UK Anime Distributor Animatsu Discussion Thread

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HdE said:
Wow. Collector's edition only OVA? That's not cool.
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I could maybe understand if there was like £10 difference between the two, but when one's £110 and the other's £40, it just seems mean...
 
While I think on the whole we grossly undervalue OAVs (they sell as premium items in Japan, it's how the entire model works), that does seem like a pretty ridiculous arrangement if the UK isn't getting it at all (or if it is and the distributor hasn't put that information out there).

We underestimate how much the US companies have to negotiate and pay to get special episodes, I think, and it seems likely that a Japanese company would limit them to LEs in the contract if they got the chance given their value. However, missing content which is available in other regions is a huge red flag when I choose my version of a series and if we can get confirmation that UK customers will have no real access to that episode I will add the release to the Defective/Disappointing thread.

R
 
Rui said:
While I think on the whole we grossly undervalue OAVs (they sell as premium items in Japan, it's how the entire model works), that does seem like a pretty ridiculous arrangement if the UK isn't getting it at all (or if it is and the distributor hasn't put that information out there).

We underestimate how much the US companies have to negotiate and pay to get special episodes, I think, and it seems likely that a Japanese company would limit them to LEs in the contract if they got the chance given their value. However, missing content which is available in other regions is a huge red flag when I choose my version of a series and if we can get confirmation that UK customers will have no real access to that episode I will add the release to the Defective/Disappointing thread.

R
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Maybe we are undervaluing OVAs, but assuming it has the OVA and the light crap Sentai have added (but presumably not the 96 page booklet), are they worth almost tripling the price of the product? Bear in mind the standard edition of Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin I: Blue-Eyed Casval, a 63 minute OVA retails for £30 in Japan, which I believe comes with a 36p booklet too and I think Part II SE is retailing for the same price.

You can buy 2 hours worth of Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin (not including postage and tax) for the same price as an 23 minute OVA of BTB and some stickers, let's not pretend that price is reasonable...
 
I wasn't saying that it was reasonable, but let's not pretend that the BtB OAV has the same wide appeal and marketability as a series like Gundam :D

I really hate it when UK companies can't figure out a way to release an OAV here so they just skip it, figuring that people won't notice. It's one thing if the US couldn't get it either, but if they aren't going to treat fans of a series with respect then they shouldn't license that series to begin with, or there's no sense in complaining when people begin to bypass them and rely on imports.

R
 
Rui said:
While I think on the whole we grossly undervalue OAVs (they sell as premium items in Japan, it's how the entire model works), that does seem like a pretty ridiculous arrangement if the UK isn't getting it at all (or if it is and the distributor hasn't put that information out there).

We underestimate how much the US companies have to negotiate and pay to get special episodes, I think, and it seems likely that a Japanese company would limit them to LEs in the contract if they got the chance given their value. However, missing content which is available in other regions is a huge red flag when I choose my version of a series and if we can get confirmation that UK customers will have no real access to that episode I will add the release to the Defective/Disappointing thread.
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Pretty much my own sentiments. What bothers me more than anything else is the dictate that, to own everything, you MUST pick up the almost-three-times-the-cost edition.

In my mind, a situation like this poses several questions:

1. Do I want said item enough to shoulder the cost? (The answer to this is a flat 'no' 90% of the time.)

2. What other item on my mental anime shopping list would I have to go without to get this one?

3. Can I live with having the show without the missing OVA? (Good example - this came up with Elfen Lied. I just wasn't sufficiently interested in the OVA to lay down money on the more recent re-release, which includes that when my 101 Anime copy doesn't.)

All of these will generally sway my decision to simply not bother with a show and take what little money I have to feed my Japanese cartoon habit elsewhere.
 
Most of the time, OVAs for tv series are skip material. The problem comes when they are plot centric or bridge the gap between seasons.
 
