Forum - View topicTales Of The Industry - They Shoot Their Hostages, Don't They?
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I guess I'm not really following the "fanfiction" accusation logic. The names are changed, the stories are real. They're dictated to Justin by his colleagues in the industry. How is that "fanfiction"? |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Can we be assured that aside from name changes, no other facts are distorted? Like when he says 100+ episodes, he legitimately means that and it's not hyperbole? Same with it having later sequels?
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Some of that stuff might be changed a little at the request of the person telling the story, yeah. You realize you're not supposed to be able to immediately identify the franchise, and the idea is not to give you enough "clues" as to what the show might be, right? This isn't about spilling the beans on backroom dealings over the years, it's to help give people an idea of what actually happens behind the scenes, how business is done, how difficult some of these relationships can be. What happened in the story is real - but the names are changed, and yes, maybe one or two of those little details might be changed to make it less obvious what the franchise is. This column is specifically about a business relationship that went south, and how that can impact a show's life in the US. It's a real example. What the show was isn't actually important - you want to know, but you don't need to, and so those details are held back or changed to preserve anonymity. Please keep in mind what this column is supposed to be and not what you might wish it was. We will never misrepresent what someone says and these stories are all approved by the people telling them. Moving forward it may just be easier to leave any and all details about the property being discussed out of it unless the storyteller is OK with disclosing what the title is specifically. |
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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Wouldn't mind that solution to the speculation issue.
The column is educational, but there's a part of my brain that just wants to piece the puzzle together. And I don't want anybody to get fired because of this column and this column is pretty cool. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11354 |
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And then it turns out they used lead-based paint... 
I think the moral of the story is, always get a Pantone number when dealing with colors. One man's "eggshell" is another man's "yuki." |
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eternalblue81
Posts: 32 |
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Wow, such a shame to hear about the difficulties this anime faced. The timing of when this came out in singles couldn't have helped, but surely if it had been able to have been advertised it would have helped it out.
 No telling now.
Sounds like it would probably be really difficult for any other US companies to either re-release or release the rest of it. Even though I wasn't happy about some of the other things that had to be changed for this anime, I understood why it had to be released that way by the US company. (Even though I think it would have been beneficial exposure for the artists involved, I know how draconian the Japanese music business is.) |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6253 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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It's really a sad story to me after I read this. To be honest, after reading this article it makes me wonder how companies like Funimation and other US companies may have went through this obstacles. I have heard from people that doing business in Japan can be difficult. Regardless, it's a very interesting story. Can't wait for the next stories for this new column. Thanks for putting this story up.
I agreed with you on that one and the one I bolded and underlined, that's my biggest problem with Japan's music industry. |
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DTJB
 Posts: 671 Location: Dubuque, IA |
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Fanfiction eh? I'd imagine there has to be as much legitimacy in this article as possible. Check out the first article which covers CPM. Considering that company's fate, it all seems believable to me.
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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It seems that that there will always be people willing (and eager!) to throw mud -- just to see if any of it sticks. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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While these stories are supposed to remain totally anonymous, would it be possible to know the year or at least the general timeframe these stories are set in? I was able to piece out the era when there was mention of single-disc releases with boxes to put subsequent releases in, but until I find clues like these in the stories, I consistently have problems knowing how old or new they are. I think they'd be important so we'd know what the culture and technology was like when the events in the story happened.
It actually sounds like it was solely this one Japanese contact person. It's also possible that there was some language confusion as to what colors refer to what. There's some rather fierce debate among anthropologists about linguistic relativity regarding colors, and I have to wonder if this incident made victims of that thought. (That is, some believe that people perceive colors based on which ones have names in their language, whereas others believe people can distinguish colors easily regardless of if they're named in their language or not. For instance, in Japan, blue and green are used interchangeably, most notably in traffic lights, because 青 (ao) is used for "both" colors.) The very name "eggshell" as a color, while it does see use among artists, can be misleading, as chicken eggs can vary a lot in color, with some shades more common in some areas than others. If you're not familiar with "eggshell" as a color, you may get the wrong idea. That being said, the Japanese contact DID send back a picture saying "This shade!," which would be enough information to begin production. Nevertheless, I think most people, even the fans, either wouldn't be able to tell the difference or won't care, as "eggshell" and "optic white" are pretty close to each other, the difference small enough that variation in printing could yield a bigger difference.
