A kickstarter streaming/supporting website for classic anime; Anime Sols to launch in 2013

[FUNiOP]

Great to see this going, Quark. I hope to see great things come from it.

[Damius]

I'm not personally a classic anime fans, but it's nice to see fans of it will have access to some series. I hope for them and the investors it will be like they hope.

[touma]

I really like this idea.
I am not familiar with the other shows but I would love to have a chance to see Creamy Mami. I think that I would enjoy it because Fancy Lala has been one of my favorite shows since I first saw it many years ago.
Unfortunately my Internet connection is useless for streaming, but I hope that will change by the time this gets started.

[WTK]

via TFP forums

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

For Anime Sols update, let's just say that localization for launch material is already about 80% complete.
Website is 95% finished, just needs testing and some CSS to make it look decent.
There's some logistics with setting up the money flow to actually be able to take people's pledges and send the money back to Japan correctly, but aside from those things we're all set.
I'm not in a rush actually, want to me sure everything is solid.

[WTK]

https://twitter.com/AnimeSols

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2013-05-03

Sam Pinansky returns to tell us more about his soon-to-be-launched anime streaming and crowdsourcing initiative, Anime Sols.

Some notes:
- close beta; it's done; everything is signed; waiting for approval from everyone on committee before launch
- anime streaming site (US/Canada) for free
- pledge money toward anime set (13 or so episodes) + special exclusive extra(s) ... like Kickstarter, you only pay when goal is met
- deadlines (2 or 3 months) for pledges
- goal to produce 1000 sets (may vary depending on series and pledge)
- selling through retail outlets is planned
- reprint is up in air right now
- 13 episodes: $15,000 to $20,000 for goal (average) per boxset
- additional boxset(s) could be lower
- no more than $25,000 per boxset, no less than $15,000
- ~70% of pledge goes to whomever owns the show; ~30% to running the site and the committee
- $5 pledge: get a sticker
- $40 pledge: DVD boxset + sticker; packaging TBD (2 dual layer DVDs; with perhaps nice slipcover or hard chipboard case)

- Titles of Fumoon (1980) and Marine Express (1981) added with Bander Book
- Yatterman (1977) added
- Blue Blink added
- have rights to Time Bokan (but not announced to stream)
- More titles to be announced in the next 1-2 weeks

- 1 news episode per day
- ~7 titles for launch
- Maybe up to 10 titles simultaneously
- HTML5; can watch from any devices that can support web browsing

- Anime Central panel on the 17th

[WTK]

via ANN forums

Originally Posted by samuelp

Happy to answer these questions for you:

The DVDs might include an english dub if an uncut version exists and the Japanese companies own the rights to it. The dub for Tekkaman is NOT uncut and Tatsunoko does not own the rights to it, therefore it wouldn't be included on the DVD set. English dubs that were created for non-western markets might be considered for inclusion on the DVDs however if it would raise the cost significantly I'm not sure it would be a smart move.

The content on the site will be available for as long as the goals are up and then probably for quite a while longer.
We'll never take down earlier episodes while still streaming later episodes of the same series, so you can always watch a show from episode 1.
However, since Anime Sols doesn't have a membership and is not planning on making enough money to be sustainable just on advertising, we won't keep full shows up indefinitely (we'll probably keep the first few episodes of everything up forever as a free preview after DVDs have been produced).
That being said, once subtitles are finished our partner companies are free to sell the streaming rights to other sites like Hulu or Crunchyroll, so I would expect the shows to continue to be streamed somewhere after they are successful on Anime Sols.

LINK

Originally Posted by samuelp

We'll include the OVAs on the DVD sets (probably not set 1 though).

Originally Posted by samuelp

Yes, that's correct: The goals for the later sets will be lower than the goal for the initial set because of this and lower upfront production costs.

About the pledging system:
It's entirely our own webpage, built from scratch. It's very similar to Kickstarter but there are some significant differences:
1. You can't pledge arbitrary amounts of money. We give you a menu of "Support Packages" with fixed prices to pledge to purchase.
2. You can pledge for multiple support packages or multiple copies of each Support Package for a single set if you'd like.
3. People are charged when the goal is reached, not when the deadline is passed. If the goal still has time left but has already reached the threshold, it's in "Overtime" and you can still purchase the Support Packages and you will be charged immediately.

About other titles:
Shows from companies outside of our partnership are something we're hoping to be able to expand to. Many of the companies are interested in the project but need some hard data to convince them to take a risk, since it's a completely different business model than has ever been tried before.

LINK

Originally Posted by samuelp

We accept all major credit cards.
So far we don't have paypal or other forms of electronic payment since it's difficult to verify info and then charge more than a few weeks later.

LINK

Originally Posted by samuelp

We are redoing pretty much all the the Tezuka subtitles from scratch...

And if you're worried about not getting enough pledges, spread the word when we launch!

[blaizevincent]

the prospect of getting DVDs of these shows through a kickstarter system has me so excited. I just hope it works.

[WTK]

https://twitter.com/AnimeSols/status/331164102980427777

Hey new followers! Spread the word and get us new followers! When we hit 250, I'll announce another title for Anime Sols here on twitter!

[WTK]

https://twitter.com/AnimeSols/status/331609614506409984

Announcement: Anime Sols will be streaming and taking pledges for DVD sets of the Black Jack TV series!

EDIT: https://twitter.com/AnimeSols/status/331634877508235264

Specifics: The current announcement is for episodes 0-61 of the Black Jack TV series which aired on YTV starting 2004.

[WTK]

Anime Sols website (http://animesols.com/) is up now.

• Creamy Mami (Sunday) - $19,000 (contains eps 1-13)
  • http://animesols.com/series/5
• New Yatterman (Monday) - $19,000 (contains eps 1-12)
  • http://animesols.com/series/8
• Black Jack TV (Tuesday) - $22,000 (contains eps 0-12)
  • http://animesols.com/series/12
• Tobikage (Wednesday) - $19,500 (contains eps 1-15)
  • http://animesols.com/series/11
• Yatterman (Thursday) - $16,000 (contains eps 1-12)
  • http://animesols.com/series/10
• Tekkaman (Friday) - $16,000 (contains eps 1-13)
  • http://animesols.com/series/6
• Blue Blink (Saturday) - $16,000 (contains eps 1-13)
  • http://animesols.com/series/9
• 24 Hour TV Specials - $18,000 (contains 24 TV movie special: Bander Book, Marine Express, Fumoon)
  • http://animesols.com/series/7