but Ask John mentioned "The contemporary American anime industry is in dire straights. Evidence suggests that many of America's anime distributors are struggling financially." http://www.animenation.net/news/askjohn.php?id=1123
What's this all about?
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Anonymous2005-07-09 12:26
Anime and manga have gotten as much shelf space at the video stores and the bookstores as they're going to get (which is a lot); there's simply more product in the market than the market's going to support, and the US licensors have to slow it down.
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Anonymous2005-07-09 18:30
More people watching anime (as possibly evidenced by the increasing attendance of anime cons) doesn't mean more people are buying anime. Ever hear of a little thing called Bittorrent? The fansubbers' code of practice, that of "destroy all copies and cease distribution when licensed", has long fallen by the wayside.
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Anonymous2005-07-10 3:14
True, the fansub scene (by interest, not by output) is 80% bootlegging licensed shit, and 20% everything else. As soon as it hit the internet, the community got into one-day warez mentality.
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Anonymous2005-08-02 15:10
These days American distributors are putting out just about everything that comes out in Japan. There are plenty of series where you really have to wonder why someone thought it was a good idea to bring them to the U.S. market. ADV in particular makes me wonder what the hell they're thinking.
"If I get as much shit out there as I can, the better the odds are that something will hit it big. If something hits it big, it'll make way, way more money than it cost me to license all this shit put together. Furthermore, my main focus will be things with guns and tits."
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Anonymous2005-08-02 18:24
ADV And the like need to either 1) Open up a broadcasting channel dedicated to 24/7 anime distribution or 2)Just work on dubbing there shows and releasing them on other broadcast channels.
Anime is just too expensive to buy when you can get it for free on the internet. I mean cmon, who would pay 10-25 dollars for 4 episodes per dvd? thats CRAZY. Fansubbing was around way before ADV and the rest of mass-market dubbers, you just cant compete.
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Anonymous2005-08-03 18:20
Because anime fans are not businessmen.
No, really, thats what it is. They run the business based on their fandom. They want to push out the shows THEY PERSONALLY like, profit be damned. Its no way to run a company.
I would, actually. I use the fansubs as a sort of try-before-buy thing. Anime that I like, I save the cash for and buy so as to encourage more anime like it. Call me an idealist, but I like to think that a lot of people approach it the same way.
I DL GitS:SAC from the web. I like it. I wait for the DVDs to be published and then buy them. I want more shows like GitS:SAC.
I DL Chobits from the web. I don't like it. I don't buy the DVDs when they come out. I want fewer shows like Chobits.
>>9
You sir are either very rich, to be able to buy 10-20 dvd's of a series. OR you have parents who buy you whatever you want. Whichever it is, i hate you, and you shouldnt support the american anime industry.
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Anonymous2005-08-04 23:16
Lets face it. Japanese anime fans are more willing to spend more on their anime compared to the US fans. I mean they are willing to tolerate like US$50 for a 2 episode DVD (i think that was the price). In US, people will be screaming about it.
Yes the american anime industry is trying to bring that in the US market at those sort of price. Well not that high but still high for its target market. Thats why the only way anime will ever make money in the US is if it hits the TVs. They cant make big money out of DVD sales alone.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 0:50
And the Japanese anime industry listens to its fans, because they shell out.
The US anime industry, on the other hand, does not, because most of them don't pay for shit.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 10:44
>The contemporary American anime industry is in dire straights.
I think he meant "dire straits"
>>14
Yea i do, but i still wouldnt pay 20 bucks for a 4 episode dvd of anime unless it included alot of extra's (Which they dont). I'de rather just get it FREE, before it comes to the united stated, fansubbed (a better translation). The American Anime Industry is going to fail, its like nintendo, its just a matter of time. :D
unless everything has changed in the last month, the last time I looked up fansub stuff was last month, this is completly untrue, fan sub groups still for the most part stop distribution when licensed, in my experience it is the other way around, they have STARTED doing that where they used to only say they would
U.S. industry doesn't care about it's fans in any market, all they care about is the all might dollar, so don't blame it on the "if the fans bought it then they would pay atention to us" idea, that doesn't work, that never worked, this is america where the mentality of most businesses is "give us your money then go away"
you say this like the japanese anime companies are some kind of supernatural, cashless, benevolent force that just hands out anime to anybody who passes by out of the goodness of their hearts
it's because of the otaku paying up in japan that you can interweb all your shit and then make up elaborate justifications for it. if it's so fucking different in japan, then either go buy r2s or just admit you're pirating like the rest of us do.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 15:03
>>17
I think its more like the US Anime Industry rather listen to themselves because they apparently "know" the market better. And do stupid things like "americanize" an anime series.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 15:44
>>18
Its rather the Japanese companies already made their money from their initial TV broadcast. DVD sales are only secondary to them after mechandising.
