We apologize for this interruption of service…

Usual service will resume as of next Monday.

Circumstances outwith my control have meant no time to put anything up the last two weeks or so and very sorry for that everyone. Stay tuned for more next week though instead!

You know you’re on the right track when…

Here’s an interesting idea…

After the conversation mentioned in my previous post – an interesting thought sprung up. Let’s say Company X has offices in Japan and Europe, owning their company in whole they want to bring anime out quickly in the EU after Japanese TV release to recoup the money using undefined model of release Y. You need a source of quick and cheap subtitles.

But those aren’t easy to come by are the….oh wait a minute – they ARE!

How does this go:

- You inform fansub groups 1 month before you do so that their efforts translating your license are greatly appreciated by the group and that they will be used for their plan to distribute over internet TV shortly.

- In this mail you note they will of course be accredited for their work and a small royalty from any advertising may or may not be paid. If this is a problem they are free to stop subtitling at anytime.

- You pay a translator to check these subs and prepare their own as well in case fansub groups stop subtitling releases. But so long as those subs are accurate you can find loops to allocate that as part of your license release, after all what will a fansub group do…sue you for stealing their subtitles?

Suddenly there is far less incentive to pirate the titles both in the eyes of fans and the effort factor involved for fansub groups. No longer are they doing something daring and impossible, their work is just being yoinked and used by Japan to distribute the anime quicker.

Yes, two wrongs don’t make a right and stealing is inherently a very bad thing to do no matter what the reasons for it. But putting it bluntly, if you take a company’s work such as, say, Death Note and subtitle it KNOWING it will be released in the US very soon – then if a company takes the subs and uses them to speed that process up surely they’re helping a great deal? Especially if they have their own paid translator there to pick up the work as soon as fansub groups quit it. You have to admit it’s a double edged trick that takes a lot of tenacity and guts to try – but the irony of it is delicious…

I ran this idea past colleagues at each company in the UK market and the powers that be and it echoed as not a bad idea.

With that all done, I shrugged it off until I read this article on ANN. Japan seems to have come up with the exact same idea about a month after.

Small world really, but not bad for being on the ball with current thinking across the world…

The question is, piracy to fight piracy – is it really a solution?

How to explain the effects of fansubs in one click.

For those interested in reading regularly – you can expect updates here every Monday so long as something interesting can be said from now on too so tune in then if interested, with extra posts every so often when the situation arises (like this one for the chronologically challenged amongst us).

So I’m sitting down at my desk one day in early January after a grim phonecall to a colleague at another company which went along the lines of:

“Are fansubs really that problematic to us?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll send you the link which details why.“

And this is that link.

While on my search through the internet a week or two back I came across the work of a very gifted graduate of both the University of Texas and the University of Edinburgh. His work extends mostly into IP and such, focusing several published works on fansubs. Outside of the radar of fans and industry alike normally in the UK and EU, these make for an interesting read despite one of which being written in 2005.

If interested, this is rather relevant to my piece coming up on Monday so take a look if you want a bit of background reading before I update on the 18th!

His blog can also be found at www.opencontentlawyer.com for those who are intrigued!

It’s crazy but it may just work…(Aka: Misinformed statements)

“”Anime is a red hot international pop culture phenomenon, but the home video market for anime in Europe is dreadfully underserved,” said ADV Films president John Ledford. “There’s enormous potential there, and that’s why we’re so excited about the partnership with Lace.”"

These words came from the press release about ADV US picking LACE as their new distributor for all ADV titles now they have shut down their UK offices, laying off the staff and made what could well be a big mistake. So on the grand scheme of things such a grandiose piece of misinformation makes me wonder just what planet Mr Ledford is on and if he’d actually asked anyone about the European market before allowing it into a press release.

As pointed out by a friend, if you mean VHS market then sure – it REALLY is underserved. Yet the DVD market is most certainly not, why in the main countries where Anime DVDs are available you have the following distributors per country:

France:

- Beez Entertainment
- Kaze
- Mabel
- Dybex (also covers Belgium + the Netherlands)
- Declic Images (if they manage not to sink themselves by ripping anyone else’s work again…XD)

Germany:

- Anime Virtual
- ADV Films DE (Via LACE again I believe)
- Beez Entertainment
- Momentum (Who hold a big catalog including the Ghibli films)
- OVA Films
- Panini Video
- Polyband
- Red Planet
- SPVision

Tokyopop just pulled OUT of German DVD markets as it was proving too little demand, rather pointing towards over served not under…

UK:

- Beez Entertainment
- ADV Films (Via Lace)
- Manga Entertainment
- MVM
- Revelation Films
- Scala/BlackChip

Sporadic releases from:

- Optimum Asia
- Momentum
- Gonzo

With ADV UK swapping out a UK office in place of a distribution partner, anime on TV backing off – does this seem like part of the European market that is underserved?

Likewise Revelation is slowing down the release of its titles, again hall marks of an excess of titles on the market.

