How to save Anime

H

hopeful_monster

Thousand Master
Genon's gone (and probably misspelt), ADV is on the rocks, and look on practically any anime website and there is doom and gloom. If I wanted to be depressed I'd watch Saikano again or look at either my waistline or love life. Let’s stop with the bad vibes and think positively. The anime industry isn’t going to die, but will be severely pruned if it does not heed warnings like the ones give here
So how can anime be saved? Fansubs could stop being produced, downloaded and watched. And pigs could fly, the Pope could be a wicca and I'd get a girlfriend. Educating people can and will only get so far. We have been trying to educate people that murder, rape and toupee's are bad ideas as well and look at any newspaper and you'll see that it hasn't worked as well as we would have hoped. It also doesn't help that the chances of getting caught are next to none at the moment.
Humorous link
Since the above though is more common that most of us would like to admit it has to be the starting point form which to work from. So how can free be profitable? That question is not as absurd as it seems. To start out with look at the current state of fansubs. While they don't (or at least shouldn't) make any money, they don't cost much either. Online distribution has made getting anime to those who want to watch it very easy and cheap. So how can the companies make the money back and get more on top of that.
1) Advertising - Anyone who's watched either Code Geass or Darker Than BLACK will have notice a well known pizza restaurant's logo appearing at least once an episode. Was this cause the production crew survived on the stuff... possibly. Did the restaurant pay quite a wodge of cash so thousands of people saw their logo while watching their anime? Highly likely.
2) Merchandising, Merchandising, Merchandising - the realm of the wise and wealth Yougurt. Look around the average anime fan's room and you'll probably see that they have spent more on merchandising of their favourite series than they did getting it. The problem is that in this country how much of what we spend on stuff is actually getting back to the UK anime companies. Errh Next to nothing.
3) Freemium – you get the basic for free but if you want more pay for it. This is basically what TV and Gonzo’s recent venture with Crunchy Roll are. You get to watch the shows for free, but get a lower quality and can’t keep them. Pay a bit and you get better quality and have them to cherish forever.
There are other business models (include labour exchange and cross subsidies) based on the free price, but seeing how they might work is a little beyond me at the moment.
Can anyone else think how we can promote a future anime industry we can all enjoy.
 
Apparently we can start by using our own server to host images


1) Advertising - Anyone who's watched either Code Geass or Darker Than BLACK will have notice a well known pizza restaurant's logo appearing at least once an episode. Was this cause the production crew survived on the stuff... possibly. Did the restaurant pay quite a wodge of cash so thousands of people saw their logo while watching their anime? Highly likely.
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i can tell u now that it was a sponsorship deal they had in Geass, as it's removed in the Dub

As for the free tasters, i've said many a time, it's a good idea, but only if they offer 4 or more episodes.

no one can judge a series on 2 episodes alone, even if it means getting 6 episodes but getting 20 more for the price of 26 in the end (so yours paying the same ammount in total, it just seems higher because of the 6 free episodes
 
Advertising is definately needed, but product placement should be done subtly or not at all. They always seem to go out of their way to really shove it in people's faces. I think the UK licensors need to concentrate on more print and web advertising of their dvds, as you hardly see any.

Given the size of the fanbase in the UK, I don't think it would be worth producing any extra merchandise, as most fans just import it directly from Japan or buy it in shops which do.

I like the idea of making maybe the first one or two episodes of series available on the internet to watch to give people a taster - with the licence holders deciding to offer a kind of amnesty based on the fact that those eps. become kind of "copyright free" but then clamping down on anyone who shares the other eps. Gonzo and ADV's dealings with Crunchyroll frankly disgust me - it more or less sends the message "hey kids, you too can get rich ripping off other peoples work!" If you ask me they want a baseball bat taken to their servers...

...and their faces.
 
hopeful_monster said:
Genon's gone (and probably misspelt), ADV is on the rocks.
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Newsflash: Geneon just made a deal with Funimation to get out all their unfinished titles, Geneon were never gone, just their distribution side was.
ADV are still there, and have just made a deal with another company to get more money/something to replace Sojitz/ARM.

As for the websites thing, that doom and gloom isn't as bad as you make it out to be.
 
