>Kurau: Phantom Memory
>960,000
It's not worth even 1/10 of it, wtf

>>60710571
>Welcome to the NHK 240,000
And the best show's one of the cheaper ones.

>Kurau: Phantom Memory 960,000
>Red Garden 660,000
HAHAHA OH WOW

Well at least they didn't pay out the ass for Underwater Ramano.

I'd love to see what their return on these was. It's easy to say they overpaid on a lot of these but it's hard to grasp by how much. It'd be interesting to see the fees paid for something like Naruto/Dragon Ball too.

Japs sure crushed their own market. I mean those prices are fucking absurd.

>>60710962
Japs only care about the intern market.

I'm more curious how much they paid for Ghost Stories, especially with how they handled the dub.

>>60711033
They probably got it for free, since its not the sort of show they would bother licensing in the first placce

...this is just sad. So much for the fags who claimed Japanese companieswere getting millions for the rights. I mean fuck, 'Utawarerumono 109,201'? I should have fucking bought the rights myself!

>>60711153
What would you have done with those rights, and how would you have funded it?

is uh

Is that in dollars or yen

>>60710962
an intermediary company was managing the license negotiations for ADV, and blatantly inflated the prices. it's one of the major issues at the center of the entire lawsuit to begin with

>>60711219
Dollars

That's why ADV is dead

>>60711219

Dollars

>>60711219
Dollars. Nobody's going to get the rights to distributing a movie for 20000円.

>>60711219
This was filed in a United States court by a company situated in the US. Take a guess.

>Xenosaga 120,000
waaaaay too much

can someone explain what is this FUNI suiting other companies all about ?
I understand they got somehow fucked, but how exactly and what happened ?

>>60711209

It was a joke. However, I bet if I was head of marketing or the CEO of ADV, I could run it better. Seriously, how can the avg licencing cost of your shows be $100,000 and you STILL are loosing profits? And you don't even fucking spend money on advertising. Where is it going?!

>ADV originally planning to fund a Neon Genesis Evangelion Live Action Trilogy with special effects by WEDA, famous for their work on Lord of the Rings
>its rumored as much as $500 million was saved for such a project

Oh yeah....fucking ADV.

the real question is why are they buying so much shit anime?

An average licence cost (280,000) gives the studio a profit of 3,800 BD volumes worth.

Its pretty clear where they got ripped off:
Kurau: Phantom Memory 960,000
Air Gear 780,000
Tokyo Majin 780,000
Pumpkin Scissors 780,000
Guyver 746,665
Red Garden 660,000

Funny how the most expensive titles are the shittiest.

They also got some deals on good stuff, at least in comparison to the other prices. Jesus, whoever decided to pay the 300K+ for some of these shows is a fucking moron.

>>60711240

So basically ADV got scammed?

I was actually surprised at how cheap licensing is. I mean at the rate of these prices you only need to sell about 3500 copies at 40 bucks to break even.

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Arm + Leg

>>60711481
You're forgetting about paying translators, script editors, video editors, voice actors, dub directors, dub studio time, advertising, physical production overheard, etc...

>>60711481

Do you think some of these could even MANAGE 3500 copies?

I mean, sometimes they don't even sell that many in Japan (granted thats partly because of fuck-retarded pricing but...)

So how is it on Funimation's side?

>>60711386

>the real question is why are they buying so much shit anime?

They're shooting in the dark looking for the next Eva or Haruhi.

What they aren't realizing is, Anime in America is dying. The best selling DVDs are shit from 10-15 years ago, back when the Anime fad was going on. Eva, Haruhi, DBZ, Pokemon, Kenshin, Cowboy Bebop, etc.

Few people are looking into new Anime on DVD. They just download it online. The only people who still buy DVDs are those too ignorant or lazy to download something online. Or those who just have to have a dub for everything, as that's the only real unique product Distributors bring to the table, the dub.

So again, they're just buying up dozens of new shows hoping one will revive the market and sell like crazy. What's sad is, they'rte using sites like this to guage what is 'popular'. But we don't turn around and buy the DVDs. They're actually shooting themselves in the foot by following the advice of the people who are killing their sales.

>>60711554

We don't know. We almost NEVER see licensing figures, and this court case is going to be incredible for providing insight to what shows really cost to bring over.

>>60711547
As we've heard most of the people working on the show don't get much money, I'd add at most another 100-200k.

>>60711600

I thought a lot of the time some of the lousy titles were thrown in with Big-Name titles as "package deals" which allowed the Japanese License holders to inflate the price and wring more money out?

>>60711600

You have to look at the dates of when these were licensed, it was while anime was still riding the bubble, so figures are inflated and the yen/dollar ratio is closer.

>>60711481

You have to factor in the retailer's cut and manufacturing/distribution/advertising/translation costs too (although those last four are probably cheap)

>>60711413
>Funny how the most expensive titles are the shittiest.
>Guyver
>Shitty
Motherfucking kill yourself you mongrel.

>>60711696

Yup, ADV probably got maybe 30-40% of the MSRP.

>>60711641
Maybe they'd have gotten a little richer if they weren't paying retarded prices to license terrible shows...