Spain:

- Arait Multimedia
- Beez Entertainment (Via So Good Ent)
- Selecta Vision
- Suevia Films

Poland:

- Anime Virtual
- Beez via Anime Virtual (stopped as of recently due to lack of demand)

Italy:

- Beez Entertainment
- Millenium Storm
- Panini Video
- Terminal Video

Occasional anime distributed in Europe by the following:

- Sony Pictures
- Warner

Does that seem like a underserved anime market in Europe to you? When there are an equal if not more distributors now in each European country often than there are in the US, with more titles being served regularly. Putting two and two together, ADV US must have spent the extra few seconds researching the EU market first, therefore there is one logical conclusion.

It may seem crazy to the rest of us, but let us all salute ADV US’ move to raise the size of the European VHS anime market, after laying off their UK staff it would appear there are a few misconceptions. Much like city dwellers use to think about people who lived in rural areas, that obviously we Europeans still lack running water and the best we can get is VHS because we have to pedal for 2 hours to run the VHS player while it takes 4 to play a DVD.

Seriously though, misinformed statements like at the top of this post annoy especially when a minute or two’s research would reveal that it is completely unfounded.

Thanks to Jonathan Clements and Fellistowe for changes/additions to the list!

Deja Vu and the end of an era.

A brief history lesson for everyone to illustrate current day happenings [1]:

Back in the 90s, there were actually 7 distributors out there:

Manga Video – Familiar anyone? This was Manga Entertainment’s name before it went through endless changes. Released notable titles like Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scrolls, Blood The Last Vampire and of course in 1991 they introduced the UK to Akira.

ADV Films - A name that hasn’t changed much after the initial leap from A.D. Vision to ADV Films. We all know their lineup from the days they launched in the UK (1996) even if not around, titles like Evangelion, Bubblegum Crisis 2040 and Tekken.

MVM - Again a familiar name, launched around the end of the shake up time as a video label (1999), they brought out titles such as Lum, Blue Gender and Sailor Moon.

Kiseki Films – This was run by the Revelation group (sound familiar to anyone?) who released a selection of “the Overfiend” titles to the UK on the success of Manga Video plus a release of Gunbuster (long story there…). So before Revelation Films started releasing Funimation titles, they did release some more “adult” titles!

Pioneer UK – Started in 1995, released titles like Tenchi Muyo and Record of Lodoss War and shut up shop in early Q2 of 2000.

Anime Projects - A small company that released UK versions of Animego’s work. Sadly their titles were not popular at the time due to a small market meaning they lasted from 1992 to 1995 only, though titles still floated around after for a chunk of time.

Western Connection – Originally a company that released some very select foreign films to the UK. When they released the Japanese animated erotic movie The Sensualist[2] in 1994 they decided to release such titles as Devil Hunter Yoko and Ushio and Tora to the UK, sold their licenses to Anime Projects who kept them in print until the label shut down.

What happened? Well as is happening now the “anime bubble” was artificially inflated by many companies coming into the market then over saturating it with titles.

Not entirely the same problem again but it’s undeniable that due to everyone’s best meaning intentions the market has been inflated artificially again and now what we are seeing is that bubble bursting (I predict there is more to come actually in the next few months to be honest).

Despair not though – because it’s my firm belief that underneath this false inflation lies a real growth too. Smaller, but firm, as Rome wasn’t built in a day – nor was the European continent’s love of anime and manga. In France for example – there are conventions larger than any in the US, manga sales are high enough to support circa 40 publishers [3].

It may well take another 5 years for the real growth to climb, but the last few years if nothing else may have helped plant the seeds for that.

ADV will still be releasing titles in the UK – but how successful they will be running it from a US office is another question altogether. With the departure of the likes of Hugh David and staff (some of which have been working there for the last 11 years), they may well be making redundant the one group of people who could save them in the UK (or at least stave off impending disasters)…

Expect a more full post on the above paragraph later though. For now though, isn’t it sad that history seems to be repeating itself?

ADV out the game, leaves 4 main distributors in the UK: Beez Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, MVM and Revelation FIlms.

The latter of these is releasing titles so slowly now their release calendar actually goes into 2009 for some 6 volume series now.

Is this the end of anime in the UK? Of course not, stop being silly if you even ponder that question! Things may get worse before better, but things are far from dead!

[1] http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-01-22/adv-films-uk-switches-from-us-run-office-to-uk-partner
[2] http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=5379
[3] http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2007/gb20071226_346610.htm

Why France has a bigger market than the US and UK…

I came across this article in Business Week (it’s actually now up on ANN as well I see).

One thing that is immediately obvious when you go to France, especially places like Paris, is that Japanese animation is treated in almost a completely different way than the UK. Largely thanks to Goldorak (UFO Robo Grendizer to those outside of France) back in the 70s/80s on TV in France and a now more prominent comic culture – Anime is flourishing. Grown up businessmen remember Goldorak fondly and often find themselves investing in newer series too now, something many hope will eventually happen as a result of CSC’s Anime Central and other such ventures.

Nowadays in France, it’s common to see a lot of people reading manga both on their way to and from work as well as in most places you see people reading books. Sales exceed the USA’s sales to the extent that even your regular supermarkets in the suburbs will sell manga in its woefully understocked book aisles! An interesting question raised by the article I linked to is that now a lot of teens about to hit their 20s feel they’re outgrowing the content available. Although this could be due to any number of factors – what we may see soon is a branching into more “adult” manga getting a release, which is already beginning to happen to an extent in fact.

This is highlighted as well by conventions in France, home of an event that doubles the largest US convention with sales over the three day event that would make your average distributor in the UK blush at, as they often resemble a whole month’s sales for a title in the UK.

What relation does this have to the UK? Well DVD sales there vary – more common is it to see a release of series in two boxsets (see my mini-appendix for examples of this), some coming with individual DVD releases also and some not. Sales figures stay relatively constant however – not as much so as with manga but still enough for distributors in the UK to want to kill to get the equivalent of.

One often under-valued effort that may well turn the balance is the hard work put in by people at Tokyopop UK who along with the other slew of manga distributors are trying their best to build up a similar atmosphere for manga in the UK that it has in places like France and Germany.

Will the efforts of manga publishers and CSC’s Anime Central help grow the market in the years to come? We can but hope…

2008 – Make or break for anime?

People may or may not have read the stream of open letters going back and forth – for those interested the links to these go as follows:

Interview with Arthur Smith, GDH (Gonzo)

Open letter to the industry from Anime News Network

Response from Bandai Visual’s president

The above serve as back story in case people are interested.

—-
It’s been a pretty turbulent year for the industry on whole, we’ve seen one new company enter the field in the form of Revelation Films, seen DVD sales drop across the board (unrelated to the previous item!) while on the flipside the fan base is growing and TV is starting to pick up both in the UK and other countries such as South Africa.

On the outside things may not look peachy, but they look like anime is on the rise in the UK, yet things are a bit amiss. You’re seeing more new titles released almost monthly, boxsets as well – but sales are dropping.

Why? Well the open letters I linked to above discuss this in better detail and have said most of the things I would have anyway. Here’s the crux of the matter though and do feel free to correct me if people think I’m wrong, but the real problem is no company at least within the Anime industry has yet been able to formulate a financially successful business model in the UK, or even for the most part US, yet. Arguably this is directly attributable to the strict rules placed upon us all by the people licenses are acquired from though – making it all one big vicious cycle:

- Licensors expect Industry in US/UK to provide more revenue or they get twitchy.

- Industry tries to make DVDs more and more appealing, but with most fans having watched, enthused and then thrown away with a series by the time the dub is prepared, subs readied etc that sales have dropped through the floor.

- It isn’t unexpected to only receive materials when a series finishes in Japan, thus adding time onto the delays.

- Fans complain.

- Repeat, lather, rinse, sandpaper face, take eyes out with novelty straw etc.

VoD has been tried, but with a lot of DRM-filled issues that rendered it virtually useless as why download at that kind of price what you can download for free from fansub groups?

DVDs are of course affected, along the lines of “I don’t have the money to spend on 19.99, 15.99, 10.99 for 4 episodes a DVD.”, “I wasn’t going to buy it in the first place, I just want to watch it like I would on TV” etc.

Who’s to blame? Is it the fansubbers? Is it the fans? Is it the industry? I’d argue like many that it’s a mix of all three and it’s very close to being irrelevant.

Whatever the reason, the failure to grasp this digital era and ensnare it for profit making has been a huge faux-pas. Whether it’s recoverable now or is also a whole other gloomy question :/.

Yet, you go ask your regular Joe Anime on the street and what are they going to say? On the outside looking in Anime is at a premium in the UK, the sell out of Amecon in 3 weeks is proof enough of that and it is an amazing achievement.

Also citable as evidence would be the seemingly endless proliferation of cons with an attendance almost as large as I’d get for holding a party for the returnees from Guantanamo Bay (by my count there’s been more than one fresh, never run before events that have popped up this year and announced plans to run next year…).

Sad to say unless someone grabs the bull by the horns and produces a solution to the whole problem, as raised by a friend, of the fact fansub groups are offering a service that fans want and the industry at present is not equipped to provide, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the following happen:

- Japanese licensors take a more “hands on” approach to the UK, issuing their shows via internet channels akin to the way a lot of internet-based channels works in Japan and how Gonzo’s latest venture in China looks like it will play out. It’s something several people including myself have suspected would happen for a while – and has already begun both with BOST TV and Azeureus/Vuze leaning towards licensing and digital distribution now.

- At least one company in the UK scene bow out or cut back its staff dramatically or at the very least release dates to combat fading sales (the latter already happened to an extent).

- Number of “original series” produced in 2008-9 decreases, good selection of the ones that do come are aimed at a western audience from the start.

- Sales will drop again for most of the industry with a few fan favorite exceptions.

There’s more doom and gloom where that came from – but I’ll save it there. Sufficed to say things aren’t to pretty at the moment – not to say they’re over by far and a lot of people have a lot of good ideas at the moment (too many to list all of them, but there are some very interesting solutions to the internet problem being devised, just listening to what the fans want more than ever and trying different release styles).