The american anime industry is it near the end?

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The american anime industry is it near the end?

Postby Mroni » Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:08 pm

Adv has stopped several series for no good explanation. Geneon has no distributor meanwhile both continue to have thier stuff on the shelves of best hoping someone would sucker themselves unknowingly into buying series that will never be completed. Japanese companies won't let american companies sell series as boxsets until they have sold them as single releases first. Japanese are buying the american releases because they are cheaper which is destroying the Japanese Domestic market anybody see a solution?


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Postby The Origonal Head Hunter » Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:13 pm

Mass suicide.


































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Postby Wolfy2hk » Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:37 pm

I actually think its the Opposite maybe the industry is going down but the popularity of anime in america increases, but so does ignorance :roll:
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Postby Sukunai » Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:42 pm

I think selling singles intentionally first might work with the Japanese market, but this isn't Japan. Maybe they need to grasp that.

I'd rather buy a series as a box set if I truly want it.

Surely the companies have to be aware I can watch their anime without their help.
Hell I can even say screw em and download the dvds if I am pushed into it. I'd rather not, but I sure as hell can.

If they want to market them, they need to market smart. Making a product is not enough to sell it. You have to understand your marketplace.
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Postby 03germas » Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:20 am

No it isn't near the end. There are still companies like Dreamworks and Pixar which will carry on. But i mainly watch eastern anime rather than western anime because of the better general quality.
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Postby Pas » Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:33 am

03germas wrote:No it isn't near the end. There are still companies like Dreamworks and Pixar which will carry on.


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Postby OropherZero » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:52 am

and this affects Australia's anime industry because we can't release stuff before the U.S even if we obtain the license from Japan first (Gundam Seed Destiny) at least we have Shakugan no Shana now through Tokyo Night Train and you don't coz Geneon USA is gone =P
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Postby OropherZero » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:59 am

wait forget what i said, its confusing (license from U.S or Japan) but theres also the issue of dubbing to take into consideraton - I probably got confused with packagings (our GSD being 10 dvds and U.S being 12) something like that
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Postby ZephyrStar » Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:23 am

Stuff comes and goes.

I think the industry in Japan is suffering right now, because the shows that used to make money and the cliches that everyone would jump all over are fewer and fewer. Recently there has been a big boom in the industry, but maybe it's tapering off in the Japanese market at least. Production companies are losing money because their shows are not doing as well, and the idea of special edition goods and packaging has just become too expensive except for the hardcores.

Japanese companies (such as Bandai Visual, which brought Diebuster over to the US) follows the Japanese model in the US and I think will not do very well. I bought Diebuster, 3 DVD's, @ 45$ per. There's not a dub, it's just subbed. The quality is good, and the special features are decent, but unless you're a hardcore fan or a sub elitist, you're simply not going to pay that.

And I'd much rather buy box sets of things than singles, because generally the special features don't interest me as much as picking up the show, or some shows just aren't good enough for me to want to buy the singles, but a thinpack might be nice to watch once every few years, or for source.

And the popularity of anime might be increasing in America, but I wonder what the demographic is? I'd be willing to bet a majority of it is young people who watch Naruto and Death Note on Cartoon Network and Youtube and probably don't buy dvd's. I know I didn't buy a lot of DVD's while in college, my budget didn't allow for it. But now I pick stuff up on a regular basis.

Also, share and fansubbing have dented the revenues of anime companies. While I'm sure most of us support the industries of our countries, there are a whole lot of people who don't care. "Why buy when you can download it in HD for free?"

If a Japanese production company would hire a person or two to internally subtitle and release their shows subbed in English at the same time or a little later than the broadcast date, through some service on the net, I sure as hell would jump all over that. Legal fansubs. I don't mind paying for what I want to watch.

