American anime industry

The chair of AX says the attendees of Anime Expo is averaging about 20 percent annual growth,
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2005/07/07/apop.DTL

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?

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.

>>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.

>>39

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.

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.

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.

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

>>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.

>>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.

>>48
 "...yet."

>>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.

>>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.

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...

Streamline Entertainment!  Oh, wait.

>>52
those were the GOOD days of vhs!

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.

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."

>>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.

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.

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.

>>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.

>>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.

>>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.

>>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.

>>60

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!

>>60

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!

>>41

There's a PBS station in California or thereabouts that has broadcasted titles like Eva and Key the Metal Idol, uncut.

>>65
It must be a miracle! The cow must be flying over the moon now