Forum - View topicAnime Expo 2007 - Keynote: The Future of Anime
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os-osiris
 Posts: 15 Location: usa ... |
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Has anyone considered the possibility that people are protesting against high DVD prices? Even a little? |
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taiofmine
 Posts: 7 |
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That's certainly why I stopped buying anime DVDs. It was just a bit too pricey to buy on a regular basis. If I buy them at all, I snag them from used bookstores.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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John Ledford said that "B" and "C" titles don't sell very well due to viewers putting them in the "worth watching on fansubs, but not worth buying" category. There's some truth to this, but if you look at the numbers, B and C titles are downloaded in fewer quantities than stuff like Haruhi, Death Note, Naruto, or My-Hime. The issue is that fans will get the word out if a series is good, but if something's a POS, you can bet they'll get the word about that as well. Back in the "good old days" of higher sales, I'd imagine there were more people buying the first couple of volumes of something unknown, then giving up on it. Now though, they can talk about yet-to-be-released series on forums, read blogs, and check out fan reviews to see if a series will be worth their time. This means that someone might decide not to buy a series even if they didn't download and watch the fansubs themselves. I'd use the example of Xenosaga -- I don't plan on buying those DVDs. Even though I never DLed a single episode of it, all the info I've gathered indicates that it's not worth my time or money. Sure, there'll be reviews at ANN and/or AoD once the DVDs come out, but 1st-DVD reviews can't inform readers of mid-series quality freefalls or woefully disappointing endings, which are things that viewers want to avoid whether they're paying for the anime or not. It all boils down to this: in the "Golden Age" before BitTorrent and easy fansub availability, did the companies truly deserve sales of mediocre series that depended on fans being in the dark about what they were buying? Another problem is bootleg DVD availabilty; it's hard to say whether they or fansubs have more of an impact, but consider that the average consumer outside the hardcore fansub-downloading viewerbase is likely to go to websites like Amazon where they already buy their domestic entertainment DVDs, not to rightstuf or Robert's Corner Anime Store. And guess what, the cheapest, most attractive anime purchasing opportunities are "import" DVDs. Another thing may be the "wait for the boxed set" mentality. Buyers have become more selective and strategic about what they buy and how they buy it, and there's an air of "Why get these expensive single DVDs now when I can wait a year and a half and get the complete series for 1/3 the price?" Last word about fansubs & DVDs: many people on the downloading scene are of the opinion that fansubs > DVDs. Granted, some of these people are the incorrigible "why should I buy DVDs when I can get it for free?" types, but if the companies want to change these opinions, could it really hurt them to make DVDs a little more like fansubs? If you look at fansubs from back in 2000-2001 compared to today, you can see their dramatic evolution both in overall quality and in how they present the anime. The DVDs, on the other hand, have remained largely stagnant and set in their ways, and not just because of "limits in DVD technology." From talking on various forums, I've determined that at least some people like these things about fansubs: * Subtitles in colors other than "DVD-yellow." (Granted, DVDs can't do 12 different colors to coordinate with hair colors, but white with black outlines is a popular choice and is feasible on DVDs.) * Honorifics left in subtitles. * Translation and cultural notes -- according to panels about ADR script-writing, the pro-translated scripts come with extensive notes, which would be a free, low-space DVD extra in the form of still pages of text -- no need to spend anything extra on DVD inserts. * Certain terms left in Japanese, like moe, otaku, sensei, senpai, and a few others * Consistency between audio and subtitles, i.e. they don't want to hear Character A call Character B by B's last name and see B's first name in the subtitles. Similarly, [Last, First] is the preferred ordering in the subtitles when the full name is spoken. (To be fair, this is sometimes taken too far in some fansubs, like always displaying spoken names when using "you" would be more appropriate.) * Onscreen text translations positioned to appear approximately where the Japanese text appears. ADV, Rightstuf, and some other companies (even Odex  ) have proved that this is possible on DVDs, but when I've asked why other companies don't do it, I get answers like "That's too much extra work" and "We've always done it this way."
