Can anyone explain the blu-ray prices in Japan?

E

EatStatic

Completely Average High School Student
I am not a huge collector, so maybe this observation is a bit naive, and I have always heard CD's and the like are more expensive to manufacture in Japan, but a little bit a go I decided to have a look for a box set of the Patlabor and Lupin III TV series on blu-ray since I like them so much, and I was blown away by the prices, anywhere from £140-£260, and they aren't even complete box sets, they are in volumes so you would have to pay that over a few times, can anyone explain why this is? and if they had a release outside of japan would they be substantially cheaper?

Those 2 series I would absolutely love to own the complete collection on blu-ray, and probably others that I'd guess are the same sorts of price, but at that price I simply cannot afford it sadly :cry:
 
The Japanese are insane. Or appreciate the true value of things. Or a little of both.

But yeah, pricing disparity between countries / region codes is one of those crazy things. The existence of more than one region code, language and currency is bad for consumers, I say. Bring on the Dollaro and Mandaringlish.
 
Its a combination of loads of factors, Anime News Network had a terrific series of articles which explained it much better than I could:

Part 1 - Let's Make an Anime

Part 2 - Shiny Discs. This is the one that explains it!

Part 3 - Digital Pennies

The following is my personal take on the matter, it in no way represents a 100% accurate view, but rather the situation as I understand it. Someone correct me if I'm making the wrong assumptions!

Essentially, anime is a super niche product that relies on a very loyal, very small subset of fans to pay for its production costs. It's a very unique model...but I think it's very dangerous and short-term. On the plus side, you get a load of quirky titles that in no way would exist normally as they go against the mainstream. The physical editions are also packed with nice bonus stuff like soundtracks and artbooks to make it appealing. On the minus side, you're utterly reliant on getting this small number of fans to cough up the super-high prices, so you have to really appeal to them. And if they demand "Moe Moe Panty Flash Childhood Friend's Hips Are Moving On Their Own Baka Oniichan!!! <3", then that's what you're going to get loads of!

Of course this completely flies against the model we have here in Europe and in the US, that of boxsets containing whole seasons sold at very nice prices to a much higher volume of people. That's the challenge that Western anime companies have to face. The Japanese model will not work here, and the number of anime fans is nowhere near large enough to support huge volume sales the way something like Game of Thrones would. The Western model also brings about another threat: Reverse Importation. With the growth of the internet and globalisation, savvy Japanese fans realise they can get things a lot cheaper overseas and import...but anime is so reliant on domestic sales that the whole business model collapses and there'd be no more anime!

So that's why foreign releases tend to be inferior, it's crucial that the high priced Japanese releases sell to keep the companies afloat! There've been many strategies to do this, whether it's by delaying international releases sufficiently from the Japanese release, being uncooperative about providing materials or region locking whenever possible (Persona 4 Arena is the most shameless example of this...and Europe predictably lose out as a result).

With the advent of Blu-ray another problem arose, some bright spark put the US and Japan in the same region code! This took away region-locking as an option to protect domestic sales, so that's why we get shenanigans such as locked subtitles, no Japanese audio tracks, no features, or in the case of Kadokawa, no blu-rays at all! (Though Panty & Stocking suggests that this is changing to long delayed blu-ray). It's all about making them as undesirable to Japanese fans as possible! Of course if you go too far, you'll piss off the international fans...but we're just bonus money on top of the main concern which is the domestic market. And why blame them? They've somehow managed to make an environment where a 2 episode blu-ray can sell thousands of copies at about £70-80 a pop! Compared to £20-30 for whole series boxsets around here or even ALL of Lost for £59, any business minded company would stick to whichever is the most profitable! We basically have to make do with what we get.

As part of Region B, we in theory should benefit as reverse importation will be less of a problem (hello region-free Blu-ray player!), and indeed, in mainland Europe, Kaze have been doing some very nice things. The market is big enough there that they can produce their own French and German dubs, or just release sub-only. The UK is a lot smaller however, and also we're reliant on English dub materials coming from America most of the time (with the occasional exception, like Professor Layton, Musashi and Welcome to the Space Show), and on masters and stuff to come from Australia (who we share both PAL video for DVDs and Region B for blurays, and they have a stronger market so Manga often use their discs as a starting point). I think Kaze at least are starting to change things by integrating us with Europe more so that should benefit us greatly.

So yeah, I think I might have gone on a bit there...but yeah I hope I helped :p
 
Note also that our currency absolutely sucks at the moment, so Japanese discs have gone from merely startling to flat out horrible in price comparatively. I'm not saying they were ever cheap, but they are pretty much at the pinnacle of expensiveness now :/

If subtitles aren't an issue though, not only can you wait for a local release but you can also check out legit releases in other countries. Most have the Japanese language track attached still and they're usually cheaper (and less nice) than the Japanese editions.

R
 
Drawing numbers from memory:
One Piece has 11% ratings and it's "prime time" for kids cartoons.
Naruto has 6% ratings, Bleach had 4% and the average anime has 0.4% ratings.

Check our podcast with Jonathan Clements for a better idea.
http://nakama-britannica.animeuknews.ne ... -clements/

But it's basically like Ath said. Anyway, something like Lost made money from Sponsors and adverstisers, but that is not a particular thign the Japanese anime creators can rely on, considering that most anime shows are aired at 2am....
 
Thanks for all the responses, and thanks Ath for the really informative answer and links, it all makes a lot more sense now :) The "Part 2 - Shiny Discs." link also says about it stemming from the rental market too, I had not thought of that angle and it makes sense, and why change if people are paying those prices, though you can't help but wonder if they lowered the price, say like along the lines of how Steam does with games, that they'd sell a lot more to more people, and at least make the same money back if not much more, but I always get the impression the Japanese can be very stubborn in their business approach, and well I suppose any business wouldn't easily change if something is working for them.

So would I be right in understanding from this then that if we got a release outside of Japan it would be cheaper? (Though probably not as good presentation) and asking specifically about the Lupin III and Patlabor TV series, does anyone happen to know anything about them and whether anyone's going to release them outside of Japan anytime in the future? Does it have a big enough audience outside of Japan?

I have heard Castle of Cagliostro is being released on Blu-ray on the 12th of November here in the UK, at least that's something :D
 
I would strongly doubt Patlabor is going to get anything in the US since the TV series didn't do so well on DVD, but Lupin is a possibility one day if BD really makes some ground, since the TV series is underway on DVD. Lupin is very popular in certain countries on the continent so it might well get a BD release there if BD uptake improves. The problem is that BD is in a precarious position in countries like ours (you can definitely forget about a UK release - Manga have vetoed any more long series on the format entirely, let alone old ones, and the other UK companies are sticking to short releases too in their very delicate BD strategies). The US market is gradually improving but progress towards a BD future is slow, then it's hobbled for anime specifically by being in the same region as Japan. Japan's model, while heavily criticised, is much more realistic in terms of judging the number of people who will actually buy something versus how much they need to sell it for. They know how much priced-down, mass market anime will sell over there because they've seen sales data for big hits, and they know how high they should shoot for niche, otaku shows. If people stop paying the high prices all that will happen is that everyone will switch to making shallow harem shows to sell with naughty hug pillows, rather than prices for interesting adult anime coming down overall.

Our market with cut price BDs which sell at best 100s of copies despite being a tiny fraction of their Japanese price may seem nice now, but it's also the reason which we miss out on anything even remotely quirky. The US/UK market cannot sustain niche releases while requiring mass market sales to turn a profit.

The promised mass market audience which should swoop in on the budget-priced releases and make them profitable the way that Hollywood films are never materialises.

R
 
Rui said:
Our market with cut price BDs which sell at best 100s of copies despite being a tiny fraction of their Japanese price may seem nice now, but it's also the reason which we miss out on anything even remotely quirky. The US/UK market cannot sustain niche releases while requiring mass market sales to turn a profit.

The promised mass market audience which should swoop in on the budget-priced releases and make them profitable the way that Hollywood films are never materialises.

R
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I think this is the most important point, and the one that I always lose sight of. The market isn't there for anime in the UK to support the prices that I normally would expect to pay for physical media for other kinds of entertainment like movies and TV. What is the best solution for this? Do you try and expand the audience so that it's big enough to support lower prices? Or do you just aim for that niche that are willing to pay consistently at a higher price? (I'm scared of this becoming the norm, as it would completely price me out! Hence my trepidation of Aniplex USA...but there is absolutely no doubt that this works and there is a demand for it) There is really no simple answer to this. It just goes to show what a hard job UK distributors have to do! (Though that doesn't mean we should be any less tough on them when they mess up :twisted: )

That's also why I'm in favour of more pan-European style releases, as with Kaze's recent moves. With the market expanded to not just the UK, but all of Europe, we're less likely to have a situation like with any of MangaUK's attempts to sell 3000 copies of Casshern Sins Part 1 just in the UK. MangaUK only sell to the UK though so I have no idea what they can do. I like that MVM partnered with Madman in Australia with Broken Blade to not only share their masters, but the actual physical discs as well so they could split them between the two countries. This of course, brings up other issues such as Blu-ray licensing fees and BBFC fees but I think at this point I'm going waaaaaaaaay off topic.

I will say though, all of this has reminded me that I have NEVER seen Patlabor or Lupin III in any form! I need to rectify that when I have more time and money :p
 
EatStatic said:
...though you can't help but wonder if they lowered the price, say like along the lines of how Steam does with games, that they'd sell a lot more to more people, and at least make the same money back if not much more, but I always get the impression the Japanese can be very stubborn in their business approach, and well I suppose any business wouldn't easily change if something is working for them.
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TV ratings for anime in Japan are around 0.4%. Out of these 0.4%, how many actually go the extra mile and buy the DVD's? Let's say 5%? So, with a population of 130 M, 5% of 0.4% is a "potential" 25k consumers. Let's imagine that the cost of an anime production is around 2 million pounds, so a complete series boxset would cost at least 80 quid. Add DVD / BD production and marketing on it, and then you have 100 quid of cost only....

It's not a huge market there, and it's not a huge market here, so it's difficult to apply economy of scale logic to something that wouldn't scale anyway.

Casual / impulse buyers doesn't seem to exist in Japan.

Rui said:
Our market with cut price BDs which sell at best 100s of copies despite being a tiny fraction of their Japanese price may seem nice now, but it's also the reason which we miss out on anything even remotely quirky. The US/UK market cannot sustain niche releases while requiring mass market sales to turn a profit.
Click to expand...
The reasonably cheap release of the hugely popular FMA:B didn't sell enough for Manga to keep releasing it in BD, for instance.

Rui said:
The promised mass market audience which should swoop in on the budget-priced releases and make them profitable the way that Hollywood films are never materialises.
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Never existed, never will =(
 
We can only hope that the cost of pressing Blu-ray discs, and the minimum print run comes down to a reasonable level, around the same as DVD, which will make Blu-rays the norm even for three figure sellers.

As it is, I doubt that will ever happen, as the Sony licencing cost, plus the BBFC fees will probably make for an untenable burden that will forever keep Blu-ray out of the niche market, regardless of how cheap it is to press a disc.
 
That's a shame if you are right, though Lupin does sound more promising, since I think you are probably right with it being popular in some countries, Italy seems to of got some of the films/tv specials on blu-ray, so there is more hope there, I will still keep my fingers crossed for both :) thanks for all the replies, it's been interesting to read.

Ath said:
I will say though, all of this has reminded me that I have NEVER seen Patlabor or Lupin III in any form! I need to rectify that when I have more time and money :p
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I hope you enjoy them if you get around to it :D I'm not sure how much you know about them, so it might be pointless saying, but the first 2 Patlabor films are done by Mamoru Oshii, and just like Ghost in the Shell have a very serious and philosophical feel to them, where as the tv series feels very different and could probably be classed as a comedy on some levels, and well it is a straight out comedy for some episodes :p both good in there own ways, but might help you decide which you'd like best or something depending what your tastes are :)

And for Lupin, if you like Ghibli films then Castle of Cagliostro is probably a good place to start because it feels a lot like a Ghibli film in some ways (even though it was well before Ghibli was founded), it was the first I saw and it is a really good film, but in hindsight after seeing a lot more of the others Miyazaki really changed the characters in some ways, so it feels different to any of the others, but its still good :) I'm watching loads of Lupin stuff at the moment, but I think I'm starting to get an unhealthy obsession with it, I just bought a Jigen figure today :p

Edit:
@chaos: I just wrote all that before I noticed what you said sorry. I Never realised anime TV ratings were as low as that in Japan, with that and everything else that has been said, I can certainly understand better why the situation is how it is.
 
Nope, that's unforgivable! =P

In any case, having this in mind, I actually find it quite surprising that the anime industry is still as prolific as it is.
 
chaos said:
But it's basically like Ath said. Anyway, something like Lost made money from Sponsors and adverstisers, but that is not a particular thign the Japanese anime creators can rely on, considering that most anime shows are aired at 2am....
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More than that, they have to pay for the slot and most of the sponsors and advertisers they DO have are members of the committee anyway..

