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Hey, Answerman! [2006-03-17]


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Sir_Brass



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 476
Location: Prescott, AZ
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 10:58 am Reply with quote
Joe Mello wrote:

Here's a blanket answer to the above: It's a matter of economics. If you've taken any economy course, you know that one of the most important things you learn is that There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Anything you do comes at a cost of what you could have been doing, even if neither option has monetary value. Right now, what the anime companies are doing are more cost-efficent that what's being suggested.


TANSTAAFL for teh win! Laughing Laughing


As far as the "OMG! Bleach has been licensed....we're DOOMED" kinds of posts, one site which keeps many of us fansub-dlers informed of all the recent releases made complete fun of such idiots by posting this as their annoucement that Bleach was licensed:

Quote:
OMG!! BLEACH IS LICENSED! GO SLIT YOUR WRISTS PEOPLE!

Article here! and Here!

Support the anime industry by buying the DVDs.

Telling you to slit your wrist was a joke, I will not be held liable if you really did it. But if you do, do it This way not this way.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 6251
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:51 am Reply with quote
I found something funny regarding the Bleach licensing:

I was reading the new (April) issue of Anime Insider and they had a Top 10 list of unlicensed anime and predictions on how long it would take to get them licensed. Bleach was #1 and the prediction was 3 years. Smile

Looks like they made an unintentional April Fool's joke.
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Sir_Brass



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 476
Location: Prescott, AZ
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:26 pm Reply with quote
how do you know it was unintentional? Wink
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10419
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:32 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Telling you to slit your wrist was a joke, I will not be held liable if you really did it. But if you do, do it This way not this way.


He got it wrong actually. The proper way is down the road, not across the street.

If you slit your wrists perpendicular to the arteries, they'll clot before you die.

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darkhunter



Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2992
Location: Los Angelas
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:37 pm Reply with quote
GATSU wrote:

FUNi reps said the same thing about the edited DBZ tapes, but still chose to release the series uncut, because they were losing sales to fansubs.


Once they milk the edit DBZ, they release the uncut to milk them again. DBZ fan are the hardcore fan and if they bought it on VHS, they probably buy it again on DVD and again on uncut DVD.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 6251
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:40 pm Reply with quote
Sir_Brass wrote:
how do you know it was unintentional? Wink


Because the license was announced several days ago. The magazine would have been printed and shipped before that.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
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Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10419
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:48 pm Reply with quote
Abarenbo Shogun wrote:
can't provide it readily. While GATSU's info is a ready source of info, your source is not readily avaliable to most anime fans, and actually gives an allusion that theirs something to hide. Not exactly something you should be exposing openly.


Yeah, I wish I could post the numbers. Unfortunately the Vidscan NDA that you sign when youget access to Vidscan makes you liable for lawsuit or something if you disclose the numbers.

Publications (ourselves included) have been able to get away with disclosing ranks (Nielson apepars okay with this, and even offered at one point to give us Bookscan ranks for free), but you'll notice that no publication ever reports the vidscan numbers.

This is Vidscan's way of protecting their product. If we repeated their numbers, there'd be no reason for their clients to pay a very large sum of money for annual access.

Apart from the NDA, another reason that publications don't disclose those numbers, is because they don't mean anything unless you know how to take them into context. Vidscan only polls a certain number of retailers, so on average, they're believed to have 66% of the market, so you add 50% to the vidscan numbers to get the real numbers. With Niche markets, that ratio may change. So while analysts at Funimation, ADV and 4Kids know what the numbers mean, the average Joe doesn't.

Gatsu wrote:
FUNi reps said the same thing about the edited DBZ tapes, but still chose to release the series uncut, because they were losing sales to fansubs. I mean I'd love it to be like the Nelvana situation in which the original outsells the hacked-up version, but I acknowledge that's not always the case. (Especially, it seems, with Robotech vs Macross....) Nonetheless, I find it hard to believe it's not at least doing enough to be profitable, or Viz would have discontinued the manga.


Funimation and Viz are geared towards anime fans. They sometimes do things that aren't that profitable (as long as they can break even) to make their fans happy. It's part of their PR.

I will tell you this, the actual sales of the uncut DVDs were not horrible compared to many other anime series that do get completed. ADV for example would have completed the series with those numbers.

But for 4Kids, they aren't intereste in little numbers. What's more, for every sale of the unedited, they may have perceived 2 or 3 sales lost of the edited, so perhaps their looking at only 70% unedited of the sales as "new sales."

