Forum - View topicRE: Tatsugawa interview in light of AX scandal
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GATSU
Posts: 15332 |
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Just some comments.
"Music is at an earlier point in this lifecycle. We intend to promote it in much the same way that we promoted anime 13 years ago." I find it funny how he was bad-mouthing Pioneer, when he's copying their model of promoting Asian music. "However, as the market grows and the intellectual properties gain value, people will defend their property rights with more vigor. Anime Expo 92 had MANY bootlegs and there were only 3 anime companies in existence.Ten years later, no dealer would dare to sell bootlegged anime while the rightholders are in attendance. " I like how he takes pride in that, even though that means he took money from those same bootleggers. "Our first priority will be to take care of the staff. Whenever the con makes a profit beyond the seed money needed for the next year, we offer to help the staff with any incidental costs they may have incurred while volunteering for the convention." Guess he hasn't learned from his last mistake. "We won't vary in formula too much from your typical media con except in one key respect. We intend to hold at least one LARGE music concert each year. This should be for about 3,000-5,000 attendees." You know, for a guy who complains about graft, he certainly has a lot of money to be able to pay for all this.... "We want to educate people how interconnected the entire entertainment industry is." *yawn* I'm not exactly sure how different that is from what companies such as Media Blasters and ADV are doing with their live-action films. (Hell, the Egyptian Theatre's got its own Japanese Outlaw Master series each year!) "Part of why we created PMX as a for-profit corporation" I like how he's blunt about that. "Many of the North American festivals that focus on Asian imports seem to focus on the more violent filmmakers such as Miike and Ringo Lam." I disagree with the way you phrased that statement, because it came off as loaded without doing the actual research. While Miike has had his share of exploitation flicks, he's also done the occasional comedy(the Katakuris) and is even now filming a documentary for the community he grew up in. As for film festivals themselves, you really need to pay more attention to directors like Wong Kar Wai, because most of his films focus on relationships. There are plenty of Asian movies in general which hit the festival circuit which aren't always about blood-letting. You don't like when ignorant people call anime porn, so don't stereotype Asian films shown in the U.S. as violent. "What PMX seeks to do is create a model where people can move up from comics to anime to live action and evolve their interests through a tiered offering of different types of media." To me, it just sounds like another AX, except with more emphasis on Asian movies and music. Mike seems to be saying "think different" and "expand your horizons", when he really just wants to get paid for doing the same thing he did at AX for free. Anyway, as much as artists such as Puffy Ami Yumi are becoming more popular in the U.S., I doubt that they will dominate the charts as much as, or even more than, Britney Spears. That is unless American record companies decide j-pop is the next big thing and decide to buy out all the artists. But generally speaking, it would probably just comprise a niche market, since record companies don't like to place all their bets on one artist or one type of music. (Unless you're Virgin and you're stupid enough to believe Mariah Carrey's worth $80 million.) |
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cyrax777
 Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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the whole bootleg comment had me laughing my ass off. Theres was a ton of bootlegs at Anime Expo this year.
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GATSU
Posts: 15332 |
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Although to be fair, I liked the cd dealer(I wish I could remember their name so I could recommend them) that had a sign above their booth that said that their cd's were legal. Honesty isn't always profitable, but it's appreciated.
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cyrax777
Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10425 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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If you ever do remember their name, please let us know. Personally I think its great. -t |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10425 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Yes, but those are entirely different issues. He's mad at the current SPJA heads for supposedly letting Pioneer into a position of power at the SPJA. This doesn't mean he has problems with teh SPJA in other areas. Unlike personal relationships, higher level relationships can be much more complicated. Parties aren't necessarilly friends or foes, they may be working together on one thing, and opposing each other on another. What's more, the SPJA and PMX are entirely different things, and Mike is just one person. He may be the founder of PMX (which he hasn't outright stated btw), but there are other people there and PMX itself will be an almagamation of their views.
I think 13 years ago there was no way to get retailers to come to a convention if they didn't bring bootlegs. It was a necessarry evil, and perhaps something that didn't even occur to him at the time. Now, I don't blame him for being proud of the fact that things have changed... if only they had. AX 2003 was rife with bootlegs. Mike's statement about people not daring to bring bootlegs was made before AX (this interview started about 2.5 weeks ago) and when I found out how many people were openly selling bootlegs at AX I was quite surprised. What really surprised me was who was selling bootlegs.
Or perhaps he has. It didn't work very well at AXNY, but it's good to see, IMHO that one failure isn't causing him to abandon the noble idea of rewarding the staff.
Somehow I don't think its his money paying for this.