Melonpan- Was very drunk when writing the orginal post, so may have been a little over dramatic, but there is a fairly pesimistic vibe going round due to various specifiall anime related news stories and the overall credit crunch.
ayase- Lets try to not get bogged down with specfics (cruncyroll etc) and go for a more theoretcial excersice.
 
hopeful_monster said:
Melonpan- Was very drunk when writing the orginal post, so may have been a little over dramatic, but there is a fairly pesimistic vibe going round due to various specifiall anime related news stories and the overall credit crunch.
ayase- Lets try to not get bogged down with specfics (cruncyroll etc) and go for a more theoretcial excersice.
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Sorry about that. I don't think either of us were in a good state when writing our posts then - It was half two in the morning and I was trying to find a way to resuccitate my laptop at the time. I think the proccy and/or mobo is fried. Bollocks.

As for anime though, I think the times are just changing. It won't ever die in Japan, and the economic conditions in the west will probably result in less being licenced here. However, that may not be such a bad thing. ADV and Geneon more or less destroyed themselves by trying to licence and release as much as possible - and melonpan, the fact that their licences were picked up by funi doesn't neccesarily mean they will sell / be profitable.
 
Talking of merch guys - do you know if theres a decent website (be it japanese or american or whatever) that sells decent anime merch? Like t-shirts etc etc...?
 
Chronos said:
Talking of merch guys - do you know if theres a decent website (be it japanese or american or whatever) that sells decent anime merch? Like t-shirts etc etc...?
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Frankly I'm still waiting for somewhere that offers two extra things on that front.

1. Recognition for the *ahem* more "well statured" anime fan in 3x/4x shirts. Most of my XXL ones fit me fine, but I like a very loose fit.

2. T-Shirts that aren't made from the WORST cotton ever found by man or god. Seriously, go to Asda or M&S, feel their cotton T-shirts, lovely and smooth against the skin....now check your anime ones....rough as hell aren't they? It's like all anime merchandise is from Cafepress or something.

I don't mind paying extra for quality or size, I'd just like the option to be able to.
 
I'm glad I got to this topic when I did, I predict it's going to be a big discussion.

I'm gonna start by quoting an article from the July issue or Neo in regard to point 3 of the first posts; Freemium.

Animators in the basement
WITH THE SUMMER convention full under way, every company faces a wave of questions from eager fans. At least a handful of those revolve around one question: "How can I get a job with you? I love anime!".

I remember a colleague from another company looking amused after someone came by expressing a great interest in animation, letting him know how much they would loe to work with him animating his releases.

"Do people think I keep the animators in my basement?" he asked, incredulously. For the most part, we all know this isn't the case. But just to clarify for people who are curious -- UK operations, like our US counterparts, only handle production, marketing and sales of the DVDs, not the creation of the animation itself. But a lingering question remains -- for how much longer will companies be expected to do that for?

Recently Gonzo has stepped up to provide anime fresh from Japan over the internet to fans as soon as it comes out there. Only two series have been earmarked for this treatment for now, but if that proves profitable, then what happens to the UK market? Suddenly the very companies that nurtured the UK scene may be see as a barrier to profits. All a Japanese company would need to do is issue a series online first, then do a DVD release later down the line. All of which can be done easily if they just pay a company to dut it in English then outsource the PR and sales / production to a sufficiently cheap company.

Surely such an idea is a foolish one, as working from a Japanese HQ would mean there would be no way to understand the UK and EU market. Yet it's not an idea that is alien to the world of boardroom politics...
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Personally, I've never caught on as to why people spend masses of money on anime DVDs. I mean, I can understand buying movies -- as I do own all of the Studio Ghiblis -- but buying a complete series, or multiple complete series must cost so much. The pleasure I'd get from owning them and have them on my shelf does not match up the amount of money I'd have spent. However, I also do not watch any anime twice (apart from movies), therefore that is another reason why the price doesn't match the purpose.

You'll probably all hate me for not being a supported of the UK anime market now eh? But to be honest, we all know the extent in which the internet can reach different markets. And which the constantly growing popularity, it's reaching almost any markets desired.

I know they're one of the main problems, but there's many websites which offer anime in good quality, for a low monthly/hourly price. And these websites, have a lot of users, therefore they're making a lot of money. If these companies were prepared to offer all of their anime online, and charge customers for it, I'm sure they'd make a damn lot of money.

This also supports the freemium idea, instead of allowing CR to host their episodes, their own websites could offer a few free episodes of each series! This is also excellent for meeting the younger markets; more and more people are becoming more and more comfortable with paying for things over the internet, how many kids like Naruto? They ask their parents to pay for this website, where they can watch all Naruto. Is it more likely their parents would allow them to watch it on a website for £10 or something, or buy all the series?

