Bandai license two series & launch controversial rel. sched.

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
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<a href="http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-01-30/bandai-visual-usa-gets-shigofumi-true-tears-anime">Bandai Visual USA have licensed</a> two new anime series; the supernatural drama "Shigofumi" (12 episodes) and harem romance "True Tears" (13 episodes).

Given these are relatively short series (compared with the more conventional 26 episode format), Bandai's expensive release schedule has met with controversy and complaints. The first volume of True Tears will contain only 1 episode, while the next six voumes will contain two episodes each, with the exception of the last volume of Shigofumi, which will only contain 1 episode. Neither series will be dubbed into English. Both Shigofumi and True Tears are airing on Japanese TV as of this news post and the eventual US DVD releases will begin as soon as May '08; only two months after the Japanese DVD release begins.
 
This is a case of not having your cake and eating it. People want to see the releases of DVDs very close to the Japanese releases without realising what this means in terms of content. This is a traditional release mechanism for Japanese releases and is forced due to the minimal amount of time between the US and Japanese dates.
 
I was surprised at how quickly these two were licenced, but from what I've seen of True Tears a least, it's a great show that deserves the DVD treatment.

I'm not so impressed with the US release schedule, and from what I've seen in the way of fans' reactions, quite a lot of potential buyers aren't either. Personally I don't mind waiting a few months and buying a series in a more economical 4-5 eps per volume, but I suppose in these two cases they're trying to cater for those who think differently (namely the people Gawyn described above). With any luck the UK editions (which I presume will be handled by Beez?) will follow the more usual episode counts.
 
Gawyn said:
This is a case of not having your cake and eating it.
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In the words of Captain Tagon - "But that's what cake is for!" :wink:

CitizenGeek said:
1 episode on the first volume is injustifiable, no matter what the price (unless it's, like, $3 or something; which it won't be, this is BV).
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Well, like Gawyn said, it's the standard for Japanese releases. Bandai are just trying to cut down on release times (which is something people generally want to improve, certainly), but because of their fear of reverse importation (which is at least partially due to their own actions, but hey) they can't bring themselves to release DVDs at a price which is better than Japan.

And yeah, it's probably not gonna work. Which is a shame in a sense - I wasn't especially enthralled with True Tears, but Shigofumi looked quite good.
 
I see that they are wasting their time with the release. Neither are dubbed in english and are at a episode each.

I agree with Citizengeek on this one. It is 'injustifiable, no matter what the price '. If my bets are, they will be at a pretty high price (cheaper than your 4 eps per disk no doubt, but bets are it's going to expensive), and the series aren't dubbed?

This should've been on the Pay to download service. Not a DVD release. I think many anime fans who buy DVDs want both dub and sub. Since this DVD has only subbed, no one will see the point in buying it.
 
I'll be amazed if people actually buy these first volumes, seriously... one episode per disk for a TV series is just insane and considering this is also without an English dub, it's like they are intentionally trying to piss off as many people as possible.

Out of interest, I noticed a lot of the Bandai USA stuff doesn't appear in the DVD stores over there, rather they try to push as much through their "dot anime" website as possible, which makes me wonder whether or not they've got some kind of manufacturing deal set-up where by they don't lose as much money on unsold stock.
 
Paul said:
I'll be amazed if people actually buy these first volumes, seriously... one episode per disk for a TV series is just insane and considering this is also without an English dub, it's like they are intentionally trying to piss off as many people as possible.
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Since more and more people want to buy series in bulk via boxsets, thinpaks and whatnot I totally agree. Seems like a bad move if they want these series to do well.

Like Martin said I'm sure just about everyone would rather wait longer for a decent release and with an English dub. A 13 episode series should be any more than a 4 disk release(though I think 3 disks is enough).
 
My best guess right now is that Bandai are aiming to capture the market that currently consists of fansub viewers - many people who are familiar with the shows in question, myself included, are downloading out of impatience, so perhaps Bandai are cashing in on the word-of-mouth popularity and catching the target audience as early as they can. Given the current climate and the perennial fansubs debate, that would make sense to me. It still doesn't explain the planned episode counts though, which are quite frankly bizarre. I'm watching the fansubs one or two eps at a time because that's when they're made available, but I'd rather have the DVDs as a three disc collection, which would be a more common-sense and value for money ratio of 4 eps per disc.

I know it's a bit of off-topic nitpicking, but I wouldn't call True Tears 'harem'. It looks like one of those bishoujo efforts at first glance and there's a love triangle or two, but it's more of a slice-of-life show...but I digress. ^_^
 
I can't wait for Beez to release 'Volume 1' over here...

"Get volume 1 of this amazing series for as cheap as £13.99!!!! Contains one epic 19 minute episode AND, free of charge, clean versions of the opening and ending. To make the deal even sweeter, we'll include trailers of all our upcoming releases!!!!!!"

The only good thing about Bandai releases is that most of their series eventually get released in cheap Anime Legends sets.
 
UP1 lists the first volume of Shigofumi as having two episodes for £21.70 whereas it lists True Tears Volume 1 as one episode for £15.75. The problem of no dubs doesn't worry me in the slightest and I think the former deal isn't so bad, if it had a art-box then I personally wouldn't mind shelling out, but 15 quid for one episode is pretty ridiculous, if the format was HDDVD or Bluray then it would be understandable, but 1 episode on normal dvd is just a ridiculous deal, they don't even do that in japan, you practically always get at least 2 episodes per volume.

I'm all for shortening the gap between Japan's and the wests' releases but thats just ridiculous, there was me thinking that most anime companies would start to get rid of single volume dvds and just release stuff in box sets, seems the more logical choice to me.
 
Taylor said:
subedii said:
Ramadahl said:
Gawyn said:
This is a case of not having your cake and eating it.
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In the words of Captain Tagon - "But that's what cake is for!" :wink:
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Am I allowed to say "The cake is a lie" here?
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The pie is a lie.
The cake is a fake!
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I guess I should stop making "Portal" references. Oh well.

N.B. In case you're wondering what I'm blathering about, that line is from a game called "Portal".
 
I thought when I saw Gantz at £16-£20 for a two episode disc it was a bit much and that had an English dub. I wonder if Bandi will dub these for any future boxset in which case some people could get double whamyed as I am sure there will be some people that get in early. Bandi could be shooting themselves in the foot with this decision as I doubt it will do anything to deter downloaders and fansub watchers, in fact it could make it worse as people hang on until a dub or more convenient more eps per disc or boxset version is released.
 
Bandai license two series & launch controversial rel. sc

To be Honest I didn't think they sounded that interesting anyway.

But wouldn't even consider finding out more about them if there is a no dub.
 
People outside of Japan devalue what anime is actually worth, and all I read is constant complaining about the prices of it.

People work on anime for peanuts, for your enjoyment, if you can't be bothered to fork out the extra cash, then at least don't moan about it.

I fully support Bandai Visual, and as long as they give all the extras that the Japanese release had (or at least the main ones), I won't complain.

Unfortunately though, I have to contradict myself, because these releases seem bare-bones, with not even an artbox, so I'll complain about that. I've e-mailed them as well, and I expect a response back, not got one in a week now though, so I'm not holding my breath.

I would absolutely love to support Bandai Visual, but their TV releases could improve, I'll still buy their series though to show support for the creators. Plus, they've put out some absolutely incredible - Japanese quality - releases, so I'm happy.
 
melonpan said:
People outside of Japan devalue what anime is actually worth, and all I read is constant complaining about the prices of it.

People work on anime for peanuts, for your enjoyment, if you can't be bothered to fork out the extra cash, then at least don't moan about it.
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I think that is true and I am quite willing to pay good money for things as I get quite a lot of enjoyment from Anime even quite mediocre series. Being a little older than most people into Anime I am able to spend a reasonable amount on this hobby.

In the west we still have this problem that the main Anime market is teens to early twenties so pricing is quite important as the disposable income of this age group may not be that high. Unfortunately this age group is also tech savvy and if they can’t afford or don’t want to pay for content will find other ways to get it and this may even become manys preferred method of watching Anime even if the quality is poor. This leads to no money going back to the companies to invest in new projects so either quality goes down or the number of projects drops. If we want quality products we need to pay, but we also need to feel we are getting value for money. So the companies have to tread a fine line of getting what something is actually worth against pricing potential customers out of the market.
 
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