UK Anime Distributor Animatsu Discussion Thread

[Joshawott]

Out of all the anime distributors currently operating in the United Kingdom, I am actually most optimistic about Animatsu's future prospectives as a whole. Every company has to weather a few flops now and then; it is of course just a shame that it had to be a franchise like Raildex, but as many have already stated, many factors were sadly working against it.

 

[thedoctor2016]

Out of all the anime distributors currently operating in the United Kingdom, I am actually most optimistic about Animatsu's future prospectives as a whole. Every company has to weather a flew flops now and then; it is of course just a shame that it had to be a franchise like Raildex, but as many have already stated, many factors were sadly working against it.

I think AL have changed the industry and the others are trying to catch up.

 

[Buzz201]

Accusations of price fixing are a serious thing but this clearly isn't that situation. At the end of the day, zavvi are reducing it to 8 quid years after blu ray collector editions have sold well and then standard editions have been on the market for 12 months or longer. If AL has only released bebop in said format and at said price I could understand where he's coming from, but he just ends up coming across a bit arsey, which is something he has always been on social media, and one of the reasons I don't really like the guy.

You are correct that price fixing is very serious, and I didn't think price fixing was really the term I wanted to use, so I edited my post to remove that suggestion well before I saw your reply.

That said, I'm not going to sit and pretend one distributor going to another "stop selling your products so cheaply, it makes it harder for us to sell ours expensively" is anything other than anti-consumer, provided that such an event happened (and I personally rather doubt it did). However, I can also see that in the short-term Manga's strategy might well cause huge problems for the anime industry, especially if the push towards CEs continues to happen as aggressively and rapidly as it is now.

There might be some value in preparing the market for a future price hike, and I can see why somebody would think Manga's strategy was damaging, but there's something off about actually telling them that...

Eh, Jerome seems to have beef with Anime Ltd in general if certain "deleted 30 mins after posting" comments are anything to go by.
I take that comment about "devaluing Anime" to be directed towards the previous lack of effort put into collectors editions by Manga. Don't ask me how I came about that but it..feels like it could be directed towards that area.

Well, I'd have beef with somebody that started an anime business and managed to gain many of the bestselling titles and relationships I'd lost, too. It being about CEs sounds plausible, though.

My impression is manga with all its shonen shows, are selling well. However animatsu with its less well know shows also released pretty late (Haikyuu has been out since May, Railgun and others) mean its not doing as well as they liked i think a re merger is on the horizon imo.
I do think AL have changed the market as it shows CE's sell and even manga are going that way now with AGK and MVM have with lull in the sea.

They're operating out of the same offices, that's basically already happened. (Although I think they're still separate legal entities.)

 

[serpantino]

Animatsu's past largely stems around manga UK who have a reputation for inconsistent quality & cancelling or downgrading releases part way through.
I personally didn't preorder any of their stuff because I wanted to get some idea of their quality consistency first.

Not finishing series or only releasing part of it on blu-ray just means I won't trust them enough to buy any of their catalogue until all parts are actually released on my preferred format.


Instead of criticising other companies, maybe Jerome should be looking at how they manage to be successful.

 

[thedoctor2016]

They lost FUNi which seem to have to gone to AL, that means a lot of potential second seasons such as Norgami and AoT will be AL not manga's.

 

[jonno394]

You are correct that price fixing is very serious, and I didn't think price fixing was really the term I wanted to use, so I edited my post to remove that suggestion well before I saw your reply.

That said, I'm not going to sit and pretend one distributor going to another "stop selling your products so cheaply, it makes it harder for us to sell ours expensively" is anything other than anti-consumer, provided that such an event happened (and I personally rather doubt it did). However, I can also see that in the short-term Manga's strategy might well cause huge problems for the anime industry, especially if the push towards CEs continues to happen as aggressively and rapidly as it is now.

Yeah I rather doubt it did and i don't think it warrants speculating further because at the end of the day, a bare bone manga release of a show from manga hasn't stopped anime limiteds collectors editions selling. All AL have done is show there is a market out there who bare bones releases may not be what they desire.

 

[thedoctor2016]

My impression is manga with all its shonen shows, are selling well. However animatsu with its less well know shows also released pretty late (Haikyuu has been out since May, Railgun and others) mean its not doing as well as they liked i think a re merger is on the horizon imo.
I do think AL have changed the market as it shows CE's sell and even manga are going that way now with AGK and MVM have with lull in the sea.

They're operating out of the same offices, that's basically already happened. (Although I think they're still separate legal entities.)

I meant become manga again the two brands isn't working and i think its confusing people ,I dont see a need for two ran by the same people.

 

[Joshawott]

Conversely however, some of the reception to Anime Limited's Collectors Editions have also proven that there is also still demand for the cheaper, barebones releases. I mean, they aren't going to be releasing Kill la Kill Standard Editions a year after the CEs for nothing after all.

 

[windcott]

so does everyone essentially think the rest of index won't make it to the uk at all ?

 

[thedoctor2016]

so does everyone essentially think the rest of index won't make it to the uk at all ?

I dont think it will by his comments no.

 

[thedoctor2016]

I have finally got a reason why Free! isn't here, its what I always thought.
https://twitter.com/ReallyShitTweet/sta ... 5404340225

 

[anime_andrew]

I get that Jerome's tweets are depressing, but it's worth baring in mind that Manga's sales are based heavily on the casual market. If things keep going the way they are, there probably won't be a casual market. So whilst things might not be depressing for everyone, they probably are at Manga/Animatsu.

However, a couple of Jerome's tweets stood out to me in particular:

@Jaysgba @chrisdingleb Zavvi is selling #CowboyBebop complete series DVD for 8 **** quid!!! Ironic that one of the ppl involvd in this ...release warned me that MangaUK was devaluing anime in the UK market. Ha ha. What a load of ********.

Maybe it's just me, but that reads a lot like somebody now at Anime Ltd. has been deliberately attempting to push the price of anime up? Although their actions seem not to reflect this, given they're still (for the most part) releasing standard editions that have the same RRP as Manga's. Not quite sure what to make of that...

It's referring to me in a not so obtuse fashion. Back when Manga fire-sold a lot of stock (which wasn't actually Jerome himself but sales team folks) - I did warn them that they were racing to the floor on pricing especially for new shows too quickly. The argument I had been making as discounts have a place in the life-cycle of anime overall - but it should be down the line significantly further than 3 months after release as I recall. Jerome at that point took on board a lot of that and did get folks to pull back on how quickly they campaigned new stock.

How campaigns work is as you'd think - limited time pricing for particular products you want to boost the reach of or to clear stock of. In this case due to wanting to reach a wider audience - we've campaigned at under £10 exactly two shows - Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star for Zavvi as a promotion for a limited time. These aren't new shows and I released Bebop first over 10 years ago in January 2005 at Beez Entertainment - since then I have released it on:

- 6 parts single DVDs
- 2 x 3 volume rigid boxes
- 1 x Collector's DTS version in Digipack
- 1 x Anime Legends set
- 2 x BD Collector's sets
- 1 x DVD Collector's set
- 1 x BD Standard set
- 1 x DVD standard set

Each of my previous iterations, even on the budget version, were never campaigned for this one and Outlaw Star at Beez, while only having one iteration was again never campaigned.

So on my 7th generation release, to release a version that is selling at a campaign rate hardly seems like de-valuing a show I have worked for a decade on really I'd say, in fact I'd say we've kept the life of that title going longer than most .

When you do hit this point though, the goal has to be to hook new audiences and to do that you want to offer it (briefly) at a great price temporarily. If nothing else because then when you do an Ultimate or new premium version down the line (which is still on the cards for Bebop), that same audience is far more likely to be tempted to upgrade and you can find ways to offer a good deal to those who supported more expensive editions too .

All other campaigns fall in an agreeable line of sanity I'd say and follow a similar trend based on the lifetime I have worked on the shows. In cases where Part 1's have been discounted on Collector's it has as you can guess been to allow folks test the waters there and allow folks to sample what we do / decide if they want to continue with more regular priced later parts of our Collector's properties.

Anyway, I've nattered on enough! Wouldn't normally intrude on another company's thread, but thought I would contextualise since I was indirectly referred to !

AP

 

[Peachy]

Conversely however, some of the reception to Anime Limited's Collectors Editions have also proven that there is also still demand for the cheaper, barebones releases. I mean, they aren't going to be releasing Kill la Kill Standard Editions a year after the CEs for nothing after all.

True.

There's two sides to the market, the collectors and the bare bones & it must be frustrating having to deal with both. Fans will never be happy & that must be irritating for someone who provides physical releases.

I saw it the other night, a friend said he wanted Arise 3&4 but he was waiting till the price dropped as he wasn't paying more than 15 quid for the contents & wondered why Anime was "so expensive", I didn't get into it with him cause drinking rum was more important but his comments did make me think. We need the standard, cheap releases cause the market is there but collectors sell & will continue to do so with the right marketing and show.
I mean this in the nicest way but It's something that's crossed my mind several times ...I think one way Anime Limited might be going about matters wrong (just in my opinion, I'm no expert) is having every single release as some form of collector item, will Brothers Conflict & Riddle really sell that much to warrant it's price tag & collectors packaging? wouldn't a standard edition Blu Ray do?
If the titles niche but critically acclaimed (Ping Pong), popular (Tokyo Ghoul) or isn't super popular or niche but was very well received (Snow White with the Red Hair) I can get behind the reasoning for a fancy edition, otherwise ..I do sit here and wonder.

 

[Buzz201]

It's referring to me in a not so obtuse fashion. Back when Manga fire-sold a lot of stock (which wasn't actually Jerome himself but sales team folks) - I did warn them that they were racing to the floor on pricing especially for new shows too quickly. The argument I had been making as discounts have a place in the life-cycle of anime overall - but it should be down the line significantly further than 3 months after release as I recall. Jerome at that point took on board a lot of that and did get folks to pull back on how quickly they campaigned new stock.