>>60711413

What they paid for 009-1 is outrageous, compared to some of the other shows. But it really is hard to quantify what these prices for these shows are, we can't compare any other outside numbers like what Geneon, FUNi, Bandai Entertainment, Media Blasters, or others pay. We're still lacking in tons of vital information and can only make hypotheses on the limited data we're provided. Who knows how much or how little ADV paid for other titles not listed.

>Kurau: Phantom Memory 960,000
Never heard of it. They got cheated hard.

>>60711650

Stuff like Utawarerumono, Sgt. Frog, Moonlight Mile and Ah! megami-sama Season 2 were after the bubble popped. At best, you could say the bubble lasted from around 1998-2004. By 2007-2009 when these shows were licensed, that bubble had long since popped.

Well that's weird, I can't access ANN's UK version because apparently my IP is blocked due to it "having a virus". I blame my dynamic IP since I'm running Ubuntu on this computer and my other one runs OSX.

>>60711600
Blaming bad sales on people who would never buy it anyway.

>>60711818

The licensing bubble didn't pop until fall 2007, when Geneon went bust. 2005 and 2006 are still fully in the "lets licensed everything" period.

>Kurau Phantom Memory
>people calling it shitty

severe cases of ADD?

>>60711768
Indeed. But mostly what I was getting at was that ADV must not have had much backing to be destroyed by a 8million dollar screwing.

On that note, why do we always get sales numbers of jap dvd sales like candy but here in the US we don't hear anything.

>>60711972

Because pretty much all of the licensees are private firms and don't have to release numbers of anything.

>Pani Poni Dash! 138,666
The best they ever did, considering how many f/a/ggots like the dub and subtitle work on PPD.

Poor ADV. I fucking hate funimation. their boxes are all flimsy shit that cost way too much

Sounds like ARM was skimming.

>>60711356
> no dubs
> online sales
> extra merchandise with the DVD's
> not inflated prices so more people can afford it

I would be out of business in a snap. It'd be fun though

>>60711972
Also, the companies that track media sales statistics don't openly publish the numbers in the US. You have to buy them for thousands of dollars (and they will sue you if you release the reports to the internet).

However, in Japan this apprently isn't the case.

These companies would still be around if they just released these with subs, no one wants to hear shit tier dubbing anyway.

>>60712133

No, dubbing is what drives phyiscal sales. /a/ is not the representation of NA anime fans at large.

Why they don't hire a faggot who know something about anime? 780,000 for Air Gear? really?

>>60712133

I don't think it would make a difference. There do exist (or at least, did) people who refuse to watch anime subbed.

My best friend was one of them. It was weird, but whatever. His loss that he didn't want to watch Urusei Yatsura cause AnimEigo decided not to do a dub.

Wonder how much that license costs.

>>60711547
no dubs, internet for distribution and promotion, coupons for limited times so /a/nons hype it.

>>60712133
don't underestimate the casuals and normalfags who watch anime for some reason but cannot into subs.

>>60711886

>The licensing bubble didn't pop until fall 2007, when Geneon went bust. 2005 and 2006 are still fully in the "lets licensed everything" period.

Well, whenever you wanty to say the bubble popped, the point is they were burning the candles at both ends. And not just between 2005-2007, but practically since their conception as a company.

They never did any marketing outside of Anime conventions, they continually pushed their products even when people didn't buy them, they ventured off into every business transation they could including producing original (shitty) Anime and creating an all Anime TV channel, etc. All while their sales were going down almost 20% each year. And they completely ignored the influx of downloading Anime online, thinking people would just blindly buy their DVDs stil because of the dub.

A monkey could have run their company better.

>>60712202
>>60712224
>that feel when girls in dubs always sound like old ladies trying too hard

>>60712133
ADV is still around really. They just do business as Sentai, Area 23, Seraphim Digital, Seven Seas, and few others names. I have noticed they don't immediately dub all the time before selling NA releases.

>>60711389
Thats more helpful than I previously thought. Guess I'm gonna continue to R1 buy fagging. None of you can stop me either.

>>60711818
No, the anime bubble ran pretty concurrently with the US housing bubble until the latter popped and took the whole rest of the economy down with it.

>>60712133

>These companies would still be around if they just released these with subs, no one wants to hear shit tier dubbing anyway.

Dubs arethe only reason they exist. If they didn't focus their products on dubs, you could have just gotten fansubs of the same product in the 90s. And post 1998 or so, Anime off the internet.

The dub is seriously all they have to offer the public. That's why their sales are falling. Even the most lazy and xenophobic viewer will switch to free Anime online vs spending $60-100 for Anime on DVD. Even if it is in Japanese.

>>60712204
Someone like us? we can't agree on shitty shows much less on the good ones. They'd need a person to find out what shows are the most talked about on the internet. That'd probably work.

I want Nichijou dubbed.

Johnny Young Bosch as Sakamoto.

>>60712245

I agree on the other business ventures, they were pushing into areas that were expensive and not profitable.

>>60712249
so much this

After this American fans will still demand their anime for $5 with 6 episodes a volume and 24 episode boxsets for $15.

I remember when the first season of Zero no Tsukaima sold over 3000 copies and was considered a 'hit'.

Anime fans just have no understanding of the anime market.

$40-60 is the going rate for a DVD boxed set in the US. And then there's Aniplex, their pricing is ridiculous. But any way, if you're patient, you shouldn't have to pay more than $30 for show at places like Right Stuf.

