Anime And The Internet

Do you think Anime in the UK depends on the Internet?

  • Yes it does

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No it doesn't

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • It sort of does but doesn't at the same time...

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
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Unit 0

Magical Girl
Do you think anime in the uk depends on the internet? And what would collecting anime be like without the Internet?

I don't necessarily mean Fansubs but the fact that without the internet I don't think you would know about the various titles being released, how good various titles etc. Also I don't think that it would be as easy to get the certain title you wanted, I mean how many times do you go to HMV and see every single R2 title you can think of? It would also be far more expensive without the internet due to it being far cheaper and easier to buy off online sites such as Play.com and Up1.co.uk. It could also mean that it would far harder to get hold of import titles as normally you can buy them on the internet but without it it would be far harder. Finally I also feel it would be a far more solitary and isolated thing for the people who collected anime, by that i mean that without forums and messageboards etc there would nobody to dicuss and recoommend titles with unless that is you are lucky enogh to have friends who like anime as well.

So what do you think?
 
i dont think the internet is needed as most fans would still go and find what they want even without it. it dose make it alot easyer and i get alot more useing the internet. Tho saying that i would not be as big as a fan that i am at the moment if there was no internet as fansubs very got me into it.
 
I voted "It sort of does but it dosen't", while my views on fansubs are well documented. I will certainly admit it does pull in new fans, the problem only arises when these new "fans" don't actually buy any anime ever. And have no intention of doing so.

With forums and messageboards it certainly helps to have online communities such as this one that are based in the UK. Here the anime community is still rather small, and hopefully with places online where people can congeregate and talk about their different shows (either here on the forums or in real time in irc) it helps bring fans together more and strengthen the anime community. However if there wasnt such online things avalible, well then their certainly would still be a UK anime coomunity, it might be a tad smaller, but it would definately be there.
 
Well, personally, I think the UK does depend on the Internet for Anime quite a bit.
The UK is a country full of exports and imports. We don't really have much of our own to sell, we import raw materials and make products from them and then export them. E.g. cars.

This isn't any different to anime. The only difference is that they aren't usually exported, just sold to the public. For one thing, Anime comes from Japan. So companies like UP1 and Play.com (which are internet based services) need to but them and import them to UK. This is probably done by ordering from internet again, to the manufacter of the manga/DVDs.
Even when ordering from America (e.g. AnimeNation) you're depending on the internet.

So I think we depend on it quite a lot to be honest.
 
As Mangaminx said, the anime community would still be there, but smaller- given high street prices and little to no access to R1 titles most people's collections would be quite a bit smaller, and, as has already been mentioned, with no online reviews or forums to pick up recommendations the "to buy scroll" would be a lot smaller. Nonetheless, isolated pockets of anime fandom would still exist (after all, in days of yore we even had a decent selection of shows on the sci-fi channel), but I for one suspect that if I was restricted to buying from high street stores, I'd be buying a lot more manga than anime.
 
It worked in the past, but very scantily!
There have been UK anime magazines in the past you know :wink:
It was more of a select community years ago - by that I mean only hard core fans who would go out of their way to track down anime in the UK to buy! and you'd buy everything, coz there was so little of it anyway :(

I honestly don't think there would be many more anime fans in the UK than there used to be, if it weren't for the internet. Easy availablity of fansubs has increased it's popularity 10,000 fold, plus of course SKY TV helps out a lot (there only used to be a few late night showings on Channel 4 years ago).

I don't think anime itself depends on the internet, as there have always been UK anime fans, but the availablity of anime does! (If that makes sense?!).

Collecting anime would be as it was years ago, if there were no internet .
Places like Forbidden Planet have always been useful and the odd anime title available in some places like HMV etc. Plus taping what you can off of the telly :D

I also wanted to add quickly, there were books! Anime reference guides, listing all the anime made to that point in time. I have some really early ones from 1992 and 93. It didn't help that you couldn't actually get your hands on most of what was in there, but at least you knew what there was.
It's much nicer nowadays, with R1 DVDs, ebay, and the wonderful assortment of anime releases we have now.
 
My anime collection thrives on internet reviews and recommendations, before I was net able I'd only buy a few videos a year and get by on what the Sci-Fi channel or Bravo had to offer. Now however I'm able to look up any title I want, dig up as much info as I can and then make an informed decision whether to buy it or not. Totally unrelated but DVDs are a lot more collectable than videos ever were, thanks to sites like Play and UP1 it's even easier to get your hands on the titles you want, whereas years and years ago I used to spend perhaps £50 a year on anime, nowadays it's probably in excess of £150 a month.......so many shiny, new and scroll worhty titles :D
 
Do you mean DVDs are easier to collect?
I must admit they're easier to store! Plus the advantage of being hybrid, it used to cost me a fortune to collect a series subbed and dubbed. My Sailor Moon "S" series cost me £260 on video, as I had to buy 13 subbed and 13 dubbed videos. Fushigi Yuugi was even worse, the 2 boxsets for Suzaku and Seiryuu cost £80 each for the subbed version, then the same for the dubbed and then £18 for each video of the first and second OVAs, there are 6 videos (£108), add that together and it's a lot of money :lol: (actually it's £428 :shock: ).
 
They are alot easier to collect, videos were clunky, unsightly things, DVD has many advantages, as you said they're much easier to store, the sound and video options are greatly improved: Dolby surround, 5.1, DTS and progressive scan make for a richer viewing experience. Importing vids was also frightfully expensive and it was an uphill struggle to find the few titles you wanted, the sheer breadth and greater availabilty of DVD titles online is certainly what ressurected my love of anime a few years ago, now my bedroom looks a bit like Yomiko Readman's only with DVDs and not books, I have to risk being crushed in a slide of DVDs everytime I open the door. :p
 
I can concur with the cheaper to import statement :lol:
One video cost more to post to the UK, than 2 or 3 DVDs! It cost me more in postage for my Tenchi Muyo videos, than the videos themselves!!
 
i find the internet invaluable for finding out reviews and where to buy but i got into anime in the first place without internet assistance. it never used io be important, but it is now.
 
with out the internet i probably would have never got in to anime, so for me t has been an invaluable tool, allowing me review, and check on release dates etc.
with out the internet there would be people who still could keep up with the anime details, but it mostly would be by word of mouth, which in the end may dilute the type and variations of anime that come in to this country, because if everybody is listening to the same word of mouth there will be very little need for as many different styles of anime, for example.
personally for me, the more the internet is about, the more chance of us hearing about differnt types of anime, therefore the better it will be for the uk anime watchers out there
 
I'd say the Internet is essential for me, since it allows me to order, import, read about, get fansubs, talk to other fans etc. I'm sure the anime community would exist without the Internet, but with less fans, perhaps as a solely indepedent pastime and the industry would decline.
 
I voted for the third option, but to tell you the truth i'm not really sure, but i guess it does, with out the internet not only would you not know about the release of some titles, but buying them would also become alot harder
 
i agree....the internet does play a vital part in the sales in the UK....though i picked the third option...i see that most purchases of anime come from the net....yet i have seen a lot of anime being sold out in the shops as well...and i also found out that anime was real when i found it over the net....but i did see some on the T.V before that
 
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