In the end, its just 1 more reason for anime fans to hate 4Kids. But at the same time, those same fans have to understand where 4Kids is coming from and stop making ludicrous statements like "Its no wonder 4Kids is going Bankrupt, Al Kahn got the Pokemon license by sheer dumb luck and now without it, 4Kids will never make money unless they start releasing their shows unedited."

We all wish. Personally, actually, I don't want 4Kids to go bankrupt, I just want them to stop licensing anime, and hopefully, with their new intent to "own their properties" it means less anime.

-t
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TheoryGirl



Joined: 04 Apr 2005
Posts: 65
Location: CT
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:59 pm Reply with quote
GATSU wrote:
If low sales are a reason to stop investing, then why did 4Kids still buy PreCure after screwing up One Piece and Mew Mew?

Are you saying that they didn't screw up Ojamajo Doremi?

And Dorian, I hear what you're saying. I read the book of Howl's Moving Castle (only after I heard it was being animated by Miyazaki, though Anime smileb...), and it's hard for me to actually watch the movie, because so much is changed. I especially don't like the way Howl's character was changed from a slithering-outing playboy to a typical mysterious bishounen.
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.Sy



Joined: 11 Mar 2005
Posts: 1266
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:01 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I read the book of Howl's Moving Castle (only after I heard it was being animated by Miyazaki, though b...), and it's hard for me to actually watch the movie, because so much is changed. I especially don't like the way Howl's character was changed from a slithering-outing playboy to a typical mysterious bishounen.
I'm actually the other way around when it comes to Howl's Moving Castle. I read the book after I watched the movie, and it was almost impossible for me to enjoy the book because I couldn't help compare the order of events (wildly deviating from each other). The book had lot of good ideas that IMO failed to be developed fully, but Ghibli's version was just so much more...charming. So much was different about both versions that I guess which one you read/see first is the one you get used to.
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FlamingPinecone



Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 131
PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:33 am Reply with quote
They finally released Yu-Gi-Oh uncut? Who knew? I didn't!

I've developed a thought that older teens and adults who watch shows aimed at children should expect that there shows will be treated a such, i.e annoying marketing, nerdom, and all the trappings. Butchering a show is no different, just take your medicine.

And a comment on iTunes anime: It sounds good in theory but I wouldn't suspect most companies to take a gamble on a niche market.

What may possibly be feasable is say, putting the FMA movie up there for like, $5-10 rage or a couple DBZ movies, possibly some Mizayaki, something that could incite more DVD sales and be a gateway to the whole series.

I WOULDN'T BET A RANCH! OKAY I WOULD BECAUSE I HAVE NO USES FOR RANCHES!

fawhoooosh!
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jdb728



Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 77
Location: Thousand Oaks, Ca.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:25 am Reply with quote
FlamingPinecone wrote:

And a comment on iTunes anime: It sounds good in theory but I wouldn't suspect most companies to take a gamble on a niche market.

What may possibly be feasable is say, putting the FMA movie up there for like, $5-10 rage or a couple DBZ movies, possibly some Mizayaki, something that could incite more DVD sales and be a gateway to the whole series.

I don't think doing it for movies, especially for a property like FMA. It might not be bad for a few of the DBZ movies(or any other franchise with multiple movies), since there are so many(it could interest the viewers into checking out other DBZ movie(s)), whereas FMA only has one movie. The problem would be that at $5.00, or even $10.00, it'd probably hurt DVD sales more than the fansubbing. I think the most effective way to do it would be(I think someone else said this earlier) to make the first couple of episodes available on itunes.

All that being said, I don't know what DBZ movie(s) is/are really good or not. I don't really care for the show, and haven't seen any of the movies.

In reference to the vidscan stuff. First, I heard(along with others appearently) that the Yu-Gi-Oh uncut DVDs sold better(actually dominated in the sales) than the cut versions, but that could be wrong. Second, as tempest stated, vidscan can't afford to allow companies to put up the sales numbers for everyone else to see, they are a business, and as such must make choices that don't shoot themselves in the foot.

I don't know much about vidscan(aside from the usual), but I do understand a little bit about business, and how you must keep your product desirable to the potential consumer(in this case, big companies, and sources like ANN). I think we should just trust tempest and Zac, while we can't look at the numbers(most of us can't afford it anyway), they have no reason to misinform us, especially about something like this. Plus, we all already know that 4kids(and other companies) makes some foolish business choices, it all comes with the territory. Look at the name, "4kids", doesn't that seem like the name of a company whose main/whole focus would be on producing shows for little kids?