* Flashy karaoke effects -- granted, this isn't possible for DVDs without hardsubbing, but there's always the option of putting the English and romaji onscreen at the same time like Rightstuf, Ocean, and Bang Zoom! do. Or, you know, actually translating the songs in the first place, Viz. I've said a lot of these things before, but I figure they're worth saying again. If the companies want to compete with fansubs, they can't compete in speed or price, but they can make all these low-cost changes. Note that Funimation uses white subtitles, leaves honorifics in subtitles, leaves several of the terms I listed in Japanese, and usually has audio-subtitle consistency. And who has the biggest market share? Funimation. Coincidence? Partially, yes, but it's evident that these practices haven't cast Funi into obscurity for the crime of deviating from the standard DVD presentation that dates back to the late 1990s. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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All great points Zalis and pretty much everything said is what I agree with but there is one thing in particular that I wanted to point out when I read the article and it very much related to what you said here about the Golden Age of anime:
And from the article:
I am STRONGLY, almost maliciously, against direct involvement from overseas companies with Japan that would influence production and financial management of its anime industry. Anime is a product solely unique to Japan, it is not Japanese animation for a world market and definitely not animation for a North American market. So as far as the anime industry in America goes NOTHING is deserved, no American distributor should ever take for granted that importing a foreign medium into the US and adapting it to be suitable for English speaking audiences to be automatically successful. Companies try over and over to market their product with the thinking that anime fan = anime consumer. They used to be because most fans bought all of their anime (the Golden Age). This was back when anime was completely unknown to the mainstream entertainment market. I don't see why the statistic that as many as 69% of teens and people in their 20's watch anime regularly is a paradox if sales are dropping as that percentage is rising. It should be seen as the REASON sales are dropping, since that percentage says nothing about the proportion of casual fans and the proportion of fans out there who are willing and do pay for their favorite series. U.S. companies would like to see series released on TV and DVD the same time as in Japan, that is an ideal that they think is a solution. But how is it a solution with the possible consequences of anime creators and investors feeling greater pressure due to presenting to a wider international and mostly North American audience? That betrays every shred of respect toward devoted fans and customers who were responsible for the initial growth of the anime industry in the first place. Why? because anime was Japanese. DVDs were a blessing for anime companies that were already around, since it would allow more anime to be accessible to a wider audience, but the digitalization of the medium (thus the rise of bootlegs and fansubs) was also a curse. Now companies are blaming fans that new technology is hurting sales as we are on the horizon of a new improved technology and as Zalis points out certain qualities of fansubs still surpasses that of DVDs. I don't get it. |
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Swissman
Posts: 768 Location: Switzerland |
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Well, I think the label "'B' and 'C' titles" doesn't say much about the actual quality of the shows. The 'A' titles aren't those I'd personally call automatically "so good artistically they'll have enough word of mouth propaganda and sell very well" and the B & C titles "they're not really good artistically so nobody really bothers about them in the end". It's rather A grade: Shows which are hugely popular right now with the masses due to designs/stories/music appealing to todays average tastes & clever merchandising gimmicks (the dance numbers in Haruhi & Lucky Star, for example, or simply specific genres like everything related to gothic/vampires and similar stuff) and B & C grade: Older shows, forgotten OAVs or other Anime for required tastes. Some of those anime aren't really good, that's clear, but other shows are very good and should deserve a dvd release or at least a rerelease on dvd for the few dedicated fans out there. So yes, the "Golden age before BitTorrent" around 2000-2004 was more interesting than todays RC1 anime dvd market in my opinion because there was simply more diversity of titles and genres to choose from. "A grade" titles like Cowboy Bebop, B titles like the good old City Hunter or C titles like Cleopatra D.C. (which isn't really good overall but hey, I really like such old forgotten OAVs from the eighties/nineties).
.... Urgh ..... that's a detailed list of the things I personally strongly dislike about current fansubs. I hope the companies will stay as far away as possible from such "popular details with fansubber audiences" and focus on what is more imporant: Correct translating and adapting for a general audience not used to otaku lingo while satisfying hardcore anime dvd buyers on the other hand. |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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This dash to release everything quickly mentality has me worried we will never get any titles over a year old. No Banner of Stars III, no Stratos Advance, Monster, Lupin III: Episode 0 'First Contact' (second best Lupin movie), the list can really go on and on, spanding all genres.
While the strategy at least makes some sense, I hope they don't adapt it as a 100% business model. While there is no indication that that has happened, some of the talk still is a little scary. With even more and more money being invested in production, it seems that any good titles produced outside of that money trail would be arbitrarily brushed aside. It also limits what the market is able to buy. Say the market is able to buy 10 anime one year, yet there are 15 anime that are produced that have a good chance of making good money, the market is still only get 10 of them, with five left behind, which is fine. But say two years later the market is able to buy 20 anime, but only 5 produced would do well over here. The market picks up those 5, but if it follows its mentaility that old titles won't do well(for what ever reason, and 'old' being over 1.5 years), it would pick up 15 random hit or miss titles, instead of the 5 great ones from 2 years earlier. And while that might not end up being a maxim, it might be enough of a generality to happen more often than not. _______________________ p.s. I had no idea that 00' to 04' was considered the 'golden age'. I got to tell my chums down at the cane shop that we're in baby! |
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Zalis116
Moderator
Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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All right, I admit I misused Ledford's definition a bit. There are some series that are of good quality but poor sales, such as Princess Tutu. But it's not as if Tutu had an FMA-level of popularity in fansubs and then tanked in sales. Heck, from what I can tell it didn't even have a Someday's Dreamers-level of fansub popularity. My point is that while fansub availabilty certainly has some effect on sales, for better or for worse, sales are not a direct function of fansub availability as the keynote speaker implies. More availability doesn't necessarily translate to more sales, but less availability doesn't mean more sales either. I'd say it's a combination of many factors, including quality of the anime itself, quality of the release, awareness in the online and "casual" viewerbase, and other marketing done by the company.
As for the diversity of series, I think part of the blame for that lies on the Japanese side...we're not getting as many "hip" wide-appeal action-comedy series like Rurouni Kenshin, Slayers, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, and Trigun anymore. Instead we get stuff like Trinity Blood and Gun Sword that people see as imitations of those earlier hits. It seems like production's largely shifted to narrowly-segmented, otaku-oriented material, like Paniponi Dash, Haruhi, Lucky Star, and all those (melo)drama/romance series based on visual novels like Kanon, Air, and Rumbling Hearts. Sure, we've got Bleach and Naruto, but those are more akin to DBZ and other "continue forever" series than Trigun/Bebop/Outlaw Star that have memorable characters, story arcs, and endings while still being episodic enough to play well on TV. I have hopes for Death Note, though, as the "this guy kills people with a notebook" has a high bad-ass factor.
I'm not saying DVDs should be exactly like fansubs, and I've seen people disdainfully call Funimation "fansubbers that happen to release on DVD." (Conversely, fansub groups that don't provide all the bells and whistles get called "DVD companies that happen to fansub") Believe me, I don't understand the obsession with glitzy karaoke either. I know that companies have general audiences to consider, audiences that won't read liner notes saying "These are the honorifics we've used in the subtitles" just as people don't read forum rules & stickies. However, I give the companies enough credit to know what kind of series they're releasing, and I'd think they could "pick and choose" what to do with the subtitles for a mainstream series vs. an otaku-fanboy series. Like I said, there will always be those who have cheapskate justifications for not buying anything, but if the companies want any chance at more sales from the crowd that dislikes certain features of DVDs, they're going to have to consider changing these features of DVDs. |
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Tyrenol
Posts: 398 Location: Northern California |
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And I will continue to say this until this still-young American anime industry gets it right: CON -F###ING-TENT!! Don't just license "what's hot now" and expect the money to roll in for you.
