New Anime Releases 06/07/09
- Thread starter Neferpitou
- Start date
Sorry to interrupt the linguistic ping pong; just wanted to add my angle on the quality/quantity debate.
I can't say whether I like Manga's or Beez's approach better. I am very pleased both companies appear to be adapting quite aggressively to the changing market in R2 and Andrew is taking on information to adjust their strategy as much as possible even now. It won't affect shows they've already planned out but might pave the way for even closer parity with R1 in the next generation of licenses. If Beez can get more simultaneous (or near simultaneous) worldwide releases going at universally fair prices then I am definitely very interested. We got the best deal around, value-wise, on things like Diebuster so I was happy to support that.
I also love Manga's bargain bin approach as it's enabled me to pick up a lot of "B" rank shows at insanely low prices on initial release. I don't have to think twice before buying a Manga collection nowadays as the price is right immediately and the on-disc quality is there too, compared to some older Manga efforts. They've really turned themselves around.
It's important to me though that the market for collectors is still well served. If Beez vanished and only Manga remained, we'd see cheap anime (possibly less cheap - they'd have less local competition) but unless it's GITS or Bleach there'd be no premium sets for collectors. I love a bargain as much as anyone but I'd rather pay £40 for something I love than £20 for a mediocre, yet enjoyable show. I have no universal rule on how much I want to pay per episode because I'll pay much more for an episode of Utena than I ever would for an episode of Naruto. I bought the Japanese FLCL singles, which ran for almost £30 each at the time with import taxes, and each contained one episode. I'd have liked to have paid less, naturally, yet at the time no license was in sight and I wanted to see FLCL quite badly.
I would never pay crazy amounts like £1/minute for anything less than an "A" title. Meanwhile £1/episode is about my limit for a "B" title.
The point I'm trying to get to is that if a certain company has a title I want, the fact that another company releases things cheaper is irrelevant. A volume of Negima doesn't have the same value to me as a customer as a volume of Slayers.
It's a shame Bandai in R1 seems to be in freefall at the moment as it's making Beez's library releases look bad when they're directly comparable to devalued Anime Legends sets. Comparing Gundam 00, which is one of their near-simultaneous releases, paints a much rosier picture. The box looks delicious and volume 1 in R1 runs dangerously close to the danger zone with import duty. I'm happy to support local companies where the quality is there and there's no advantage to buying abroad.
Have to dash now for work so will tidy this up later, sorry :/
R
I can't say whether I like Manga's or Beez's approach better. I am very pleased both companies appear to be adapting quite aggressively to the changing market in R2 and Andrew is taking on information to adjust their strategy as much as possible even now. It won't affect shows they've already planned out but might pave the way for even closer parity with R1 in the next generation of licenses. If Beez can get more simultaneous (or near simultaneous) worldwide releases going at universally fair prices then I am definitely very interested. We got the best deal around, value-wise, on things like Diebuster so I was happy to support that.
I also love Manga's bargain bin approach as it's enabled me to pick up a lot of "B" rank shows at insanely low prices on initial release. I don't have to think twice before buying a Manga collection nowadays as the price is right immediately and the on-disc quality is there too, compared to some older Manga efforts. They've really turned themselves around.
It's important to me though that the market for collectors is still well served. If Beez vanished and only Manga remained, we'd see cheap anime (possibly less cheap - they'd have less local competition) but unless it's GITS or Bleach there'd be no premium sets for collectors. I love a bargain as much as anyone but I'd rather pay £40 for something I love than £20 for a mediocre, yet enjoyable show. I have no universal rule on how much I want to pay per episode because I'll pay much more for an episode of Utena than I ever would for an episode of Naruto. I bought the Japanese FLCL singles, which ran for almost £30 each at the time with import taxes, and each contained one episode. I'd have liked to have paid less, naturally, yet at the time no license was in sight and I wanted to see FLCL quite badly.
I would never pay crazy amounts like £1/minute for anything less than an "A" title. Meanwhile £1/episode is about my limit for a "B" title.
The point I'm trying to get to is that if a certain company has a title I want, the fact that another company releases things cheaper is irrelevant. A volume of Negima doesn't have the same value to me as a customer as a volume of Slayers.
It's a shame Bandai in R1 seems to be in freefall at the moment as it's making Beez's library releases look bad when they're directly comparable to devalued Anime Legends sets. Comparing Gundam 00, which is one of their near-simultaneous releases, paints a much rosier picture. The box looks delicious and volume 1 in R1 runs dangerously close to the danger zone with import duty. I'm happy to support local companies where the quality is there and there's no advantage to buying abroad.
Have to dash now for work so will tidy this up later, sorry :/
R
fabio de lunatico
Claymore
£25-30 would be reasonable! But, right, the Amazon price for Gurren Lagann is a one-off and must be losing them money. No other store has the limited edition for less than £39, and nobody is offering Gundam 00 -- which I might have been interested in -- for less than that either. So if I want the Gundam 00 box (and I do love boxes) I have to fork out almost 40 quid. For 8/9 episodes and some chipboard. No chance. If that makes me a cheapskate, then I'm a big fat cheapskate!ayase said:
Aion
Time-Traveller
I don't get the Beez quality vs. quantity debate when, with a £29.99 RRP, MVM have just released the first BL series in a full-size art box and they're going to do do the same with the second series. Since storues usually cut the RRP close to in half, that means £18.
The TTGL/00 art boxes hold 10 episodes and aren't complete series. How is getting a a box that will get damaged as it opens like the Seed sets (00) and getting a small drill key that you'll look at once and then put away value for money at £38?
If MVM are now going to continue releasing art boxes for reasonable amounts (with the hrlp of RRP cuts) and Manga are going to keep releasing cheap releases, what place does Beez have?...or, at least I would say that if there weren't some happy to pay £38 for the TTGL art box.
The TTGL/00 art boxes hold 10 episodes and aren't complete series. How is getting a a box that will get damaged as it opens like the Seed sets (00) and getting a small drill key that you'll look at once and then put away value for money at £38?
If MVM are now going to continue releasing art boxes for reasonable amounts (with the hrlp of RRP cuts) and Manga are going to keep releasing cheap releases, what place does Beez have?...or, at least I would say that if there weren't some happy to pay £38 for the TTGL art box.
chaos
The Boss
All I can say is natural selection on companies are way faster than on living beings.Aion said:
As we are in the middle of a recession, this would be the best time for natural selection to act and maybe we see one or another company go?
I remember a while ago in another discussion in this forum when someone mentioned that the UK market as a place for two or three companies.
ADV UK is almost gone. It is still struggling to survive, but when the only thing they can tell fans is that they will be present on the next London expo, one can hardly see much going on fro them.
Revelation release schedule has nothing in store, except finishing up some series they started as well as an odd boxset here and there.
What about the other three companies? This is the sort of thing that fans can only guess, as the companies will never disclose such information. How is cheap releases / LE sets working for each company? It's one of those things that only time will tell.
If only they were selling toys in here, I could believe that they are making money out of it instead, but sellign only DVD's, I just wonder how much DVD's they must sell to pay out the costs of releasing.
I'm writing this from memory and its a bit blurred now, but I remember ADV guy mentioning that FF costed one million dollars to license. This would mean that you need to sell at least 25000 DVD's at 40 dollars to pay for the license only, not mentioning authoring, dubbing, pressing the DVD's...