Manga have talked about re-evaluating their BD costs in the new year. Maybe their replication contract is up for renewal and they're shopping around for a better deal with a lower minimum order? Or maybe they're looking into working closer with Kaze on the continent?
 
chaos said:
Nope, that's unforgivable! =P

In any case, having this in mind, I actually find it quite surprising that the anime industry is still as prolific as it is.
Click to expand...

Please forgive me! :mrgreen:

Yeah it is in many ways, it seems to me like the internet has helped it a lot though, seems to be everywhere online in some way or another.
 
Very few of the places anime is online actually send any of that money back to the creators, though. The majority are completely illegal and actively cutting into the legit sources ^^;

Sites like Viki which stream classic anime legitimately (usually worldwide) have a lot of potential for fans cut off from the source by geography or (in this case) time.

R
 
Shiroi Hane said:
chaos said:
But it's basically like Ath said. Anyway, something like Lost made money from Sponsors and adverstisers, but that is not a particular thign the Japanese anime creators can rely on, considering that most anime shows are aired at 2am....
Click to expand...
More than that, they have to pay for the slot and most of the sponsors and advertisers they DO have are members of the committee anyway..
Click to expand...

True - I forgot about having to pay for slots at the TV channels as well.
For the sake of curiosity, I have the times for Eureka Seven AO: (channel: date - time)
TBS ：　19/11 - 3：41～4：41
CBC：　21/11 - 3：35～4：35
MBS：　22/11 - 3：00～4：00

http://animeanime.jp/article/2012/10/23/11842.html


Shiroi Hane said:
Manga have talked about re-evaluating their BD costs in the new year. Maybe their replication contract is up for renewal and they're shopping around for a better deal with a lower minimum order? Or maybe they're looking into working closer with Kaze on the continent?
Click to expand...
Let's hope for the best....

EatStatic said:
chaos said:
Nope, that's unforgivable! =P

In any case, having this in mind, I actually find it quite surprising that the anime industry is still as prolific as it is.
Click to expand...

Please forgive me! :mrgreen:

Yeah it is in many ways, it seems to me like the internet has helped it a lot though, seems to be everywhere online in some way or another.
Click to expand...
Being everywhere doesn't mean they make any money out of it unfortunately. Specially online.

Rui said:
Sites like Viki which stream classic anime legitimately (usually worldwide) have a lot of potential for fans cut off from the source by geography or (in this case) time.
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Oh! Do tell more....
 
chaos said:
Rui said:
Sites like Viki which stream classic anime legitimately (usually worldwide) have a lot of potential for fans cut off from the source by geography or (in this case) time.
Click to expand...
Oh! Do tell more....
Click to expand...

Haha it's like we're a double act staging an advertisement (unintentionally!).

Viki don't get much discussion outside of the drama crowd but they're a newish entry on the legit streaming side. They scoop up the rights to presumably-cheap, unpopular old shows in Japan and stick them up for foreigners like us, with the gimmick that fans can add translations legally to the streams so you can have them in all kinds of languages (i.e. providing a place for fansubbers who actually care about the industry to put their skills to work). They made a splash a while ago by grabbing the rights to a load of Tezuka shows.

A moderately interesting interview from when they were starting out with anime is here:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/inter ... f-viki.com

I hope that if anything does especially well, they can use the subtitles and make DVDs or something. For me. They're also streaming RoV for Nozomi but sadly that one is region locked, probably due to the series being licensed in a number of European countries already :/

You should interview them too, Chaos! :D

R
 
I had previously looked into the prices myself and worked out some estimated income/profit for Japanese companies for UK and JP releases.
Note these are very rough estimates based on what little I know of business but I have taken into account printing costs, retailer margins, VAT and UK distributor costs.

A 13 episode box set retailing on Amazon for £15 probably generates no more than £3, or 25p an episode, for the Japanese companies.
A 2 episode volume retailing on Amazon JP for ~£50 probably generates about £15 of profit*, or £7.50 an episode.

When online estimates seem to place production costs between £80k and £200k an episode. It becomes relatively easy to see why the Japanese price things as they do. Finding 300,000 people to buy your niche product is a lot harder than finding 10,000.

*Not actually profit but income after manufacturing costs but before production.
 
Rui said:
Very few of the places anime is online actually send any of that money back to the creators, though. The majority are completely illegal and actively cutting into the legit sources ^^;

Sites like Viki which stream classic anime legitimately (usually worldwide) have a lot of potential for fans cut off from the source by geography or (in this case) time.

R
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I meant just on a fan-base level, referring to what chaos said about it being surprising how prolific it still is, seems to be part of the internet culture in many ways, see anime in that sense in most places even if it's just a reference :)
 
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