are the minority. The majority of the customer base is dub tolerant. In fact I would even speculate that the sub-only fans are the ones that would be least likely to pay for anime, since they are already indoctrinated in the culture of fansubs. |
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Damius
Posts: 79 Location: Montreal, Canada |
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I am a sub-only fan (exept for Cowboy bebop) and I buy anime a lot and rent a lot too. It is always fun tohave it in the best quality possible, to have a collection and to help the industry to grow. |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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With that said I think ac_dropout's particular point he was trying to make here is a very valid one. Hardcore subbers are much more likely to be completely satisfied with a digisub. Much more likely to come up with a reason of why they shouldn't have to pay. And the fact that the majority of sub-only series(Even with their normally lower prices) don't sell nearly as much as dubbed series only solidifies the fact that the majority does indeed want dubs. Again that is a generalization, and of course there are a bunch of hardcore subbers who buy a ton of stuff. But compare that to the ones who don't, and the number reaches a minority. In fact there is an ANN forum member who is very upset about a new genre of sub-only releases coming out. And although I am not as vocal as he is about it, I agree completely. Were looking at you Media Blasters! |
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Damius
Posts: 79 Location: Montreal, Canada |
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I know that I am the minority unfortunatelly, but I will always feel better to pay for it because a lot of folks work on it and I want to give them my support for their hard work. Perhaps you will be surprise but I am less interest to buy a sub-only dvd. The reason is, I do not like to give money to a company that did not work harder to make a dub to give more chance to the series to be popular. In that case if I like a sub-only dvd I will rent it only. (Not happen at this point all dvd I rent/buy was dub also). |
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