>>60710571

Utawarerumono 109,201
Air Gear 780,000

Why would you even consider these?

>>60712398

Frankly, if the actual Japanese companies would bring their shit over themselves, I would probably pay $40 per DVD. If I knew the money was actually going to making better Anime in Japan.

But I mean, just look at OP. If they only paid fucking $100k for a show like Utawarerumono, that's just highway robbery. And I'm not just faulting ADV, I'm faulting the Japanese company themselves.

If they could fucking build up the video game market in America, they should be able to do the same with Anime. And its not even like every company needs to come over. Just set up a joint 'Anime distributor' company. Say Production IG, Madhouse, KyoAni and Studio Deen all threw in 25% of the money to establish a company. Released DVDs of all their major series, then split the profits 25% for each company based on the sales of the group.

Already they probably would make a shit ton more than $100k per show. If they can make around 500k on DVD sales in Japan only selling like 20,000 copiers on avg, just think how much more they could make selling an additional 20,000 copies in America.

>>60712520
At $30 a boxest you'd need to sell over 30,000 copies to break even on licensing for some of those titles.

In the US, that's just not going to happen.

It all comes down to
>>60710962

>>60712606
>Say Production IG, Madhouse, KyoAni and Studio Deen all threw in 25% of the money to establish a company.
You shot yourself in the foot when you demonstrated that you have zero knowledge of rights and licensing.

>>60712602

See >>60711600

>So again, they're just buying up dozens of new shows hoping one will revive the market and sell like crazy. What's sad is, they'rte using sites like this to guage what is 'popular'. But we don't turn around and buy the DVDs. They're actually shooting themselves in the foot by following the advice of the people who are killing their sales.

They're using the internet to gauge the popularity of Anime. Utawarerumono was popular back in 2006. So they licensed it.

...and it didn't sell because the fans already saw it online 2 years earlier.

>>60712606
>20000 copies on average
You don't know shit about the anime market, do you?

>>60712635
I don't know what the sales numbers are in the US. But selling 30,000 of a popular show doesn't seem outrageous.

>>60712669

Please do explain. And re-read my post. I'm talking about Japanese companies setting up American based sub-companies to distribute their OWN shows. Not going through a secondary distribution company.

>>60712730
It'll never happen, there aren't enough people here willing to buy anime in this day in age.
Plus with all the copyright stuff happening, anime is going to die here anyway.
Once people aren't able to view stuff online first sales will go away completely.

>>60712710
>>60712669

>you don't know shit
>you don't know shit

Got a counter-argument in there, or just a cool story bro?

>>60712754
You listed four animation studios. Animation studios do not control the distribution rights to the shows they make.

>>60712778

>It'll never happen, there aren't enough people here willing to buy anime in this day in age.

Thanks to a lack of marketing by the Distrobution companies over the last 20 years. They could have done plenty of marketing back in the day and perhaps made Anime quite popular. Again, the Video Game market did it in the late 80s and early 90s.

>Plus with all the copyright stuff happening, anime is going to die here anyway.

What copyright stuff? I seriously hope you aren't talking about crap like SOPA.

>Once people aren't able to view stuff online first sales will go away completely.

Again, sales have nothing to do with the online Anime fanbase. We already don't buy Anime on DVD. The people buying Anime on DVD are people who watch Adult Swim and go 'hey, I want to own Cowboy Bebop' or the people who HAVE to have dubs only.

The American Anime licensing industry is lacking a lot of transparency to let this happen.

They basically closed off their own eyes too, in order to dream well after a shit working day?

I mean they could have just licensed shows when these were airing. Most, if not all people already know those over the Internet.

Just license the great shows as early as you can and do not forget to listen to the general reception of any major community that discusses Anime.

>>60712602
>Not knowing about Underwater Ray Romano.

It was pretty cheap to obtain, too. Though these prices are ridiculous.

>>60712754
That was known as Bandai Entertainment. Bandai created an American branch that would buy the US rights to their crap, then they'd hire people on a per job basis to create the DVDs then sell the stuff.

As for selling the Japanese DVDs directly, go to Rightstuf look at what Aniplex is doing with Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica.

>>60712870
If you think the SOPA is the last we'll see I have some news for you....

>>60710571
>Keroro gunso
well that was a ripoff the show was shit from the getgo. Think Ika Musume exept instead of being funny its just one long EVA refrence.

>>60712795

Blah blah, fine, their parent companies. MediaWorks, Namco Bandai and IG Port, etc form a company.

>>60712895

I know both Bamco and Pioneer (Geneon) had their own companies. But they also followed the model of companies like ADV and crap and that's why they failed.

Again, they need to follow more of the example of the gaming industry. And most of all, market their crap. Anime will never take off in America without marketing, because sadly that's the only way anything takes off in America. Unless stupid Americans see 100 commercials of soething, they won't buy it. There's actually been studies that say the avg America is so brain dead it takes 20-50 commercials before they even really notice the product on the screen. And up to 100 before they even py attention to the commercial.

>>60713106
That's because most of us don't buy stuff because of commercials. We buy if we need or want something.

>>60712994
>thinking companies that are in competition with each other will somehow magically band together just to get a few thousand gaijin dollars
Even if they did, they'd get antitrusted so fucking fast it wouldn't be funny.

>>60713214
They already farm out work to each other.