The male lead of whatever anime series these companies license should NOT, AND NEVER, BE WIMPY AND REPLACEMENTS FOR PUNCHING BAGS. Let me meet somebody who knows how to block an attack from a woman (and counter). Some relatively attractive guy who won't run away from or spew blood from the nose over a naked chick. And while it seems okay now (Tokyo Majin(?), Negima!?); the idea for me that ADV had licensed the pro-NEET "Welcome To NHK" forces me to get rapidly sick. And the possibility that the door is opened for something even worse (like Combat Punching Bag Hayato) is even worse. |
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writerpatrick
 Posts: 671 Location: Canada |
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There are few things the companies seem to be overlooking. For one, there's much more availability of the material through television than there was before so there's less need for fans to buy DVDs to get their anime fix. And if one believes the show will be available for free on TV within the next few years, they feel less inclined to purchase it.
Second, when one has accumulated a reasonable amount of anime, they become pickier about what they choose to watch or to buy. At first one tends to go for anything anime but after familiarizing oneself with it, they start going after only those shows with specific interest appeal. And if one has spent fifty dollars on a boxed set, they're going to watch it multiple times and it can take a while to work through a series. Fansubs do play a part, but if they can get the shows to air in NA within weeks, or at least months of airing in Japan, they will eliminate the reason for fansubbing so fansubbers won't bother. Furthermore, they could easily reduce the amount of fansubbing if they simply hired these groups to do legal subtitling. They have the skills and could learn a lot about what the fans want from the fansubbers. |
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Swissman
Posts: 768 Location: Switzerland |
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I agree, times have changed indeed. There a re less series produced in japan with mass appeal (= general audiences & hardcore fans) without being allready an incarnation of an earlier (often better) show. And at the same time, more and more series in japan focus on an otaku audience. These shows do have their stong online fan audiences, but these people usually don't buy dvds.
Maybe I misunterstood you. I'm objecting against hardsubbed (english) text onto the artwork itself. If the text is removable, fine, no problem.
I see what you mean but I personally doubt this approach will change anything significantly. New excuses for not buying dvds will appear and provide further justification to play Robin Hood vs. mean anime company X. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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They could license series with more respectable male leads, but that would involve series like Aishiteru ze Baby, which won't do well because most males won't buy it and most females will stick to the manga. And how is Welcome to the NHK pro-NEET? I haven't read the manga or the novels, but spoiler[over the course of the anime, Satou is forced to realize the unsustainability and consequences of the NEET/hikikomori lifestyle, and takes steps toward reform.] Sure, Satou is pretty pathetic in his own way, but he's not Keitarou-pathetic. Also regarding diversity, this AskJohn column may shed some light on the licensing of niche/otaku-oriented anime. My impression is that the companies have already scraped through the 80s and 90s and brought out all the random OVAs and short series that they think are worth licensing, so now they're caught in the cycle from season to season picking out the newest items to bring out. EDIT:
in the end, this may all be a chicken-and-egg situation: diehard fansub viewers don't buy DVDs because (among other reasons) they don't like DVD presentation, but companies don't change their presentation because those viewers don't buy the DVDs anyway. . |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Do you buy 1,000 anime DVDs a year? Do you buy excessive numbers of model kits, posters, and gashapon figures? Do you buy character pillow cases and obsess over female anime characters in your free time? I'm guessing not, and neither do I, but that's why neither of us are worth thousands of dollars (individually) to some anime companies and why those companies don't make anime that appeals to YOU. Many extreme anime fans use anime as "escapist" fantasy and they NEED to do that because they feel they are pathetic or beat down in much the same way as those characters. They look at someone like Keitarou and can empathize with what he goes through and then in some small way feel better about themselves because Keitarou gets the girl. They can look at a girl that spends 20+ episodes telling him she hates him, beating him down but in the end falling in love with him despite the fact that he is pathetic and just takes all that abuse and think to themselves, "that can be me". And those people will spend tons of money on those franchises. You might watch something like Cowboy Bebop and think Spike Spiegel is a bad@ss, buy a soundtrack and then go get some time in the sun and do other things. So if a company can make $100 off of you by busting their @ss to make Bebop or $10,000+ off of otaku X making "pathetic nerd gets chick, ver 378", what does the bottom line say? For reference, this is why most every SUCCESSFUL shoujo manga/anime (Sailor Moon, Fushigi Yuugi, Fruits Basket, etc) features a clumsy, not very successful girl who somehow finds herself surrounded by one or more (usually more) incredibly attractive men who are completely devoted to her and a couple of fiercely devoted female friends whom she can count on no matter what. For extra grins, they add an "alter ego" that often allows the primary to hide her awkward self behind an incredibly capable and/or elegant personae. And as a side note, sales figures is why Bandai Visual says "we're gonna sell to the people who we can count on to BUY rather than bust our @ss trying to hit a vague and unreliable 'possible' market". Content ain't king when "fans" look at Bandai Visual and ask the question of why they'd buy BV's title when they can buy something else for $10-20 less, which says "anime is interchangeable to me, I shop by price". That's not to say you can't think something is too expensive, but that is then a question of "what is it WORTH to me", as opposed to "why is this more expensive than that?" |
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os-osiris
Posts: 15 Location: usa ... |
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There is also yet another reason DVD sales are dropping as a whole: they are, inevitably, the 8-track cartridges of tomorrow. DVD companies want everyone to switch to Blue-ray and High-def, but the people are ultimately taking a different route (and of course anime companies are taking notice, ergo what they tried with Death Note, but it seems more like they're ignoring this as a fad rather than the next direction for media content).
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Tyrenol
Posts: 398 Location: Northern California |
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No, no, and no. But I'm still an anime hobbyist who's willing to spend money on my hobby. And sure, the industry can target the high-end otaku. But it will end up like the rap industry; fewer and fewer respectable people will invest in it since the industry will only cater to those with no grasp on reality.
If I wanted 20 episodes of some (albeit attractive) stranger telling me what I don't want to accept, I'd live in the ghettos. No thanks.
I don't watch something like Cowboy Bebop. "Bad@ss" is played out.
I can say that the only difference between shoujo and shounen is the gender of the protagonist. Everything is the same right down to were the girl socks the guy and the guy doesn't fight back.
You're basically giving people like me, and basically every other anime fan who's sick of seeing the same cliches done in different styles and backgrounds, a reason to quit being an anime fan. It's considered weak and cowardly to not branch from the norm. Not even Bollywood, the films from India that center around attractive people dancing with each other, is that willing to be so redundant. Last I read; even though the rural areas of India will eat up dance-filled stories about "poetic justice" et al, those who live in the city will go for the more cutting-edge stuff. So it's all about the psychy. Back in the 90s, anime was considered a vegue and unreliable "possible market." And the people over at pre-ADV had busted the @ss. Look at this crap now! Oh my God, yo! |
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Tyrenol
Posts: 398 Location: Northern California |
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"Moe doesn't sell," last I heard. My surprise is that Geneon had licensed Lyrical Nanoha; one of the shows that had been labled "pedophile friendly." I'm a bit on the fence with this though; Japan's media industry still had this "guy become women's punching bag" syndrome that I'm getting vehemently sick of.
Huh? E's Otherwise? Busou Renkin? Ouran High's Host Club? Where is that rule (not one of the unwritten rules) that say that the West should be like the East in terms of CONTENT or lack there of?
You know, this is the same argument used in a movie like Rob Zombie's "Devil's Rejects;" where it tries to denounce violence and torture by glorifying it. Call me old fashioned. But if someone's stating that being a NEET is a social disease, and you do it by introducing a fantasy of the female lead dressed up like a nun and masturbating... ...and the exact next scene has the male lead grabbing tissue from a box, then no. I don't think you're denouncing the NEET culture. You're actually promoting and glorifying it. Even the populace of 4chan (the dreaded imageboard) called it a "hit too close to home" title. |
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