let's make a deal

[davemerrill]

So apparently there's a fan group (thanks kikaiju) called "The Anime Defense Project" that's started a website called "Keep Anime Alive" devoted to supporting the R1 anime industry by convincing people that they need to spend all the money they can on the R1 anime industry. Okay, fine, R1 anime industry, what do you have for me to spend money on?

Do you have SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO RESURRECTION? Do you have SHIN MAZINGER SHOUGEKI Z-HEN? No you don't. You have cybernetic schoolgirl murderers, you have motorcycle people murdering murderous cybernetic corpses, something called "Needless" (finally, truth in advertising), you have a sequel to a show that involves connecting the plots of four other shows ( During their journey, the group discovers that Syaoran is in reality a clone imbued with half the heart of the original Syaoran. Several years ago, Fei-Wang took the original Syaoran prisoner and created the clone to collect Sakura's feathers. Finally breaking free of Fei-Wang's hold, the half heart sealed within his clone returns to rendering the clone emotionless and a puppet to Fei-Wang's will, causing him to betray the group. ). SOLD!! There's IKKI TOUSEN in which our heroine shrugs off her shredded skirts and tattered tops with a flurry of busty badassery while fighting to unite seven rival schools and there's GUN X SWORD, about which one reviewer said "The first eight episodes do almost nothing to advance the plot, and the later ones feel padded with repetitions, mawkish sentimentality, pointless subplots, fan service cleavage shots, and endless nattering." SOLD!!!

And of course we should continue to spend money on DRAGONBALL Z - who cares if you've already bought all eleventy-thousand episodes, buy 'em again! The R1 industry needs your money! - and CASE CLOSED and FULL METAL ALCHEMIST. Just open that wallet up and start shovelling that cash out for things you already own. Why you will have to get a second job to pay for it all, and that will cut into your anime-watching time, but it's worth it to keep the R1 anime industry alive! They'd do it for you, you know.

In fact I will soon be starting the group "The Dave Defense Project" featuring the website "Keep Dave Alive". I'll be selling comics you don't want and videos you've already seen, but dammit, you have to keep me alive or I might not one day potentially bring you something you find interesting! Can we afford to take that chance?

I just have one question for the R1 anime industry, and that is, do you have any plans to make money that don't involve selling physical DVDs? Because "selling physical DVDs" is going away, and as a character in MESSAGE FROM SPACE said, "There's nothing you can do to change that."

But if you want MY money, you have to actually SELL ME THINGS I WANT. And I don't want DRAGONBALL Z or your flurries of busty badassery or anything by CLAMP, and you can't guilt me into thinking otherwise.

Comments

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course, if you can find them.

OTOH back in the VHS days one didn't worry about how hard something might be to find, as stock was constantly refreshed and special orders were prompt. Of course once the retailers started their "we don't want long series" nonsense and vendors dropped volume numbers from the tapes, replacing them with names to make them seem like they're stand-alone movies, (cough cough ADV *hack ack* Blue Seed) finding the next volume proved to be a huge problem, ESPECIALLY if you had to special order it.

I never finished Blue Seed and Outlaw Star because of this. And I want the subbed VHS because I seem to be quite OCD on this issue. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Blue Seed! Well, when I get the chance, I'll see if I have any of the old ADV subs. That was their big project right before Evangelion; I remember covering it for Animerica. And you bring up the reason why many long anime (and manga) series in those days attempted to conceal the fact they were part of long series by using volume names instead of numbers.

--C.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

There's no hurry, Carl, but I thank you for the consideration! I thought it was so funny how bi-polar ADV was over the VHS release of Eva, they did do the volume names but they still had numbers. I suspect that may have been some contractual issue with Gainax, I dunno.

Of course one could suss out the volume by studying the product release number in tiny type on the spine and when I had to straighten shelves at Suncoast I used that, but that was useless when it came to special ordering!

It's funny how there was a 'perfect storm' that just spun the anime VHS time into crazyness- more long shows being released, the fear of long series by retailers, the 'any day now' emerging of DVD, how everybody just up and decided to stop carrying subbed VHS (again, price winning over everything)...crazy times :)