UK Anime Distributor Manga Entertainment Discussion Thread

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I'm not explaining it very well, but as far as I'm concerned "it's not real" doesn't work as an excuse, especially if you're supposed to be dramatically engaged with the work.


britguy said:
:lol: we're getting in to a deep discussion here over a saucy manga. AT the end of the day, you're entitled to be morally offended, and we're also entitled not to be. I just think people get too offended too quickly nowadays.

Character doesnt look 12, so it's just a ridiculous decision byu the author/artists for shock value.

Because what could be more shocking than the prior rape sequence that was being played for fanservice? This wasn't done for shock value, it was done for laughs, which almost makes it worse, since the scene in question could have been equally as funny if she wasn't 12...

Looking back, that entire manga is stomach churning, if only Boichi's editor had the guts to tell him to keep the funny stuff and ditch everything else.
 
Buzz201 said:
Because what could be more shocking than the prior rape sequence that was being played for fanservice? This wasn't done for shock value, it was done for laughs, which almost makes it worse, since the scene in question could have been equally as funny if she wasn't 12...

I think you're taking a disagreement in views on this topic rather to heart. We get it, you're deeply offended by what you believe is pedophilic content, thats fine.

Not having read the content, I cannot accurately comment, but after seeing the character design I have made my decision that I would not be offended in seeing her try to seduce a male character in the manga, because at the end of the day, I can see that quite clearly she is not a 12 year old.
 
ilmaestro said:
Punch line to the flute scene was p.funny though.


I'm inclined to disagree, that entire scene grossed me out. I was however impressed that somehow they managed to avoid all the obvious flute based sex jokes and still end up with something awful. I almost gave the show a pass on sheer flute-based sex joke creativity alone...
 
I'd say the key point in this discussion is the distinction between saying that the particular way a character is drawn or described affects your personal enjoyment of the work and saying that the particular way a character is drawn or described should affect everyone's enjoyment.

Basically, it's fine if you have particular feelings about it but you should be cautious of suggesting that your view is the "right" view.

I'm not sure but I'd like to think that Buzz201 and Qaiz were more talking about their personal reactions rather than trying to suggest that everyone should react the same way.
 
I think it's worth pointing out that Jerome's comments weren't targeting titles with characters in any particular age-range but rather, fan-service driven series' as a whole.
However, I will note that the cast of numerous fan-service titles are actually of the average age of consent in Japan, with plenty of them being so in the United Kingdom as well. I can't comment on Sun-Ken Rock as I haven't read it nor am I familiar with the work, but I can confidently say that it's an outlier and the vast majority of works feature characters who are of legal age in the work's country of origin.

NormanicGrav said:
That may be the case here in the UK but I'm pretty sure over in North America (and presumably Australia) it's doing pretty darn well. High School DxD's LE sold out instantly and that wasn't common for Funi sets at that time.
They likely do in Japan as well, considering that the stuff keeps on being made :p. Although I would argue that perhaps the slow sales of these titles could also be influenced by the weaker marketing emphasis given to titles of this nature. With sex selling in every other industry and titles like Monster Musume constantly topping the New York Times Manga Best Sellers lists, I find it hard to believe that the UK anime industry of all things is such an outlier.
 
Joshawott said:
I think it's worth pointing out that Jerome's comments weren't targeting titles with characters in any particular age-range but rather, fan-service driven series' as a whole.
However, I will note that the cast of numerous fan-service titles are actually of the average age of consent in Japan, with plenty of them being so in the United Kingdom as well. I can't comment on Sun-Ken Rock as I haven't read it nor am I familiar with the work, but I can confidently say that it's an outlier and the vast majority of works feature characters who are of legal age in the work's country of origin.

NormanicGrav said:
That may be the case here in the UK but I'm pretty sure over in North America (and presumably Australia) it's doing pretty darn well. High School DxD's LE sold out instantly and that wasn't common for Funi sets at that time.
They likely do in Japan as well, considering that the stuff keeps on being made :p. Although I would argue that perhaps the slow sales of these titles could also be influenced by the weaker marketing emphasis given to titles of this nature. With sex selling in every other industry and titles like Monster Musume constantly topping the New York Times Manga Best Sellers lists, I find it hard to believe that the UK anime industry of all things is such an outlier.
Fair enough, I expect Monster Musume to do well if the BBFC gives it an uncut/uncensored approval (as anime fans* are quite picky with their content).

