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Ultenth wrote:

billborden wrote:

Ultenth wrote:

Regardless, my main issue is the continued lack of support in the outside of Japan market for non-collectors. Inside of Japan non-collectors can get the TV channels they wish, and watch the anime or even tape and collect it directly off TV if they wish. Outside of Japan our ONLY option that seems to be available is DVD. Yes, the same issue is there if you want to watch shows from other countries (outside of England usually that you often can get in the US) but no other country outside of the US creates the same volume of shows. Because of the amount produced it's often very hard to know which shows are good and which shows are crap, because reviewers often have different tastes so you can't always rely on that.

While I do agree with you, you missed one important detail. Using England as an example, we have had free access to British productions for quite a while in the form of most PBS stations, and now you can watch them on BBC America, if you have digital cable. This is one of the reasons for the general success of British shows in America; I can watch them for free (or as part of my cable package). That way, I know that I like "Monty Python", "Red Dwarf" and "Are You Being Served" enough to buy the DVD's, and that, no matter how cool "Torchwood" sounds, I'd rather set fire to a pile of bills that pay for it. Similar access to anime (other than shounen titles written for twelve-year-olds) would do wonders for increasing sales. And, yes, I realize that the modern TV rating system might make it difficult to reach a show's target audience (as our two societies differ on what is acceptable to what age group), but that is the joy of cable TV.

How can you say I missed that point when I specifically went out of my way to mention it? Perhaps I did not phrase my statement in the best manner, but I was specifically mentioning how you can get English TV programs in the US (which attributes to their success here), unlike that of most other countries (Mexico as well).

My apologies, I misunderstood what you were saying.

Im not sure if this was said in the first 7 pages and 91+ comments before me but, 2 things that weren't mentioned to the industry were that
1) StageVU > youtube
2) that they need to give dubbed voice overs a personality/emotion Idea

If they did that and all the other junk that they were told , more people would be for buying them or waiting to watch them, not saying it would be a record turn out, but it would be more, oh and not only that but getting a better time spot on tv (other than 11 or 12+ at night) would raise awareness for the anime community and it would grow. obviously u cant run some of the shows during the day, but i mean like fma? whats wrong w/ that, it instills family values on children =)

Veoryn87 wrote:

Well, I understand this myself, but I would assume most of us here in America don't really "get" Japanese humor or puns, so the comedy wouldn't be there for us anyway. Also, I can't really enjoy a show or it's humor if I have to stop the footage and read notations or read notes at the end of the episode to understand what's suppose to be funny.

They point such jokes for the Japanese or Otakus.There are also a bunch of jokes you won't get if you just got into it.Most of it you would have had to have been there or have watched anime for the last 25 years to understand.How many series have you seen? The more you watch the more funny it will get.Adding a translation index to the DVD (onscreen or not)would be tough for the industry anyway.They can't even manage to include an insert in most of their DVD's.

billborden wrote:

If they can't find a way to market them cheaper (not dubbing a niche series to avoid paying an entirely new set of actors, etc), they will never be able to win out over the fansubbers; simply because--even if they stop the fansubbers--they won't see an increase in sales as consumers will turn to a more affordable luxury.

It's not an issue of competing, as John Sirabella said on the panel. It's targeting the neo collector's crowd, at the right price point for the right value. You know, if BEI says Limited Edition versions are good business, and those still sell for $65 retail (you get a lot of cool stuff though), who are you to argue with them?

The way I see it, a whole bunch of people are just disappointed that anime is not the promising "mainstream" market they thought out to be. It's still the collector's crowd, which is growing, but at a much slower rate. Charging less isn't going to save anybody at this point.

dtm42 wrote:

*
To call it "Americanisation" is rather rude, people.

I donno, when the sub and dub scripts are written in the U.S. or Canada and marketed specifically to Region 1, it doesn't seem entirely inappropriate to me.

dtm42 wrote:

To call it "Americanisation" is rather rude, people.

