Except that the people who have already paid them money have yet to receive the promised goods; so they should ensure their investors are happy and their side of the contract has been met before seeking customers.
Even with the promise, I don't think the 6 month delay would be considered an essential part of the contract. Anime Limited could still fulfil the orders for backers then have the general release be less than 6 months without actually cheating anyone.
Thinking about it, you mentioned that the promise was made at the end of 2015 so it wasn't really part of the Kickstarter project so much as an "added bonus" that Anime Limited decided to suggest. I don't think it'd really be binding, even if Anime Limited feel obliged to make good on it anyway.
Exactly; which is why they should uphold this hold-back despite it potentially making an undetermined number of non-backers upset.
Except that they're really only upholding it to avoid upsetting people (even the respect angle is based on that), while going back on the promise has more tangible benefits for people. You can maybe argue that the better option is to avoid upsetting backers but I don't think there's an argument that upholding the delay actually benefits anyone in any other way (aside from any indirect benefits of not upsetting people but, as discussed, people will be upset either way).
Whether the decision was reasonable or rational is something that we'll have to agree to disagree on, as we both have our own biases there (me being a backer, you being a non-backer). However, as the decision has long-since been made, the reasonable thing to do would be to stick to it.
I don't recall saying I wasn't a backer. The idea of needlessly delaying a release when there's no practical reason to do so, purely because seeing other people miss out apparently makes some people happy (and preventing others from missing out would apparently upset them) is highly questionable at best. Any bias in this specific case isn't really relevant, there are significant issues with the basis for the situation.
I think the time since the comments were made could as much be used to defend changing the decision. It's been a long time, circumstances change, people have already waited a long time and now they're being asked to wait longer because otherwise some people won't feel sufficiently "special". I don't think it's any less reasonable to be willing to make changes (even the delay itself was apparently a change quite some time after the project had started).
As I noted when the suggestion was brought up earlier, I highly doubt backers would vote for forfeiting the hold-back, as they have nothing to gain by doing so. Although through no fault of Anime Limited, backers have received numerous emails informing them of delays for over two years (the fulfilment estimate on my account still says November 2014!). While I certainly hope most of their comments have and continue to be civil, would you want to risk poking that hornet's nest by suggesting an aspect of their pledge condition be taken away?
It's true that Anime Limited might not want to bother backers with those kind of questions, especially if their current aim is to avoid upsetting the backers. Still, if they did ask I wouldn't be surprised if most backers were indifferent and merely wanted the release themselves without regard for what anyone else was getting. If most backers were indifferent anyway, then going ahead with the delay would be unnecessary since going against it wouldn't actually upset those who were indifferent or those who support a reduced delay.
I don't expect Anime Limited to change what they're doing, if nothing else they probably wouldn't want to put any extra time into things. Still, I'd like to hope that they'd avoid using an artificial delay for others as some kind of "benefit" to buyers in future. It's unfair and it's always going to upset someone, so it's kind of a silly thing to do. They're apparently not going to do any more Kickstarter projects, so they may not even need to consider such things, but I hope they'd realise that it wasn't such a good idea just on the off-chance something similar comes up in the future.
Honestly though, why should other people enjoy an immediate general release? The backers are the ones who made the subtitling and dubbing of the film possible by entrusting AL with money earned through their own hard labour. They paid up front, effectively contributing wages earned through hard labour to ensure the project would happen. By asking them to rescind the hold back, you're essentially saying it's acceptable to be rewarded for absolutely nothing (which is tantamount to marxism). I mean, in an indirect way, you're freeloading off the labour of others.
That's a bit silly, people would still have to buy their copy of the release so it's not a case of non-backers being rewarded in return for nothing. The delay is closer to a penalty anyway, there's no practical reason for it and it's preventing them from even having the option to buy a copy.
The general release is almost certainly going to happen and backers knew that it was a likely outcome of the project from the start, making a release of the film was the stated purpose of the Kickstarter and that's what backers were paying to support. The actual items that backers receive are "rewards" for taking part, essentially side benefits to being a part of the project. If making the release available was the main goal of the project, needlessly delaying that release seems counter-productive. So I suppose the question remains, why shouldn't there be a general release as soon as is practically possible?
(I hope this doesn't count as continuing any arguing per Rui's post, although I'd written a whole lot by the time I saw that post and I'd feel bad to lose it. I suppose I'd appreciate the joke if Rui deleted my post on the basis that it was unreasonable and unfair and it'd be better to upset me than subject people to that.)