*Like myself and many on this forum.
 
ilmaestro said:
Buzz201 said:
I'm partial to oblivious misunderstandings.

I guess you quoted me before my edit - what is your opinion on the way Ohoho is presented?

I've forgotten who she is, but if it's general she's over 18 and consenting I can deal with it.
 
Buzz201 said:
ilmaestro said:
Buzz201 said:
I'm partial to oblivious misunderstandings.

I guess you quoted me before my edit - what is your opinion on the way Ohoho is presented?

I've forgotten who she is, but if it's general she's over 18 and consenting I can deal with it.
I'm pretty sure its stated that she is 18 in CRs translation of Sun Ken Rock
 
sniper_samurai said:
I'm pretty sure its stated that she is 18 in CRs translation of Sun Ken Rock


From Sun-ken Rock? I've forgotten who she is. I thought ilmaestro was talking about Heavy Object. Clearly I was being stupid.

Most of the fanservice in Sun-Ken Rock made me uncomfortable, but as a general rule if it's over 18 and consenting, I don't care. There was some unconsenting stuff in SKR that made me uncomfortable, but I can't
 
Changing things during localization doesn't do anything to make it better for me either when it comes to this stuff.
 
I'm so confused by the jumbled threads on this page.

Personally speaking I don't find fan service with young characters appealing at all. This country in general seems to have a weird relationship with the concept, with some content excised by the BBFC entirely yet some other stuff passing through fine, so I guess they're confused about where to draw the line too. In any case, I suspect that fan service shows do badly in the UK due to a number of factors, from imagined 'cuts' (so many people express astonishment when I tell them something has been licensed in the UK, exclaiming that it will be cut...), the fact that they're often released on DVD when a nice BD already exists overseas, and the generally poor quality of information from distributors about whether we can expect the television or uncut versions. That and they're all eating into one another's market by being generally identical cringe-worthy light fan service shows about ditzy schoolgirls falling over. And they're not exactly keepers; if you watched a fan service show on Crunchyroll a year or so ago it generally has to be pretty good to deserve a permanent (and potentially embarrassing) place in your library at home.

I don't really buy UK releases of fan service shows myself, because if I cared enough I would have imported them. The visuals are the main part of the show so I may as well get a decent quality release of my skeevy nudity-filled comedy shows.

R
 
I tend towards having a "live and let live" kind of attitude. I'm not really convinced that any particular material can be inherently harmful and I tend to think that some degree of age restriction is plenty (though some effort to make sure people know what to expect when buying your product doesn't hurt too).

I think my biggest issue with these kind of debates is that the people against a particular kind of material tend to proceed on the basis that what they assume to be the motivation behind consuming this material must be the only possible motivation those consuming it could have. Trying to actually consider any alternative or accept the possibility of some complexity seems to be seen as too much effort for far too many people.

In the case of fanservice with young characters, there's often an assumption that consumers of that kind of material must have a desire for similar acts to those portrayed to be carried out with real children. That's a pretty massive assumption without any reliable grounds that I've ever seen. There's also that big difference between thinking about a thing and doing a thing to take into account.

I suppose the other problem is that people will often have some "feeling" that there's something wrong about it but won't quite be able to explain why or truly justify their reasons for thinking that the material should not be allowed to exist. It's kind of frustrating, if there is a genuine issue created by a certain kind of material then I think it'd be worth finding out about but most people seem to be happy enough to simply demonise something based on subjective tastes rather than any real facts. Sadly, that is also often the case for law makers or others with a position to place restrictions on materials (though, in fairness these people often rely on popular support to maintain their positions or simply have no real limit to prevent them from using their personal preference as a basis for judgement).

I think Rui makes some good points about the more practical reasons for fan service shows to perform poorly. I'd also agree that, while censorship and such can be an issue for some it's probably not that big a factor for most (at least, assuming they get far enough to be released here in the first place).
 
Buzz201 said:
ilmaestro said:
Buzz201 said:
I'm partial to oblivious misunderstandings.

I guess you quoted me before my edit - what is your opinion on the way Ohoho is presented?

I've forgotten who she is, but if it's general she's over 18 and consenting I can deal with it.
I meant in HO. Ohoho is an even younger Elite than Milinda - she doesn't look any older than her age, but she uses a fake image of a much... older... lady as her public persona.
 
At least now when people say "All anime is tentacle porn", we can say "No it isn't and even when it is, it doesn't sell!"?