Actually, I think what people are resisting is precisely termed Americanization. In my limited experience, but also according to most sources, Europeans do not censor or so much try to "adapt" the material, as strictly translate it. There's a definite perception that US studios in particular are responsible for removing Japanese references to make shows more palatable to US audiences as well as literally censoring content to push the shows into the US-only definition of what is morally appropriate for specific age groups.

Yeah, the "Politically Correct" attitude of this country (the US) is one reason why I prefer to get my entertainment from overseas in the first place.

The perception about actual censorship of content is, by and large, completely unjustified. Leaving out the sorts of shows that were targeted at young children in the first place, the vast majority of licensed anime releases are completely uncut and uncensored, even if said series' potential TV broadcasts aired in edited form. I think we've already discussed the language/notes issue quite a bit in here, which really comes down to differing priorities on comprehension vs. hard-and-fast textual faithfulness.

And the only thing I'm going to take away from dtm's line is some foreign inferiority-complex pedantry. Razz

crilix wrote:

The way I see it, a whole bunch of people are just disappointed that anime is not the promising "mainstream" market they thought out to be. It's still the collector's crowd, which is growing, but at a much slower rate. Charging less isn't going to save anybody at this point.

Dear Lord no, Anime will never be really mainstream in America, much of it only barely qualifies as mainstream in Japan. However, returning to the example of Brit-coms in America, open access combined with prices the market will support do wonders for sales. Many people who would never have heard of, or considered liking shows like "As Time Goes By" and "Mulberry" have become fans and even collectors simply because they were able to discover the shows on TV then purchase them casually. When the pricing bar is set such that only rabid fans are willing pay, you lose any hope of drawing in casual fans. Only a small percentage of Americans will have an Anime collection to match most the people on this thread, but Anime is actually broad enough that many people can find something they like. I know, I've introduced many non-fans to one or another series. Only a few have become "fans", but most have found something they liked, and many of those have bought a DVD or a series because: "Damn, Sumomo is cute", "Paradign city is a lot like Gothem, isn't it" or "Miu's a pain in the ass, but Chika's actually the only sane one" (this one didn't make a lot of sense to me either, but it got my brother to buy "Ichigo Mashimaro"). Rabid fans with money create profits for companies, but casual fans pay for the day-to-day business.
As fans, we too often speak of Anime as a genre, when it is much more of a style. Most of us lock into what we like as being ANIME, and treat everything else as worthless pap (listen to any fight between "Naruto" fans and "Shuffle" fans). As fans we drive away more "normal" people than any bad translation of "One Piece" ever did. Until we are able to say "Hey, maybe you don't like ninjas in orange jump suits, but "Higurashi" will give even a horror fan like you nightmares" we're also not helping the industry we claim to want to keep afloat.

And as for BEI, blanket claims with-out supporting sales statistics are pretty much de rigure corporate hot air. I worked for a company whose president was lauding how well we were doing, literally, until the day before we filed chapter 11.

Unearthly wrote:

While you make a good point that those without money will eventually get a good disposable income, you miss one point.

Speaking as someone in said position, having money doesn't suddenly make me want DVDs. I like my anime as digital computer files (without DRM!) and I'm not going to buy the plastic discs just because I can. They'd just take up space that I don't have. I imagine this is the case with a lot of younger people, especially those who got hooked on anime through fansubs.

It has been great that Gonzo has started distributing their shows in my preferred format (and I have been purchasing them), but I wonder what it will take to get more studios doing similar endeavors.

Actually, I agree with you about DVD's. I prefer my anime in a computer friendly format myself, takes less space, etcetera (not to mention my monitor screen is larger than my tv at the moment).
My question is, if you could get good quality computer format anime downloads legally - would/could you pay for it?
I'm sure the industry is working hard on this - from both Japanese and other-language ends - it's the obvious next step.
But at the moment, most young anime fans won't be able to afford even these legal downloads - not for a while anyway. In Japan, where fandom is more mature, fans having no money is not such a big issue. Whatever they do, the industry is going to have to dig in and be prepared to wait for the long term profits.

There will always be times when you want to buy the DVD set; as a gift for example. But I think the English Language anime industry will probably have to depend on areas other than DVD sales to survive, like cable tv, kids shows that absolutely have to be dubbed, Merchandise, and hopefully, internet downloadable anime.

That's completely true. If any anime, manga, or dramas taught me anything, most otaku are usually old enough to hold down full-time jobs for the pure purpose of fueling their hobby.

Anime fandom in the United States has a much lower median age and not everyone is as diehard. I mean in Japan they have a huge convention for the sole purpose of selling erotic games and porn based of popular series. That's a mature fanbase that's not taking a hit anytime soon.

billborden wrote:

And as for BEI, blanket claims with-out supporting sales statistics are pretty much de rigure corporate hot air.

Right, and while making these blanket statements about limited editions selling well, they continue to release them. Rolling Eyes

Give it a rest, man. These editions are priced as such and available because there's a market for them. It's as simple as that.

britannicamoore wrote:

While I'm on the subject, I have yet to replace my Naruto boots with legit ones. Are the subs in the show as tiny as the ones in the opening? On tv? I have a pretty good tv setup, but I can barely read the pale yellow font, compared to DB's bigger brighter subs.

The subs on the DVD are much more readable than the ones on TV. They have the same color, but the size is significantly bigger. I don't know why Viz uses the same type of font for the TV broadcast, but whatever. And Viz will be re-releasing the first 2 box sets in December at a lower retail price.

billborden wrote:

There will always be these guys, they also probably still download music for free. Reality is the cost does deter many of us, and the fact the a lot of it simply isn't available in R1. I mean, if I could find "Rec", "Yotsunoha", "W-Wish", "Mahoraba", "Lamune" ...I could go on. I can't spend money on what isn't offered, and I've always taken a bit of offense to the claim that I'm hurting an industry that I would love to support. I buy what I can afford, and would love to pay for GOOD quality downloads (something I have not seen much of yet) if they ever become available, but, they have to be there first.

Hmm? Well, you don't understand, he CAN afford it, just as I stated before. I had lost my wallet recently and he was going to give me like...$300 to help me out, I turned it down. xD He just doesn't buy it.

krelyan wrote:

I wish this would have been clarified as well. What is this Americanization/bastardizing that keeps coming up when referring to the official translations compared to fansub translations? Is it stuff like removing honorifics and not leaving random words left untranslated? Because to me, I would consider the translations found on DVD subtitle tracks as the proper and preferable method.

Honestly, if in the English dub started going like "onee-chan," it wouldn't make a lick of sense to me. Seriously. I mean, I would rather have it placed on a cultural note than having to read it like every 5 seconds. Honorifics isn't really a big deal to me unless I plan to study Japanese.

There isn't much bastardizing of anime as people think...I mean, Naruto is slightly censored on AS (and if you remember the incidents that occured during it's airing), I'm happy that they have an uncut and edited version, it makes both sides happy, or I would at least think so. Cartoon Network has the shows edited, that's all I know, but if you go to Sci-Fi, G4, Fuse, or even Starz, it's little or no editing. *shrugs.*

x.x if my post doesn't make sense, I've been sick for the past few days, I'm just trying to get things together in my mind, sorry...

tygerchickchibi wrote:

billborden wrote:

There will always be these guys, they also probably still download music for free. Reality is the cost does deter many of us, and the fact the a lot of it simply isn't available in R1. I mean, if I could find "Rec", "Yotsunoha", "W-Wish", "Mahoraba", "Lamune" ...I could go on. I can't spend money on what isn't offered, and I've always taken a bit of offense to the claim that I'm hurting an industry that I would love to support. I buy what I can afford, and would love to pay for GOOD quality downloads (something I have not seen much of yet) if they ever become available, but, they have to be there first.

Hmm? Well, you don't understand, he CAN afford it, just as I stated before. I had lost my wallet recently and he was going to give me like...$300 to help me out, I turned it down. xD He just doesn't buy it.

You missed point, What I was saying was that there will always be people that will take for free even if they can pay. They qualify as the "Bad Guys". I've got a brother-in-law that continued to download software long after he could afford, that doesn't mean that everyone still goes to the "hacks and cracks" sites, just that some people are incapable of controlling their baser instincts.

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