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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?
loganavatar.com
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)
Today is the last day that my anime store, Otakurama, will be open. I've felt pressure from many directions over the years, but the two biggest factors working against my business are 1: competition from mass market retailers like Best Buy and Borders, and 2: piracy.
Number 2 is a big one--I would guess that at least half of my customers download anime from bittorrent. I've had hundreds of people tell me, "oh that series is great!" before it's even come out. Of course, once they download it they don't want to buy it.
The only anime that sells in my shop are the most popular titles. Anything cool but unusual just sits and rots on my shelf.
A smaller (but important) factor is that anime publishers change the prices of their products so quickly that discs 'expire' while sitting on my shelf waiting for a buyer. Six months after the last disc of a series comes out they release the entire box set for 50%-66% off. That causes orphans to clutter up my inventory.
*sigh*
Bye-bye, Otakurama
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
"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.
That's why Americans don't generally understand anime's unstated backstories, the iconic imagery, the standard storylines. It's not surprising.
What is still surprising is Japan's embrace of American pop culture, which is of course exactly the same kind of product as anime, with different forms and content. Maybe America's postwar pop culture is more universal, having been produced by and for a population from every global culture, including Japan's. Maybe Japanese culture has more experience of swallowing a foreign culture whole, especially after being "conquered" in a war. Maybe American culture resists influences from cultures other than the "Old World" of Europe and Africa. Maybe it was a unique combination of other factors. What exactly is the difference that makes American culture's foreign popularity a one way street? And does anime find any easier acceptance anywhere else outside Japan, or is America just like everywhere else, puzzling over peculiarly Japanese cultural references?
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make install -not war
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.