Don't forget what was going on in American TV back then either. They were trying to get One Piece to take off like Naruto had, Cartoon Network's Friday night action lineup was almost all anime as was Adult Swim, etc. If they could even get a show on the air on a decent channel, those licensing costs would be peanuts compared to what they'd get back.
That gamble did not pay off.

>>60713214

First off, I never thought they would seriously do that.

Second off, its just a cost effective way to 'get the foot in the door'. They would be basically spending 1/4 the investment to establish a more active Anime market overseas. They could even sign a contract that after 5 years, they would expand into their own separate companies.

But again, its just a pipe dream and I seriously doubt they'd do it.

>>60713261
Animation studios farm out work to each other. The large media conglomerates who are the major financial backers of the studios do not.

>>60713106

The problem is the addressable market. The gaming market is huge with stuff like Final Fantasy and Mario selling in the millions to tens of millions. There is literally nothing this big that American studios are willing to advertise, except perhaps DBZ. If they had the kind of money to push through that kind of advertising campaign, they would simply self-produce their own products so that they own 100% of the rights in perpetuity.

As for the Japanese, they have no fucking clue how the American markets work so they need to partner with American companies to go beyond a few hundred copy print run like Kara no Kyoukai.

>>60713214

Sunrise and Kyoto Animation are buddy buddy with each other. Ghibli and Production IG often swap workers to do key animation. Madhouse hired out to practically anyone.

Its not hard to see them working together to gain more profits. But again, that implies Japanese companies care about the American Market. And they don't.

>>60713432
Again, you're talking about ANIMATION STUDIOS. They are not, with few exceptions, the people who control the licensing rights.

>>60713393
I'm assuming you mean Japanese anime studios, because Japanese business knows the american market. They should tap on Sony's shoulder, or about a dozen other successful Japanese companies.

>>60713475
Give up, man.

Remember that episode of America's Greatest Otaku when Stu asked all the contestants what their favorite studio was, and EVERY SINGLE ONE responded with an American licensing company?

Those are the people you're trying to argue with right now. They are clueless. Nobody who knows shit about anime would even waste their breath talking about how to "save" the licensed anime market anyway.

>random fansub group licenses a poplar animu
>releases blu-ray with proper encoding and format, hardsubs onry so no overhead, no paying worthless voice actors/editors, and no making japs angry because no raws on the discs
>send to one of the mexican printers to make your set in an attractive case with an attractive insert
>charge $20 flat for your boxset
>make hundreds of thousands of dollars profit
y no do this?

>>60713393

>The problem is the addressable market. The gaming market is huge with stuff like Final Fantasy and Mario selling in the millions to tens of millions.

Bt it didn't start off that way. You think Nintendo magically sold 20 million copies of Mario with the NES? No, the NES was basically a flop in America until they marketed the shit out of Mario and Zelda. Same thing they did with Pokemon and many other series.

Anime companies, distribution companies or Japanese affiliates, have yet to even try marketing beyond small internet ads. Nothing close the millions spent on marketing and creating original content like Nintendo did in the 80s.

>As for the Japanese, they have no fucking clue how the American markets work so they need to partner with American companies to go beyond a few hundred copy print run like Kara no Kyoukai.

This could be a good excuse, except Anime has been in America for 30+ years. They've had plenty of time to learn. And companies like Namco-Bandai and Geneon have plenty of experience.

And again, you think Nintendo 'knew how the market worked' back in 1986? No, they just dove right in and figured it out. its called taking a chance. Something Japanese companies don't want to do.

Not that they really have to. Anime is doing much better in Japan now than practically any time in history.

>>60713475
I've tried to explain this when people assume toys, figures, etc make money for the studios.

>>60713579
>hardsubs
Wow, what a moron.

>>60713475

See >>60712994

I did name publishing companies. Sorry I don't know all the parent companies for every fucking animation studio.

Get over it, people use the other names because its the only ones people recognize. You think people are gonna start naming companies like Sony, Buena Vista and Viacomm when talking about Movies? No, they're going to name things like Dreamworks, Paramount and Disney.

We fucking know they have parent companies. Shut up already.

>Pumpkin Scissors 780,000

and you wonder why the american anime industry is in ruins

>>60713668
To be fair, it was one of the keys to Gainax's success, but they're certainly the exception, not the rule

>>60713688
well the japs aren't allowing raws on the cheap sets due to reverse importation so what can you do?

>>60713214
>Even if they did, they'd get antitrusted so fucking fast it wouldn't be funny.

Semi-Independent distribution/licencing organisations are common around the world. you throw your stuff into a pool, it's sold out of the pool and you get an appropriate fraction of the revenues.

If it has open and fair licencing conditions and is non-exclusive then you won't get anti-trust issues.

>>60713579
>proper encoding and format
>hardsubs

Pick one.

>>60713726
>I did name publishing companies.
Yes, and as I pointed out, those publishing companies are in a market where they are in direct competition with each other.

Fuck man, MBS stopped other channels from airing the last episode of Madoka before they did, and those other companies were PART OF the same fucking giant media conglomerate as MBS. They aren't going to just start working together because some whiny American teenagers cry about their fucking cartoons.

Japanese companies are starting to put English subs on some blurays to sell directly to overseas audiences.

Have you imported any English subbed discs yet to support them?

>>60713871

See >>60713316

Also, please move on. I got your position like 5 posts ago. We get it.

>>60713925
>BAWWWWWWWW STOP TELLING ME THAT MY UNINFORMED IDEAS ARE GOING TO FAIL BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALKING ABOUT

Why isn't there something like steam for anime?

And I don't mean shit like CR, I mean a shop where you buy episodes and download them to your hard drive.

I wouldn't even buy a DVD or Bluray if I had the money and was willing to spend it on something I can get fore free.

>>60713839

This. They tried taking American Distributors to court for having a 'monopoly' on certain Anime. And it didn't work. Why would a conglomerate company distributing their own Japanese shows get broken up? Unless EVERY company joined into one conglomerate company.

I was talking about 3-4.

>>60713919
Not until they start doing it for shows I like.

>>60713919
Ad soon as they aren't 600 bucks a box set.

>>60713993

>ANIMATION STUDIOS AREN'T PUBLISHING COMPANIES LISTEN TO ME!!!!
>BAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Pretty much what I got from reading all your posts

>>60713919

I would, but I need reviews of their subs to determine quality, and I am tied up in figure and videogame preorders until July.

>>60713919
Maybe once they stop charging ridiculous mark-ups.
90$ for 2 episodes?

>>60713919

And are the subs even any GOOD?

>>60714060
You sure are mad that somebody called your stupid idea out for what it is, aren't you?

>>60714076
>mark-ups
That word doesn't mean what you think it does.

You know how much it costs to make series of anime?
You know how small the market is in Japan.

And the price is closer to 25-30 bucks per episode.

>>60713993

>comes up with a random idea
>he said animation studios instead of publishing companies
>OMG EVERYTHING OUT OF HIS MOUTH IS WRONG

Man you sound mad. Why are you taking it so personal? Did he rape your mom or something?

>>60713919

Ghibli has actually been doing it on all of his DVDs since Spirited Away. Still, Disney releases a western version of all their movies.

>Be in UK
>Only have region 2 stuff in the shops
>£14.99 a fucking disk

And they wonder why I started getting region 0/1 stuff imported.

>>60713993

The fact that you had to use greentext and make it personal pretty much makes you the loser in my view.

>>60713591
I think you're being a tad too optimistic about how large the industry can become. I can imagine specific IPs like DBZ and Naruto becoming as large as you're stating but the medium in general doesn't have even a prayer.

What Nintendo did is build a market for their machine and their specific IPs. Perhaps Toei is willing to come over America and do a massive marketing run of One Piece, but this is not what something small like a 1 cour Steins Gate or Penguindrum can pull off.

>>60713997
Because media company cannot (read: do not want) into online businesses. Same reason you won't see a Steam for movies (closest thing you'll see is iTunes which IIRC has shitty catalog and DRM and Netflix which only operates in the US and even then you cannot download to your harddrive you have to stream the movie IIRC).

And Japan isn't going to build such a network themselves because anime companies already have overblown costs from sticking to production schemes from the 90s (sometimes even the 80s and 70s)

>>60713919
No, but it does increase the likelihood I will by quite a lot.

The price is a little bit more of a problem with buying direct, anyway. I mean, I understand it's a niche audience, but the prices they charge are simply absurd.

>>60713997
Because piracy and/or ridiculous DRM as a result of downloading stuff. Because realistically, who's going to pay 50p to download an episode they can only watch X times and/or only in a specific player when getting something you can watch as many times as you want for free is as simple as it is?
The principle's a pretty decent one, the implementation of it would have to be handled magnificently for it to be a success, though.

>>60714083
The subs are good on every Japanese Bluray I have seen. Better than fansubs, but of course fansubbers set the bar really low.

>>60712895
$30 per dvd for Madoka doesn't seem outrageous. I might get them.

>>60714205
> I've got the moral victory fag
NO U
...
WAIT

>>60714205
Even if you think I'm "the loser," that still won't change the fact that animation studios don't control the licensing of the shows they create.

I hope you enjoy going through life being wrong about things.

I have mixed feelings about Japan effectively marketing its anime in North America. If they used their currently successful models (like how Japanese companies sold cars, stereos and tvs), they'll rework the series to better appeal to western tastes. That has a danger of meaning that it won't appeal to my tastes. It also has the danger that they won't import the less "westernized" series (yeah yeah pirate them)- like how Honda never imported the Beat or Mitsubishi doesn't import the Delica.

>>60714127
It is exactly what I say it is.

Sticking to production schemes that are inefficient/expensive does not equal good business. Sure, the jobs do stay in Japan but given they could outsource most of the jobs and/or do different approaches to market their anime.
Do they still need to air them on TV to promote it (which is expensive as fuck as they actually HAVE TO PAY to air their anime on TV) when they could stream them directly on justintv or niconico and cut the middle guy and a ton of costs?

Certainly it'd cut down costs and be more effective than airing anime on a 3am time slot.

So yeah, the Japanese customers are paying a markup for bad business practices.

>>60714324
Not that it's really relevant, but we got both of those cars in the UK. I wonder if Japan's going to start being daft like Nintendo were with Xenoblade Chronicles and start selling things in Europe/Japan exclusively, because that would be a dumb idea.

No wonder ADV got fucked. Most of these would never break even.