How campaigns work is as you'd think - limited time pricing for particular products you want to boost the reach of or to clear stock of. In this case due to wanting to reach a wider audience - we've campaigned at under £10 exactly two shows - Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star for Zavvi as a promotion for a limited time. These aren't new shows and I released Bebop first over 10 years ago in January 2005 at Beez Entertainment - since then I have released it on:

- 6 parts single DVDs
- 2 x 3 volume rigid boxes
- 1 x Collector's DTS version in Digipack
- 1 x Anime Legends set
- 2 x BD Collector's sets
- 1 x DVD Collector's set
- 1 x BD Standard set
- 1 x DVD standard set

Each of my previous iterations, even on the budget version, were never campaigned for this one and Outlaw Star at Beez, while only having one iteration was again never campaigned.

So on my 7th generation release, to release a version that is selling at a campaign rate hardly seems like de-valuing a show I have worked for a decade on really I'd say, in fact I'd say we've kept the life of that title going longer than most .

When you do hit this point though, the goal has to be to hook new audiences and to do that you want to offer it (briefly) at a great price temporarily. If nothing else because then when you do an Ultimate or new premium version down the line (which is still on the cards for Bebop), that same audience is far more likely to be tempted to upgrade and you can find ways to offer a good deal to those who supported more expensive editions too .

All other campaigns fall in an agreeable line of sanity I'd say and follow a similar trend based on the lifetime I have worked on the shows. In cases where Part 1's have been discounted on Collector's it has as you can guess been to allow folks test the waters there and allow folks to sample what we do / decide if they want to continue with more regular priced later parts of our Collector's properties.

Anyway, I've nattered on enough! Wouldn't normally intrude on another company's thread, but thought I would contextualise since I was indirectly referred to !

AP

Thanks for the info.

That makes a lot of sense. I was kind of assuming things weren't quite as Jerome was saying (especially as somebody who has been tempted by sales on several of your releases), so it's nice to hear your side of the story.

 

[anime_andrew]

I mean this in the nicest way but It's something that's crossed my mind several times ...I think one way Anime Limited might be going about matters wrong (just in my opinion) is having every single release as some form of collector item, will Brothers Conflict & Riddle really sell that much to warrant it's price tag & collectors packaging? wouldn't a standard edition Blu Ray do?

If the titles niche but critically acclaimed (Ping Pong), popular (Tokyo Ghoul) or isn't super popular or niche but was very well received (Snow White with the Red Hair) I can get behind the reasoning for a fancy edition, otherwise ..I do sit here and wonder.

Being cheeky and dropping in again since was here, this is a point we are actually working on in future, but it'd be a separate range / brand for the standard editions probably as not all titles in anime fit under what we do on a Collector's but we still love . Brother's Conflict and Riddle both made it through the finish line for us on Collector's Edition releases narrowly by discussion here, but not every show will as you say .

 

[Peachy]

I mean this in the nicest way but It's something that's crossed my mind several times ...I think one way Anime Limited might be going about matters wrong (just in my opinion) is having every single release as some form of collector item, will Brothers Conflict & Riddle really sell that much to warrant it's price tag & collectors packaging? wouldn't a standard edition Blu Ray do?

If the titles niche but critically acclaimed (Ping Pong), popular (Tokyo Ghoul) or isn't super popular or niche but was very well received (Snow White with the Red Hair) I can get behind the reasoning for a fancy edition, otherwise ..I do sit here and wonder.

Being cheeky and dropping in again since was here, this is a point we are actually working on in future, but it'd be a separate range / brand for the standard editions probably as not all titles in anime fit under what we do on a Collector's but we still love . Brother's Conflict and Riddle both made it through the finish line for us on Collector's Edition releases narrowly by discussion here, but not every show will as you say .

Nah, that's super interesting Thanks for popping back in :wink:

 

[thedoctor2016]

Them trying the best for every possible title is why there very popular, and are my fav anime distributor WW Madman close second.

 

[IncendiaryLemon]

I think the communication is also big factor on why I like Anime Ltd so much too. Weather it be on here or Facebook and Twitter, Andrew always seems eager to talk to fans.

 

[thedoctor2016]

I think the communication is also big factor on why I like Anime Ltd so much too. Weather it be on here or Facebook and Twitter, Andrew always seems eager to talk to fans.

Yeah same with madman they always reply to my tweets.

 

[Joshawott]

If the titles niche but critically acclaimed (Ping Pong), popular (Tokyo Ghoul) or isn't super popular or niche but was very well received (Snow White with the Red Hair) I can get behind the reasoning for a fancy edition, otherwise ..I do sit here and wonder.

I think you raise a very good point there with some titles perhaps being suited more to one release style than another. For example, I would have understood the reasoning if Anime Limited had decided to target the more casual market with cheaper, standard editions of Sword Art Online II while conversely, I sympathise with some Americans who have been asking Sentai for a fancier, non-barebones release of Shirobako.

(If Animatsu or Anime Limited are reading and either have or are interested in the license for Shirobako, please give it a pretty release =3).