Forum - View topicNEWS: AnimEigo Unable to License Rest of Yawara! Anime
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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For some reason hit the quote rather than edit button. Sorry about the double post.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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archyteckie08
Posts: 21 |
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Unlike Funimation, AnimEigo makes anime for anime fans. Their series are what most anime fans claim they want. Very Japanese series with subs with cultural notes instead of Americanized dubs.
AnimEigo is a little company and their products are very niche, so of course they are going to be expensive. But again if Anime fans, do what they say, than Yawara! is worth the extra costs because they are getting an authentic experience. Isn't that what anime fans really want? For people saying they will have no choice but to fansub, I wonder what was their reasoning of never buying the first box set. Was an indie company like AnimEigo subs not good enough for them? Or do they wait until fansubbers finishing subbing the complete series to watch the first episode? Or do they watch as soon as the fansubs are complete? If they do the second, why couldn't they've brought Yawara!'s first release and wait until they finish to buy the next box set. Or better yet, buy the Yawara! licensed set. Its still available through AnimEigo's site and Bestbuy. Watch those and then go back to watching the fansub, for the unlicensed episode. That seems fair right? Fansubbers just like license companies abandon projects mid-season. They may stop subbing a show for various reasons; , no one downloads it, its too difficult to translate, or they'd rather use their talent resources on another show. Also, even if you knew Japanese and could watch anime as soon as it airs, you would not be immune to abandon projects. Plenty of promising Anime in Japan are routinely canceled early or never finished. Stopping a show, mid-season isn't something exclusively done only by US license holders. Anyhow, Yawara! is a serial show. It's not a LOST or HEROES type of show that you must watch every single episode. You can watch the 40 episode AnimEgo box set and get a pretty good idea on how the 124 episode series will end. It's has been my experience that most long running animes become stale after the 50th or so episode. I tend to bail on long running shows after the 50 episode mark, especially if its a show was renewed for popularity sakes. Which Yawara! was so it would last until the 1992 Barcelona Olympics came. So Yawara! 124 episodes was somewhat bloated to meet a deadline. Hence, it not getting fully licensed means very little to me. As the shows true essence is fully tangible within its first 40 episodes. But if some truly feel that 40 isn't enough, by all means they could seek to get the reminding episodes. But I don't think anyone life would be less than full, if they never saw all the episodes. Besides, Life's too short to bemoan over a 20 year old series. Especially, if there are plenty already licensed and fully translated shows waiting for anime fansubbers fans to discover. The funny thing is fansub fans already whine about how expensive anime is. When there is legally licensed and cheaply anime available on eBay. Sure it didn't just come out of Japan but most new anime/manga are garbage anyway. Anyhow, anybody who brought Yawara! won't be at a lost. The show is worth it and AnimEigo's DVD production is perfection. Not to mention that AmeriEgo's OOP box sets sell for hundreds on eBay. AnimEgo's Kimagure Orange Road DVD box sets originally sold for $90, went out of print in '07, and now sells on eBay used for $300+. I posted a screen-capture of a recent auction: 
If anything a series like Yawara! will go the same way in a year or two. It's a really good series that is just as loved by the Japanese as Kimagure Orange Road was. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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That's a terrible analogy. The fansubs I'll be downloading are of episodes that haven't and probably never will be released on DVD in this Region. That'd be like driving a car that never left the drawing board off the lot. The fansub group is not resuming distribution of the episodes that were on AnimEigo's release, by the way.
But that’s just the point: there is no economy, no subsistence, no material value, because no one’s (any longer) interested in trying to extract them from Yawara, so only its artistic and entertainment values remain. |
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TokyoGetter
 Posts: 416 Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards. |
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But it DID leave the drawing board. Just because you live in Guam, a cabinet, or in a giant robot circling the Earth doesn't mean that you're absolved of responsibility when it comes to this stuff. As long as we're all clear about that, and the grey area we all fail to acknowledge in our position as fans, that's fine. But there is a reason to feel bad if you are so inclined.
Seriously: just walk on in to a store, put the first set in your coat, and try that expression out when security catches up to you. This is total philo 202 bent and twisted to ignore simple facts: You can still buy it. Somebody is still making money off it. Somebody still holds the license to it. Somebody still licensed it to Animeigo. Just because the sky is grey doesn't mean the sun doesn't exist. Your argument, on its face, is absurd and while I'm not trying to be a jerk I think it has to be acknowledged as such. I don't exist in this Derrida-like "death of the author" world where my actions have no effect and whatever. I play by the rules, even when they don't work out for me, which is most of the time. While I don't blame fansubs for being the death of everything, I certainly think that anybody who doesn't acknowledge the equation of "no money = no content" is just being deliberately stand-offish. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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 (plus a 3rd copy of each of the OVA DVDs - PM me if anyone is interested in buying them).
