Forum - View topicChicks On Anime - Tales from the Rental Front
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Pretty timely discussion. Just saw this posted a few minutes ago...
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/04/07/blockbuster-voices-substantial-doubt-about-ability-to-survive/ |
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aluria
 Posts: 367 Location: New Westminster, B.C., Canada |
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I don't tend to rent that much. Mostly from bad experiences. The Rogers near me as a decent selection of Anime except for one thing: lack of the final DVD. I've rent three series from them, but I've yet to see the end because they've never gotten them in. The only thing they stock with reguarlity is FMA but I could care less about that show.
So sadly, I tend to download more than anything although I do buy DVDs with much more regularity than I used to. I have been planning to try Netflex one day and that's just because there are a lot of older series like Ranma 1/2 that I would never buy but love to watch that local rental places probably aren't going to have unless they've been in the business for a while. |
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turboyoshi
Posts: 16 |
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I'd love a store like that in my area. I rent mostly from netflix cause that's really it as far as I can see. Hollywood video closed down, and blockbuster has a much more limited selection that I already picked clean. I've tried a couple online rental places that were geared towards anime and hard-to-find stuff but their services weren't nearly as satisfactory as netflix. There is one mom-and-pop video store in my area but it's mostly porn. I haven't been in there for a few years but I doubt even know what anime is and would be really surprised if they had any in stock.
I found Kira's observation about the lack of variability in customer's tastes interesting. I personally rent a wide variety of genres, and can't seem to consider anything a favorite. I guess I'm just easily amused. |
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corinthian
Posts: 264 |
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Pretty timely discussion since I just saw this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/2_billionth_netflix_disc_shipped I don't have any local places to rent anime from. Now that I'm out of school and have a stable address I might try Netflix. But there's always the aforementioned worries of scratches, wrong disk, etc. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23813 |
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Wow, it shocks me to see something like this written in 2009. It's true that digital distribution as it exists now has limitations. But does anybody honestly believe - given the ways things in the computer and digital world have advanced so far - that those difficulties won't be overcome at some point? Are people honestly going to tell me that if you have the option in the future of having digital content (movie, TV series, game, whatever) downloaded swiftly to your television - content that you can keep and store - that this isn't going to overpower physical distribution? Hey, I understand the allure of tactile physicality. But wake up and smell the digital revolution. And even though my anime collection is fairly small (right now), my non-anime DVD collection just takes up way too much space. I wish the industry had embraced thin packages right from the start. Bring on the digital storage, man. |
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Altorrin
 Posts: 313 Location: Florida, United States |
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My closest video store, a Blockbuster and the only rental store within a reasonable distance, only has Princess Mononoke and The Cat Returns. It used to have Howl's Moving Castle, but not anymore. That's right, only Miyazaki crap. Not that I hate Miyazaki, the animation is beautiful, it's just I've seen these movies a gazillion times. On TV, too. Maybe a few titles I give zero damn about with fanservice, too, but that's it. I only go there for the few video games they have. Might I add I only went there because I knew they'd have Bully, which they've had for about 3 years now?! I hate, hate, hate that place. It's stuff like that that makes me resort to streaming and only streaming. The only thing I own is a Haruhi boxset.
Maybe I should consider badgering my parents for Netflix. Yeah, I don't like waiting, but most of the time, everything I want is not in the store, so I have to wait for it to ship if I bought it online anyway. There's no real solution. Could you believe that Tate's Comics, the store that has everything, didn't have Haruhi? They had EVERYTHING, man! |
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neocloud9
 Posts: 1178 Location: Atlanta, GA |
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I'm glad to know there are still some fellow DVD-collectors out there. I'm not sure if I qualify as the "young crowd" or not, being a sophomore in college, but a lot of my peers are really into the downloaded/streaming stuff and I just can't understand it! Don't they know how satisfying it is to hold that disc in your hand? That rush of anticipation? The joy of admiring well-done cover art?
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2337 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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The Blockbusters down the street has shut down, but I live near a s****y neighborhood and the tellers were always dicks, so no hard feelings. In fact, I've had continual problems when I'd get called for keeping a movie longer than they allowed, even though I sent it back a day early. So I just stick to Netflix.
Sure, the sense of community is essential, but when the community is filled with rude retailers that give you attitude for using credit, you'd prefer to stay outside the wheel. Luckily, my library carries anime now, though it's mainly just Miyazaki, Avatar and Princess Nine dvds. Eh. |
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Egret
Posts: 45 |
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Damn right. After all the time and effort I put into my collection, I can't imagine what would convince me to go digital. I like having to wait, plan out my purchases, look forward to the the next release (or the next time my budget allows me to buy something). It makes it so much more satisfying when I finally have a little extra cash and can buy myself that hard-earned boxset or pre-order that show I've been waiting forever to be released. Hard-copy, all the way. 
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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I do wish everyone had a mom 'n' pop rental store nearby, but that just isn't the case, sadly. I use Netflix now because my rental options in Irvine are a couple of Blockbusters. Unfortunately, they just don't have the selection that places like The Vidiot do. Plus, the Vidiot rents porn. ;p I imagine that helps.
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14773 |
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Hey hey hey! Anime got its start in the closed-off pr0n section of rental shelves too. Don't be hatin' on its roots sibling! Besides, RentAnime stocks pr0n. 
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Kagatoamv
Posts: 4 |
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First off I want to say, "Village Vidiot" is a great name for a video store.
It sounds like Kira is doing the best thing possible; try to provide the products the customer wants while delivering the best level of customer service possible. Nothing sends a customer away from B&M stores and to the Internet faster than bad customer service. If I go into a local store and the clerk acts like my presence is an intrusion, I look for another place to shop. Locally, the independent video stores were crushed by Blockbuster long before Netflix appeared. I fondly remember the store that rented Laserdiscs alongside the VHS tapes, but they couldn't compete with Blockbuster's selection. They would carry the same movies, but the independent store would have 1 or 2 copies of the new VHS hit, while Blockbuster would have 12. |
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ArthurFrDent
 Posts: 466 |
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Kira, I'm very sad you are so far away, but I live near olde town Littleton, otherwise I'd frequent you... The only place I know of closer is a place in Aurora, it's just too far for a rental.
I think what really helps a store like hers is having the constant turnover of CSU. That will always be helpful for a regular store. What Blood and other have said about digital content is an interesting paradox. Right now digital seems like it's everywhere, but the fact is that the bradband pipes required AREN'T being used by everyone. If they where, you would have a bandwidth problem anyway. Who is laying fiber these days? No-one. There is a contraction movement within telecos and cable systems that built out fiber years ago and are now trying to stay alive rather than investing. I have good cable internet, but you can tell when everyone in the neighborhood gets home from work. If everyone was getting movies that way, rather than regular over the TV broadcast, it would bring the system to a crawl. Will it happen eventually, of course. But not as soon as everyone thinks. IIRC, Japan is one of the most wired countries with broadband, so why are they still buying DVD? Not everyone wants their content that way. I think there will always be a place for a botique store/rental/collection place. It just won't be the norm. On the onther hand, what that means with digital distribution is we'll have way more of 5'57' Channels and there's nothin' on. There is a lot of static out there for the signal we are getting. That is a problem for a medium that is niche to start with. Anime acceptance isn't getting broad quickly enough to keep everything profitable for NAmer. distributers, and so they've taken a hit [ADV], I fear that Funimation is growing too fast, as ADV once did. The things you see/saw on cartoon net and SciFi are all dubs and that is sometimes a problem too if they suck or a property hasn't been dubbed. Distribution is a jigsaw puzzle, and that is an issue where people are relying on critical mass of demand to turn a profit. Which leads me back to Kira's store. She is on shining piece of the puzzle, and I'm glad they are doing well. If you have one in your town, patronize them if you can. If you can get your stuff digitally and legal, great. If the producers turn a profit, they will produce more. It is my hope that even companies who go full downloads in the future [guess? 10 years] will always make a few pieces on demand for those who like to have media in hand to collect. 2 last things... Blood? You better be backin' up those terabyte drives, I've had 3 fail in the last month. Bamboo, about those NHK covers? You should see the Love Hina re-issue... I had to laugh thinkin' 'wait, where did they get that nekkid I don't remember that scene...' esp Kitsune... |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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It's refreshing to see some positive outlooks on collector-ism. Sadly, I don't think it will have much longer to be a respectable force in the market. Though personally, I think there will be a huge shift away from physical media, and then at some unforeseen point down the road there will be a shift back to it. But I see a roadblock.
Sure the fans have been screaming for this shift away from physical media for awhile now, but as companies shift, they are also making the options less attractive from a collectors point of view. We get these wonderfully mega dirt cheap sets that come out with flimsy packaging and no extra artwork, booklets, or other neat artifacts. Artboxes where you can choose the side you want to display to the world are all but dead. And the ones that are still around are made from construction paper, and likely wouldn't survive if your air conditioning went out and the humidity went above 85%. The whole incentive to garner in a new age of collectors is fading away fast. When the question of 'to collect or not to collect' is self asked, the choice of the options and the benefits they reap seem to be lopsided. Does my 4 disc set of Ouran display(collect) as well as my Ultra limited Captain Tylor? Why would I want to display junk? Both good shows mind you, but perhaps I would want to collect one set, while the other I will settle with just watching. And with companies not even attempting to make anything that is collection worthy, the choice is practically made for you. At least for a generation that the concept of collecting is still foreign.
But this is a little misleading. There is plenty to "worry"about. I can upgrade to a TB drive right now for $100 bucks. Heck, an external drive for $120. Getting them in new computers is no problem, and if I were to build my own it would surely have at least that amount. Once 2 terabytes become standard, then everyone will have at least a terabyte. Back-ups are also becoming extremely cheap, and many people are moving to online backup storage as well. Space might be an issue today, but it is quickly becoming a non-issue. codec will eventually be solved with some sort of universal standard, or a program that will recognize and retrieve the proper ones needed for playback automatically. There is also a huge amount of factors that contribute to the shelf life of DVDs, even under what might be considered favorable conditions. 300 years is only for DVDs that have utilized 24-karat gold-based pressings, and even replicated DVDs aren't supposed to last longer than 20-100 years. Keep in mind also that any scratch, body oil, scuff, or heavily bended(if you have to bend the disc to get it off the hub you are shortening the lifespan) disc will dramatically increase the chances of data corruption. |
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brentlee27
Posts: 5 |
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I definately wish there was a rental store like this close to me because I would be there every day. I really, really liked the article. Great topic, great questions, great interviewee.
I'm also a huge box set collector, both anime and movies. If I like a series I plan to collect the entire show. I hope that physical dvd's etc. never die because I love having a shelf with all my movies/anime on it. |
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