Rui said:
Those fanboys and their obsession with unreasonable standards like subtitles which appear alongside the dialogue and video quality which isn't an embarrassment next to cheaper foreign versions of the same title, eh? I'm not happy with the way that was answered but at least they are looking at turning things around. Sort of shocked that these technical QC passes don't catch errors which would have people who buy mainstream releases up in arms too; it's not as though Manga UK haven't had major problems with subtitle sync going back for years now and it catastrophically destroys the experience for fans who want to watch with the original audio (not to mention fans with poor hearing).
It's strange that they didn't commit either way to NTSC DVD or PAL conversions in-house. I suppose best case this means they'll do PAL conversions if they have the materials to make them good (though I still hate the speedup issues) but I continue to have strong reservations, especially as Jerome's attitude is still as disrespectful as ever.
The comments about Fairy Tail and the like being unprofitable on BD answered some questions on the Manga UK side too. It might be worth merging the two threads one day since it's obvious they're functioning as a single company for all intents and purposes (both the header art and top news story on Manga UK's Facebook are currently Animatsu projects).
Disappointed that one of the questions wasn't about how their name was chosen, unless it's obvious to everyone other than me!
R
The interview itself is nice to see as the folks at Animatsu are cool and have some pretty awesome things on the burner so I'm really looking forward to what they do next really there!
One point worth bringing up (and I did on UK-Anime.net too) is that the reply is a bit factually off as far as Anime Ltd's authoring is concerned. So to clarify - we're the odd ones out in the UK anime scene and in fact do our own authoring & work with studios directly instead of replicating the US/AUS DVD/BDs.
Having weighed the costs by and large it works out the same (or more) to buy someone else's version usually. Faced with that and sometimes delays in material receipt vs other English-speaking street dates we'd rather do our own masters when we can and learn/grow from the experience - the results are positive for a few reasons:
1. We control our deadlines for better or worse. The result is even if we play slip-slide on dates more than ideal, we consistently do release closer to the US/Australian release dates than anyone else. We've even gone out before both more than once (Space Dandy & Giovanni's Island spring to mind immediately).
2. Means we get to increase the pool of authoring houses across the world skilled in anime - including some really talented solo-acts that deserve the work!
We believe that while it creates a bumpier start for our first two to three years, it means ultimately we grow from the experience. This includes QC as a technical QC means just making sure it all plays and it should mean checking the subs all play (not always though).
The only solution we've found to this is to do an in-house QC layer from start to end on the products. Jeremy & Kerry spearhead this processes nowadays and while not necessarily as in-depth as battery test (which requires tens of thousands of discs in a run and costs a lot more to do) - it severely reduces the risks long term. Benefits also include when something goes wrong we can at least talk about why it happened or investigate the problem a lot quicker - it's not a guarantee of perfection but we strive to deliver the best possible product from it long-term.
Hope this helps (passing note, I don't normally comment but this did relate to us and was an honest mix-up I think from the interview!)
Andrew
