Amecon Round Up

[KingJimmeh]

I have to say I aint surprised by Red Garden not selling well. It was a series i'd heard very little of before ADV released it, and it ended up just another one of there many "meh" releases to me.

And Final Fantasy was never gonna sell well over it. It's one of those animes from the time we were expected to fork over £20 for 4 episodes, and not many people were willing to do that years ago, and even less so now.

 

[Gawyn]

I have to say I aint surprised by Red Garden not selling well. It was a series i'd heard very little of before ADV released it, and it ended up just another one of there many "meh" releases to me.

And Final Fantasy was never gonna sell well over it. It's one of those animes from the time we were expected to fork over £20 for 4 episodes, and not many people were willing to do that years ago, and even less so now.

What makes you think FF:U didn't sell well when it actually sold phenomenally by all accounts. It has the FF brand name so that was a given. The quote only mentioned the licencing costs (as an upper extreme case) and said nothing for the sales but Hugh mentioned they were good.

 

[hopeful_monster]

I have to say I aint surprised by Red Garden not selling well. It was a series i'd heard very little of before ADV released it, and it ended up just another one of there many "meh" releases to me.

And Final Fantasy was never gonna sell well over it. It's one of those animes from the time we were expected to fork over £20 for 4 episodes, and not many people were willing to do that years ago, and even less so now.

The scary thing is that it did sell well. Hugh said it was one of the few titles that sold well and got decent profit. Purely on its name. Think of all the copies of the game that sold and if only a fraction bought the anime it's hardly suprising. And that's the thing. Large, well know anime (shounen titles or franchises mainly) are the only things that are selling well enough for the companies to make thier money back, where as other series which may be 'better' fail due to lack of purchases.

 

[KingJimmeh]

Fair enough, I thought FF:U didn't sell well, but i'm obviously wrong there.

And there must be a reason that shounen titles sell more than some 'better' series.

 

[ayase]

Fair enough, I thought FF:U didn't sell well, but i'm obviously wrong there.

And there must be a reason that shounen titles sell more than some 'better' series.

I think it's called "lowest common denominator"

 

[Gawyn]

Fair enough, I thought FF:U didn't sell well, but i'm obviously wrong there.

And there must be a reason that shounen titles sell more than some 'better' series.

The simple reason is that they are shows with simple plots, a lot of action and are generally fairly episodic (you can join a lot of them in the middle of a series and largely get the idea or at least enjoy what you see without knowing the overall underlying plotlines).

 

[KingJimmeh]

Yeah, I get what ya mean. I don't think the simplicity is the only reason they sell more though. I think they get a lot more publicity and the such which helps, though I don't how that could be applied to other series as easily...

 

[Dracos]

Red Garden did sort of interest me from a story point of view, but only enough to put it on my list of wait until the box set series.

 

[Sy]

Something like Death Note was perfect; showed casual anime watchers that anime isn't all random fighting and girly transformations...

And now thanks to Death Note you can add Yoai pairings to that list.

Most Daath Note fans seem to be female and to be frank they don't really give two monkeys about the complex story and commentary. They just like the idea of L and Light being in love or at least making out. Hiring two miscast pretty boys for the live action movies didn't really help.

 

[Ryo Chan]

Something like Death Note was perfect; showed casual anime watchers that anime isn't all random fighting and girly transformations...

And now thanks to Death Note you can add Yoai pairings to that list.

Most Daath Note fans seem to be female and to be frank they don't really give two monkeys about the complex story and commentary. They just like the idea of L and Light being in love or at least making out. Hiring two miscast pretty boys for the live action movies didn't really help.

i think i just threw up alittle

 

[MrChom]

Death Note has one BIG advantage. The price point.

Two disc boxset retailing in the £12-15 range compared to a lot of anime singles that are half the episode count and some series boxsets in the £60 range it sits neatly in the impulse buy bracket. Now note the fact that every Zavvi you go into it's right there near the door, generally at eye level in the New releases/popular section compared to the rest of the anime tucked away at the back of the shop.

Bearing in mind that a GREAT licence sells 5k in the UK and Naruto Unleashed Boxset one was up to 10,000 units months ago you can see what kind of sales anime can generate if handled well. You've got to hand it to Manga for pushing product like that (even acknowledging that I don't like the series). I would actually like to see some figures on Death Note, I'd be willing to put some cash down on it making the 5k range easilly.

Remember, a show doesn't have to be good when half the people who buy stuff walk in, read the back cover, and buy based on that.

 

[hopeful_monster]

Another reason the shounen and franchise shows do well is the fact that they are so long and act as advertising for them selves. If there is always a new naruto DVD on sale it is more likely to be remebered/ picked up than a show that has already had it's time in the sun.
On a completely different note

Chinese animation
While the nice people from Manga (who's name's I've forgotten) where in China they picked up some of the animation that was produced in the light of the law passed by their government. Now due to some very silly planning most of the showings clashed horribly with other things of note (Industry panels and the masquerade) but did make it to one of the showings. Stormriders; Class of Evils at its Western Premier. This was a sequel (more or less a direct one) to the live action movie from a few years ago and an adaptation of the long running comic. Will not talk about the plot much as it requires a fair amount of knowledge of the 1st moive to explain but can be watched by itself. The interestingness was the animation cahracter designs were slightly retro (late 90's) but the animation itself was very modern smooth and slick, especially the fight scenes which managed to capture the essence of wire-fu to the point you could work out where the wires would have gone. Most is done in traditional animation styles with the special effects (and some of the destructible scenery) in CGI style.
Anyhow trailer is here.
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Man form Manga (who's name I've forgot) said he was going to do his best to get it license in this here and if it goes down well there may be more. Also got interviewed about the showing (and anime in general) by the nice lady in the kick **** cosplay behind the counter. Will post a link when it gets put up.

