Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2006-06-16]
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the_windcaster
Posts: 47 |
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I'm the author of the Paradise Kiss question... just wanted to clarify myself, by question number:
1) I figured Franz Ferdinand has to have an American contract. It's just that for some reason, they stick out in my head as a European group... maybe it's just the name. Who knows. But yes, I knew they had to. I've heard them on the radio and such before, so I just wasn't sure if their contract was exclusive to America or something, or if it even made a difference. (I have no idea how that side of things works. At all.) 2) When I asked "Will they be so big," I was simply referring to the degree of the licensing fees. I can see how that question needed a little more explicitly stated. 3) This would have been better worded "With Ai Yazawa's current popularity in Japan in light of Paradise Kiss and the NANA craze, would that drive the cost up so much to begin with that the music issue wouldn't enter the picture?" In the end... all I really wanted to know with all of these parts was whether or not there are too many factors driving up the licensing cost of Paradise Kiss (in light of the extent of its popularity, whatever it may be) to the point it won't be picked up. And also, in the end, you covered everything despite my poor wording. You really are deserving of your title, Mr. Answerman. *bow* Finally, to sound off, I am one of those fans who will watch something fansubbed, and if I like it alot, I'll pick up the domestic release... even though I may not end up watching it again. It seems like a waste sometimes, but I really think it's my duty. And heck, you never know when you'll get that craving again (begin sarcasm) and that obscure online source you've been looking for has no one uploading it. (/sarcasm) So yeah, this is an awesome column! I've been reading it for a year or so and I look forward to reading it every week. And I certainly didn't expect to see my question answered at all, not to mention so quickly! |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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belisarius
Posts: 203 Location: Concord, NC |
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What the hell? When did Super Ninja Love Squad! get licensed and why wasn't I told?! This is front page news damn it.
Seriously though, best Answerman column since you took over. Good show of thorough reasoning on the fansub response as opposed to "zOMG STFU Narutard!" Now we wait and see if #250 can live up to the hype. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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At its peak, Naruto was being downloaded by half a million people every week. That isn't hyperbole. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Uhh, you need to look at some of the trackers for Naruto. It is in the 100s of thousands. -t |
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Basroil
 Posts: 69 Location: North Carolina |
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These idiots can't even use the english language properly and they think someone would be interested in their script!? If it were me reading it the lack of proper grammer and punctuation would have me tossing that script in the trash before I finished the first paragraph. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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DUH, that's why they're writing an ANIME script. 
I have a question about fansubs and their impact on the market. About 10 years ago with the nascent anime industry, fans were regularly treated to the explanation that subtitled anime "didn't sell" (beyond an incredibly niche set) and when it was necessary to buy subs and dubs separately, fans often got the shaft on that score. (subs being pricier (altho I understand the economics of that) and companies flat out stating in a few cases that the fans weren't their "real" market) Yet now we're continually pointed out as the dark cloud on the industry. I'm from the generation that followed the line of thinking that "if you buy the Japanese release, your fansub isn't REALLY a 'bootleg'", so I'm not saying this in some attempt to justify fansubs or anything of that nature. But I still wonder why fansubs are now seen as SUCH a negative on the industry and even the product itself. I think the tape transfer concept is incorrect, a better correlation would be: If I tape an episode of GIJoe (in its prime) and give 100 copies of that away to all my friends, is that wrong? The answer is yes. But if I tape 100 episodes of GIJoe (in its prime) and give 100 copies to all my friends, would Hasbro or whoever the sponsoring company was really care? The answer is PROBABLY (but not definitely) not. Why? Because GIJoe was made to SELL TOYS! (heck, to them any episodes they sold were no doubt gravy, the whole show was a 30 min commercial) Ten years ago, anime was the same thing, lots of shows were made for the Japanese audience, they made their money or not over there and any later AMerican sales were just gravy. I'm not saying the Japanese companies "deserve" to in any way be ripped of millions of "potential" dollars, but half a million downloads equals tens of thousands of DVD sales, having the highest book sale rankings of all manga, several video game ports and (no doubt) a wealth of forthcoming toys. But its not really about the "Naruto"s of the world, its about the "Honey & Clover"s, which are shows targetted to a seriously niche audience. The problem is several companies have already made it clear they're not really interested in that niche. They're not trying to appeal to "GRand-otaku-MegaGeek", they're selling to "Billy & Suzi". The Problem is "Billy & Suzi" don't want a show like H&C and now "GRand-otaku-MegaGeek" doesn't know why he should care whether the company is doing well or not because it isn't making much (if any) effort to appeal to him anyway. I hate to be a broken record, but the anime industry is where it is in PART because they've lost sight of this market. There will always be a title like DBZ, or Naruto, or whatever else, but the BULK of anime material is Love Hina, or Gunslinger Girl, or Honey & Clover. The former are titles you can put on Cartoon Network, rope in 10 yr old