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The Business of Anime

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the still-haven't-seen-howl's-castle dept.

buckminster writes "Planet Tokyo's Talking Anime Business Blues is a great roundup and analysis of recent articles detailing the behind the scenes aspects of the anime business. By all accounts 99% of Japanese anime never makes it to America. Some of the arguments why might surprise you. There are still many in the industry who believe that fan subs are killing the anime market in the US."

2 of 523 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Anime subculture by fatboy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    This is *SO* flame bait, but I can't resist. Maybe Anime (We used to call it Japanimation) sucks.

    God. There. I said it. Now I know what it feels like to be one of those whiney guys complaining about ham radio articles :)

    --
    --fatboy
  2. Re:Blame companies like ADV by Microlith · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    1) Buying series and waiting to release them is simply a necessity of business.

    Fansubbers and those who have not paid for the right to series do NOT play a factor in their plans. You have no valid complaint.

    2) The professional translators do a better job 90% of the time compared to idiots who translate for fansubs. Rarely do Japanese assist with fansub translations, and often the translators tend not to speak English as a first language.

    Nevermind that licensors get the ACTUAL TYPED SCRIPTS TO THE SHOWS and can make queries back to the companies and the original WRITERS if need be.

    though the speedsubbing groups doing Naruto have it pretty much down to a 24-hour turnaround and they're no less accurate than ADV or VIZ.

    They're down to 24 hours and do a shit-poor job. I can't stand watching speed subs and seeing the mangling the shows get.

    We CANNOT accept that it takes them FIVE FUCKING YEARS before they're ready to release a single DVD with only two episodes on it.

    Five years? What fucking bizzaro world do you live in. At worst I've seen two years. Geneon is lightning quick, having turned some series around in 9 months. Often the only thing holding Bandai back is licensing requirements specifying a delay of x months.

    As for two episodes per disc, the only show I can think of with that bad a count was Gantz, but it was a crap show to begin with and ADV gave up on that. You might say blue sub 6, but that was Gonzo's call. Or maybe Figure 17, but those episodes were an hour long each.

    Here's your challenge, ADV and the rest of the studios: Get it down to a six-month turnaround. Six months after you license the anime, we want to see it on the fucking shelf.

    Oh, if they could they would. Often they do. Many times they can't. If they could without flooding the market and pissing off retailers, they would. They're damn well near flooding the market now. If you want to see faster turn around times, then convince people to EAT IT UP cause there's lots of good shows with good releases that people are simply NOT BUYING.

    And that slows things down.