The fact that this has happened with these US companies is not scaring me yet, but it's not making me happy either. Something has got to give in terms of what they license and how it is distributed, and I think a lot of it is how the Japanese companies are still doing business.
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Postby OropherZero » Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:59 am

I disagree with what you say about fansubbing, just think, would consumers buy a product they know nothing about? Fansubs at least lets you 'try' a product and people who want industry standard subs or hear about the popularity of an anime through it would choose to buy it. ANN reviews are not enough. A lot of people finish watching a fansubbed series on this site and are saying "i'm definitely going to buy this when its out". I think without fanbase the industry would collapse, because as people risk getting an anime or two and realising its pure crap will just turn off buying anime all together, just my opinion. Also in Japan its legal to download dvds for personal use but illegal to upload without consent. In any case the anime industry is suffering in Japan, the script writer of GiTS stated so, but the arguments against fansubbing aren't warranted to me.
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Postby Malificus » Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:47 pm

OropherZero wrote:would consumers buy a product they know nothing about?
Argument fails as people see movies on the premiere day. |:<

they're not even like seeing a movie on tv and deciding you'd like to own it.

Fansubs aren't just a preview, they're having a copy already.
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Postby Kalium » Wed Feb 06, 2008 2:22 pm

Malificus wrote:
OropherZero wrote:would consumers buy a product they know nothing about?
Argument fails as people see movies on the premiere day. |:<

Many of those decisions are made based on trailers or reviews. They are not uninformed decisions.
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Postby BasharOfTheAges » Wed Feb 06, 2008 3:23 pm

In general, I fail to see the moral issue with watching something free-to-air with the accepted legality and moral correctness of devices such as Tivo. I'd wager a significant amount of people feel the same way.

A tangential though? I don't think so - Any business that is centered around getting people to pay large amounts of money for a free-to-air product (or even a cable product if you'll allow me some leeway) is on shaky ground to begin with.
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Postby Brad » Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:22 pm

The American anime industry is a really peculiar thing.

Imagine yourself at Best Buy and you're looking through the DVD aisles. You see a ton of movies. Most people who would buy these movies buy them because they either saw the movie in the theater and really liked it, or they saw a trailer for it or promotions on TV or what have you. Then you have american TV season boxsets. Obviously they've had the opportunity to see the show on TV already and became and fan and thusly wanted to own the boxset. These 2 sections make up the vast majority of the DVDs they sell. A product they have prior familiarity with in some fashion.

Then you have the anime section. Now granted, there are shows here that you could have seen on american TV as well and thusly have the same appeal as a regular TV season boxset, but most of the stuff on those shelves is media that has had no american showing at all, either in theaters or on TV. So it's no wonder that many people who are mostly unfamiliar with anime pass by that section with a certain amount of confusion. "What is all this stuff and why is there so much of it?.. Who is this for?"

Obviously, it's for people like us. People that are anime fans. Then comes the question of, where did you find out about the show in the first place? For many people, it would be because they watched the fansubs. Or maybe in some cases they saw an AMV using the series and that got them interested (I know many people who bought RahXephon for this very reason back in 2003). Or maybe they read about it in NewType/Anime Insider/etc. Whatever the reasoning, it's far removed from how typical consumers normally base their DVD purchases.

So because we can say with some certainty that a large chunk of this small sect of fans first became aware of the show by watching fansubs, we then know that they already HAVE the series in some form. So then it comes down to the base utility of a DVD. It's convenient for group viewing, it (usually) comes with an additional English dub, sometimes they have decent extras. Is this amount of utility worth the purchase? There's also the fan-drive. Maybe we want to support the anime by giving the studios/distributors/etc. our money. Or the fan in us just needs to fill the collection.

My point here is that the buying draw of anime DVDs vs. movies/TV seasons is HUGELY skewed based off of the niche market, the oftentimes lack of familiarity by the general public, and the outrageous leap in price when compared to a normal TV season (which I understand is different due to the licensing & production costs associated with releasing an anime series, but nonetheless, the price numbers are far higher when you compare the amount you pay against the amount you get).

Because of this, I'm amazed the American industry has survived this long. But it's a strong testament to how fan-based this community really is.
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Postby Mroni » Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:08 pm

Well to dub an episode for an english release the cost usually hovers around 10,000 dollars. That's alot of overhead. I have no problem with fansubs as long as they are not commercially available. If you see a fansub series and like you are obligated by GOD or DOG or whoever to not be a cheap ass and buy the commercial release.

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