No one's saying that PMX is the first to promote these mediums. But to compare a domestic company to a convention is stretching it a bit. Different objectives, and different methods.
I recently got flamed (By PMX no less) for taking a quote just a bit out of context. Here you've taken it completely out of context. PMX merely wasn't registered as a NFP, in the eyes of the law that makes it for profit. No where did Mike say that their goal was profit. He also specifically stated what would be done with the profit.
Point noted. Personally, I do pay more attention to directors like Wong Kar Wai. I happen to like Miike, I don't like Lam, but Wong is their superior by far IMHO. Perhaps I could have phrased it better, but my goal was to find out from Mike what, if anything, PMX planned to do to avoid propaqgating (or even counter) the incorrect notion that HK Cinema, Japanese Cinema and Anime are all about violence.
What did you expect? PMX is another large media convention and it will be pretty much like any Anime, Sci-fi or Fantasy convention... except that it's topic will be Asian Media.
The same is true of Anime. What's your point? |
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Ramen
 Posts: 346 Location: San Jose |
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I don't remember the sign, but I do remember that all of the legit CD's I found were on the extreme right side of the dealer room (walking in). The same row as Manga Ent. IIRC, two of the dealers that had legit imports were Digital Discs and Mikado. Bootlegs everywhere else ... 
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Legato 2057
 Posts: 437 Location: Soon to be Japan |
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I just read the interview and I was going to respond about the bootleg issues. Looks like everyone beat me to it
 What surprised me about the bootlegs, was that Yu Yu Hakusho, which has been banned by Funimation for sell by HK dealers like Animeniacs, Import-Anime and Cookiejar Video, was the most prominent HK anime set I saw there. There were a lot of R2 dvds that looked like bootlegs. Most of the Bootlegs I saw were HK live action.
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GATSU
Posts: 15332 |
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Tempest: "He's mad at the current SPJA heads for supposedly letting Pioneer into a position of power at the SPJA."
Well that's the point. He's complaining about how industry made AX more corporate and less for the fans, when all he cares about is making his own corporate con himself. And then he complains about how industry influences how the con is run, instead of fans, and yet he expects industry to be responsible for bootleggers. He's beginning to look like a real hypocrite. "I think 13 years ago there was no way to get retailers to come to a convention if they didn't bring bootlegs. It was a necessarry evil, and perhaps something that didn't even occur to him at the time." Maybe, but that's something he's been doing up until the very end. He probably has more dirty money than everyone at the SPJA combined. "It didn't work very well at AXNY, but it's good to see, IMHO that one failure isn't causing him to abandon the noble idea of rewarding the staff. " The problem is that this kind of thing should theoretically be non-profit in the first place, because if he's right about the AX incident, than profit can be mis-handled. "Somehow I don't think its his money paying for this." Well if it's corporate sponsors, then it makes him even more hypocritical. "No one's saying that PMX is the first to promote these mediums. But to compare a domestic company to a convention is stretching it a bit." I'm just saying that fans like myself have been doing this for free for a long time, and a guy who gets paid acts like he's doing something innovative. "The same is true of Anime. What's your point?" You tend to get more for your money off of anime than one-hit wonders, which is why music's a riskier business in general than animation. You can't sell the latest artist by saying, "from the person who produced that last album!" And artists can die out quickly in popularity if they release cd's too frequently. |
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Jlbkwrm
Old Regular
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I haven't been to AX in a few years, but I can't remember any bootlegged anime in the dealer's room. CDs and merchandise, yes, but his quote refers specifically says " no dealer would dare to sell bootlegged anime while the rightholders are in attendance." Like, nobody's going to show up with HK bootlegs of Angelic Layer, because ADV would shut them down quickly. |
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cyrax777
Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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Legato 2057
Posts: 437 Location: Soon to be Japan |
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Yeah, cyrax777 is right, there were plenty of HKs at AX this year. Yes there were some legitimate R2 anime releases but bootlegs were just as popular
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10425 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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If Mike is to be believed, he's never taken a dime for himself from AX, the SPJA or the management company. Personally, I think Cons should be non-profit in theory, but I really don't care how they're registered. If a regularly registered corporation can get things done better than an NPO or NFP, that's fine. But NFP doesn't mean that staffers and organizers can't receive compensation. Take a look at most major charity organizations and NFPs, including the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the UNICEF, and PBS, their goal isn't profit, but their staff receive a salary. I don't have a problem with staffers receiving salary, particularly the higher ups that put in tons of time. I think Mike's ideals of paying the bottom first are just great, but IMHO it would make more sense if he paid himself, MZ, Victoria and the other people who work on the event all year 'round.
Interesting point. I agree with you there. |
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