I mean, this is probably an idea that would never work, as the charges for viewing the website content wouldn't be consistent with the charges for the DVDs. However, I think the internet is the future, and offering their content solely/mostly on the internet seems like an inevitable choice to me.
 
cardybean said:
I know they're one of the main problems, but there's many websites which offer anime in good quality, for a low monthly/hourly price. And these websites, have a lot of users, therefore they're making a lot of money. If these companies were prepared to offer all of their anime online, and charge customers for it, I'm sure they'd make a damn lot of money.
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Problem is most of them are doing so illegally. While the principle may work the actual execution has yet to benefit the anime industry. However the sucess of these sites may convince the industry to move in this direction, much like sites like Napster convinced the music industry to start digital distribution.
cardybean said:
I mean, this is probably an idea that would never work, as the charges for viewing the website content wouldn't be consistent with the charges for the DVDs.
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What you have failed to take into account is that there are more poor people than rich. More people would be able to afford the £10 a month online fee that could afford the £15 per DVD. Therefore more people would use the online service rather than the physical copies, Smaller cost attracts more people making more money.
 
I mustn't have made my post clear, as both the things you've pointed out are thing I though people would assume I knew.

hopeful_monster said:
cardybean said:
I know they're one of the main problems, but there's many websites which offer anime in good quality, for a low monthly/hourly price. And these websites, have a lot of users, therefore they're making a lot of money. If these companies were prepared to offer all of their anime online, and charge customers for it, I'm sure they'd make a damn lot of money.
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Problem is most of them are doing so illegally. While the principle may work the actual execution has yet to benefit the anime industry. However the sucess of these sites may convince the industry to move in this direction, much like sites like Napster convinced the music industry to start digital distribution.
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That's exactly what I'm saying, there is a definite market for offering anime online; it's already existent. But, as we all know (apart from the few new freemium stuff) it's all done illegally atm; I think anime companies would appeal to the anime market in a much bigger way if they were to offer their media online.

hopeful_monster said:
cardybean said:
I mean, this is probably an idea that would never work, as the charges for viewing the website content wouldn't be consistent with the charges for the DVDs.
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What you have failed to take into account is that there are more poor people than rich. More people would be able to afford the £10 a month online fee that could afford the £15 per DVD. Therefore more people would use the online service rather than the physical copies, Smaller cost attracts more people making more money.
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That is, exactly my point. As I stated in my original post; if they wanted to appeal to an extended market (younger kids as I said) and the people whom are willing to pay a small fee than a large on, they'd need to make the price small. Therefore, what I was saying in the post you copied was, the price difference in the online service to the DVDs may be so small that it may cause the people who were stilling willing to buy them off. I'm sure I wouldn't like to be paying like 500% more for something, even if I did prefer it to the alternative.

So, if this whole scenario actually happened, what I'm saying is, it's unlikely they could still sell DVDs and expect to make a considerable profit from them. In my opinion.
 
To put it bluntley ADV went down cuz they realeased mostly **** or unheard of titles over the past 2 years which nobody wanted..........Does anyone think the likes of jinki extended still would have sold if fansubs did not exist?

On the same hand would Haruhri have sold a ton load if fansubs did not exsist???????

It all comes down to realeasing titles that people want or are good. I appreciate ADV realeasing the likes of eva, nadesico, azumanga. and what not in 03/04 But after that they just thought hmmm if we license something like innocent venus im sure a load of people will go out and but it and we will make a ton of money. people didnt go to buy it cuz it was not that good!
 
Kireek said:
To put it bluntley ADV went down cuz they realeased mostly **** or unheard of titles over the past 2 years which nobody wanted..........Does anyone think the likes of jinki extended still would have sold if fansubs did not exist?

On the same hand would Haruhri have sold a ton load if fansubs did not exsist???????

It all comes down to realeasing titles that people want or are good. I appreciate ADV realeasing the likes of eva, nadesico, azumanga. and what not in 03/04 But after that they just thought hmmm if we license something like innocent venus im sure a load of people will go out and but it and we will make a ton of money. people didnt go to buy it cuz it was not that good!
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They also didn't release shonen stuff, which I'd say is the bread and butter of the anime industry....
 
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