Rui said:
Why is the DVD-sized box such a big issue? I don't see why it matters at this point; anyone who has been collecting anime for a while will have a messy collection full of all kinds of oddly-shaped boxes by now. I'd say it's less of an issue than printing BBFC logos on the box, personally. In fact I'd prefer they did a DVD-sized box if it means they can use the US artwork without tampering with it at all.
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Well, you know, people love to have a "...or no buy" clause to fall back on.
"Waah! The box is the wrong size!"
"Waah! The subs are the wrong colour!"
"Waah! I don't understand Japanese but I have to be able to turn the subtitles off!"[/quote]
 
I like it when half of the audience is going "I don't care about the fancy packaging, just give me the content!" to discredit collectors yet not caring when an entire OAV is missing, while the others are going "I'm the biggest fan of Series X ever but I am boycotting it because the box is the wrong shade of purple!". Anime fans are very difficult to please. I do think that they have listened to the wrong people if they're more concerned over the size of the CE box than getting all of the available content into peoples' hands, though.

R
 
I remember when there was a big fuss about FUNi using DVD-sized cases for their combos (because there was a DVD section in stores for anime, but not for BD so they were jumbled in with everything else).
 
Yeah and that meant they switched some series from DVD-sized to BD-sized partway through, which is way more annoying than having BD discs in a DVD-sized box :(

R
 
While I'm not a huge fan of BDs in a DVD sized amaray as a standalone regular edition, I don't mind them in a collector's edition. Bigger artbox, bigger artbook and whatnot.
It's really not a big deal though. Just don't... (collectors beware, graphic content)[spoilerbutton]
2AVxBp0.jpg
[/spoilerbutton]
*shivers*
 
I thought OVAs are generally valued about the same as a standard episode in Japanese releases (maybe two episodes in some cases), don't they usually just get a release in the same sort of volume as all the other episodes of the series? I didn't think they were often treated as anything other than an extra episode.

If I want a special edition of a show, I don't think the box size would be the biggest issue for me. Whether or not it has an OVA is going to be far more important. I don't like the idea of OVAs being limited to collector's editions, I hope that doesn't become common. It'd be a shame if the Japanese licensors were enforcing restrictions, though I guess some are already bad at letting OVAs be released at all.

I don't necessarily mind separate releases for OVAs, I think it generally works better if there are more than a couple of extra episodes but I prefer that to not getting the OVAs at all. I'd imagine it's not such a good option in most cases though, especially if it's a single OVA episode and/or the OVA isn't really important to the story.
 
There are at least three forms of OVA.
Standalone; a straight-to-video release.
Extra episode; a bonus episode on the DVDs of a TV series.
Manga tie-in; an episode on a disc bundled with a limited edition volume of a manga.

We've had plenty of the first sort, most recently GitS: Arise.
The third one if the biggest problem since they are under a different committee to any other parts of the franchise like a TV series so won't ever be bundled in and will require licensing separately which will make it unattractive in terms of the work needed for a mere 30 mins of animation. Also, since they are supposed to be an exclusive for manga readers, licensors will be reluctant to let them be included on a cheap release overseas.

We've tended to get the second time, which is probably bundled in with the series license most of the time (unless it was exclusive to a limited edition in Japan). There have been glaring exceptions like Elfen Lied however, and then there was High School of the Dead which was licensed separately. I'm wondering if it isn't more of an issue again these days will lots of anime being pre-licensed for simulcast if any potential OVA episodes aren't explicitly included from the get go...
 
Shiroi Hane said:
We've tended to get the second time, which is probably bundled in with the series license most of the time (unless it was exclusive to a limited edition in Japan). There have been glaring exceptions like Elfen Lied however, and then there was High School of the Dead which was licensed separately. I'm wondering if it isn't more of an issue again these days will lots of anime being pre-licensed for simulcast if any potential OVA episodes aren't explicitly included from the get go...
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No, I don't think idea of OVAs not being included in simulcast deals is an issue. When Jonathan Clements was on ANNCast to promote the Anime Encyclopaedia he said Triage X was being pre-sold as 10 episodes + an OVA. I don't know if the OVA ever actually materialised, but clearly some companies are thinking about it in advance.
 
So Hanabee have scheduled their new solicitations for November, Beyond the Boundary is one of them and to my surprise it's listed as 13 episodes (the series is 12 episodes long so it looks like they have the OVA).
 
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