boys and sell lotsa stuff (like GI Joe), the latter are titles that appeal to a very limited group of people and need reasonable expectations. How many people watched Friends on NBC? Now how many people buy the Friends DVD box sets? I expect both numbers are MUCH higher than average anime DVD sales, but I seriously doubt it's a 1-1 correlation between figures, I'd expect it's more like 20-1 or even larger. (but I dunno) That's because the people who will WATCH a show, and the people who will (directly) BUY a show, are two very different groups. It's immpossible to make a "direct" correlation (since shows differ in various periods) but I'd wager the sales of domestic DVDs has risen vs total tapes/LDs (or maybe DVDs, I'm not sure when downloading became the norm and where DVDs were at that time) has risen vs. before downloading, but the cost of creation is higher because anime has a higher profile and costs are more expensive. I am curious, if you took an underperforming title and could scale the licensing cost to "niche" status and just for arguments sake totally yanked the dub track, sold it as sub-only (partly as a cost cutter, but also partly to show it's intended for the "fansub"/non-mainstream demo), you'd certainly see a loss in overall sales COUNT, but I'm curious if you'd see a net gain. ADV started with "Devil Hunter Yohko", I'm guessing that title's sales would be a colossal flop in today's market, but in the older environment, it helped get ADV off the ground. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18179 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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And that's exactly what book and magazine editors do. Good grammar, spelling, and punctuation is a basic tenet of professional writing at any level. That's the first thing you're told to take care of if you go to any novel or script-writing seminar or do any reading up on the topic, and when pitching a project proposal to someone, not having those factors in your favor is the quickest way to get turned down. I know I wouldn't be doing the professional work I do now (both for ANN/PA and for RPGs) if I hadn't demonstrated up front that I was good at the technical aspects. Honestly, I don't get why teenagers who want to make proposals like that don't get this basic point. I can certainly remember having that kind of enthusiasm at that age; hell, I'd made my first novel proposal to a publisher by the time I was 16. Before I did that, though, I did enough reading up on what publishers expected to know that I had to have the technical stuff virtually perfect if I wanted to have any chance. (Mind you, I still didn't succeed, as my story-weaving skills weren't good enough at that point, but do feel I at least gave myself a chance.) Actually, that's not entirely true; I do get that a lot of teenagers, especially prior to age 16, simply aren't worldly enough to consider things like that. (Yes, there are some that are, but in my extensive experience they're in the minority.) |
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RyoShin
 Posts: 83 Location: Michigan |
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I agree, and the internet is actually hampering this. Too many teenagers are using "chat speak" with their worthless abbreviations, and it's actually starting to invade actual school papers! Getting a common misspelling or new word worked into the English language is one thing, but completely re-writing and defacing it is another. Of course, I see the writing skills of some of the people at my level (my "level" being a college junior,) and even some of them have a hard time with such things as capitilizing I or spelling out a word. Granted, not everyone is an 80 wpm touch typer, but that's no excuse when we're talking about e-mail or forum posts. |
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TranceLimit174
 Posts: 958 |
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This week's column was surprisingly relevant to a question that popped in my mind today. I may have asked this question before, but if I did I don't remember.
When determining a show's success, how much does merchandise factor in? I'm curious because recently my budget's gotten very strict (moving out and things of that nature). So as much as I would like to, I can't really buy every DVD I want in order to support every show I want to watch/watch/have watched. However, I would like to think that I support these shows in other ways. The two largest being watching the show on TV (to contribute to ratings) and buying various merchandise. But lately I was wondering if that really has any sort of significant impact. Just to throw an example out there, I have yet to buy the Gundam 0083 boxset, yet this past weekend I purchased the 1/500 Dendrobium model. Is that showing support or am I sending a different message entirely? |
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irishninja
 Posts: 344 Location: Seattle-ish |
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I agree with many of the other voices: Best Hey, Answerman! in a long time.
My favorite line: "Real fans support their favorite shows financially, period." In fact, your entire response to that question was awesome. Well done, sir.
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hooliganj
 Posts: 113 Location: Longhorn Central |
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My bad, I don't tend to follow the stats for fansubs of licenced shows, so I never knew. It does appear that not long after the show was licensed, the average number of downloads jumped from around 35k to 200k+. That does say something interesting about the downloaders, though. |
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astra
Posts: 131 |
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Arrrgh, I knew it was Klmit and I was thinking of submitting that answer but it looked like you resized that little chunk when you stuck it in a photoshop of the count
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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What are you talking about? |
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WEKS
 Posts: 82 Location: Finland |
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I just have to second this, it's just not complete without ????? 
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