Oh yeah, thank you matthewlow for providing the link that answered the question in my earlier post.

Sorry for the long winded post, I just felt like putting in some of my thoughts.
Thanks. Cool
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15279
PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 4:13 am Reply with quote
darkhunter:
Quote:
Once they milk the edit DBZ, they release the uncut to milk them again. DBZ fan are the hardcore fan and if they bought it on VHS, they probably buy it again on DVD and again on uncut DVD.


While this might be a phenomenon relegated to DBZ, it does obviously indicate a market for this product in general.

Tempest:
Quote:
He got it wrong actually. The proper way is down the road, not across the street.


...Um, ok....This is a message board for anime, not emo. Laughing

Quote:
Funimation and Viz are geared towards anime fans. They sometimes do things that aren't that profitable (as long as they can break even) to make their fans happy.


I don't think most companies would invest in a 300+ episode series if they didn't do more than break even on it. FUNi obviously expects big things with Case Closed and Crayon Shin Chan(despite the latter selling poorly in manga form), while Viz obviously expects a significant return on Maison Ikkoku. Even Animeigo wouldn't continue with UY if it wasn't making money. They certainly didn't do so with Shonan Bakusozoku. Assuming ,
as you said, Viz gets exclusive licenses for titles like Naruto, it still costs money to publish, broadcast, and advertise it.

Quote:
But for 4Kids, they aren't intereste in little numbers.


Apparently they are when it involves their profit margin. Rolling Eyes

Quote:
What's more, for every sale of the unedited, they may have perceived 2 or 3 sales lost of the edited, so perhaps their looking at only 70% unedited of the sales as "new sales."


But if the edited dvd significantly outsells the unedited one, then that 2-3% is a drop in the bucket. And the company's not looking at the bigger picture, which is that they could sell more merchandise to fans who are more likely to purchase the unedited material over the edited material.

Also, in the case of shows like Mew Mew or Precure, which are tougher sells than Yu Gi Oh to begin with, the unedited version could significantly outsell the edited one. If this wasn't the case, then the company could have released two versions of Shaman King. But 4Kids chose the unedited one only, most likely because they determined there is no market for the edited version.

Quote:
In the end, its just 1 more reason for anime fans to hate 4Kids. But at the same time, those same fans have to understand where 4Kids is coming from and stop making ludicrous statements like "Its no wonder 4Kids is going Bankrupt, Al Kahn got the Pokemon license by sheer dumb luck


Well they were pretty fortunate to get their hands on an unproven franchise which was basically Nintendo's last hope. I don't think anyone expected it to be that big a success-even Kahn. The problem is he keeps trying to market shows to that same audience, even though it doesn't work.

Quote:
4Kids will never make money unless they start releasing their shows unedited."


I don't know if they'll never make money, but, as their latest sales figures indicate, they'll certainly lose money. Alienating and insulting key demographics is not a form of synergy. It hurt Miramaxe on Shaolin Soccer, and it'll hurt 4Kids
on PreCure.
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konosuke15



Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 67
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 1:14 am Reply with quote
*Sigh* I hoped that a Bleach complainer wouldnt send ya anything, yet i was wrong.

I happy Bleach went to Viz (hell, i knew before it got licensed and before the rumor even started with that Anime DVD article what it would go to Viz). Better than IF it went to 4kids, imo.
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XenoCrisis0153



Joined: 01 Jul 2004
Posts: 30
Location: Boston, Mass
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 5:48 am Reply with quote
I'm glad the issue of why shows like "The Simpsons" and "Lost" are sold in the US for $30 while animes are about $100 came up again because last week I had this question to ask: aren't anime dvds in Japan actually MORE expensive there? Isn't it like 2 episodes for $50 or some crazy amount like that? If that's true, that would mean that anime actually IS cheaper for us here in the R1 zones.
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Zippydsm
Exempt from Grammar Rules


Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 134
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 7:28 am Reply with quote
BLeach
Eh it was either Funi or viz Funi would only be alil better choce FMA is alot better in overall qauilty than naruto is altho naruto suffering from bad VAing if anythign else...
Hopefuly Bleach's dub will be no worse than Inu yashas if they fudge it over like Naruto I wont touch the domestic release....

Anime on Itunes
Duh it has to be 5$ an ep for them to be able to get any money off it..mabye older shows that have paid for themselfs but even then..anime companies need money badly *L* and 4kids is finding this out the hard way altho if they dont grow up and become a real one they will dissapper in acouple years....I wonder if ANime and game music can be found on Itunes or would be hidden within Jpop? *L*
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