>>60714220

Well first of all, I'm not expecting Anime sales to match video game sales. That's pointless. Video Game sales exceed that of American DVD sales for Hollywood movies. I was mearly responding to someone else showing a Japanese company CAN do well with advertising. Nintendo is the prime example of this.

I am more realistic. I'm just thinking Japanese companies could see equal sales to that of Japan. Take a show that sells maybe 60,000 copies over 6 DVD volumes. Bring the same show over to America, do some likght marketing, and you might see an additional 50,000-60,000 in sales. Suddenly the same company has doubled its profits on the same show. Which in the current setup, they only make money in one region, on one sale of DVDs/BDs.

As for your idea of marketing high name titles, that actually could help Anime in the long run. Hyping something like One Piece or DBZ could trickle down to more awareness for Anime as a whole. But at the current stage, they don't even market those in America. About the only marketing we see in America is shit shown on Adult Swim and word of mouth. No wonder the ubble collapsed, since the entire Anime 'market' is relying on shows from like 15 years ago to hype all of Anime.

>>60714288
Good luck with that. The cheapest ones are $48 per DVD. The collectors edition is $70+per DVD.

>>60714481

Almost no shows do 50000 sales in North America.

>>60714301

They see me trollin'.

Seriously, he gave up a long time ago. Are you so asspianed that you have to keep bringing up the ONE point you made half a thread ago? Seriously, give it a rest. You just sound like an asshole trying to troll now.

>>60714324
Quite frankly, anime localization companies should probably be happy they managed to have as much success as they did for as long as they did.

I don't like streaming, but it IS the future of digital content distribution. I'm glad for NicoNico setting up shop in English, would be gladder if they could cut Funi out of the equation.

>>60714430
The sad thing is that there really is no alternative. No return on investment does not mean better business practices; it means no anime.

>>60714532

>Almost no shows do 50000 sales in North America.

Again, how many times do I have to fucking say 'with marketing'? I've said it in every single one of my posts....

Obviously Anime doesn't sell well now.

>>60714532
That's probably true, but how the fuck would we ever know?

>>60714481

Maybe part of the problem was how fragile the support for anime was in the US entertainment industry. Change the execs in CN to a bunch who don't like anime (and who want to promote their own projects), and it collapses.

Perhaps a collapse was inevitable, but I think with more support things could have been different.

>>60714598
So they aren't actually "doubling" their profits, since they have to spend money on marketing.

>>60714481
No way you're going to sell anything on par with Japan in quantity.

Hell, you might be able to do so with stuff like DBZ or whatever, but not with stuff like K-On.

Hell, even without starting about moe, the fanservice alone in most shows will get half of conservative US so far up your ass you'll wish you never bothered

>>60714630

Because companies wouldn't be dying left and right if they were.

>>60714555
>The sad thing is that there really is no alternative
I just named several alternative practices that they could easily apply.
Ok, outsourcing might be trickier but cutting down on TV airing costs woud already bring down the costs by a good chunk.

The real problem is the Japanese attitude they have of "it cannot be helped/I cannot bother to look for alternatives even if not doing anything is bad for business". They could have done this easily during the boom but missed their chance and even now they could still turn the tides around but they prefer to die a slow death than to actually try to avert it.

>>60714637

>Perhaps a collapse was inevitable, but I think with more support things could have been different.

A collapse was enevitable. I called it back in 2001. And its not just their limited market, but it was also the focus on dubs and secondary distrobution companies as a whole. It all contributed.

Basically, if you build your market on keeping people ignorant and forcing dubs down their throats, they will never branch out and buy DVDs beyond that of the limited market they know. So that means all the new shows you license like Princess Tutu, Utawarerumono, Hajime no Ippo, etc., no one is gonna buy these things. they have no point of reference. They'll just continue buying whatever they see on TV and not much else.

I wonder i someone can come up with a means to actually sell anime to the western market, or is 90% of the audience made up with completely entitled people who consider their piracy as a point of pride.

I'm a buyfag, though most of my purchases these days are pot-shots of series on special, so far i've been pretty lucky with decent titles.

Fuck, i'd love to make a version of gog.com but with anime.

>>60714598
>If the companies just keep throwing money behind their shows, they'll be successful
tell that to Guilty Crown

>>60714817
RightStuf basically is the GOG/Steam/whatever else of anime, which is why their company is doing just fine.

>>60714781

>forcing dubs down their throats

What does that even mean? It's not like the DVDs were English audio only.

>>60714532

>Almost no shows do 50000 sales in North America.

Certain shows like Eva, Cowboy Bebo, Haruhi and etc sold considerably more than that.

The issue is, those had hype behind them. For every 1 Anime with hype, there's 100 that didn't. And sold poorly.

Replace hype with some light advertising over many years, and Anime can go from basically only selling Adult Swim crap to being relevant again.

>>60714481
>Bring the same show over to America, do some likght marketing, and you might see an additional 50,000-60,000 in sales

You're completely removing the whole audience and demographic problem. Practically no niche is going to buy that much consistently.
And there's them pricing it themselves.
People found it outrageous when series were a 100 dollars a FULL season and 30 dollars for four to six, now its 50 dollars for 2-4.

>>60714817

Anime fandom consists mostly of people who grew up during the last ten years, so the concept of paying for things is obscene to them.

>>60714817
You need to get it on tv, plain and simple.

