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INTEREST: GKids: Studio Ghibli Has No Plans to Release Films on Streaming Services


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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4784
PostPosted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:47 pm Reply with quote
It would be great if they fixed the weird audio issues on the remastering of Kiki’s Delivery Service since presentation is so important to them.
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PurpleWarrior13



Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 2024
PostPosted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:05 pm Reply with quote
I remember when Ponyo was streaming on Netflix back in 2012. *shrug*
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Schaef Dogg



Joined: 17 Jul 2008
Posts: 46
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:10 pm Reply with quote
^ While I don't remember Ponyo, I do remember watching Tales from Earthsea and Howl's Moving Castle while they were available on Netflix in 2011.

Rhys2753 wrote:
My opinion? Physical media for life. Whatever's streaming may no longer be streaming in 10 years. See Netflix/crunchyroll/Funimation or other streaming services that drop streaming because of "License Issues."

This.
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Rika Hue



Joined: 19 Dec 2015
Posts: 147
PostPosted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 11:28 pm Reply with quote
chronos02 wrote:
al505 wrote:
Studio Ghibli Has No Plans to Release Films on Streaming Services? Funny, that didn't seem to stop them from marketing and selling their movies on DVD or BluRay; or did they think that their fans all had home theater systems? Really, what's the difference between home video and streaming services.


I was sure most fans of this medium were aware of the huge difference between a stream and a physical release.

The most obvious one is bitrate, even a DVD can sometimes beat the bitrate offered by most streaming services, and a BD beats by a huge margin any streaming service out there, even 4K streams vs FHD BD.

The second obvious difference, and somewhat related to the first, is the use of chroma subsampling, though both streaming and BD use 4:2:0, some BD movies can be encoded with 4:2:2 and even 4:4:4, the difference is quite shocking, even if it's rare.

The third and less obvious difference, though not less important, is the experience, when you want to watch something in any of the above services, you're showered in a plethora of "hits", "recommendations", and other kinds of offers, mostly unrelated to what you want to watch, and when you click on the desired title, you have to go through a menu that isn't always related to the title itself, also, when the episode or movie ends, the credits are stripped from you and minimised to a corner with a GIANT recommendation of what to watch next, when most movies and anime have an ending sequence after the credits, be it an extra epilogue, or an "in the next episode" kind of content. BD will play all of that uninterrupted, there won't be ads before or after the movie/episode, and the experience will be, overall, singular and "special", since it's not the same clicking a small box on a screen than having to physically take the disc and place it on the player, similar to not being the same sitting on a sofa at home and watching a movie compared to going to the movie theatre (unless you go at 6PM with all the kids).

The physical format will stay superior to the streaming format in terms of image quality for quite some time, and will most likely always be superior in terms of experience. Studio Ghibli knows this, and when a kid watches a Ghibli movie, having their parents take the disc from a shelve, placing it on the player and watching it together, will make them believe the movie to be more special than the millions of other things available in their tablets, PCs, or TVs. The same goes when a friend brings over one of the movies and they want to watch it again later on, they will have to look for the physical disc, which means the movie will stay in their minds much longer than searching on netflix or disney plus or whatever.


This post and its argument is too good for this forum.

I don't think Ghibli is losing that much money. Someone here posted about merc not flooding the market, but that's not true. Have you ever seen a Totoro plushie? Ghibli merc is actually easy to come by, easier than other anime. And I'm sure merc brings in the money streaming would. (Don`t quote me on this).

Plush, there's apparently a Ghibli World coming a la Universal Studios and Disney. I don't think 'the millions left on the table' is a problem.
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BigOnAnime
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 01 Jul 2010
Posts: 1219
Location: Minnesota, USA
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:02 am Reply with quote
I recommend the following.
Quote:
Suzuki revealed that he is often asked why Ghibli films aren't distributed on Netflix and other streaming sites. "I don't want to do it because the films would be treated as cheap commodities," he said.
animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2019-04-13/ghibli-co-founder-toshio-suzuki-discusses-why-studio-did-not-seek-growth/.145563
MoonPhase1 wrote:
Grave Of The Fireflies can be purchased or for rent on Vudu, iTunes and maybe other services.
Because that's IIRC handled internationally by Toho, not Ghibli, hence why Sentai Filmworks got it, not GKIDS nor Disney. Though GKIDS has the theatrical rights to Grave of the Fireflies, not Sentai.
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Blackiris_



Joined: 06 Sep 2013
Posts: 535
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:31 am Reply with quote
Yes, much of what chronos02 wrote is spot-on, I think.

Rika Hue wrote:
Someone here posted about merc not flooding the market, but that's not true. Have you ever seen a Totoro plushie? Ghibli merc is actually easy to come by, easier than other anime. And I'm sure merc brings in the money streaming would. (Don`t quote me on this).


I recommend reading the article liked by BigOnAnime. While it is true that you can easily find Ghibli merchandise in Japan, it’s a huuuge difference if you compare it to Disney, Sanrio, Evangelion or other big brands/companies. The selection of products is not thaaat huge, the quality usually very good (every single article has a seal of approval sticker, I think, except for maybe the very small ones). There are no shady cooperations with other companies, no regularly published limited-edition merch and no gatcha cash-grab mobile games.

