6 Comments | Add

 

Rate & Share:

 

Related Links:

 

Info:

• Series:

Anime Industry Continues to Throw Darts

© N/A

Has the reality check hit for people yet? It certainly seems like it has for fans for the last couple of years, though there are some holdouts to be certain in understanding what's going on in the anime industry marketplace. The boom happened, the bubble grew and it popped at the same time that the places where anime could be sold decided either to shrink their stock or went out of business entirely. Musicland's bankruptcy several years ago was the start of the end, though there were enough signs before that about what the market itself could bear. For a number of reasons across the board where everyone can take a share of the blame, we are where we are now. 

And where we are now is only getting more confusing, not only for fans but also probably for the companies. Some changes done this year could have a long term positive effect but may have a short term damaging effect as well. Let's look at a few of the main things that have occurred just within 2010 so far:

The Gundam Unicorn Effect - Bandai Japan decided to try something new this year by not just releasing a new title in the US, Japan and other territories at the same time, but they also contracted to have it dubbed so it wasn't just a subtitle release. While many can complain that it was a Blu-ray release, it's because it was that format that it's worth trying to make these kinds of strides because we share the same region. Yes, yes, region coding on DVD is as about pointless as most anything else out there, but from the lawyer and legal side abroad, they have to cover their bases and code things. This approach by Bandai Japan isn't new, though it wasn't done as cleanly as it should or could have been done when they created Bandai Visual USA, aka Honneamise, and released a number of titles over here. They missed the day/date feature and rarely included dubs because of the cost and small sales they were getting. Lots of issues tied up in there, lots of discussion over the years about it. But Bandai Japan's approach with Gundam Unicorn was welcome because it gave us a day and date title and had it across multiple territories. The company has said that they want to go this direction (and have said so long before this title was floated) but they're going to move glacially with it and likely won't make any serious decisions until it gets a more normal distribution outside of the Amazon only sales it currently has. 

The Crunchyroll Effect - While there's plenty of discussion about how they're figuring that they have 50% of all non-kiddie anime airing on their site, Crunchyroll has definitely been a game changer in getting new episodes out quickly with the simulcast+one hour method that has kept a lot of people happy. They continue to have their problems with region coding (the UK really needs their own service) but they've made lots of shows very accessible, very cheaply, faster than most other places. There are advantages obviously to working directly with the Japanese in speed and quality, though I'm sure there's plenty of dispute among the sub community about the quality of their translations. But those gripes have been there forever and a day since companies professionally release material.

The Aniplex Effect - The latest change to happen, we've learned that Aniplex will be releasing the Gurren Lagann movies in the US and has plans for several other titles that they have the rights to in Japan for release here. The intent is to release them subtitle only so the fans can get them quickly and easily and enjoy them. This comes across as similar to the Gundam Unicorn Effect except it's even more limited by releasing them solely through the Bandai Online Store. Anime News Network interview Hideki Goto, Executive Vice President of Aniplex's International Business Development Group, about their plans. For those not familiar, Goto used to be the big guy at Pioneer and Geneon for many years before landing at Aniplex. Goto naturally talks up all their viewed positives of the plan, but so far fan reaction paints it all as a negative. With the releases being planned only for the Bandai store, it cuts out what available distribution there is online. Many people simply buy from one or two trusted retailers and leave it at that, rarely venturing elsewhere or especially with a company's site because of smaller discounts and often higher shipping costs. And the fact that it can't be combined with the other titles they're ordering.

And of course we're not taking into account other things that have gone on, such as the shift to season sets, overall reduced availability at the physical stores and the general economy itself as unemployment hits 10% and there are plenty of people that aren't even being counted causing economists to guess the real figure is closer to 20%. 

Watching the three aforementioned effects at play, it's very discouraging to be a fan (and even more so if you're a dub fan). As John Sirabella of Media Blasters said recently, we've gone from an Anime Industry to a hobby. And what's making it worse at this point is that as much as the US companies are trying to find ways to make it work, it's almost like they're being hit in the back with darts from Japan. The Japanese companies have certainly lowered licensing costs from the astronomical prices of years ago (Heat Guy J prices were nuts and a real red flag of something being wrong) and they've worked well with companies like Sentai Filmworks to get full collections out there at a good price. 

But the Japanese don't have a clue where to go. We've seen Bandai Japan's approach of trying Amazon with plans to solicit their trial title to other retailers later. We're seeing Aniplex selling titles strictly through Bandai's site which limits not only sales but even mindshare. And we've seen TV Tokyo invest in Crunchyroll which should bring most if not all of their non-kiddie anime titles to the service, but there still doesn't seem to be a real guarantee of that. 

These three things all bring us back to one main point though in that outside of potential release from someone like Sentai Filmworks, or maybe Media Blasters if they go for that route, we're not likely to see most of the titles being offered through these routes come to DVD or Blu-ray. FUNimation has been on record before stating that if they can't get streaming rights to a title, they're far less inclined to pursue it. Of course, that make their new deal with Fuji TV interesting as well. If these titles are available for streaming, or in the case of the Bandai and Aniplex deals, limited DVD releases, the hardcore folks are likely to pick them up and that cuts down on some of the marketing they can do if other companies were interested. While license rescues are great and we love to see older titles come back out, this approach of release it in some limited form in the US and then hope it gets licensed is going to be dicey at best and in the end introduces only more confusion.

Right now, fans have a whole lot of choice. Choice is a great thing, but it can also be overwhelming. How many different legal places can fans view Naruto? Crunchyroll, VizAnime and Hulu, never mind the amount of fansubs out there. The show gets streamed legally within an hour of broadcast and it's still heavily subtitled through other methods. With Anime Network, Crunchyroll and FUNimation's video portal, there are a ton of options there and it can actually get confusing trying to track it all across multiple services, airings and more. What the companies are slowly finding, particularly after the TV Tokyo investment in Crunchyroll, is that the titles they can go after and market fully (and trust me, free streams are all about marketing at this point, not really making money directly), are shrinking. We're likely to see a new round of consolidation in the next couple of years as the companies try to align more and more with Japanese broadcast stations to offer a full slate of titles for streaming and then select ones going out on video.

It's been an interesting couple of years, but watching how it's playing out really feels like the Japanese throwing darts to see what will work, yet at the same time doing it halfheartedly and as cheaply as possible because there isn't as much to make over here anymore and the US market isn't worth the time. If the goal is to sell a couple hundred units directly to fans, which is likely what Aniplex will see with their Bandai Online Store plan, can that really be considered a serious business plan? 

In the end, I think Sirabella has put it most succinctly in stating that while this is a business, it's a hobby business now and will likely be that way for some time to come until multiple things change.