Forum - View topicNEWS: Sentai Filmworks Relinquishes Ro-Kyu-Bu! Home Video Rights
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
|
|||||||
Reading user reviews for those, it seems the consensus is that "You get less extras, but the much lower price more than makes up for it". Makes sense to me. Otaku don't have unlimited money so even they want to find cheaper stuff sometimes. And for what its worth, Stratos is rated #388 and Angel Beats is rated #539 among DVD/BDs on the site. Stuff in that range typically sells about 2000 copies. They could realistically be losing 2000 copies for bigger titles with Reverse importation, which is some serious money, and likely more money then they'd make by releasing a dub in NA to begin with. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
dandelion_rose
 Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
|
|||||||
There were some users who were more informed than others, but that's only natural in a thread. I haven't looked into the companies Thesecond mentioned, but it is still difficult to verify legit distributors (and legit companies do have a history of mixing legit with non-legit) so I can understand frustration that can lead to false generalizations like Silencers'.
The company involved certainly wasn't Mighty Media then. If I find it (and if it is to anyone's interest) I'll identify it, but I can't be bothered to do a search now. As for the 'dyslexic' writing, I'm slightly offended but probably have myself to blame for expecting something to cross a cultural context. Lowyat.net is the biggest forum in the country. The language spoken by most of the users is street language, a mixture of local words from major languages spoken. It's not full Creole, but like many countries where English is a second language we don't speak like white people among ourselves. I don't go on Lowyat a lot, but when I do I don't write in the same way I do here, and the style that they write in is perfectly understandable to me.
Usually I don't argue with ANN staff, but this is an unfair instruction. I brought up piracy in Asia to respond to a statement saying that Ro-Kyu-Bu's presence in Asia is a pointless thing for the original rights holders to buy back whatever licenses there are. RKB is too niche to be of interest by any legal distributors, and if the pirates are distributing RKB there's nothing much that Japan can do (either to protect the rights or be wary of how the show affects the country's image). If you'd wanted me to move the conversation elsewhere, I would have much appreciated it if you simply politely requested it, rather than make a point to argue with some vaguely insulting remarks, and then expect me to just shut up and shuffle off obediently. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
|
|||||||
Indeed. The people who think reverse importing is just a myth really need to get a reality check. The R1 industry probably does more harm than good on average in cases like this. BD is already getting dropped for quite a few western releases.. I wonder if the western market will go back to DVD only for anything that isn't a Funimation upscale. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
|
|||||||
Don't you see some potential dissonance between making this claim having just minutes ago in another thread written this (which seemed like something of a non sequitur to me):
You went from making a strong assertion of consumer primacy in what I think might have been tacitly an argument for watching fansubs to implying that by meeting the needs of some Japanese fans better with lower prices, the region one industry is a bad thing. It seems inconsistent and I can't help but wonder if the principle at work here is something other than consumer benefit or anything analogous. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
notazaku
 Posts: 135 |
|
|||||||
I wonder how many sales are lost. I mean just because fans in Japan import cheaper R1 releases doesn’t mean they would have bought the very expensive domestic release had the R1 release not been available to them especially if it’s an anime that’s not a must have or they are on the fence about. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
RyanSaotome
Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
|
|||||||
The thing is though is that they were given the option, since they knew a super cheap version was coming soon. Like I don't know about you, but even if I would have bought a 50 dollar boxset, if I knew a 5 dollar version was coming out a year later, I'd just wait for that. Eliminating the BD R1 version takes away that option. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
|
|||||||
I admit I don't have any source or stats to back this specific point on, but I thought it was conventional wisdom that DVD/BD consumers in Japan are almost entirely "hardcore" consumers (ie. fans that want to buy) if only for space reasons. If you only have a small amount of space, are you really going to fill it with lots of "impulse" buys? Also, how many items do you think to price check against a foreign LICENSED release? If you're going to go look for a foreign release, then I imagine you're pretty interested in the item. (and I agree that US anime BluRays will likely decline since US & Japan share region on that. Altho, I'll be excited if more Japanese anime companies at LEAST make the minimal effort of putting English subs on their BluRays) |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
notazaku
Posts: 135 |
|
|||||||
It depends on the anime in question and the individual fan’s finances. If it’s a must have title and they can afford it they might be willing to pay a premium now rather than wait. For other anime, yeah I suspect most fans would wait especially with such a steep price drop. But I suspect some fans will never pay $400 for a series that they consider average regardless of whether or not a cheap R1 release comes along a year later at a fraction of that price. As for Blu-ray I suppose if they had a R1 player R1 DVDs would be a problem too though especially for series that fans may want to own but are not important enough to them to spend a lot of money on. I mean I've heard people talk about reverse importation before Blu-ray entered the scene. It wouldn't surprise me if R1 DVDs are still a concern to some companies in Japan.