While other companies seek to maximize their profits, Ghibli actively does not want profits from merchandise to exceed a certain yearly amount of revenue. Ghibli could easily make more money, but they decided not to. This is a rather exceptional stance and of course they are in a luxury position to be able to act like that, but I have great respect for that and it’s a big part of the reason that Ghibli just feels genuine.
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Tenbyakugon



Joined: 11 Jan 2012
Posts: 788
Location: Ohio, United States
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 9:39 am Reply with quote
Well then you’re going to have people like me that long to see Ghibli’s movies left in the dark then, huh?

Get with the times. Not sure how Japan’s market is with streaming but I don’t have to point out America’s.
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LegitPancake



Joined: 26 Jun 2017
Posts: 1291
Location: Texas, USA
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:31 am Reply with quote
The original article on Polygon mentions that Ghibli movies will never be on Toonami again, but I don’t see how television broadcasts equates to streaming. They’ve done it before back in like 2005, and Ghibli movies air on Japanese television all the time.
Also, reading some of the comments, I don’t see why Ghibli movies like Howl’s were on Netflix in 2012, but they’ve changed their minds in the past 7 years?
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:45 am Reply with quote
Rika Hue wrote:

This post and its argument is too good for this forum.


While I agree 100% that physical media offers superior video quality I think the simple fact is that the majority of people don't care. As I've posted (ranted?) several times in the past, it seems that the further A/V tech advances the more people are willing to trade off quality for convenience.

If someone cared about the video experience they'd watch in a dark room, without distractions, in front of a fairly large screen. If my observation of friends, co-workers, and family is anything to go by most people don't do that: they watch on a tiny phone or tablet (or maybe laptop) screen, in a well-lit room, while all sorts of other distractions are taking place.

Likewise, take audio: If people really cared about audio quality they would use nice headphones (no, Beatz are not nice) or properly positioned speakers and would be using uncompressed source material. But again, most people don't do that, they listen with cheapo earbuds from a highly compressed source, and they do so while there are all sorts of distractions around them.

Fact is that only A/V geeks care about quality, and we are few and far between compared to the average consumer. The average person values the the convenience of streaming their music and videos over quality, and probably isn't even aware of the fact that physical media is superior.

I do think you have a good point about Merch though. In my opinion Ghibli merch is ubiquitous anywhere you find anime goods being sold, and I've often seen Ghibli stuff (plushies, stationary) sold at places which had no other anime or manga related content at all. It's not on the level of, say, Eva or Disney....but its a lot more common than most anime merch, and it has been for many years.
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 2091
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 11:21 am Reply with quote
Yeah, in the US certain stores offer quite a bit of different Ghibli merch from statues, shirts, and quite a few various types of goodies. Totoro in particular is used in a ton of different types of merch. Yes, when compared to DISNEY of all things (like the biggest merch company one could name at this point) it seems small but there's still plenty of it and often more for a Ghibli film than many anime series out there.

Sorry, but if you want to talk about a creator who refused to let merch "cheapen" their creation, it's hard to top Bill Watterson, the creator of the newspaper comic Calvin and Hobbes, who didn't allow ANY official merch to be made whatsoever. Now I personally don't think even a massive amount of merch actually "cheapens" the original work (Evangelion is still considered by many to be excellent and I never heard of anyone's opinion changing due to a ton of merch existing) but I'm simply stating the extent to which a creator has taken such measures.

Sorry, but regardless of Ghibli's intentions, the fact remains that when I walk into a Hot Topic or Barnes and Noble, it seems like at least 20% of the merch is Ghibli. And honestly, it is kinda tiresome at this point, like the Ghibli films have been out for a long time now while constant new series and films that could use some love are released and overlooked. For example, hey Hot Topic, could we get a Promised Neverland shirt? Oh no, instead we get yet another Howl's Moving Castle shirt? [sarcasm]Yay, thanks, totally what I wanted...[/sarcasm]
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Urashu



Joined: 13 Jul 2010
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 11:35 am Reply with quote
Ummmm... TIMING!!
They're coming to HBO Max.
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Expias



Joined: 30 Oct 2008
Posts: 176
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 11:38 am Reply with quote
Suddenly GKIDS announces that "Studio Ghibli films will be available for US streaming on HBO Max for the first time ever!" Spring 2020

https://twitter.com/GKIDSfilms/status/1184869480721108992
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Hal14



Joined: 01 Apr 2018
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 11:45 am Reply with quote
Expias wrote:
Suddenly GKIDS announces that "Studio Ghibli films will be available for US streaming on HBO Max for the first time ever!" Spring 2020

https://twitter.com/GKIDSfilms/status/1184869480721108992



Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing
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DatRandomDude



Joined: 21 Jul 2016
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 11:47 am Reply with quote
That article didn't age well.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4784
PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 11:49 am Reply with quote
Expias wrote:
Suddenly GKIDS announces that "Studio Ghibli films will be available for US streaming on HBO Max for the first time ever!" Spring 2020

https://twitter.com/GKIDSfilms/status/1184869480721108992
Well that sure was a quick turnaround.
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