What happens when the entire committe has made a grave error? Everyone's going to make at least one in their lives. Will they all just become talking brick walls?
I don't know how Japanese contest winners normally deal with these restrictions, but those type of rules, to me, sounds like they're tempting the winners, especially if American, to break those rules. North America is a continent made up entirely of countries that fought their independence from their empires in violent ways, so we'd be a region of the world full of rebels. That, and if they're sufficiently young and/or don't understand contracts like these, they're not going to care. And lastly, that they can't be resold (in paper, at least) would make them highly sought after collector items. For instance, Bill Watterson didn't want Calvin and Hobbes books he autographed to be sold off at high prices, so he stopped signing them entirely. Naturally, this made those autographed books shoot way up in value and made people want to buy and sell them even more, the exact opposite of what he wanted, and he had no control over them because these sales were mostly private.
Heh, so it really IS like that, where the eggshell shades are different. (In some parts of the world, chicken eggs are predominantly a light tan, unmistakably not white.)
Do you mean the Japanese company or the western localization?
That'd be messed up if it's true, that a company got majorly shafted because someone on the other side of the world was stepping out of his authority. Then again, I do hear that business is a survival-of-the-fittest world.
I don't know if this is off topic or not, but do you know how it works for goods distributed as freebies and/or crowdfunding rewards? I was wondering about it for some time. For the former, it's because I'd go to conventions and get this stuff that, while I'm sure needed approval, have an incredibly informal feel to them (most recently the papercraft Mecha-Naruto I got at Anime Expo 2014), and for the latter, it's because I see crowdfunding campaigns for licensed products (or even just to buy the rights) and see rewards related to that license (such as the Kickstarter for Tadpole Treble having rewards related to Super Smash Bros.).
I must admit that when there's a recall for a product I have, I won't return it unless it severely messes up my life because that makes the product rarer, but I'll be careful not to use it in the way the recall states is unsafe. (For instance, I have a cup from McDonald's for Shrek 4 that was recalled for having arsenic in the paint that only comes loose when drunk. Hence, I now have it on my desk to keep pens, pencils, and other stick-shaped objects in.)
My guess is that FUNimation's done so much stuff at this point that its key people are incredibly experienced at dealing with Japanese legal teams and licensing and marketing people. Nevertheless, problems do come their way, like the initial simulcast of One Piece. That the people at Toei forgave them for that does indicate that not every cross-Pacific communication between anime industry people isn't as harsh as this one. As for the music business, the American one may just become quite draconian in the near future (albeit for different reasons) thanks to the results of that "Blurred Lines" court case. |
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Seif
 Posts: 456 |
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Remember, ANN staffers are not only payed shills and liberal propagandist, they're also liars! |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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Posit this before and don't quite buy it:
If they weren't allowed, then how could they demand an immediate reprint? So it must be that's not an issue.
So much for Japanese inserting that beat into their BL anime for homage! |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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I have to admit, this is an instance where I would shove that cup at the manufacturer, pronto! As for strict Japanese demands, I once had to print out 1600 surveys for people to fill out just to attend a free concert--and even though the concert happened two days in a row (same venue, music, etc.), the people attending *had* to fill out the survey, even if they attended the day before. Funnily enough, the surveys were no longer necessary the following year. I can only imagine that the hoops my group made the Japanese company jump through (the surveys were only required if the concerts had more than 400 attendees, which they definitely could have) was a strong motivating factor. ^^; Plus, the handwriting on those surveys was atrocious, so very little information could be obtained from them. 
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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I think the guy made it pretty clear which era it was when he talked about how people still complain about the release of this anime nearly a decade later. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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Except for Canada (those weaklings). |
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