I’m not working with any specific figures myself regarding the buying habits of the typical Japanese otaku. I was just going off of what some have said about R1 releases and reverse importation like NA releases on Amazon Japan. The average R1 release doesn’t take up much space these days compared to releases in Japan. Now if fan X likes anime A but only enough to want to own it as cheaply as possible, fan X might consider the NA release over the Japanese one since it would cost far less and take up less space. Whether or not he would have bought the expensive domestic release if there was no cheap NA one, I can’t say for sure one way or the other. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
|
|||||||
Not really. You're comparing two different markets for one thing. That's the way things cost in Japan, and the way the market is structured around; the DVD/BD market is mostly a collectors market. Secondly, those low quality streams are the only 'legal' way to see it as an American. The casual Japanese fans can just watch these shows on TV and be done with it there; buying the home video release is entirely optional. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
configspace
Posts: 3717 |
|
|||||||
|
Japanese otaku are willing to spend big money first-rate stuff they want soon with premiums. Mediocre or less valuable titles that they still enjoy still has some potential for ownership, but they simply would not spend Japanese prices on, and the difference is huge mind you, and not just in relative %, but in absolute terms you'd need to give up to a months rent just to buy 2 shows.
guy buying GITS dvds, Noein, Tsukihime from rightstuf: http://eikaiwable.net/right-stuf from a blog that keeps track of english releases: http://blog.livedoor.jp/eientei/archives/51543322.html short post mentioning Sentai's Needless license, shows its absolutely dismal Japanese sales (less than 1000 / vol) and mentions that he expects it to do better overseas than Japan. Shows like Needless and other poor sellers (R-15 is also another recent example), as well as much older titles, are prime candidates for reverse importation. A Japanese viewer might midly enjoy it, but not enough to spend $1000 on! That means, it doesn't matter if there's no US release, he still wouldn't spend $1000 on it. So rather than a "loss" some of these can be considered gains |
||||||||
|
||||||||
minirop
 Posts: 48 |
|
|||||||
|
Sad
 (hopefully there are available in French  )
hope to have news of Ikoku Meiro soon. about the reverse-import thing. I still don't understand the differences in prices. (or at least, why JP BD are that expensive ?) In France, animes sells are really bad, but the Japanese want JP prices here too... (when you know that people are complaining because $25 for 12 épisodes is too expensive...) |
||||||||
|
||||||||
FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2407 Location: United States |
|
|||||||
|
YES!!! Thank you, Sentai for relinquishing this!!! Seriously, of all the titles that DO NOT deserve to be licensed, this is one of them, and I'm glad Sentai is not releasing it on DVD here, and I believe I know why (Reason: little kids in sexual situations probably won't sit well with people here in America. Trust me).
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
|
|||||||
|
Hah, I like how that dude is all "Amazon's pretty good, but I kept looking and tada~ Rightstuf!" Yeah, I can totally imagine some otaku checking out cheap DVDs for less sought after titles, be it that they're just lower quality and less desirable in comparison to other new products, or that they're just old and possibly OOP in Japan. Our prices for anime hit bargain bin prices if they were produced in good quantity and still have a ton of stock remaining, and that's not even to say that our full SRP would still be bargain bin to them. Even considerable shipping charges cannot possibly approach the original Japanese prices. "It takes about two weeks to arrive." Not a huge wait, we wait about the same or more for figures to get here.
We apply the same principal when we scrounge the Bargain Bin at Rightstuf, that's how I got a nice collection of some older OVAs. I certainly wasn't purchasing them brand new at full or near full SRP when they first came out. I wonder if Shawn and other people at the site ever considered having a Japanese language option to try to attract more Japanese customers. It must be appealing: "Why buy your domestic anime for ¥40,000 when you can get it for $50?"
Read the freaking article again, Sentai didn't pull back, it was the Japanese licensor's decision. Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
configspace
Posts: 3717 |
|
|||||||
And the fact that it's still available to a wider audience since the streaming and broadcast licenses are still retained and available for anyone (Firechick: I sincerely hope for everyone's sake you don't ever go into politics and that you don't ever vote) |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
dandelion_rose
Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
|
|||||||
I have no love for RKB but I would much prefer it if it simply died a natural death because not enough people are interested in it. Buy backs like these are sensational and draw attention to the item. At least it's not as sensational as a govt ban. Anyway the reasons for the buyback are interesting enough. If it is due to concern for reverse importation, it would probably be an indication of how Japanese production committees may distribute their work in future. That will certainly affect more than RKB. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group