nenena | "If you can't make them want it, you simply don't have a business."

An excellent, excellent open letter to the anime industry.

The last section is what hits it home for me. ADV and Viz have attempted to branch out into allowing legal downloads, but their ventures were doomed from the start. Not because fans don't want legal downloads, but because ADV and Viz went about it in an entirely asinine way. ADV launched its downloads with a lineup of terrible series (seriously, Godannar?!), and now that they've branched out to offering good series (like Princess Tutu), they're still offering dubs only. I would love to be able to download Princess Tutu from the ADV website, but I want the Japanese language track, dammit. Likewise with ADV's much-vaunted Anime TV network; it took them an entire year before they started broadcasting subtitled shows, and even then, it was only during a very brief programming block. I think that's still the case. As for Viz, well... They made a big hullabaloo about offering subtitled Death Note episodes concurrent with the Japanese broadcast, and then completely fell through with that promise. Bad PR. Very bad PR.

The solutions seem so simple. Stream subtitled episodes and offer them for download, for a reasonable fee. (There are more people who refuse to watch dubbed anime than there are people who refuse to watch subtitled anime. That's a market reality.) Do it in a timely fashion. Beat the fansubbers in the timing game, or else you lose the market. Worry about DVD releases and dubbing tracks after the fact. And when you release DVDs, make them AWESOME, like the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi DVDs. Like Sevakis said, if you can't make people want to buy your product, then you're out of business.

At this point it's impossible to stop fansubbing and piracy. So the only solution is to make a better product than what the pirates can offer. It's not THAT hard to do. So why is the industry dragging its feet?

ETA: Ask John weighs in. His point about Japanese anime companies expecting Americans to solve a problem that begins in Japan is spot-on. Like when FUNI went after those still-unlicensed fansub series earlier this year, apparently on behalf of the Japanese copyright holders. The Japanese companies target American fansubbers while completely ignoring the rampant piracy in Japan because they don't want to piss off their Japanese consumer base. Nice!

ETA 2: Jason weighs in with his two cents, and points out the obvious: that HD anime looks better as a digital video file than it ever will after it's been transfered to DVD. It was the anime companies themselves, when they rushed to embrace HD, that have begun the obsoletion of the DVD format.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Because free trumps quality for most anime watchers?

I'm not really that willing to pay for anime anymore. My money's limited, and I enjoy other stuff more now.

Because people are lazy and don't want to spend extra money into these things. That's why!

I never would have gotten into anime or watched as much as I have unless it was free, but now that I am into it, I would spend my money on other merchandise. (Much like downloading music but going to the concerts.) I wonder if they couldn't make more money on foreign distribution of stuff (internet-based so they don't deal with getting to shelves in stores). I want a Conrad plushie, but the only way to do that is by watching ebay. That doesn't do them any good.

And I probably would pay a small fee for some episodes. Maybe you could stream the first couple of episodes for free. First hit is free! I'd rather have ads than fees, or maybe a choice between the two.

This isn't making much sense I'm sure. I should really just go to sleep. Anyway, it was a good letter as are your additional thoughts.

I couldn't have put it better myself. Well said.

This isn't making much sense I'm sure.

No, it makes perfect sense. It makes much more sense than anything that the North American anime industry is doing currently.

The industry in general has a terrible difficulty in changing its ways. Everyone's used to doing things one way, and then someone moves the cheese and then WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL THESE CONSUMERS?

OR so I've noticed.

I think the ad-based model will be obsolete once people realize the amount of people using Firefox to block ads continues to increase.

There's also a balance of terror- the first company to really move against fansubbers will suffer terribly. There are people such as myself who refuse to buy records anymore due to the RIAA- I'll go without if I have to.

Part of me thinks the reason they're so insistent on dubs is that they still are operating as if anime is still booming, when in reality it's reached it's stable market share.

Then again, it has grown a ton in the past 10 years. Being a college student twice in that time frame proves it. It's mainstream now.

I think the ad-based model will be obsolete once people realize the amount of people using Firefox to block ads continues to increase.

What about the Cartoon Network method, wherein brief (like, fifteen-second) ads are embedded in the video itself? I hear that the Fox.com streaming shows do this too, but I can never get their video player to work on my computer. (*sigh*)

Hmm, I can't even remember the last time I bought an anime DVD, barring Spirited Away (though Miyazaki movies don't count for me). But I've realized that I don't tend to watch one show repeatedly, so I've moved away from buying DVDs because they sit on my shelf and look pretty, but I hardly ever use them again. I definitely either Netflix a series if it's already available (like Fullmetal Alchemist or Wolf's Rain), or download/watch it online (like Fate/Stay Night). I'm pretty behind on series, though, so both models work really well for me.

Geez, I remember when I got second-generation Sailor Moon VHS tapes from a distro back in 1999? 2000? It's amazing how easy it is now to watch whatever you want for free. I think I'm much more likely to pay for manga or comic books, as print is a friendlier format for that medium to me than anything the internet could produce.

That might work. CNN does this as well, but most people just do something else during the ad. I doubt those ads are effective. We're a much more cynical society now- at least our generation is.

(Can I use that still, or am I too old now?)

I wonder if making the ads so short makes it harder to get away from them? Like, it's hard to go "do something else" during the single fifteen second ads on Cartoon Network shows, because it's only fifteen seconds, so I think a lot of people (like me) think, "Meh, might as well sit through it."

I agree that the ads aren't effective anymore, though. Most of our generation and the next one are pretty ad-savvy from an early age.

I just do a quick check of LJ/email.

OMG I totally agree. I hate reading things online, especially comics. If I had a printer I would still be printing fanfics. ^^;;

"If you can't make them want it, you simply don't have a business."

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