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The Business of Anime
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."
... but aren't the fansubs happening mostly because the anime isn't commercially available in the US? If so, then make it available, and the fansubs go away... Unless I am missing something?
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im sorry but some shows would have even gotten popular if it wasnt for fansubs. Like for example Love hina, Azumango diaho, and Naruto owe all of there popularity in the USA due to Fan subbers who brought it to the community in america first!
"to be like god we make our own dolls to play with, but what does that make us, but dolls for god to play with?" Ikari,
Or D) Its their culture, and their shows / movies... not ours. While some Americans will watch Anime, not that many will
Anime is designed for the Japanese culture, and will be better accepted in Japan. US animation is designed for Americans, and hence will be better accepted than Anime. Products do what they are designed for (excluding a certaing clear-glass-pane-inspired-OS)
That was basically my point. Anime is heavily tied to Japanese culture (although I can't understand how they can put up with the repetitivness), and inroads are only going to made in the American culture if it appeals to the average American.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
That all geeks must love anime. I'm glad 99% of the stuff doesn't make it here - why? Probably because it's crap. The story / dub quality on the anime on adult swim really sounds like it was done by a bunch of middle school students - the "plot" lacks form and any amount of depth for an adult to take seriously.
I'm 25 and in the prime of my geek life - Where is the appeal in Anime? I can't even take the art form seriously after it's been bastadized and role played to death by 'hardcore' geeks. Sorry, I just dont see the connection between anime & my technology based lifestyle. If anything I can relate to american cartoons (family guy, futurama, etc.) than anything else.
I can't connect with some guy named Onimaro that discovers he can shoot laser beams out of his nipples, because the ghost of his great aunt told him he could while he defeated the skateboarding ghost pirates from another planet. That's about how far out and abstract some of this stuff is.
Of course, American movies and TV shows regularly feature novel plots and fresh ideas!
Just kidding. For example, if you haven't noticed, summer brings lots of action movies (usually a monster action movie, a disaster action movie, a terrorism/military action movie, a space action movie, or a horror-zombies-fantasy-undead action movie.) I think a point of the article is that so much anime DOESN'T make it here, that you can't fairly judge anime in general just by what you see on Cartoon Network or even what you get on DVD from a niche store. But I do agree with a lot of what you said in the OP.
Do you love freedom??? Do you love freedom!!! DO YOU LOVE FREEDOM!!!!!!!!
"It has always amazed me that the Japanese can be amazing animators, yet consistently hold to the same tired cliches in all of their animated series. I understand that the Japanese think that underage girls are the height of sexual prowess, but it just doesn't jive with American ideas of how life actually is." As a fansubber and, thus, viewer of much anime, I would like to point out that the above statement indicates a general lack of awareness regarding the diversity of the product as a whole. To say that "all" series adhere to these alleged Japanese beliefs is a) ignorant and b) a bit racist. Just as with Western television there is quite a range in offerings with respect to both quality and content. Generalizations like that simply don't hold. Furthermore, in the West, the "Disney era" as it were established our, meaning western, current viewpoint regarding the nature of animation and the target audience, hence why most adults don't watch cartoons/animation/whatever you want to call it. As per the "why not release sub-only" argument, that'd be fine if it weren't for one (amazingly stupid) thing: a lot of people, for whatever reason, hate to read subtitles. A dub/sub combo release caters to both potential audiences and thereby has a higher possibility of profit, which they may or may not make.
think about just how many anime DVDs have you purchased recently compared to the number of shows you've downloaded for free.
This is the same flawed logic that the RIAA, MPAA and BSA use. The correct question is:
How many anime DVDs have you bought only _after_ seeing a large part of it for free?
For me the answer is: several dozen discs. I've bought a couple other anime discs based on other criteria, but with only one exception the ones I bought before watching turned out horrible or mediocre.
Many times I saw them for "free" on television or by borrowing from friends. But if the owners of minor anime titles think they're going to somehow get those titles in front of me via TV, they can dream on. Far and away their best bet of getting new titles in front of me where I might make a buy decision is to make sure the first couple episodes are readily available on the Internet in an unencumbered format I'm willing to use.
Works for books too. I've made more than a few purchases after reading the first couple chapters online.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
There's so much wrong with the above post, I think it almost qualifies as flamebait. Where do I start?
Fansubs are not "killing the business". Fansubs are merely a symptom of a failure to properly respond to a demand. The demand is for subtitled digital files of the latest anime from Japan. The proper response is to sell those files at a reasonable price.
The rest of the post is merely Sturgeon's Law. Anime is television from Japan. It's mostly cliched crap for precisely that reason, just as American television is mostly crap. Guess what, that doesn't stop people from watching American TV, or from buying it on DVD.
That last point about importing Japanese DVDs clearly shows that AKAImBatman has no knowledge of the subject he's oh so insightfully posting about. Japanese DVDs made for the Japanese market are very, very, very expensive(Yes, that many verys!). Their DVD purchasing habits are very different from ours.
Yeah, because "Ed, Edd, and Eddy" is animated so much better than "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex", and the stories are so much more interesting and insightful.
</SARCASM>
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Anime is simply a medium, a way to put that sea of idea's in our heads into another persons head. The animation is usually good but the problem tends to be the story more than anything else. anime is especially good at expressing imagination, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and a few others were visually stunning, had great imagination but often lacked depth. Others such as Spirited Away & GTO had good animation but that was just sugar on the cake, the y had great story's with real imagination.
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/dublinclontarf
Yeah, that's right.
The reason fansubs are popular is simple.
1. Companies like ADV (and for that matter "Geneon" which used to be Pioneer) wait until a show is popular in the fansub community, buy up the rights to it, and then rather than get on with the job of subtitling and dubbing it sit on it for YEARS before American audiences get the chance to see their "licensed" version.
2. As it would turn out, the "professional" translators at ADV and other places are usually not as good at translating the anime as the army of semi-bilingual teens/twentysomethings on both sides of the pond (in Japan and America) who can email each other back and forth to make sure that not only is the translation correct, they got the idioms right.
3. Even when a big Anime movie comes out - like Howl's Moving Castle or Spirited Away - the American companies don't promote it properly. Disney should have had Howl's Moving Castle showing as a full-scale release with advertisements all over every TV station. But Eisner wouldn't do it because (a) it would prove him wrong about the "death" of traditional animation and (b) he dicked it over because John Lasseter wouldn't resign Pixar with Disney.
In that kind of environment, the reason Fansubs are popular is because WE ARE TIRED OF WAITING FOR THE COMPANIES TO FUCKING DO IT.
We can accept that it takes time to translate - 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.
We can accept that it takes time to record dubbing voices. 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.
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.
Then, if fansubs are still "killing the industry", maybe we'll take you seriously.
There are other Anime that I can't stand that most people love like Ghost in the Shell, Armitage, Akira, but thats just a matter of personal taste. I know a ton of people that are downright annoyed by the SD stuff they do on Rayearth, I personally like it. Some people like Fanservice (gratutious content thats usually sexual in nature) however I don't, and I know a large part of the Anime community are just plain annoyed by shows that are excessive in fanservice. I've never watched DBZ, Yu Gi Oh!, or Street Fighter Alpha. Its like Novels, I don't read Romance novels, but love Tolkien and Rowling type stuff. If its not your bag, don't watch it.
Don't even get me started on Fansubs. How else is Anime supposed to get exposed to this market? I would have never heard of Erementar Gerard if it wasn't for Fansubs. They are not killing the market. Its giving what little market Anime has life. Besides, once an Anime gets released over here, Fansubbing stops immediately, and most responsible Anime fans won't download stuff thats been released.
Sorry, but AKAImBatman your just plain ignorant if you think all Anime is about oversexualized girls and macho men. One of the most popular shows in Japan is Ah My Goddess, and the main character who the Goddess is in love with is a Dork.
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The funny part is when they swallow our culture and they regurgitate it right back at us.
"Trigun" is a great example. It's the American Western seen through the eyes of Japanese and then, of course, re-imported back to it's culture of origin for me to watch. It makes me wonder how "Samurai Jack" plays in the land of the rising sun.
TW
I think the industry is shooting itself in the foot.
I would buy much more anime if most disks had 5 or more episodes per DVD.
I do download a naruto and bleach, and I could see myself paying $0.50 an episode (and gladly uploading till I got to a 1.00 share rating)
But to pay $25 for a disk with 3 episodes. Give me a break, after I skip the intro and endings thats 60 minutes of content. I expect a 'movies worth'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification