davemerrill

haha. STOP HAVING OPINIONS

the "business" was about as horribly run as it could be. doesn't mean that the people making the decisions weren't good people trying to the best of their abilities to work with the resources they had -- but. terrible.

From:

It's kind of funny that Bandai's American anime branch, which put out both Meltylancer and Taruto, is still around. Compared to what ADV and Geneon were doing, Bandai's missteps were downright sensible.

From:

Ah, but as much as many shout at the top of their lungs "Bandai America is a separate company and is not controlled by Bandai Japan!!!!11!", I think we all know that's complete bullshit. Bandai has deep pockets, so no matter how MANY MANY MANY times they screw up, they endure.

I just laugh how often cold reality intrudes on their desires to mold the American anime market into a mirror of the Japanese model, with $80 single disc releases and so on.

From:

Supposed to be coming in '11. Still no 'island' episode per Tomino's wishes.

Which I call bullshit on, as the Japanese release has every episode. I firmly believe this is yet another 'fear of reverse importation' dick move.

From:

Oh no no. People don't want to buy OLD anime. Nobody likes that old stuff. Nobody would ever buy Latitude Zero on DVD, even if Media Blasters DID put it out in a handsome 2-disc set with both cuts of the film. No siree bob. People only want what they're told to want! That's why there's an anime fandom, there were big ads on TV and in the newspapers telling us that that's what we wanted to do.

From: (Anonymous)

Do we all agree that 85% of everything in every media is crap, and that it's the remaining 15% that keeps us interested? Do we also agree that the R1 anime industry got most of its content from the 85%? 'Cause every time I scanned the aisles at Best Buy, the ratio was about 98 crap to 2 gold. (Given that everyone's definition of crap and gold will vary)

That said, I still appreciate all the effort and pain and experimentation that went into keeping it viable for so many companies for so long. There was a time when it was the fastest growth sector in home video. That's not an accomplishment to be dismissed. The stars lined up at one time, and they probably will again.

Downsizing was inevitable. Just look at all the dead auto companies of the early 20th century, the dead airlines of the 80s, and the dead dotcoms of the 90s. The water found its own level with all of them. We just had to endure a lot of phony promises, delusion, and screeching to get there.

-Tim Eldred

From:

"People don't want to buy OLD anime."

Well, yeah. To be specific, people don't want to buy old anime unless it's a)something they watched when they were younger or b)something related to a more popular property they already like.

I mean, what's Latitude Zero? A live-action film that was released in the U.S. in the 1970s? And it's aimed at tokusatsu/camp-cinema fans, who don't really buy anime as much?

From:

The time when anime was the fastest growing segment in home video was the time the "R1 Anime Industry" needed to be putting its best face forward and releasing product of lasting worth, quality and significance. Instead, they flooded the market with garbage, squandering consumer interest and the goodwill of their legions of unpaid publicity shills (that's us).

A shakedown was inevitable, I mean, the economy went downhill and home video took a hit like everybody else. But the myopic short-sightedness of the "R1 Anime Industry" didn't help them to weather the storm.

From:

The point is that Media Blasters is making $$$ selling twenty-five year old cartoons and 40 year old movies to an audience that, according to the brains behind the "R1 Anime Industry", does not exist. We're not supposed to be buying anything that isn't shilled on the cover of New Type USA. Oh wait, that went out of business too, didn't it?

From:

Which I was saying during the boom years of 1999-2005.

Too much old thinking, too much "we did it this way and we're going to KEEP doing it this way" when general home video changed and evolved at an astonishing pace.

Keep in mind that 98% of the current state of the industry is due to the death of Musicland Group. Those near 3000 stores of Suncoast, Mediaplay and Sam Goody were all by themselves responsible for making EVERY release profitable. Best Buy, Tower, Virgin Megastores, Circuit City, and all the online places were frosting on the cake.

Look, the math isn't hard. If we go with the statement from CPM that 5000 units was breakeven on any release, then the 2 units per store minimum that Musicland bought was gold, pure gold to everybody. It wasn't the unpaid bills that hurt everyone, it was that lack of assured 5k unit sales to that one company.

But the squeeze was on even before the company went belly up. TV on DVD was sucking up HUGE open-to-buy Dollars in 2005. That was impacting the anime buys. The industry could have adjusted by moving to a $14.99 MSRP on single disc releases, just like the mainstream was doing, but no, no.

I should really write a big fat essay about this someday.

From:

I believe we were bitchin' about the terrible choices the industry was making back when Streamline Pictures released "Silent Mobieus". WE NEVER STOP BITCHIN'.

But yeah, the home video market - hell, the whole 'recorded media' industry has been changing like crazy, and you can't sit still and expect your customers and your industry to stay frozen in time.

From:

And seriously? I'm bitchin' because the R1 industry is by and large not releasing things I am interested in, and I'm being told that my opinions "reflect poorly". That I should shut up and buy things I hate on the off chance that buying things I don't enjoy will somehow lead to them releasing things I DO enjoy. That I have some kind of obligation to throw money at an industry that doesn't care what I think.

That dog... won't hunt.

From:

that went out of business cos kadokawa wanted too much for the license. well, and then ADV tanked.

is media blasters making $$$ selling 25 year old cartoons or are they making money selling VOLTRON? seriously.

ADV didn't make any money on dunbine. it's not just the act of selling old cartoons, it's choosing the right cartoons and having a sensible approach. MB is run a lot more intelligently: as the cottage industry it is. same goes for TRSI/nozomi. that's why they survive. intelligent licenses and awareness of what business they're in.

ADV was ambitious and clueless. a fatal mix.

From:

But how much money is Media Blasters making at all? Good for them that they're still around in this market, but the company's had to weather layoffs and rumors of closing, and they've revamped shipping schedules a lot.

Making a little money with Dairugger is better than making nothing with, I don't know, Simoun, but I doubt it's enough to keep any publisher afloat.

From:

yeah, absolutely. the industry got into a feeding frenzy and it got to the point where companies were licensing shows without seeing them enter production. hell, IIRC ADV co-produced kaleido star NOT KNOWING what they were getting into, just that they were getting a gonzo series (for the 10 minutes "gonzo" meant a goddamn thing to anybody.) they got some mahou shoujo unmarketable bullshit about a circus dancer. roflcopter.

or at least impossible to be profitable at the cost, i imagine. anything's marketable if you find the right audience and cater to them. which the R1 industry failed to do. pretty spectacularly.

it was super DUPER clear that with mainstream hollywood TV hitting for $40 a season and cheaper, $30/disc x 6 was not gonna cut it. but it persisted...

there's a highly limited number of "old anime" series i'd even consider buying today, as i'm not a classic fan, and i only care about specific stuff (though i'd be open to checking out stuff based on, say, intelligent AJ style reviews.) my personal hope is for piles n piles of anime to get on netflix or a similar streaming service, so you can check it out, and nobody gets hurt. digital is the future.

From:

not to mention that they're based out of manhattan and when i interviewed there in 2001, they were offering under $30k for entry-level jobs. uh-huh.

From:

I'm always amazed in how anime fans really invest themselves in the industry itself. Not in their favorite shows, not in their favorite directors or studios, but in the idea that the anime industry must subsist at any cost, even if it means everyone must buy twelve copies of Queen's Blade.

It's part of the strange self-identification of being an anime fan. You can be a fan of Cowboy Bebop or Gundam or what have you, but a lot of people take the idea of "anime fan" to mean that they have to support and defend anything drawn in Japan.

From:

I bought the first two Lupin III (the second, insanely long series. Smooth move right there) discs from Geneon. I got an instantly dated dub, altered OP and ED credits, missing episodes, so-so quality and based on this big fat trio of CD box sets I have right here, I'm pretty damn sure they changed music cues.

Kinda soured me on buying any more, ya know?

ADV...sorry, Section23 wants me to buy 13 episodes of Golgo 13 for 60 bones. I can buy the entire first season (20-some hours) of Miami Vice for $15 at Walmart. Apples and oranges? maybe so, maybe not.

I still think what Mediablasters did with Tekkaman Blade was the perfect format for any long anime series. 3 discs, 15-18 episodes and $19.99. I snapped those babies up as fast as I could. Had everybody got on that bandwagon in 2004 who knows how different the biz would be today?

From:

Apples and oranges? maybe so, maybe not.

nope. not at all. when people outside of hardcore otakus are making entertainment purchasing decisions, this is how they're going to weigh them. i said this years ago, so i believe it, anyway.

i just got "eden of the east" blu-ray set in the mail. the new kenji kamiyama (GITS SAC) TV show. i dunno any more about it beyond that, besides that my friend stella liked it. $36.99 from amazon for the whole TV series. seems reasonable to me!

that, gundam unicorn (FANBOY EXPLOITATION ALERT) and eva 1.11 is all i've bought in 2010, anime-wise.

and when it comes to manga, intelligent and curated is the way to go. fantagraphics published a moto hagio anthology and i bought the SHIT out of it:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1606993771/ref=oss_product

the pic doesn't do it justice. the book is gorgeous IRL.

From:

"Intelligent and curated" - that's exactly what I'm tryin' to say here!

I have to get that Moto Hagio book.

From:

so yeah, it's not about just putting out "old anime", it's about putting out "old anime" that matters.

and also, if you're trying to get people to buy something physical, do what fantagraphics, vertical, etc. are doing: make it look nice and professional. it's obvious bandai uses the same people who do their toy pacakging design and their stuff has always looked like shit. the hagio book looks like it's for grownups.

publishing is an actual industry that has pros, not amateurs, though.

see also:

http://www.haikasoru.com/

rofl foot in the mouth time -- haikasoru is viz!

Edited Date: 2010-10-19 10:13 pm (UTC)

From:

I am still of the opinion if ADV had stuck with their original plan of putting out the five 2-disc 10 episode volumes they had originally solicited at NATPE and VSDA Dunbine would have at least done OK. 5 SKUs on the shelf are better for the retailer than 12. Not to mention that advertising vanished once v.6 was solicited.

The insane clusterfuck with the repricing from $29.99 to $19.99 (and more importantly NOT repricing the earlier volumes!!) didn't help them either.

And don't get me started on Saint Seiya. Maaaaaaaaan.

From:

i have no idea what it cost to either acquire or dub dunbine, but yes -- it would have been much more appealing in chunks.

utena is coming out as 3 sets from TRSI. i don't know if any B&M stores will stock them, but a 39 episode series in 3 sets? not bad. people should have been doing it years ago. dunno if it was feasible, mind you, and i suspect it was not given license fees...

the industry conspired to kill itself.

From: