American Anime Industry

I guess this applies to all countries (other than Japan) that buy the rights to anime and air/sell it, but the American anime industry is all I hear talked about (or know anything about), so that's why I specified the American anime market.

First, I'm not talking about American series made to look like anime. I'm talking about America buying the rights to anime series and the subsequent selling of the series in America. Just to clarify.

What does everyone think about the anime industry in America? Is it in good shape? Bad shape? How can we improve it? What, if anything, is hurting it? Do fansubs have an impact on the American anime industry? If so, is that impact positive or negative? If the anime industry in America is hurting, whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the companies that buy and sell the series? If so, what should they do differently to better sell anime? Feel free to answer those questions and the like.

The main question I want people to answer is this: How is the American anime industry important, to you and to all of America and all anime fans?

Basically, if America stopped buying the rights to anime series and stopped selling anime series, how would you feel? Would you be hurt, or would you not care? Do you think anime fans, in general, should try to help the anime industry in America?

that would suck major balls. I like my dubs, since I buy my anime as well. I hope they don't quit here in the US.

the industry is doing pretty good, some well known titles are being licensed.
the American people need some sort of new anime to leech off of every other time.

Fansubbers.. they have their own little thing going, i don't see how this affects the companies since its great subbing against horrendous dubbing.
[size=10]i tend to enjoy fansubs more than dubs[/h]
i download all of my anime from good Fansubbers instead of buying it from the market; like most people. maybe this is why some companies might lose money when marketing. everything becomes popular from either all the hype it gets or from great reviews. maybe thats what is needed.

No i wouldn't really care that American stopped selling anime series, as long as if they don't stopped selling merchandise like keychains, pillow cases, etc. from those certain animes.
[size=10]to answer the main question, it gives us a way to connect to the world of anime.
also, sorry if most of this does not make sense, i lack sleep. ^^''[/h]

This has me on the fence. Some dubs are good and some dubs are bad. I like buying my anime and the fact that there is a function on the DVD for original Japanese audio is a godsend. The only problem with that is you may not get the bad voices but you get the bad translations.

Good answers so far, but how about this -

What if dubs stopped being made?

Personally, I think most dubs are useless. If a series is going to come on TV, then it should probably be dubbed (for greater appeal), but very few shows are aired on American TV. And most anime fans seem to dislike dubs a great deal (and usually with good reason), so what purpose does dubbing a series serve, besides to eat up money and give voice actors work?

My opinions are beside the point though. The question is, would anime in America be better if companies stopped making dubs? It would save a lot of money, so companies could charge less than thirty bucks for four episodes of a series, and that may get more anime DVDs sold. Right? Or is that wrong?

Wrong. Remember, even idiots buy anime. Idiots that don't like to read. Idiots that buy Bleach, DBZ, Naruto, One Piece, etc., etc. DVDs en masse. If leaving things subbed only was good, I'm sure the industry would have done it a long time ago. Dubs let the mainstream enjoy it because they are necessary to keep business afloat.

I use to collect anime. I would buy it, watch it, then store it on my shelf. Then one day I sat back looked at the shelf and thought " that is alot of anime. I wonder how much i've spent?" I added it up and it was $1700ish. I couldn't believe I had spent that amount of money on anime. So I wrapped it all up, packaged it and sold it all for $700. After that I never bought another anime. This was 3 years ago. I decided to only download from that day forward and now I have alot more and it hasn't costed me a dime.

Long story short if the American anime industry closed or went bankrupt tomorrow I wouldn't care.

Money is just an object. Call me a idiot etc, but Ill continue to buy anime.

most dubs are considered crap, some are good.
Yeah, the only people that will miss out are the masses
(some of which are really late and are missing out on the "current" ones in the anime world.)
and the companies.

You act like that's a lot. I feel like I need to say this: If you counted your expenses for any of your "hobbies", you'd probably be surprised at how much you spend. You have videos games, right? How much have you spent on that? Or do you get that "for free"?

Opportunity cost, other people probably found better uses for the money. Ie. They got more utility from spending it on something else.

@ZeroOBK
A lot of people here pirate, so the games are free (same with DVDs, and even books). The consoles are not that expensive. I personally only own 4 consoles, with a grand total cost (all modding included, I do most of it myself), ~$800AU (555 US).
So yeah 1700 US is a lot.

Back on topic, I hate dubs be it in games, anime or TV. So long as anime thrives in Japan and there are fansubbers around, I don't really care what happens to the American anime industry (then again, I find it difficult to buy anime here anyhow). From what I read on various forums the state of the American anime industry isn't particularly good, but it will stay afloat.

$555 for four consoles? Where do you buy them? Wouldn't a PS3 by itself cost over $300? The high price of the consoles are the main reason I don't play any new games, because I can't afford the consoles and the $60 games. That's off-topic though.

On topic, ZeroOBK's right - $1,700 for for a hobby isn't that expensive if you've had the hobby for a long time, like at least five years. If a person is an anime fan for five years and buys four DVDs a year, that's easily over $500, and four DVDs aren't a lot. If you have a decent job and are doing well financially (and anime is your highest priority hobby), then you can buy at least one DVD a month without problem. Twelve DVDs a year, over five years, is over $1,500. And most anime fans I know have been fans for more than five years.