To elaborate on my previous comments regarding marketing, given that the vast majority of Manga UK's Top 10 titles are from franchises targeted towards an adolescent audience, I think a potential issue could be that distributors might be doing the equivalent of trying to advertise softcore pornography to the Ben-10 crowd; although it would be great if we could see some purchaser demographics as I wouldn't be surprised if people in their late-teens or early-twenties are buying a number of them due to being on TV in their younger years, such as Yu-Gi-Oh!. So perhaps it might be worth exploring other potential avenues to advertise mature titles to a more appreciative audience?

I think another potential issue could be that a number of these shows are simply marketed too ambiguously; leaving people unfamiliar with the franchise unaware of what the product actually entails. As an example, I'll go back to the previously mentioned Samurai Girls:
Amazon Synopsis said:
Things seemed to be going so well for Muneakira Yagyu. On top of dealing with Jubei, the immortal samurai warrior who fell out of the sky and into his arms and lips, he used his ability to awaken the latent power of a female samurai with a kiss to successfully juggle a handful of very powerful, very female master samurai, AND led them all to victory against the minion of a great evil. So was it too much to ask for a little break in the routine of saving Japan? Apparently it was, as another great evil has appeared in the land, this one even stronger than the last. However, that's the least of Muneakira's problems, because with all the women he's kissed in order to awaken their latent samurai powers, the inevitable has finally happened. Someone's taking the long walk down the aisle with a samurai girl! It's going to be a really old fashioned wedding and any resistance by the groom will be totally feudal!
At first glance the cover art doesn't really strike me as the series being "that" kind of show and the official blurb doesn't really help either. I mean, aside from the single phrase "Juggle a handful of very powerful, very female master samurai" it could actually arguably pass for the synopsis of a shojo-action series :p.

Conversely however, I think a fine job was done with High School DxD's first season. While the front cover doesn't really say much and the DxD in the title probably speaks for itself, the spine features an image of Rias with clearly visible cleavage that would likely jump out even when sorted into the overcrowded blu-ray section at HMV. Then there's the back cover with clear sexualised imagery and the legendary tagline (which Jeremy Graves famously read out enthusiastically at a panel) - the intent of the series is clearly there. To that end, I'll be interested in learning how MVM's release of So I Can't Play H! does for them because I think the back cover in particular is a stroke of genius.

At the moment, one of Marvelous Games' most successful video game franchises is the ridiculously sexualised Senran Kagura series, which I imagine is largely down to the franchise being so unashamed to admit that it is what it is. I mean, this is the front cover of a niche game that made the UK Top 40 on release and convinced the North American publisher that it would be worth giving future games physical releases in that territory. Then when it came to releasing the sequel, pre-sales went pretty fast. The video game and anime markets tend to crossover nicely even before Senran Kagura's anime inspired visuals, so perhaps this could be a sign that the market responds more strongly to more suggestive artwork? Sadly, the artwork on FUNimation's release of the anime is pretty pedestrian (and I heard the adaptation as a whole was too, but that's another topic entirely).

I guess the tl;dr of what I'm trying to say is that maybe the best way to sell smut is to fully embrace what it is and run with it? I can already see Monster Musume: Everyday Life With Monster Girls being a strong seller for MVM because from the outset that series' marketing was frank about what it is and then it spread like wildfire through word of mouth. Of course, there is always the chance that a production committee may not actually want you to do that. It must work for Sentai Filmsworks though, considering how often they sex-up their covers.

(On that note, does anyone know which cover The Comic Book Artist & His Assistants used? The UK release is oddly absent from Amazon.co.uk, while Base.com shows different artwork compared to Manga UK's website; which was used by Sentai Filmworks and frankly, I feel captures the nature of the series better).

EDIT: Dear Arceus, did I really write such a long post about selling ecchi anime? I think I might need to go to bed...
 
Joshawott said:
(On that note, does anyone know which cover The Comic Book Artist & His Assistants used? The UK release is oddly absent from Amazon.co.uk, while Base.com shows different artwork compared to Manga UK's website; which was used by Sentai Filmworks and frankly, I feel captures the nature of the series better).
The cover on Manga's website is the one they used, which caught me by surprise at the time. I didn't do much research on that series, so I blind-bought it mostly based on the Base.com artwork looking like a pleasant slice-of-life comedy with harem elements. Then it dropped through the letterbox and when I saw the actual cover my reaction was 'Oh, it's one of those shows'.
 
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