But we all want booklets now, I mean another distributor said it, so it must be true.
I await their re-release of Evangelion 1.11, I'd die laughing if it was exactly the same as Manga's but with a rigid box. Especially after their obnoxious comments about "rebuilding Evangelion in the UK" -- Making everyone pay 7 times the price they were before achieves that how?
Chipboard boxes look nice, but would I pay extra for one? Nah. Was I upset when Death Note had a cardboard box instead? Nah. Would I import a release from Australia, just for one? Nah. I just don't understand the bizarre levels of importance anime fans attach to them.
Re differences: Different designs on the rigid, digipack, art cards with a slight twist & more artwork than used before. The booklet is similar with a few small additions as that's what we have to work with but overall it's different
. We've done what we can with a title we love to pieces as we wanted to deliver something different. The price it was before was due to it running into the end of its life with Manga and needing what we call a "sell-off" period in this space.
Re price: So let me get this straight - you are comparing a price done as a promo to sell off stock at end of lifespan for one company (SRP was not £5.99 on Eva 1.11) to the SRP of Evangelion 1.11 because HMV isn't discounting it? Like everyone we can't control what people do with SRP after we hand a show over - for example that Gurren boxset on Zavvi's SRP is £59.99, yet you can have the whole show + films for £29.99 just now (which with collector's goodies too is insanely good).
For Eva 1.11 - we went out of our way to make it available at £19.99 directly ourselves to start off with so circa the price of an anime film on BD standard. Yes you had to pay upfront and if I could change that I would but we're not Amazon or GAME so it's hard to do here I am afraid. This was because we recognise currently we're in at the end of sell-off which means the last price was £5.99 on promotion.
Rest assured though when Evangelion 1.11 has been out as long as it had from Manga from us too, you'll find good prices too on campaign though
. But when you want to do something new with a show - you have to charge for it as shockingly I don't really want to lose money per show
.
Don't believe me? See pricing for Cowboy Bebop, Gurren Lagann and other classics from us that vary in price annually due to campaign pricing
. There's always some point in the year as titles age with any company that you can get them at a good price and eventually those prices "out of season also drop".
Re "obnoxious" line in press: As for the "Rebuilding Evangelion in the UK" - sorry if you found that obnoxious but what was I supposed to say instead? It's just PR speak and I like a good pun, Rebuild of Evangelion -> Rebuilding of Evangelion in the UK -> Starting again with a new style of release
. It wasn't particularly meant to rub anyone the wrong way there so again sorry for clearly doing that. Also please don't go die laughing - what would I do with my mornings replying to such charming comments otherwise
?
Since we're here: You know it's super interesting to me how you say one distributor gives brutal honesty then the rest give and I quote from you "
stage managed ********". When precisely has any of the UK anime distributors given you that? I'd like to think if I wanted to do anything stage managed that I'd not waste my time coming to talk to people like yourself despite frequently being torn into. Keep in mind for me personally Anime Ltd is a company I built from the ground up with people who love what they do & make as much as I do. On my end too I also go into a fair bit more detail at times so you get an actual insight into what this side of the business is like on top of honesty (or I like to think).
Pretty sure I've said before too but the reason Collector's comes first and as you'll see in the coming months that a standard follows about 6 months after is just cost - simple as. It costs money to translate the assets and we frequently do more than any other company in the English speaking world on that frontier, that's not even including design costs and production costs All that needs to be made back or on it's way to it or you have to sell even more standards than before and everyone loses. We should also be setting a cap on that period though to make it uniform so people don't have to guess when one will come.
During that period digital accessibility is important too as if you want a physical copy cheaper then you totally should have
some way that's legal to watch the show in advance and there should be an accessible physical version available in a set period of time instead of ambiguously in the future. I'd say that was our biggest failing to date and we're addressing it now so it'll be reliable at least. We'll never be the perfect company for everyone, nor will any other company for that matter in niche spaces and the trick is doing as right by things as you can and communicating with folk in the fandom.
Talking of trends: It seems like people hate on what we've done for primarily being ahead of the curve there, but as the digital age slowly creeps forwards you have to start offering more than just the show or eventually you'll be left behind. Not today or even in the next few years - but it'll happen as I've said before. The major (thankful) delay is always going to be speed of digital connectivity growth outside of cities, but it's coming sure enough. When it does, you're going to see the number of people in the mainstream casual anime audience who look for that at above the lowest bargain bin prices and the volume we all once needed to make that work profitability-wise will eventually sink away.
Mind you it's worth pointing out Anime as a niche will always have a segment in the venn diagram who want a show cheaply on disc to keep it safe from digital rights lapsing (which is totally smart) and unlike main stream film, I doubt that will change drastically. So fear not, we're definitely redressing that segment in a serious way in the next year.
Here's the thing though - especially the mainstream community who does dip into anime like Death Note, Attack on Titan, Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist etc, the larger number of them already are starting to fit that model.
Ultimately: Our model may irritate at times, but we're constantly evolving it and growing to try and cater to as many people as we can. We know we'll not make everyone happy all the time but we'll keep listening and discussing anyway
. We love anime as much as you folks do or we'd not spend so much acquiring it from Japan to begin with (I wouldn't anyway)!
Hope this essay length piece is interesting and if you get to the end of it, well done
! This was brought to you by me procrastinating from doing presentation documents...
Best,
Andrew,
President / CEO - Anime LTD