Anyways, enough math. Anime is an expensive hobby, but so is just about everything else.

The main reason I don't buy anime is a lack of funds. I don't have a good job, and my family isn't doing well financially. But sometimes, I still do get some money to spend. What do I usually buy? Either cheap video games that have been out for years or manga. Why? Is it because I can just download any anime series I want? Yes and no.

I watch a lot of anime, like just about everybody on Fakku, and rarely do I come across a series that is worth buying, a series that I would rewatch. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of those series, as is Yu Yu Hakusho, and I want to buy both series (especially since the latter is so cheap right now). But series like Naruto and Bleach and School Days, I wouldn't want to buy. I wouldn't even want them as gifts because they'd just take up space. I will never rewatch them, and owning them would serve no purpose whatsoever. So, of course I'm not going to buy a series unless I've seen it before (except for series that are critically acclaimed and seem to be up my avenue, like Gurren Lagann). This leads to one of the big problems with the anime industry in America:

It is impossible to rent anime.

Maybe it's just the stores where I live, but no video store near me carries any sort of anime. I have only come across one video store, and that was a Hollywood Video that carried a very small amount of anime. Netflix might offer anime, but I'm not a member, so I don't know. Can any Netflix members say whether or not they offer anime DVDs?

When a single DVD is over $25, how can anyone afford to test out a series by buying the first DVD and seeing if the series is good? If they don't like the series, they can't take the DVD back and get a refund. So, people take to the internet and download a series. They may think, "I'll just watch the first few episodes and see if it's good," but if they enjoy the series, they'll get to the logical end - "I have the series right here, for free; why pay for it?" So in the end, the person either decides to never buy anime, or like me, he decides to download all anime and then just make a list of series he would like to own and maybe buys the DVDs in the future.

Some companies seem to be trying to fix this problem, by putting shows on the OnDemand feature on cable providers and making the shows available online for previewing. But I don't know if that helps much.

What can be done to get around this problem of not being able to check out shows before buying them? Or not being able to simply rent, instead of buying, the mediocre shows that don't deserve to be bought?

@ShaggyJebus

When did I say I had a ps3? Sorry, I only own a ps2. I won't lie, the reason I didn't get it is entirely due to the fact you can't mod it.

Yes I have to agree that DVDs are far too expensive. They should reduced the cost of packaging, considering how DVDs are less than 15 cents and with more sales the fixed costs (the dubbing, marketing etc.) can be distributed over a greater volume.

I don't have insider info so I'd have to assume they're already maximising their profit with the most efficient variable/fixed/sale price ratio.

As you said, inaccessability is also a major problem. Let's face it, anything that target a niche market suffer from the same problem.

The problem can mostly be resolved through online systems that let's you stream at a cost. They're pretty cheap per ep. and I haven't seen any myself so I wouldn't know the quality. Naruto is already been sold in this way on crunchyroll (I think).

@ShaggyJebus
Yeah, Netflix carries anime.
You can rent anime films and complete series, their selection is okay... especially if you want to check out a popular show before buying it.

I just brought up the PS3 because it's a popular system at the moment, and it is expensive. I thought you were saying that you had current-gen systems (PS3, XBOX 360, Wii) and got them for less than $600 US. That would be an impressive feat.



That's good to know. Thanks for the info. It sucks that I don't have Netflix and probably won't anytime in the future. Maybe I can convince a friend with a credit card to join Netflix, and I'll leech off of him.

I think it's safe to say that, currently, anime is on a steady decline in America. With Geneon pulling out of the race and ADV overextending themselves so much that they actually had to sell off some of their previously licensed titles, it's safe to say that things aren't improving. I've gone to over a dozen anime conventions in the past five years or so and things just aren't the same as they were in 2003. All of the large distributors are cutting back dramatically with the exception of Funimation. The sales reps that I've spoken to briefly aren't willing to talk over much about it but it's pretty obvious that they're worried about the state of things.

As to the cause of the decline... You could possibly lay part of the blame on the digisubbers, but I don't think they're the main problem. Just like other niche markets, things get hot for a while, then they steadily decline for years. American comic books come to mind as a good example of this. In the early '90s comics were HUGE. Gradually, though, the market was saturated with titles and the interest of more general audiences waned. With a lack of a new audience to pick up the slack, things got bad and a lot of titles were canceled.

That's probably the major contributor to the state of anime right now. It's not reaching a more generalized audience. The only people buying DVDs now are the same people who were buying them in 2003. All the rest either lost interest, "grew out of it," or both. With mainstream TV channels like Cartoon Network severely cutting back on their anime content, fewer and fewer people are being exposed to potentially new anime.

Expense is probably a contributing factor. Licensing, translating, dubbing, editing, etc... costs money. The less money coming in, the more the main distributors have to charge for less content. Instead of 5 or 6 episodes per DVD, you get 3 or 4 for the same price. A representative of ADV at AnimeNext the year before last confessed that declining interest and costs were the cause for their decrease in episodes per DVD. He also hinted that this was why the majority of their manga line was canceled and almost all of their editorial staff was laid off. One year later they downsized again.

Fansubbers have been around for yeeeears before interest in anime became more mainstream. I can remember buying crappy VCR tapes of Escaflowne and Princess Mononoke in a small stall in NYC when the only anime being release on tapes were DBZ, Sailor Moon, and Star Blazers. There may be more of them now and it might be easier to acquire episodes, but that isn't hurting the industry as much as licensing companies would have us believe. I, for example, buy at least half of my anime on DVD. The rest is newly digisubbed episodes that I've downloaded and haven't been licensed yet.

Where the hell was I going with this? I dunno. I'd say anime will gradually keep becoming a smaller industry in America if things keep going the way they are now. If less people are exposed to anime then less people will become interested in it. That's common sense. So long as Adult Swim would rather put on their retarded homemade Tim and Eric crap on instead of quality anime, new viewers will continue to decline.

As for dubbing... Personally, I don't know why they bother when they could package this stuff out with directly translated scripts as subtitles and anime fans would be MORE interested in it. I can only assume that they think English voice overs will make it more accessible. I can see that, honestly, since I have a friend or two who absolutely hate watching anything anime with subtitles. "I'd rather watch the screen than read!" Anime licensing companies are absurdly proud of their dubs...

Very good post.

Two things came to me as I was reading your post. First, you mentioned Cartoon Network and other channels cutting back on the amount of anime they show. I've noticed this too, and it really puzzles me. Not too long ago, CN had an entire night dedicated to anime, where they showed four straight hours of anime, including series like Naruto, Zatch Bell, One Piece, etc. A few months passed, and all of a sudden, most of the anime series were gone. Naruto was all that was left. And recently, they've even cut back on showing Naruto. I don't understand it, because CN isn't personally paying to dub the series or anything like that. They just pay to be able to air the show, just like they do with Total Drama Island. But because they've cut back, more people lose the chance to get into anime series. Or maybe they cut back because enough people weren't paying attention to the anime series. Still, something seems fishy, especially when Naruto was as popular as it was.

The second thing was the dubs. As I've already stated, dubs seem to cost more money than they're worth, but Zero had a good point when he said that dubs are necessary to reach the mainstream. Reading your post, an idea struck me - anime DVDs that are come out fast and are just subtitled, not dubbed, and cost a lot less. The companies sell those subbed DVDs, and while those are being sold, they produce the dub, and later on release a DVD with the subs and the dubbed version. That way, people who won't watch the dub will get the show faster and be able to save a little bit of money. And the stubborn people who refuse to watch their anime subbed can wait a little while and pay a little more. No one's a victim. The dubbed release of the show could even the box set release with an entire season in it.

There are probably problems with this that I'm not seeing at the moment, but it seems like a really good idea. I have the first Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya DVD, and the dub is nothing spectacular (though it's not really bad either). I would love to be able to buy the other DVDs for $10 less and "miss out" on the dub. Even $5 less for no dub would be a good deal to me, because I'm never going to watch the dub of the series.

The argument over who pays whom to air anime has never been fully resolved, that I've found. Most people assume that CN pays the licensing company to be able to air their anime. I've heard from some sources that the opposite is true, though and that anime licensing companies pay CN to air their episodes in hopes that it'll stimulate their DVD sales. Much like commercial time is bought by producers.

That would actually make a lot more sense to me considering the cavalier way CN has treated anime lately. The death of Toonami is what's hurt Naruto's play time and killed any hope of less popular anime like Zatch Bell and Yu Yu Hakusho. The people at Adult Swim have frequently and openly bash anime for its lack of big number viewers which is why they've cut back to only one new show a season and keep showing things that got decent ratings, even if they've already been played to death *coughCowboyBebopcough*. Actually, anime fans are the butt of most of their jokes on the AS forums. It gets pretty brutal at times.

I like your idea about two separate releases for anime, but I couldn't tell you how viable it is or not. Without knowing how much it costs to actually produce the DVDs it's hard to say if it'd work or not. The actual number of DVDs sold per title probably has a lot to do with it, too. I'd be all for a subbed-only release if it were available. I only wonder how cost effective it'd be. From what I understood of what the ADV rep said, the actual license is the real expense. The more popular the title, the more it costs to license it from the Japanese producers. Haruhi Suzumiya was huge, so it probably cost a lot to license, hence why they released it on four DVDs rather than three. They need the sales from the DVDs to cover all their costs plus some in order to consider it worth it.

Man, I'm rambling a lot tonight...

http://www.mania.com/top-five-things-anime-companies-did-wrong-2008_article_111940.html

An interesting article, if you haven't seen it already. Especially "The Dying Dub" and "Devaluing the product" sections. The latter of which sort of applied to me today as I bought Code Geass Part 2 LE for $46 (should be ~$70) at Best Buy of all places.

Really? I couldn't read at all, I kept looking at his avatar. :shock: