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ANN and the industry's stance on fansubs (ANN official on P5

nikandros wrote:

My take is that companies should support fansubs. It helps to reach new markets.

Dude, legitimate companies couldn't and shouldn't support illegal acts, even if the latter might help their business (and even that is questionable and debatable as we can't test "what ifs" in real life). They may choose to keep an eye closed but shall not promote piracy.

HitokiriShadow wrote:

Exactly, AoD allows it too. So what was it AoD was doing to make it more "Anti-fansub" than ANN?

'Anti-fansub' might be better termed as 'pro-purchase.' The fact that some fansubbed titles are indeed discussed doesn't take as much away from AoD as it does from ANN in my opinion. The difference with regard to the exposure of retail goods versus pirated goods between AoD and ANN is pretty striking to me and always has been. ANN's readership mainly seems to focus on purchasing goods only when there's some wholesale sell-off where anime titles are sold at or near the cost of manufacturing and shipping. I'm sorry, but that's just not the same thing as routinely buying anime at or around it's original release for retail or pre-order cost.

The folks at AoD just seem to be much more active supporters of the retail anime market than the folks on ANN and I'm still surprised I'm even being challenged on that. I mean, why do you think most of the market representatives seem to gravitate to AoD and barely ever comment here on ANN? I happen to think it's for the same reason serious consumers also seem to gravitate to AoD; because they take their purchases seriously, and not just as some sort of feel-good afterthought reserved for those with excess cash flow.

That's actually a big part of my point.

The fansub topics take away less from AoD's total experience because they seem to be responsible for a smaller percentage of AoD's posts, at least in my experience. I'm not saying that AoD is some kind perfect anime forum, in fact it's far from it, but I have always had a lot of respect for how seriously they take their direct support of the industry and I wish we could do the same.

HitokiriShadow wrote:

And yet, he has no problem with people discussing fansubs on his forums.

And neither do I. I'm not expecting zero topics about fansubs, I'm just expecting equal time instead of a lopsided discussion that could only be possible through rampant unchecked piracy. Is that too much to ask? I guess so.

Now as you've said in the past, being poor isn't an excuse for stealing, but it does explain why a lot of us exercise "smart shopping" with Rightstuf sales and the like. That's better than not buying at all, right?

And I have to ask, if AoD is so great and ANN's users/staff are a bunch of fansub-loving hippies, why not spend your time there instead of here? I don't want to see you go, but if you're so dissatisfied with the community and the nature of the discussions on these forums...well, you get the idea.

daxomni wrote:

ANN's readership mainly seems to focus on purchasing goods only when there's some wholesale sell-off where anime titles are sold at or near the cost of manufacturing and shipping. I'm sorry, but that's just not the same thing as routinely buying anime at or around it's original release for retail or pre-order cost.

Source please? Are those personal observation / speculation or based on some hard evidence?

I think most of the people at ANN buy the legit DVDs, they just don't discuss it nearly as much. Oh, and it's hard to say what percentage of AoDers watch fansubs, but it seems like the majority of them do.

That's... a bizarre way of looking at it.

I think the official source would USUALLY be better served by charging a price for the service and having a variety of items available, like a channel you pay for. I think people would be more likely to pay $10 for a channel that gets a new episode of 2 of the favorite series each week, rather than $1-2 per episode.

Odd thing I realized today. The only thing fansubs do for me is allow me to see anime faster.

I can watch just about any anime I want with On Demand. And it's free...

My question is, what would be the right thing to do? What through the filler until Shippuden hits the U.S? Or just watch Shippuden?

Buying it at cost doesn't seem all that supportive to me. I mean, are we real fans or just fair-weather fans? Many folks here get to enjoy their endless fansubs while I only get to see half of Kodocha even though in my mind I'm the one actually putting my money where my mouth is. It just seems like kind of a bad situation to me. But, there's obviously nothing that can be done to change that and apparently no will to change any of it anyway. Hopefully I'm just off base though and most anime fans in America just happen to dislike Kodocha. I could live with that a lot better than knowing they liked it but were just too damn stingy to actually pay for it.

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I think the official source would USUALLY be better served by charging a price for the service and having a variety of items available, like a channel you pay for. I think people would be more likely to pay $10 for a channel that gets a new episode of 2 of the favorite series each week, rather than $1-2 per episode.

It really depends. I'm currently watching fansubs for 13 series, give or take. At the prices I suggested, that would be $13-26 per week. If I could watch all those shows on a serivice for less than that for week (assuming the above points on quality and distribution) then I'd be fine with that.

The problem would be that of those shows the rights are probably handled by about a half-dozen or more companies in Japan, and would be split between the 3-4 major US companies if released in the US, and they don't play nice with each other, so a more likely scenario is that there would be 3-4 different "channels" like that, each of them charging $5-10 per week, each of them only offering a handful of the shows I care to watch, along with a bunch of other lame shows that I couldn't care less about.

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Hopefully I'm just off base though and most anime fans in America just happen to dislike Kodocha. I could live with that a lot better than knowing they liked it but were just too damn stingy to actually pay for it.

Both are true. Most anime fans in America probably don't like Kodocha (assuming they've heard of it). It's a fun series, but it's fairly niche too, certainly no blockbuster. But also, a lot of people who watched fansubs of it probably didn't buy it, and being a niche product in the first place, that hurt it a lot more commercially than it would something like Bebop or FMA.

Zalis116 wrote:

Now as you've said in the past, being poor isn't an excuse for stealing, but it does explain why a lot of us exercise "smart shopping" with Rightstuf sales and the like. That's better than not buying at all, right?

Buying it at cost doesn't seem all that supportive to me.

Many folks here get to enjoy their endless fansubs while I only get to see half of Kodocha even though in my mind I'm the one actually putting my money where my mouth is. It just seems like kind of a bad situation to me. But, there's obviously nothing that can be done to change that and apparently no will to change any of it anyway. Hopefully I'm just off base though and most anime fans in America just happen to dislike Kodocha. I could live with that a lot better than knowing they liked it but were just too damn stingy to actually pay for it.

But also, a lot of people who watched fansubs of it probably didn't buy it, and being a niche product in the first place, that hurt it a lot more commercially than it would something like Bebop or FMA.

Three - I'm one of those people who believes that most voice actors in dubbing are totally awful - it rarely captures the real feel of the moment, especially since so many tend to resort to monotone voices even in the most dramatic of situations - the original japanese with subtitles isn't as common as it should be.

Four - there's a /lot/ of bad anime out there, and it really sucks when you tossed 50 bucks on a series that turns out you hate. Indirectly, it discourages people to not even try anime they know aren't famous masterpieces.

Guys, please keep this thread on the topic of ANN's stance on the industry and on fansubs, not comparing and contrasting AoD and ANN's forums, readership, etc.

Let's just agree to disagree; I don't have enough energy to keep this up. It's not like this was really going to go anywhere anyway and I don't sense any compromise in the making.

As for what you watch, it's up to you if you want it badly enough. This is what the "phonebooks" in Japan are for. You might only want Shounen JUMP for Naruto, but you get Bleach, Eyeshield 21, etc. etc. and you may even find you LIKE 2 other series in there. Which EVENTUALLY makes it "win-win". If you're buying shows "a la carte" what are the odds you're going to buy a show you don't know. But if you're already paying for the channel, what're the odds that you'll watch a show you've never heard of because "who knows, it MIGHT be good, and I'm already paying for the channel anyway and have nothing better to do". (it's what I do with US cable TV all the time)

The anime companies are probably getting the same amount for each copy regardless (some exceptions maybe, like if you are only buying at Bargain Bin/clearance sales). Regardless of where you get it, the anime companies are getting, at best, 50% of the MSRP. It's probably more like 30-40%. The rest goes to the stores and any middlemen that may be involved. There might be some variance or discounts of bigger bulk shipments for major anime retailers like RightStuf, but its probably very small difference (per disc). It's not like the companies are getting $17 per volume from Best Buy and $10 per volume from RightStuf.

Or do you think it is perfectly fine to download an album off the internet rather than buy it because you don't like all of the tracks on it?

I really don't understand what you are getting at here. Do you walk into a random film at the cinema, knowing nothing about it, then complain because you didn't like it? I imagine not. You will probably have seen trailers or listed to what others had to say about it.

How do people know that Kodocha failed?

For that matter, how do people ever know that any particular anime "failed" in the US market? To me, the only way to know about this is to look at DVD and manga sales figures, which companies do not usually report as far as I know.