The Business of Anime 523
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."
The buisness of anime (Score:2, Funny)
I always thought it was the soccer moms against 8 tentacles in a vagina...
Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:2)
Re:Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:2)
Just because an anime gets licensed in North America doesn't mean every fansub team will stop working on it. They aren't suppose to, but they do.
Re:Correct me if I am wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that you can buy anime on DVD isn't going to make fansubs go away if it's free/easy to get on-line. Anyone who questions that can look at p2p and the music situation. +90% of the music traded is available on CD.
Blame companies like ADV (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Blame companies like ADV (Score:3, Interesting)
You forgot a biggie:
Fansubs are not only free, but they are easily available. Right now, I don't know of any place within a 100 miles of me that has a good quality of anime.
Lets be realistic. The US market requires translation and subbing or dubbing. Both of which (I would guess) can be done for a fraction of the price of creating a new animated episode[1]. Yet the cost per DVD in the stores run $20 - $40, often for only an hour's worth of video (one or two episodes).
In addition, series tend to
Re:Blame companies like ADV (Score:4, Informative)
As someone heavily involved in the fan community for years, and has had several discussions with the heads of said companies (bandai, Viz, ADV, etc), there is a tremendous amount of FUD around digisubs (they are not fansubs).
The main thing is if you look at a digisub vs a full release a) the video and audio quality is way superior in a regular release, b) the digisubs are inconsistant (watch 10 eps and see if they spell names the same way), and c) no extras.
Also, you are wrong about the 2 eps per disc. It used to be that way in the old VHS days, and when DVDs first came out, but it quickly went to 4-6!! episodes per disc.
As for pricing of anime DVDs, you forget there are licencing fees, cost of dubbing, subtitlers, DVD authors, printing, distribution, etc. And you cannot compare Cowboy Bebop to Futurama. a) Futurama has a lower cost point, b) it has MAJOR TV exposure, which means you sell more copies, which makes for a lower price.
Also, the cost of anime DVDs in North America has dropped in recent years. It used to be $35-45 per disc, now it is more like $25-$35.
Also, if you want the entire series, wait until after the whole thing is released, a lot of them do perfect collections for a lot off the individual cost.
As for the delay on some titles, some of it is licensing, some of it is simply how much they do. ADV had 1 dubbing studio and that was why they took so long on some series (they now have more). But even now they still have a backlog.
So STFU and buy more, which will cause more to be brought over, and the price to drop.
I have had it with bloody digisubbers. Real fansubbers got LDs from Japan, transferred onto VHS and manually subtitled. It took a while, but the translations were better, and it wasn't wholesale ripping off companies.
Also, there was not a subculture of "look at me I subtitle anime!" and races between these groups to get subs out faster. When that happens the quality sucks.
What about fansubs killing the industy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What about fansubs killing the industy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Like Scott in the article, I'd like to think that I woul
Re:What about fansubs killing the industy? (Score:2)
It's gotten better over the years. Watch something like Ghost In The Shell or Wolf's Rain and then go dig up a copy of Outlanders. The latter is horribly hard to watch in dubbed form - it's bad enough to make even the most
Fansubs more or less started it... (Score:2)
That said, many people do seem to use fansubs as a crutch such that it does not support the creation of what they watch.
No market vs not Interested? (Score:2)
Fansubbing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fansubbing isn't killing anime any more than airing it on TV does. Because if you air it on TV, people don't buy the DVDs, they just record it. On the other hand, almost everyone who watches fansubs will buy DVDs of shows they like.
So what we've really got here is the same complaint as the movie industry. They can't get people to buy crap sight unseen anymore, and it's killing their business model.
Re:Fansubbing? (Score:2)
What do you base this on. Why would they buy a dvd of a fan sub if they wouldn't buy a DVD of one aired on TV?
Re:Fansubbing? (Score:2)
Oh, I'm well aware that no US anime publisher has filed suit against a fansub group. They're smarter than that. They know that if they shut down fansubbing, their market collapses entirely. The whole thing just disappears overnight.
As for fansubs, the only entitlement I've seen is people who want to see the whole series before buying it. I can't say I blame them. I've been burned (back in the days before downloadable fansubs) way too many times by series that had a promising start and then quickly turned
Sick of the staple... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Obvious lack of exposure (Score:5, Informative)
However, this isn't entirely your fault. A lot of this ignorance has to do with American culture in general. One of the major reasons that 99% of the anime out there isn't shown on Cartoon Network is because it doesn't conform to what's "socially acceptable" in the United States. Great shows like Outlaw Star were first stripped of their original voice acting, and then butchered of entire episodes because they revolved around "adult" material that the fat cats at Cartoon Network did not consider to be appropriate for children.
A lot of the anime out there would most likely shock 80% (figure pulled out of ass) of American mothers to tears. There would be so many lawsuits and complaining that Cartoon Network would run into a corner and try to disappear to protect itself from the hordes of broom-weilding angry mothers.
Over the years American children have been steadily conditioned into stupidity and happy fairy tail lands where battles are not fought by people but by little creatures called "Pokemon", and I'll be damned if I ever see a single speck of blood on ol' Pikachu even though he was just smacked by 200 tons of solid rock.
Americans would best understand the nature of Anime if they thought of it as "cartoons for mature people" (even though a lot of it is watched by children in Japan). My suggestion to you would be to search Netflix or something similar (or *cough*bittorrent*cough*) and grab yourself a few DVDs of shows and movies like "Princess Mononoke", "Full Metal Alchemist", "Hellsing", "Cowboy Bebop" and "Spirited Away".
Re:Obvious lack of exposure (Score:2)
(Not to say it was always this bad, but as time progressed American networks seemed to have a hatred for anything remotely intelligent; shows like Pinky and the Brain, Hysteria, Bill Nye, Magic School Bus, Reboot, etc. all were
I concur. (Score:2)
(Then again, every one of my geek friends loved "Firefly".)
--grendel drago
Mod this guy up... (Score:2)
That's actually a really good idea.. I fail to see why someone hasn't done this yet. Ma
Re:Mod this guy up... (Score:2)
It really is a good idea. I know Final Fantasy (the CG movie) didn't really sell all that well, but I'd put my money on a well done original dramatic anime series. If it took stories that americans were comfortable with, dropped some of the abstract story lines and put in some believable voice acting, we just may have a winner.
Closing my Anime store today (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:3, Insightful)
Y'know, I think you're being a little disingenuous here. From the front page on your own site, we find:
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:5, Interesting)
Taking my show on the road will be part-time work for me. I'll probably make between 6-8k a year as a convention exhibitor which makes it a profitabble side venture but not anything I can rely on to pay all my bills. Yes, that means I'll be taking a part time job (I'll be taking university classes too).
Of course my home page puts the best spin on it as possible. I'm currently working on an 'autopsy report' to figure out what went right, what went wrong, and how to best approach the business in the future.
P.S. it's not sir
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:4, Funny)
Faye, to Ed: "You're a girl?!"
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:2)
So, what do you think the anime producers could have done to change the effects of piracy (besides your request to not continually deflate your inventory value?) Would your waiting to carry and distribute only box sets of the more esoteric items have worked?
Maybe I should ask a different way: what worked? What did you sell, and specifically what did you sell that turned the highest profits? Figurines? Books? Magazines? Single DVDs? Boxed sets? Or did
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion anime publishers needed (and still need) to do four things:
1. Release anime at a much better price point. I hated having to sell anime at $29.99 a disc, but considering some of the margins I had to work with I didn't have much wiggle room. Multiply that by 6 or 8 and you end up paying up to (or over) $200 for a series. In my opinion they need to charge about $3-$5 dollar an episode and pack 4-5 episodes on each disc. Currently, publishers like Geneon frequently charge up to $10 an episode (3 on a $30 disc). It's just too expensive.
2. Add value to the disc with extras like posters, stickers, lapel pins, pencil boards, and other collectibles. Those really appeal to collectors and can't be digitally duplicated.
3. Add value to the translations. ADV has done a nice job with some of their releases such as Excel Saga. The Japanese and English audio are there, but what's really excellent are the multiple subtitle modes which illustrate sign names, pop up information about puns or Japanese idioms, and generally inform the viewer on why the producers have added those elements to the show.