 

[beez_andrew]

Just a few notes from me to correct things said ^^;

still nout on Anime Central then?

Hugh David commented on that one briefly. His words were along the lines of "One of their lead marketing people has just left, I'm not saying anything more than that, but I think you can work out what's happening". Basically he thinks Anime Central is dead, and discussion seemed to be that stuff like Bandai Channel would replace it.

Actually that wasn't Hugh who said it - it was me . As I'm the one working for Bandai and hence the discussion on Bandai Channel .

In reference to stuff above, mind, ADV were NOT in attendance......due largely to the fact that they don't actually EXIST in the UK any more. Hugh now works for Lace Digital Media and spoke on their behalf (Although, confusingly, he was still wearing an ADV T-shirt). His talk on numbers was interesting, though, especially when Andrew from Beez chipped in and said "Our boxsets probably don't sell to many more people than are in this room right now" during the state of the industry panel, and that less than 100 copies of Red Garden vol 3 was just insane.

When I commented on boxsets - I was speaking more generally . I meant some series like Red Garden for ADV or Fantastic Children for us didn't - not every boxset ^^;.

 

[Ryo Chan]

Just a few notes from me to correct things said ^^;

still nout on Anime Central then?

Hugh David commented on that one briefly. His words were along the lines of "One of their lead marketing people has just left, I'm not saying anything more than that, but I think you can work out what's happening". Basically he thinks Anime Central is dead, and discussion seemed to be that stuff like Bandai Channel would replace it.

Actually that wasn't Hugh who said it - it was me . As I'm the one working for Bandai and hence the discussion on Bandai Channel .

So i assume this means beez are looking for a replacement already with a possible bandai channel?

 

[jonboy]

It is a shame Fantastic Children didn't sell well Andrew. I bought the boxset and I must say it is a great series especially for £26.99

 

[MrChom]

Just a few notes from me to correct things said ^^;

still nout on Anime Central then?

Hugh David commented on that one briefly. His words were along the lines of "One of their lead marketing people has just left, I'm not saying anything more than that, but I think you can work out what's happening". Basically he thinks Anime Central is dead, and discussion seemed to be that stuff like Bandai Channel would replace it.

Actually that wasn't Hugh who said it - it was me . As I'm the one working for Bandai and hence the discussion on Bandai Channel .

In reference to stuff above, mind, ADV were NOT in attendance......due largely to the fact that they don't actually EXIST in the UK any more. Hugh now works for Lace Digital Media and spoke on their behalf (Although, confusingly, he was still wearing an ADV T-shirt). His talk on numbers was interesting, though, especially when Andrew from Beez chipped in and said "Our boxsets probably don't sell to many more people than are in this room right now" during the state of the industry panel, and that less than 100 copies of Red Garden vol 3 was just insane.

When I commented on boxsets - I was speaking more generally . I meant some series like Red Garden for ADV or Fantastic Children for us didn't - not every boxset ^^;.

Apologies for misquotes/misunderstanding on my part. I did mean that you'd talked about Bandai channel but managed to not say it, ah well.

I notice you didn't dismiss you racing Hugh for the lunch queue, though

 

[Gawyn]

So i assume this means beez are looking for a replacement already with a possible bandai channel?

From what Andrew said the Bandai channel is all but up an running in many respects. There are a few things to work out such as sizes of the streams (quality) that will be provided but the structure and backbone is (almost) ready. I am sure the Andrew will flesh out and correct this in time but that was my basic understanding of what he said.

 

[Mohawk52]

Fair enough, I thought FF:U didn't sell well, but i'm obviously wrong there.

And there must be a reason that shounen titles sell more than some 'better' series.

I think it's called "lowest common denominator"

Or is that "the lowest common IQ". :lol:

 

[MrChom]

My hope for Bandai channel is that there's some stratified pricing....so an unlimited use price, a per episode price, a limited use price (so X episodes a week/month for Y pounds), and a "sampler" price (So you pay a discount rate for episode 1 of about 5 or so series in order to get an idea what's going on).

Admittedly I'd prefer some kind of unified setup like iPlayer between all the licensors in the UK....but hey...Bandai channel sounds like a damn fine start.

 

[beez_andrew]

Apologies for misquotes/misunderstanding on my part. I did mean that you'd talked about Bandai channel but managed to not say it, ah well.

Not a problem! Was just chiming in before people got confuzzled etc XD!

I notice you didn't dismiss you racing Hugh for the lunch queue, though

Haha I wish I could ! We were dashing as we were short for time and already very hungry after a lack of food during day so far though xD...

Business lunches in the anime world are so much fun !