Hopping on the NICE BANDBOAT as it sails off into the sunset
DISCLAIMER: I’m neither educated nor experienced in the workings of the anime industry, but let a guy have his rant every once in a while ok?
So it seems that the fansubs vs DVDs debate has died down a little, to be replaced with the “omg community” dorama. It’s only a matter of time before it rises again like some retarded phoenix that turns into shit instead of ash, but I don’t know if I’ll remember what I want to say here when that time comes. So, despite the fact that no one really gives a shit anymore (except the self-righteous fansubbers and money-mongering corporations), I’m going to write down some thoughts I had while I was taking a shit and reading Full Metal Panic.
This post is not guaranteed to be original, researched, or even comprehensible or make any sense at all, but hey, blogs-not-newspaper and all that jazz, amirite.
Ok, let’s start with some basic stuff. In Japan, anime is aired on TV, so it’s basically free (barring the cost of a TV, electricity, a house in which to place said TV and intelligence to connect said electricity to said TV). In America, and the rest of the English speaking world, we get some anime aired on TV, but not stuff that any sane adult would waste time watching. So when we think of DVDs in Japan and DVDs in America, we need to realise that they are very different things that fulfill different purposes. In Japan, DVDs are collectibles for the fans, whereas in America DVDs are the original product and the only means of access to most anime.
That above paragraph left out something very important, and can you guess what that is? No, it’s not the ironic screaming of “LOL NARUTO/BLEACH/YUGIOH SUCKS I HATE NARU/BLEACH/YUGI-TARDS”, it’s fansubs. In America there are no way for anime fans to watch a series legally without shelling out some serious cash, which just isn’t possible for the majority of people. In my home country of Australia, each anime DVD costs around $30, which is the equivalent of about 8 Big Macs (the true universal currency). Very few people are willing to shell out that sort of money for something they’ve never seen before.
Now this is where I believe fansubs come into the picture. In a perfect world, fansubs would act like the broadcast anime in Japan and give people a taste of what the show is like. If you like a show, you go out and buy the DVDs at reasonable prices and get some bonus material in the bargain. That’s how anime works in Japan, and that’s how TV shows work in America. I think most readers would’ve noticed at some point, while browsing the DVD sections at their local shops, that you can buy a whole season of any TV series for roughly the same cost of 2 to 3 anime DVDs, and an anime boxset can cost 2 to 3 times more than a single season of your average television drama series.
Why is that? Because TV series are first aired on TV, and as such they get another source of revenue: advertising. So when DVDs are released, they don’t require you to sell a kidney to some dying news tycoon in order to afford them. Anime licensees in America though, only have the DVDs as their sole source of revenue, meaning that they must put the price up in order to survive. It’s not a viable business model, you can’t expect people to pay a lot to buy something that they don’t know if they’ll like or not - to have things succeed in a direct-to-DVD format requires either intense marketing, a well known brand (Disney’s numerous shitty sequels to Lion King and Aladdin, for example), or porn. That is why DVDs are always targeted at collectors.
Getting back to fansubs, we all know this world isn’t perfect. If it was no one would be reading this and we would all be having multiple orgasms while having sex with 72 virgins. But in a perfect world, America would also get anime aired on TV, as fast as fansubbers can put out their work. They don’t necessarily have to be dubbed - dubs can be part of the special bonus you get on DVDs, so fansubbers (who would become paidsubbers) can work together with the licensees to make this happen. But no, that’s not feasible because of 1) negotiating licensing deals take time (which is an unavoidable hurdle) and 2) fansubbers and anime licensees hate each other.
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And if you hatin you’re bound to get irate
Yeah madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how anger works and operates
You gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love y’all
Oh wait I found it.
Sorry, I got sidetracked. Where was I? Right, fansubbers and licensees tearing at each others’ throats. Why can’t the two co-exist? The ingrained belief is that fansubbers reduce DVD sales. I don’t believe that’s exactly true. In fact, would the anime DVD market even exist if not for the fansubbing community? Fansub is what created the awareness of anime in America in the first place. It is the best free advertising there is. Additionally, the way it’s working now, it’s no different than when television shows are aired for free on TV. Do you ever hear the television companies screaming that the TV broadcast are stealing their DVD sales (admittedly, they get advertising revenue from showing their shit on TV)? The only reason this line of reasoning is even justifiable is because the only channel of anime delivery is through DVDs, which, as I have previously mentioned, is retarded.
Why then do anime licensees continue to rely on this business model? Why can’t they negotiate deals with TV stations to air anime on TV? Time slots shouldn’t be a problem - even in Japan, a lot of anime are aired at late night. Is it because of a cultural problem that awaits to be overcome? Or is it just because the anime companies are simply too set in their way and fear change?
Once again, I must stress that these are all my own thoughts, and I have not done any research as to their truthfulness. Impz said something about Media Economics when I showed him this post, so look forward to his reply regarding where I made a fool of myself.
Anyway, that’s all. Now back to squatting, sexy Chidori and gar Sousuke.
12 Comments so far
Leave a reply
For all who are wondering how to get raw/subs from this blog, it will not be answered. Please use your good sources to figure it out.
Also, please refrain from using smileys with the "<" and ">" characters. Your comment WILL be cut off if you do. Styling html such as <em>, <strong> and <p> can be used. Please use spoiler tags (<spoiler></spoiler>) around any spoilers you may post.
Do note that most comments will not be deleted as we believe in freedom of speech. However, comments without any constructive criticism and only made of vehement personal insults will be deleted at the author's discretion.
Loading ...
Do people honestly like to read these entries about the community, the industry, and what not? Entries like these are just so boring. Your post is boring. It’s just the same regurgitated speculated info. Do you honestly like writing about this?
Whatever happened to posting about anime and how awesome it is?
Koji Oe: Whatever happened to it, it never happened to me.
The bigger problem probably lies with the licensees. Chances are, they view fansubs are amateur works compared to their professional and paid translators. And to maintain a professional air around themselves, they refused to have anything to do with fansubs. But when they begin to have poor sales, they push the entire blame onto fansubs, which technically gave birth to anime market outside Japan in the first place.
As you said, licensees and fansubs are tearing at each other’s throats right now because one blames the other for poor sales and the latter blames the former for expensive and poor quality products.
While I think the responsibilities doesn’t lie fully with the licensees, they should take the first step forward to acknowledge fansubs instead of dismissing them. I believe only when that happens will the fansub debate have any hope of seeing a positive ending for everyone.
Thank you for your posts on the state of the industry, and the eternal subs vs. dubs / dvds jihad. I enjoy reading them, and appreciate your honest and well-considered position.
‘It’s only a matter of time before it rises again like some retarded phoenix that turns into shit instead of ash, but I don’t know if I’ll remember what I want to say here when that time comes.’
Oh, this is the biting wit I have been searching for, Lupz.
‘So, despite the fact that no one really gives a shit anymore (except the self-righteous fansubbers and money-mongering corporations), I’m going to write down some thoughts I had while I was taking a shit and reading Full Metal Panic.’
HAHAHAHAHA.
[...] проти фансабів, THAT Animeblog  December 17, 2007 _encloseme ~1 ~Цікавий пост про фансаби (і все таке…) на THAT Animeblog. Я починаю [...]
“Oh, this is the biting wit I have been searching for, Lupz.”
QFT.
I fully understood your rant and i totally agree with your PoV.
Sadly, we don’t live in that said ‘perfect world’ and will have to choose between the slow/money-consuming/legal licesnsed-release VS prompt/friendly/pay-per-donation/not-so-legal fansubbers.
Now who’s up for forming a company that will (1)save by NOT doing unnecessary dubs (2)form an alliance between fansubbers~paidsubbers & licensees (3)releasing DVD box-sets of ‘collectors level’ and ‘average consumer level’ so the poor and stingey can afford 2D/Moe/much more!
Some points that I would like to make.
On contrary to all Anime is on Free To Air channels. Only the main ones are(Bleach, Naruto and whatever that is from Shounnen Jump). Others could be on Cable channels or Pay Per View channels.
A short peek at moonphase has more than 70% of anime being Late night anime.
The reason why Any Normal(normal as in Invested by some company) anime is made is because of the hope of Return of Investment on the show itself. (Profit)
How can companies that Invest in Anime get their $(domestic)?
1. Advertisement slots in between Anime.(where either they sell their own products or other people who want to Advertise on that time belt)
2. DVD and merchandise.
Lets look at the costs into production for a anime of average quality.
http://aycu14.webshots.com/image/28413/2006254248846267011_rs.jpg
The on the link above is taken from a leaked source of the cost estimates of producing 1 episode of Bamboo Blade.
the bottom of the balance sheet shows 9,554,000JPY as a cost estimate. that would be around 84,500 USD per episode. Meaning Advertisements and Merchandise/DVD sales must reach 1.09 Million (per 13 episodes)to even have a chance of earning anything.
Is even breaking even now wrong?
Still remember recently Radiohead the band sold their digital album online with a “pay as you like” approach?
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1883
a short summary only 2 in 5 paid for their music, where a the Average Dollars Spent per All Downloads worldwide is $2.26 USD.
I sum up the rest, only 2/5 of the people paid, but there are 1.2mil people who visited the site, where a undisclosed high amount of people downloaded the album. Netting them in my estimate > 1 mil USD. But then again, Radiohead is a rather established band with more than 15 years in their industry. Compared to relatively unknown anime. I don’t think cost of anime can break even this way.
The reason why anime licensors can’t just do direct sales of subtitled anime online is because of a few reasons.
1) They don’t believe it can sell well enough to cover their costs.
2) They have old fogeys who believe in brick and mortar operations.
3) Traditional media IE (DVD/TV rights ) Rights are diminished(less people would want to watch Clannad on TV/DVD if there is a Online Distribution Channel(this leads to them unable to sell TV/DVD rights for regions))
Why can’t Anime be aired on my TV like 1 week after broadcast in japan?
Simple reason, Logistics. Production can screw up and they might not even make it in time for Broadcast in japan(Case in point : Tokyo majin gakuen)
TV broadcast requires tapes and the translation/subtitling process is nearly impossible to make it so. AND I don’t think your TV station would want to take the risk of having a slot they have to reschedule due to the tape being late.
There is no simple solution to solving this at this moment, because its a symbiotic relationship where the animation licensor companies get less part of a deal. But both can’t break free because if they did , they wouldn’t survive.
We can only see how this thing carries on for now
The only problem I see here, is that people are being selfish jerks and fail to see the bigger picture.
It’s not about distribution or whatnot, it’s about people refusing to look beyond themselves.
Once we start looking beyond our selfish, narrowminded views, we can start tackling the minor issues.
We have the technology for simultaneous broadcast. We have the hi-speed lines to transmit that information. All we need is the human factor. Until we can learn to put asideour self-centered nature, we’ll never get things done.
Also, shia, I’d better clue you in on how the traditional music industry works.
In summary, a musician signs a contract with a licensing company, which in turn does all the marketing, recording and assorted and crap, and then proceeds to take the lion’s share of the profits, leaving the musician with a fraction of the cash (and there was plans to remove even this bit of cash that is rightfully thiers in the first place). Even after deducting the costs like promotion and whatnot, there’s still a ton of money to be made by fleecing musicians who don’t know better. (This is also how patents and that category of things known as the IP industry works.) That’s of course, assuming the sucker was highly marketable in the first place.
In the new model, the musician does his own marketing, pressing, recording, and sometimes, distribution. Sometimes, the musician enlists the help of marketing firms and sites like Myspace to deal with either the promotion or distribution. The companies providing these services take a cut from the money that is made, no more than 20% of actual profits. But all the money goes back to the musician.
But will the musician make it big ? because of it ? Sadly the mainstream people wont really hear it. Is that profit less 20% of actual profits more than what the big companies pay ? and even if its so. lets see… has there been much Anime/GalGe persons that heard Kotoko/I’ve before AVEX Trax Bought them out ? Their music is not bad. But they still lacked the exposure of Recording companies. They can only GO SO far. Come Avex Trax, they bought and marketed I’ve sound, Now adays I can buy I’ve Sound albums at CD Japan.
There is still that much a difference. ok let me ask you. Have you heard of the anime Saishuu Jiken Kujira or Ayu Mayu Theatre ? Probably not, because its not on any traditional media, They are only online. Simply put, Because of the fact people can CHOOSE online, and there are so much things thats trying to grab your attention. It is more or less impossible for any group be it music or anime to make it big as everyone is trying to make it “big”.
Well, in the past, everyone was content to actually have people hear them, and being able to pay the bills with what they earned. True, the traditional method of selling music was in full swing then, but at that time, it was limited to cassette tapes, vinyl records and no one figured out how to get the CD-ROM drives to burn CDs. And the hi-speed lines I talked about didn’t exist back then.
If you look at it, cassettes are the precursor to the IP tomfoolery we face now, because even back then, people were starting to copy cassette tapes for distribution. It was clunky, it was rather unwieldy, but people got their music. The industry did care for a bit, but their financial muscle and marketing people beat the cassette tape pirates by embracing CDs (Correct me if I’m wrong). Same goes for VHS tapes.
and as for animé, it’s a rather niche market, but loaded with people with cash. It’s like a cornucopia of money. As long as you play the right cards, you will get a constant flow of cash. I hate to say it, but otaku are suckers for stuff.
In know about animé online. Nico Nico Douga, HiguKai on animate.tv (mostly becase no one wanted to air the show), and of course, Ayu Mayu Theatre. I remember a few others being streamed online, and there was the AIR movie being available online for a limited period of time. And a couple of series whose names I can’t recall (Dai Mahou Touge?). And Toei’s rolling out a subscription service that lets the subscriber grab any series he likes off the Toei site (or similar site run by Toei), as long as it’s on the server.
I’m also aware that putting your stuff online has the risk of people not paying for what you make. You can’t stop people from thinking about themselves, but you can at least stretch your hand out and beg for donations. It’s not as honorable as earning the cash yourself, I’ll admit, but when you need to survive, you have to do anything in order to live.
And as for making it big, well, you have to be different. There’s no guarantee of fame, but if you work at it, you will eventually make it big, and even then, it doesn’t last very long. Thomas Edison had to go through a lot of failed experiments before finding the right kind of filament for the light bulb. Sir Alex Ferguson had his fair share of goof-ups, and there was little accident at Munich in 1968 that killed the Man U first team, but Manchester United preserved to become the club it is today. If you work hard enough and be grateful for everything that has happened to you, you wil eventually enjoy the fruits of your labour.