4. *CRACK DOWN ON PIRACY* A search on Ebay on any popular anime series will bring back dozens of hits for illegal pirate copies. I have had dozens of "customers" who want to buy Cowboy Bebop, DBZ, or other popular box sets and only expect to pay $25 like they would on Ebay. As a small store owner I have no power to crack down on the pirates myself. I've tried to call ADV, Geneon and Central Park to find out what their anti-pirate strategies are but I've never received a return phone call.
Maybe I should ask a different way: what worked?
1: Manga, especially in 2004. That was a huge year for me. However Barnes & Noble and Borders began to really stock their manga sections and that put a knife in the belly of my business.
2: Character goods like toys and t-shirts
3: Used anime. I didn't do a lot of business in it, but the margins are fat, fat, fat.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:2)
As another responder observes, you're simply adjusting the business model to exclude the parts that aren't working... it's good that you do it, I agree, but you don't have to blame your customers for a portion of your business failing.
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:3)
I floated on the dot-com balloon and invest all my savings into my shop. I also put my own sweat and labor into it. The first year that I was open I took about 10 days off (including Thanksgiving and Christmas)--that's 10 days off over 12 months. If you hear violins behind me maybe it's because I feel entitled to a little self pity on the day that the curtains fall on all I've worked on. I won't get to see my best and favorite people each week; I won't
Re:Closing my Anime store today (Score:3, Insightful)
As another idea, have "giveaway" discs. Something like for every $150, or $200, or what
Flawed argument (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Fansubs (Score:2)
Reji Matsumoto released some really good SF stories around that time (Harlock, GE999, Queen Millenia) that have great stories. Because they now look "dated" no one will touch them. Compare that to Yamato (AKA Star Blazers), another immensely popular series whose US license holder releases crap quality VHS
Some arguments are moronic? (Score:2, Informative)
None, since the common legal perception among the translators is that it is illegal to redistribute the fan-subbed version if the DVD [or any other form of retail] is available in the language. Unlike the standard pirate, most translators adhere to the law. Finding english fansubs of popular work [the article's 1% released in the US] is near impossible.
Jiggle (Score:2, Insightful)
The North American anime market (Score:2)
Next month, in Baltimore MD, 22 000 anime fans will descend upon Otakon [otakon.com], paying as much as $50 a head, to celebrate anime. There are similar conventions on a regular basis all around the country and in Canada. Media Play [mediaplay.com] makes a large portion of its profits from the sale of anime DVDs and manga.
Fansubs++ (Score:5, Interesting)
If anything, fansubs underscore just how fucking awful most dubs are... though a bad fansub can be just as bad, if not worse. (my experience with GITS : SAC hit both extremes - great voice acting, but a few of the episodes I watched had to have been subbed by a fourth grader who failed english)
If anything is "killing anime" in the US, it's one or more of three things:
A. The price of DVDs. Why the fucking hell would I pay 25-30$ for four 22-27 minute episodes, 3-5 minutes of which are credits and intro sequence? This is even more ridiculous with shows like Naruto, which often have many minutes of flashback and shitloads of standing-around-staring-at-each-other.
B. Dragonball. It's a great example of everything that sucks about americanized Anime - overlong credits, overlong intro, overlong "NEXT EPISODE!" overlong "IN THE LAST EPISODE!" and shitloads of nothing happening in between. If you're lucky.
C. The complete gutting / hackjob done on several titles in the process of translating them to "fit" the US market. Who the fuck is going to watch a "cleaned up" series after you've already seen the original, undiluted, unedited version? Editing the series to fit a focus group audience is asinine.
Personally, I dropped my fanboy boner for japanese media a few years ago. I still buy Battle Angel trades, I'll watch the occasional series if it's actually decent (Bebop, Witch Hunter), and I've been waiting patiently for Appleseed V since the 90s.
Haven't seen much of interest actually make it into the US in awhile.
But then, it's been awhile since American comics have had anything interesting to say, either - with Cerebus and Transmetropolitan done, the comic shop is nothing but X-men and merch for whatever anime Fox happens to be running this season. It sucks ass, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend money on crap.
Re:Fansubs++ (Score:2)
A. I'll buy anything that completely blows me away.
Best American Magna...? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Chicken or Egg (Score:2)
Pokemon is a bitch to find AND they charge an assload for it. I can't afford buying a whole season of it, yet a whole Simpsons season of 24 episodes is $40.
They're charging way too much. If they actually bring down the price to not take advantage of rich nerds, then they might see sales go up.
I don't want to see anymore of this 3 episodes for $10 crap.
cartoons? (Score:3, Insightful)
Two problems... (Score:2, Redundant)
What about the rest? Well, there's no marketing... Pricess Mononoke, Akira, GITS2... all of them had marketing behind them (as in tv commercials that aired in the states), anow now all three are very popular. If the Japaneese really want to sell the shit over here, it's time to advertise.
Re:Two problems... (Score:2)
99% of Anime is Too "Japanese" (Score:2)
Americans like their dotted lines in place. Japanese are much more forgiving of the unexplained.
At the same time, in Anime so much of the implied spiritualism is unexplained (if it really exists at all) that American's are just lost when trying to interpret it.
Well, this isn't necessarily bad or good (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, fan subs are killing nothing and only increasing the fan base which would gladly buy the anime if only it would be exported in the first place. Some of them are insatiable gluttons.
Third, between Suncoast/et al carrying manga and anime, there is a "this is new and faddish" crowd above and beyond the hardcore an
Perhaps it's the story? (Score:3, Insightful)
Watching Evangelion with subtitles (Score:2, Informative)
Except for two of them, they were totally off in the English dub, and spot on in the Japanese voice choices.
Better off reading the Business Week article (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_2
BAH, and here is why (Score:2)
Here is what kills that market for Anime in America.
1) Horrible voice, voice do not match the character, and the voice acting _always_ sucks. Sometimes it sounds worse than a bunch of high school students being force to do the voicing.
2) Cost. lets say you have 50-100 total eps with only a couple on a DVD, they are selling them way to costly. They should be able to pack 10 to a DVD and sell them cheaper.
2.5)Space, Who wants to store that many DVD's? It is worl
Can't comment on what you don't know..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Having watched numerous imports thanks to my college's midnight anime club (tho I'm still a newb by msot of their standards, some of those guys learned to speak japanese from watching so much anime!!) I can say that, yes, a ton of it is full of those stereotypes, but honestly, have you watched american cartoons lately? Fully half of it is spinoffs of PPGs and Pokemon. Look, you have to sort through a bunch of crap to find the gems like GITS, Akira, Evangelion, Lain, etc. but that's true of any genre. You can't just say 'well the 1% to 5% I've seen has all these stereotypes so the rest must too!' Part of the issue is that alot of the hardcore anime american audience do enjoy those types of anime (otaku anyone?), so that's what they tend to demand and therefore is what gets imported. As far as fansubbing goes I think as others have said the problem will mostly go away when the studios just realize that the fansubs exist because of demand - provide that product and the fansubs will go away, or move on to the next thing the audience is demanding.
Fansubs might hurt US releases... (Score:2)
Let's face it, whether it be anime, tv, movies, or games, probably 10% are great, 30% are mediocre, and the rest are not worth the time of day.
With the top 10%, they could be the most pirated shows of all time, but will still do amazing numbers at retail. Think Star Wars ep III, The Incredibles, Halo, or Evangelion. These are franchises that fans will spend oodles of money on, and even the most rampant piracy could not render them
Fansubbing is a three-edged sword. (Score:2)
Unethical fansubbers -those who continue to distribute their work after the series has been licensed, or worse still deliberately sub series which
Arrgh (Score:2)
Why do I watch anime? The diversity of the shows as well as the h
Fansubs definitely beneficial (Score:2, Insightful)
Fansubs are the primary avenue we find out about series, become attached to them, and subsequently buy them as they are released. We're ravenous. We buy the dvds even if we have the fansubs. We buy action figures, posters, art books, etc. Most of the members are college kids witho
pricing per episode (Score:3, Insightful)
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'
US Anime DVDs Kind of Suck (Score:4, Informative)
Take the $200 Zeta Gundam box set, for instance. You can see in every single episode that the subs are off. In one scene, a character looks at a giant robot with surprise and clearly says, in a heavy Japanese accent, "Gundam... Mark II?!", but in the subs, he says, "It's a Gundam?" And sure enough, if you change the language from Japanese to English, the dubbed voice says, "It's a Gundam?", because that's what fits the character's mouth movements. This means that in a $200 box set, no one even bothered to spend the money on proper subtitles, and in longer conversations, you can see that the meaning is completely lost in the translation. In another scene, a character making a longer speech says the word "Newtype" three times, but the subs never even mention it. Kind of important when the entire series revolves around newtypes and many characters' personalities are defined by the fact that they're a newtype.
The number of times that's happened in a fansub? Zero. In all of the fansubs I've watched, I've never seen as many blatant mistranslations as I have in a DVD box set from Bandai that I paid $200 for. And the same goes for other companies, as well. Obviously no one even spellchecked ADV's Bubblegum Crisis 2040 DVDs, because there are at least five or six typos in every DVD's subtitles. That's the sort of thing that would never get past 90% of fansub groups, because they'd be afraid of looking like idiots, but ADV and Bandai don't seem to be very afraid of making you feel like an idiot for buying their product.
So between lower quality, a higher price, and a generally narrower selection of titles, it's not really worth watching US anime DVDs. Not just versus watching fansubs, but versus most other things you could do with your time.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Anime subculture (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
Re:Anime subculture (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:4, Funny)
No kidding! I mean, look at hollywood. No repetitiveness there! No siree, none at all. The paragon of originality, Hollywood is...
Re:Anime subculture (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the GP's point was that you experience as repetitivness because you are not immersed deeply enough in that Japanese culture. I'm pretty deeply immersed into the Anime culture, and I don't see it as repetitivness anymore.
Likewise, I can't make an analogy with the American movie/series culture repetitivness, since I'm too deeply immersed in that, too. However, to make another analog
Re:Anime subculture (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Anime subculture (Score:4, Insightful)
"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
Re:Anime subculture (Score:3, Informative)
Then again, some of the best cowboy movies ever made, which Trigun draws from, were American & Italian adaptations of Akira Kurasawa's samurai movies, so it's all one big delicious pot of stew when you get right down to it.
(For those who missed the reference:
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
Honestly? I think it's universal appeal. America has been in the past (although it is less so today) the melting pot of the world. As new cultures were added to the mix, the best attributes of those cultures were adopted by others. The result is that things that generally appeal to Americans are going to generally appeal to a wide variety of other cultures. In the case of Coca-C
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
Your flame, well done.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, far more likely, the Japanese are more open to other cultures than Americans are.
That's not intended as flame. Most of us who live in America grew up in a country with entire oceans separating us from anybody who's all that cultrually different from us. Canada? Mexico? I defy you to tell Northern Minnesota from Southern Ontario without looking closely at the
Re:Anime subculture (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2, Funny)
The pr0n industry disagrees with you.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2, Insightful)
1. The influence of the anime subculture cliques in the US have created a slew of American cartoons that try to appease everyone by becoming "Amerime" as I've heard it called. It's a little bit of American animation and a little bit of Anime, so it's won't make the purists really happy, but it may keep the majority quiet enough to stop barking for the authentic imports.
2. Some anime fan groups really do live up the title of otaku. For example, I abs
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
Re:Anime subculture (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree (Score:3, Interesting)
Blue hair. Check.
School girls with gigantic breasts. Check.
Everyone looks like they are 14 or younger. Check.
Big robots. Check.
Oversized, western styled eyes. Check.
Small overly cute inexplainable cat-like animals with blue fur. Check.
I mean, who is this stuff really supposed to appeal to? As an adult, I find that most anime is waaay to cheesy or childish for my likings. Clearly I'm not going to like Sailor Moon or the millions of copycats. The few good
Re:I agree (Score:2)
Erm. Mixed feelings on your comment here. Though you're right about the common ingredients of anime, I think you're missing out on the whole story bit. Gundam != Robotech != Full Metal Panic != Evangelion, for example.
Maybe I'm biased, though, but I find the content of the 'cliched stuff' far more original than a lot of the crap we see on TV here. On the other hand, maybe I've only seen the top stuff. I mean, who'd say sci-fi sucks if all they sa
Re:I agree (Score:2)
It isnt' that there isn't good anime out there, but instead, like all media, there's a lot of shit as well as a lot of good stuff. Anything you see on TV is either shit on a stick (like, oh, Sailo
Re:I agree (Score:2)
Re:Anime subculture (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]. 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.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
Did I say they were? Nice job of putting words in my mouth.
The rest of the post is merely Sturgeon's Law.
That still doesn't change the fact that Anime is not generally accepted by the Amercian public. As long as it's not generally accepted, then it's unlikely to be generally imported.
That last point about importing Japanese DVDs clearly shows that AKAImBatman has no knowledge of the subject he's oh so insightfully posting about.
Again with the words in my mout
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
"generally accepted by the American public" is a somewhat vague criteria. I mean, Yugio and Pokemon are both anime, and every kid (and their poor parents) has heard of that! Best Buy has a huge selection of Anime, it's carried in every video store. There's an Anime cable channel, and more on the way. What's your criteria?
That be
Re:Anime subculture (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder, sometimes, why they don't just work out a deal for advertising in fansubs. Let the fansubs continue with the stipulation that ads are included and have the advertising pay for the content. The means of distrobution is already there and there'
Re:Anime subculture (Score:3, Informative)
My daughter is a big time anime fan and I enjoy anime as well, but a lot of the anime she likes is just plain grating to me. She absolutely loves it when the characters scream in anger or delight and go 'chibi' but I find it very annoying. IT'S LIKE SOMEONE WRITING WITH ALL CAPS AND USEING LOTS OF PUNCTUATION!!!!! It's just not something the majority of Americans want to see.
Notice that it happens in a _lot_ of anime, but not very much in the anime that is legitimately popular in America.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
So, an anime series where people phone in to vote the worst character off? Brilliant!
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2, Interesting)
The vast majority of fansubs are of titles that have not yet been released in America (that's why they're done by fans), and so there is no English version for people to buy.
Without fansubs, much fewer people would be introduced to new series, and so sales of the few series released in America would also be much less. With some more recent series, the (relatively) huge popularity of a fansubbed series ha
Re:Anime subculture (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:4, Informative)
May I present you with some examples of animes where women/girls are not portrayed as weak and mindless.
These are not some obscure animes, they constitute the majority of what I have seen so far.
Re:Anime subculture (Score:2)
1. The backstory of the movie was completely unclear
2. I found it incredibly depressing
GitS was still better than most Anime I've seen, but it just wasn't my idea of entertainment. The television show is quite a bit more entertaining, and spends time filling in the backstory holes.
That being said, I've only seen a couple of episodes, so this is just my personal opinion.
If you saw the first 4, you missed the good stuff (Score:2)
Is it better? It has more time to delve into characterization and backstory. The arc themes are the same as in the movies, so it's hardly groundbreaking. Depends what you like, I guess.
Dumbing down (Score:2, Insightful)
Simplified dialogue is traded for formerly complex situations. "Constipated west-coast surfer dude" is the voice-acting style preferred by many dubbing companies.
Maybe if they stop trying to pander to a young audience and put proper effort behind importing these into the United States. I mean, Princess Mononoke was very well done and its content was intact.
Anime doesn't have to be exclusively for kids!
Re:Fan subs are responsible? (Score:5, Insightful)
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>
Re:What about MST3K?? (Score:2)
Way back in the mists of history I recall seeing Dirty Pair videos done by a group called Pinesalad Productions. Completely spoofed translation and audio but they were funny as all hell.
Hmm...apparently that's not that obscure a reference. [google.com]
Re:99% never makes it across the ocean? Good! (Score:2, Insightful)
What we need is some more of the decent animes like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Last Exile (That thank god has finally made it's way over here to the UK) to make their way over here with decent Dubs, accurate subs and decent prices... £
Re:not enough... (Score:2)
These business issues can be outsourced to a business person. They don't have to be done by the artist.
Tentacle porn and its popularity. (Score:2)
They make the tentacle porn for pervy Americans. No, I don't know why we don't make it here ourselves. But I know that the place for tentacle rape is conservative, Christian Amerikkka, as you say, Mr. Cube.
--grendel drago