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tankerboy
 Posts: 81 Location: Chicago |
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The argument is not absurd, TG, yours is specious, until something is bought it has no subjective value. You are confusing objective value with subjective value. Objective value says that because something "is" it has value; subjective value says it's worth is based on the amount of desirability the item has, just because the sun exists above the grey sky doesn't mean it has any value to plants and kids on spring break at that particular time. Just because a dealer has a car or a store a set of dvds doesn't mean they have any subjective value; right then they only have cost. If no one buys the car what is is worth to the dealer? Nothing. Actually it's worth less than nothing because it still has cost, so the value, if any, is negative. The car still has aesthetic value but it has no market value. This is the case of Yawara, there is objective value for the license but no subjective value because no one wants to pay the price the owner wants; because the owner can't sell it it has no subjective value for them either. A subbed box set would have subjective value because I would pay $80 for it. If you walked out of the store with something that had no value to the store they would wonder how it got there and not bother stopping you - however by stealing an item you are giving it value. With absolutely no knowledge of what happened I would almost bet that the owner thought AnimEigo would pay more than they offered to pay and when AnimEigo wouldn't they felt that backing down and agreeing to AnimEigo's offer was more embarrassing then not making a dime off an anime they knew nobody else would license. So yes, episodes 41 - 124 of the anime Yawara have objective value but no subjective, i.e. monetary, value in North America. - Trust me, if they did somebody would be trying to make a buck off of them. |
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TokyoGetter
Posts: 416 Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards. |
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You're going off the rails in terms of what I said, tankerboy. I didn't argue about a textbook take on value and the word value. I searched my own posts (coffee's still kicking in!) and didn't even see the word "value" in my writing, so I defer here. You've presented a good take on that concept but it wasn't something that I was discussing in this context. I think the concept of sweat equity is being completely ignored here, as are creator rights with regard to internationalization, as is market structuring, licensing infrastructure, et al. The undercurrent here seems to be "I'm going to do whatever I want so who gives a shit?!?" I would never tell somebody their hard work is worthless or without any value. That's like an invitation to getting your face mashed in. "So yes, episodes 41 - 124 of the anime Yawara have objective value but no subjective, i.e. monetary, value in North America. - Trust me, if they did somebody would be trying to make a buck off of them." Again, you can still buy the first boxed set in a store, and Animeigo seems as if they're trying to keep the door open on this in hopes of further developments. |
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tankerboy
Posts: 81 Location: Chicago |
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Many writers work on spec hoping someone will pay them for their work, almost all start out that way and the ones who do become pro will be the first to tell you that no matter how hard and long they work on something, if no one wants to buy it, it's worthless, that might be a major difference with between a pro and a wannabe. (These are called trunk stories and songs, in that they're thrown in the trunk with hope that they may be recycled for cash some day.) A wannabe thinks it has value just because he wrote or drew it - a pro knows it only has value if creating it helped pay the rent.
Knowing many professional scriptwriters, my bet is that the creator a Yawara, who most likely doesn't own the publishing rights, would be more than happy to get what ever AnimEigo's paying. If AnimEigo, or anyone else, comes out with subbed 41-80 or 81-124 before I die I'll be more than happy to purchase it to go with the set I have. Also, Live-eviL is to be complemented on the fact that even though they subbed 1-40, they're not available on their website. I would also thank you for your civil reply - a rare thing in anime forums. spoiler[Here's a conundrum: The wannabe draws and writes a manga, submits it all over the place and get rejected even from online sites that are begging for material. He holds on to it for a year and in a pinch gives it as a gift to an otaku friend of his who recognizes it for what it is and promptly puts it up for sale on E-Bay where he takes the winning bid of $1 (don't quibble) the bidder receives it a knows he bought a piece of crap on spec and tosses it in the trash. - Does it have value?] |
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TokyoGetter
Posts: 416 Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards. |
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Again, I can't answer this because it's something that I'm NOT postulating on or talking about in terms of value. Kafka thought his writing was worthless and asked his friend to burn it upon his death, for instance, and I'm glad that he didn't.
If you look at Urasawa's works, it's obvious that he's been having banner years for quite awhile in terms of recognition and popularity. I think somebody earlier put forward the idea that somebody on his team is asking for something more indicative of his status as a story-teller of great renown at this point, but honestly licensing is a minefield of obscured motives, goals, and aims the likes of which even conjecturing about is head-ache inducing. So basically Viz: license the manga. I bought Pineapple Army, for God's sake! |
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StudioToledo
 Posts: 847 Location: Toledo, U.S.A. |
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Just like I said way back when I bothered joining up eBay 12 years ago, there's a sucker born every minute, I was right. |
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