>>60714848
Dubs are generally the only thing they show on TV, so it's the only exposure normals get to anime. Therefor if you try to sell them a sub which is cheaper and easier to make they won't buy as it's outside their experience and expectations.

>>60714848

>What does that even mean? It's not like the DVDs were English audio only.

before DVDs, there was VHS. And they sold Dub VHS for about $10-$15 cheaper than sub vhs. Tgis defies logic, because it costed them more money to make a dub than just sub episodes. But if you look beyond the cost, you realize, why would people buy a subbed VHS if they could get the same thing for like $2 a tape from fansubbers?

When the transition to DVDs took place, yes, the vast majority came with dubs and subs. But the dub was always the default option. You had to go int othe menu and change it to subs, sometimes on each episode, manually. And yes, there are some shows that are sold seperately dub and sub (Cardcaptors, One Piece, Pokemon, etc).

They also did a lot of other things. Long story short, American Distributors tried to make dubs the focus. And rightly so, because without dubs, they had no product. People would just get it for free online if there was no dub option.

>>60714867
It's funny you say this. When I was a teenager, I was used to paying 30 bucks for 2-4 episodes on VHS. An entire series could cost >$200.

And I didn't complain about the prices back then nearly as much as anime fans these days do.

>>60714925

>normals

What the fuck?

>>60714781

I don't disagree entirely with your perspective, but better marketing could have helped raise awareness of those series amongst the people who watched the big name dubs. It would have required a different licensing fee structure to be profitable, however.

Having said that, a better approach towards picking winning anime series (the kind that make good money on TV) and better support by the channels who would air them (as in, CN not deciding that anime is no longer what they want) could have helped the N.Am distributors.

Or, and just throwing this out there, the MITI groups who helped with other Japanese exports could have helped out some more here.

I have no real insights, however.

>>60714817

Sell older series that appeal to the crotchety types like me. The oldschool fans seem to be more willing to pay.

>>60714971
The reason subs were more expensive was because they had to pay large royalties to the Japanese voice actors.

You know, all they have to do is get one new show a season per quarter onto SyFy or adultswim. Get new people interested rather than rely on the same old fans.

I'm pretty sure plenty of people will buy whatever they get on TV, even if it isn't the best. Though avoiding highschool stuff would help considering the audience.

Then again, the low powers seem to lap up fanservice shows.

>>60714817
I do the same thing

>>60715016
It's the only way to run a viable business. Either you widen your lens and try to appeal to a lot of people, or you focus on a niche market and charge them twice as much.

>>60715036

>The reason subs were more expensive was because they had to pay large royalties to the Japanese voice actors.

...I think this is the dumbest thing I have ever read on 4chan. Seriously, SERIOUSLY. I hope you were trolling.

>>60714817
>I wonder i someone can come up with a means to actually sell anime to the western market,
Wait, wait, stop, you are seriously equaling the North American market in any shape or form to the European market?

Are you just ignorant (as in, just don't know any better) or do you really believe that?
France is a bigger market than North America when it comes to anime (even with less population) and Germany's anime market is healthy as fuck (admittedly, due to France doing releases in French and German).
Italy and Spain are admittedly struggling when it comes to anime but again, it seems french companies are trying to fill the market and their manga companies are pretty healthy, more so than ones publishing American comics (probably in a better position as American manga publishers but I do not know about the manga market in the US)

>>60715116
>France is a bigger market than North America when it comes to anime
[citation needed]

>>60714774
To be honest, I think anime production costs are about as cheap as it can get. I recall an article that basically said a typical animtaor makes less than a McDonald fry cooker. Unless we get a full generation of highly talented Chinese animators working for 25 cents an hour, cutting production costs is not likely.

As for saving money by not buying tv slots, I'm not sure how much these slots cost but I'm sure that relative to the overall production costs it's a pittiance. The off chance that the television run attracts "normal" people who don't know about Japan's equivalent to Justin.tv is far more valualbe than whatever money is spent.

As for the Japanese's attitudes, I have no doubt that the decisions they've made during the anime boom scuttled their small opportunity to make anime a bigger thing in America.

>>60715048

The problem, at least with Adult Swim is, they only show Anime of three genres: 'DEEP' Anime, 'Cowboy bebop like stuff' and Shonen stuff.

Even if they tried to put something like Slayers or Princess Tutu or CLannad on there, it wouldn't get popular. Because the avg Adult Swim fag thinks all Anime fits into one of those three categories. These are the same people who go to the store and stare at you with disgust for looking at a Sailor Moon DVD. Then start obsessing with random customers about how superior Trigun is dubbed.

>>60715116
UK market is struggling a bit, MangaUK are constantly cancelling releases mid way through a series.

But the company is incompetent as hell,they make ADV look professional, i swear Manga should move out of london, it probably attributes to half of their operating costs.

>>60715048

Depends on the fanservice- if it's primarily adult-looking women it will do very well. If it's more cutesy types then it may have a problem (not just from the angry hordes, but also because the average viewer won't find it sexy).

>>60715170
I think they always assume that because of the attendance at the big anime convention there. They assume only french people are going to it.

>>60715170
Don't know if he's statistically correct, but France is a very large market for anime/manga. They get shitloads of series' released/localised there.