Thats why for anime to make any money in the US its got to make it from broadcast rights and not DVD sales.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 16:09
>>16
That is true. All of the major/big fansubbing groups stop when the lisence announcement is given. But there are always the minoriy rougue groups that just want to sub it just for the heck of it. And because more anime series are being lisenced even before its being broadcasted, the major fansub groups are seen less and less.
yeah this is true, I wanted to see bo bo bo before it was hacked to death but it has already been pulled, CN/funimation buying the licences to these anime and in some cases never even airing is killing the legit fansubers
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Anonymous2005-08-05 19:07
>>22
bobobo wasn't getting subbed very quickly anyway, but yeah, the dialogue being a bunch of puns, i'm not entirely confident that it works well in English (dub or sub, nevermind edits) in the first place.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 19:09
>>19
>And do stupid things like "americanize" an anime series.
how often does this shit even happen anymore? once a year?
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Anonymous2005-08-05 19:18
Every anime that comes here with the plan to broadcast is ALWAYS gonna get americanized. Naruto for example, 4Kids has already commented that they are gonna do changes to suit the US market. Initial D they totally changed names and accent because Funimation thought they could put it on TV.
Mind the anime series that are for Adult Swim don't get this treatment though.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 19:22
Every anime that comes here with the plan to broadcast is ALWAYS gonna get americanized. Naruto for example, 4Kids has already commented that they are gonna do changes to suit the US market. Initial D they totally changed names and accent because Funimation thought they could put it on TV.
Mind the anime series that are for Adult Swim don't get this treatment though.
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Anonymous2005-08-05 20:05
>>25
wut, I thought Tokyopoop changed the Intial D dub to appeal to The Fast and The Furious crowd.
Yeah, it was Tokyopop. They were shopping it to networks for years. Nobody wanted it. The Tokyopop version of ID doesn't so much appeal to The Fast And The Furious crowd so much as the changes are all just irredeemable shit.
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Anonymous2005-08-06 17:01
It still doesnt somehow sound right that if you want to follow through with an anime series, you have to wait like a couple months for the next batch of 3-4 episodes on DVDs.
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Anonymous2005-08-06 18:27
Initial D wasn't that good anyhow
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Anonymous2005-08-08 22:17
So according to this thread, the american anime industry is putting out too much crap, and needs to focus on higher quality titles. It's getting into a dead end with DVDs and needs to get more anime on broadcast TV to make real money. But getting it on a non late-night slot like adult swim where they can get a wider audience and bigger ad bucks means editing to appease the censor happy political climate or a retarded executive's vision of youth culture, reducing the appeal for a show's core fanbase. Never mind that licensing costs are ballooning as anime producers realize the potential of the export market. And if a popular show gets licensed in the middle of its run, it can be months or years before they catch up to where the fansubs left off, giving buzz over it plenty of time to cool off.(assuming the subbers stop on announcement of a license)
So it sounds like they're in a bit of a pickle.
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Anonymous2005-08-08 23:23
>>31
Well ADV had announced that Evangelion is gonna be broadcasted on Cartoon Network. I DOUBT it will be censored because the amount to be censored.
And it is still true that the only way to make realy big buck is to put on TV. Thats why you have ADV pushing more anime on TV and even the setup of that 24/7 Anime channel. But it is true as well that an anime series to get accepted in normal everyday TV is:
1. The self-censorship that occurs. I find funny how where there is no govermental censorship on TV yet executives do self-censorship to avoid the complaints from stupid parents
2. Appease to the US mainstream culture
Those two problems are essential a cultural problem that is the US and western world in general. Because anime is Asia and other parts of the world have been received quite well for YEARS now with no problems. Yes some have been censored to a degree but the ones that don't still retain everything.
I would rather have TV stations show an anime episode that had a Japanese summer festival going on and then a mini-explanation after to explain it in more detail to the western audiences. NOT have them change the notion of a Japanese summer festival is New Years Party.
from ADVS point of view its all about shelf space, whenever or not shops actually want to stock the product and if the product will sell after its been authored and released
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Anonymous2005-08-09 11:39
>NOT have them change the notion of a Japanese summer festival is New Years Party.
What show did THAT happen in?
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Anonymous2005-08-09 13:32
Ayeka: Don't drink that tea! That tea is bad for you!
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SDS2005-08-11 1:11
$10-$25 is lucky.
The Japanese generally play $40-$50 for a 4 episode DVD.
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SDS2005-08-11 1:12
Geh. PAY.
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Anonymous2005-08-11 9:45
>>37
The cost of everything in Japan is higher as well.
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Anonymous2005-08-11 13:41
I wonder how they can pay such inflated prices and still have enough demand. They rarely have entire boxset collections, everything is in several volumes, even crappy US TV series with 2 episodes each until the end of the series.
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Anonymous2005-08-11 18:20
For once, just once I want to see a US station that decides to air an anime series to broadcast it free of edits, just is. And see what happens. Just like an experiments.
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Anonymous2005-08-11 20:25
>>41
it's happened plenty of times dubbed. if you're talking about subbed, then the international channel, when they were around (i think they're AZN (lawl) or something now), ran several anime series uncut and subbed.
Not quite. Manga in general is much cheaper than in America. While manga CAN go as high as $10, it's generally no higher than $6 per volume (and most often somewhere around $3 or $4), and if you get them used, they'll be even cheaper.
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Anonymous2005-08-12 17:40
Yes because they have an established distribution system with lots of supply. The US has a narrow distribution system with a couple good titles. Once Manga are in every convenience store in the US, then prices will go down.
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Anonymous2005-08-12 19:03
Prices are going down these days - a lot of companies are releasing "brick"-typed boxed sets for $50~ of entire series. When someone can get 22 HOUR LONG episodes of a US TV show on DVD for $50, or 26 HALF hour long episodes of anime for $150, which will they buy? 600% price increase is unacceptable. Yeah, everyone says that there's less demand for anime, so they have to decrease the price to inflate their profits - but maybe if it wasn't so fucking expensive, they'd have a little more of that demand they want.
BTW, the way to buy DVDs is not to buy each DVD individually - you gotta wait for the boxed sets. Plus, they make it more worthwhile to pay for something, with pretty boxes, cool extras etc.
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Anonymous2005-08-12 21:27
Dont worry, it seems to me that ADV wont be around much longer anyway
dont forget that their animenetwork isnt making them much money after millions invested
and because 70 percent of ADVS catologe is being thinpacked(i.e whole series sold cheaply)
and because they arent licensing as much
in my opinion advs going broke or isnt making much profit these days
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Anonymous2005-08-13 1:32
>>44
>Once Manga are in every convenience store in the US
Shonen Jump seems to be getting there. I wish they hadn't upped the print quality from the Japanese version. It drives up the price and these anthologies are supposed to be disposable.
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Anonymous2005-08-13 9:02
>>45
they would, but it still wouldn't come close to even a tiny percentage of the audience that's going to buy a TV series.
And ADV is cutting back along with the rest of the licensing industry, but they're hardly out of business.
>>39
recorded media in japan is kept artificially inflated in price by the older and more conservative presidents and ceos that lead much of the entertainment industry. these folks are used to the way things were thirty years ago when consumer recorded media technology was relatively bleeding-edge. there are many things that i've found are cheaper than in the us, such as dish soap, gimmicky and clever cleaning utensils, and other such things.
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Onion2005-08-18 20:23
>>32
Those 'stupid parents' are the one ones who will be buying little Jonny his next pokemon game or DVD. Those same parents are also the ones who care enough about what is airing to protest if something offends them. Frankly, it would be finacial suicide to ignore the people who are proactive enough to make waves about anything that offends them. Surely you realize that government law-making bodies are going to listen to a pissed off majority of soccer moms who can gripple their hopes for political gain more than a small group of grown people who watch cartoons and who (much as I hate to admit it) probably fit their idea of non-voting, lazy nerds who couldn't hope to affect their politics.
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Onion2005-08-18 20:41
Paying $20-25 for four episodes on DVD is nothing. I remember when VHS cost that much.
1) They don't release the DVDs all at once. Even on a McDonald's paycheck you should be able to pay that much once every two-to-three months.
2) You can always wait for the boxsets. While not everything is going to get one, more titles are getting the set treatment.
People are forgetting that policies vary greatly between companies over here in the US. ADV =/= Funimation =/= Viz. Each brings something different to the table so saying 'the American anime industry' is a tad misleading.
Viz tends to pick up higher quality, long running titles. They were doing the manga+anime thing long before anyone else. They tend to make very minor adjustments to the point where you hardly ever hear people complaining about them.
Funimation has the distinction of having been a pretty terrible distributor back in the day, and yet has cleaned itself up to the point of being one of the better ones out now, especially when it comes to dubbing/subbing. I think they have both a dubtitle and subtitle track on all their newer releases.
ADV is hit and miss. They're sort of trying to do everything at once and it comes across jumbled.
Geneon I haven't anything bad to say about these days. Back in the Tenchi days, however...
when i got into anime a year or two before DVD hit it big (sold those tapes while they were still worth something), i'd pay those crazy prices; now i wait for box sets or netflix on everything.
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JDigital2005-08-26 23:43
You will lose something in the translation, and you will lose something due to differences in the American target market. This is almost inevitable. If the company who licenses a property for the Western market really cares about their viewers and the series more than they do money, they'll put effort into it and do a good job of it.
Too often though you'll find that edits happen between the Japanese manga and the Japanese anime, and then more edits will happen between the Japanese anime and the English language dub of the anime. You end up going from "Targetted at 11-15 year olds but appreciated by a wider audience, voiced by professionals who went to voice acting college, being cool and interesting to Western viewers BECAUSE it's Japanese rather than in spite of it" to "Targetted at 6-11 year olds because ONLY KIDS WATCH CARTOONS HURR, dubbed to shove it out onto TV as quickly and cheaply as possible, stripped of a lot of the things that make it cool and different, and heavily censored besides."
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Anonymous2005-08-27 0:38
>>55
Anyone remembered the blamsphemy of Escaflowne TV and Card Captor TV in the US. Perfect example of what companies were trying to make anime into.
Thank god companies nowadays have passed beyond trying to change the actual storyline of the whole anime series.
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Anonymous2005-08-27 12:55
Ill tell you what, if companies want the Bittorrent fansub otakus to give em money for anime.
1. SHow properly uncensored/altered SUBs of anime on any network with as much commercials bringing in the cash. Im sure ull see that fanbase push rating thru roof and money in those fat pigs pockets.
Personally if there was a anime network that showed subbed anime unedited. id watch it every day every hour, and they wouldent have to spend money on dub actors either.
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Anonymous2005-08-27 19:09
What the industry needs to do is to stop totally relying on the hardcore anime fans for cash. It needs to appeal to both mainstream AND hardcore fans.
It needs to first get the western culture to realize that Anime is a valid motion artform like normal film making instead of just a medium for kids. That is why you will keep having these stupid companies trying to westernize their products and for some series try to keep the soccer mums happy. Do a big advertising campaign to show that anime is not just for kids but its just as good as a typical prime-time TV series.
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Anonymous2005-08-27 22:43
>>58
they haven't been able to do this with MIYAZAKI movies. the absolute pinnacle of the medium makes kinda-okay money at the box office, managed to score a cult following and some critical love, but is disregarded by the public at large. the mainstream public just doesn't want to hear about cartoons, and it doesn't really matter how much you tell them about them. you know how shrek got the parents out there? they went lowest-common-denominator. they went for dick jokes. with jokes about cocks, shrek was "mature" and therefore okay for an adult to watch, on society's terms. that and 3d, anyway; if any given pixar flick, the ones people say are so wonderful (and they are, they're great movies), was in 2d, it would've tanked. yes, it's ig'nant, but that seems to be how things are.
And as for keeping the soccer moms happy; keep in mind that Japanese kids' stuff (like naruto, like OP, like bleach) is keeping THEIR soccer moms happy, too, it's just that those soccer moms are more concerned with HARD WORK TEAMWORK JUSTICE morals being taught.
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Anonymous2005-08-27 23:06
>>they haven't been able to do this with MIYAZAKI movies
Well Disney recently with the new Miyazaki stuff like Spirited Away they did do much extensive publicity and promotion.
But let me tell u when the first Miyazaki film came out, Princess Monoke. Disney did ZERO to the promo. Heck I didn't even know it was coming to Vancouver until a month after it was over. And don't tell me that Disney couldn't afford it. If they could risk promoting crappy films like Herbie Fully Loaded, Im sure they can risk trying to extensively promote an Anime film.
>>and 3d, anyway; if any given pixar flick, the ones people say are so wonderful
I think thats the US Anime Industry's main competitor; the 3D animation industries. The wonders of 3D animations (thanks to Pixar) was already ahead of the game long before anime was introduced mainstream.
And between a good Pixar film and a Miyazaki film, I think the public will always pick Pixar anytime. Unless anime goes 3D but then I always tend to find anime never works in 3D.
>>it's just that those soccer moms are more concerned with HARD WORK TEAMWORK JUSTICE morals being taught.
Hehe thats a bit contradictory though. Naruto, OP and bleach don't promote hard work, teamwork and justice morals? I must be seeing those series in a whole diff perspective then.
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Anonymous2005-08-28 15:05
>>60
You don't take into acount that Mononoke was a limited release in theatres. I live in one of the cities that it showed in and I recall a decent amount of promotion, espeially considering that it was showing in only one small theare.
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Anonymous2005-08-28 15:40
>>61
Tru I guess. But then even now most anime films are given limtied release (Wasn't like Spirited Away was in every movie theartre). It just doesn't seem right that in US, they rather promote crappy films in hopes of producing artificial hype while they rather not risk promoting a foreign film which anime is considered. Meanwhile in Asia, westerns films get about the same or sometimes even more promotion than their local counterpart.
i mean JAPANESE soccer moms (what would one call this equivalent?), who are concerned with those. so of course those shows promote those things! keep your audience's mom happy! there's a bit about it in even a monkey can draw manga!
i mean JAPANESE soccer moms (what would one call this equivalent?), who are concerned with those. so of course those shows promote those things! keep your audience's mom happy! there's a bit about it in even a monkey can draw manga!