>>60715194
Really? i'd have thought high magic shenanigans like slayers would be lapped up by the AS crowd

>>60715264
Plus france has homegrown a fair few anime-like titles over the years. Most recent being Wakfu

>>60715194
they should just play dubbed meduca then

its pretty DEEP

>>60715194
Actually, normalfags LOVE Slayers.

>>60715099

No, I mean, "what the fuck" at the use of the word "normals" to refer to people outside the anime fandom. That kind of "there's us and then there's them" attitude is what keeps me from associating with anime fans in person.

>>60715170

I don't have any hard facts, but its pretty evident that Anime has a much larger percentage of penetration in countries like Franche, Italy, Mexico and Brazil. At least compared to America.

They do for a fact have way more Anime on their Television networks. Mexico and Brazil were watching stuff like Saint Seiya, Captain Tsubasa, Macross, Dragon Ball and etc before America even knew what Sailor Moon was.

>>60715170
Do you live under a rock? France and Italy are dwarfs America's manga and anime licensing market since ever, it was aways like that, they actually are the gateway to many other countries to get theri anime and manga too. France basically sold Dragon Ball to all Latin America, and Italy's Panini licenses manga left and right to other countries as well.

>>60715355
Like it or not, we are two separate demographics in terms of both interests and buying habits.

>>60715400
>>60715401
I don't think you guys understand what a citation is.

>>60715348

I think you're confusing 'normalfags' with 'older Anime fags'. The kinds of people who were into Anime back in the late 90s, early 2000. Yes, they got into a lot of stuff like Ranma, Slayers, Kenshin, Eva, etc. But they're still stuck in those days.

This is also the Primary Market for who is buying DVDs in America these days. They hardly know anything beyond Love Hina, but will buy every new release of Eva or Kenshin they can find.

every p idiot at Sojitz should be burned alive

>>60715240
I left out UK for good measure as it's mostly influenced by the US while the continental market is more influenced by France and Italy.
Admittedly, Spain seems to be getting traction when it comes to market "children anime" while their teenage anime companies are crumbling seeing how it was a Spanish company that brought Inazuma Eleven to Europe, allthough it was cancelled in some countries like Germany.

>>60715463

>I don't have any hard facts

Is it so hard to read? I even SAID I didn't have citation.

You want citation, use google.

>>60715116
Beez should be doing better than Bandai then, considering they cover the entire european region.

I have a few of their DVDs that feature english, german, french, italian and spanish sub tracks.

>>60715518
You're right. What I should have said was
>Normalfags LOVED Slayers

Nowadays it's mostly forgotten except for the torch carriers, but at the time, I knew a bunch of people who were not serious anime fans who had seen and enjoyed the show.

Sorry, sometimes I forget how old I am.

>>60715355
>"That kind of "there's us and then there's them" attitude is what keeps me from associating with anime fans in person."
If you can't accept that segregation sir, you don't understand the reason for "keeping down our power levels."

Yeah, sure. Go ahead and talk about your DEEP and pretentious bloodfest or your moe festival of cliches like its an evening Fox show on the computer.

Its the same reason why furries and bronies are scum. The moment we gain this denial that us as people and anime fans aren't mutually exclusive in modern society, we've already lost.

>>60715463
here for you...
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-04-15/america-2009-anime-market-pegged-at-us$2.741-billion

The manga and anime market in the USA is downsizing, in 2010 the numbers were of 200 million dollars for anime and 112 millions for manga (peaked at around twice that amount).

Now let me see if I can find something about european countries.

>>60715404

Maybe people are afraid to get in to anime because they think they'll become self-deprecating cynics who refer to people outside their bubble as "normal".

It's not an unreasonable fear, since it seems to apply to a sizable (or at least vocal) population of the fandom.

>>60715556
So you apparently don't know what a citation is, OR what "burden of proof" means.

Surprise surprise.

>>60715518

I guess I can comment on this, since I qualify. I just bought the Ika Musume season 1 boxsets, but for the most part yeah, I'm stuck in the past.

It's very hard to explain why- the older series (even ones I hadn't seen before when I first got into anime) just appeal to me more. Newer series have more consistent animation, and many of them have really nice camerawork. But when I get past that I just don't see a lot that I enjoy.

Someone with a good eye towards entertainment could turn this problem around and make good money. Problem is that there is no incentive to do so. Why would the Japanese companies bother if they're making bank with their current model (even if it could be tidied up a bit)?

>>60715355
I meant it as a way to separate the average joe form people who know about anime and are actually likely to buy/watch it. Like it or not you are different form the average person because you like anime, even if you don't associate with pocky eating, mouth-breathing, cosplaying shitheads that people generally associate the fanbase with.

>>60715643
>>60715404

The biggest divide we've had in the Anime fandom has and always will be dub fags vs sub fags. And again, a lot of this was propagated by the American Distributors themselves. The more people who depended on dubs, the more people who would buy their product. If you didn't depend on dubs, it was only a matter of time until you'd focus on downloading Anime for free online.

While the gap of sub to dub fags has gotten smaller over the years, it'll never completely go away.

>>60715643
>I won't watch X because the people who like X are terrible.
Are you sure? I think people like that would fit right in with most anime fans.

>>60715570
Beez apparently is actually struggling because of their parent company.

Kazé, on the other hand, is doing great. Probably because they focus only on anime. They now also release DVDs and Blurays with several dub and sub tracks (French, German, Polish, etc). They only haven't entered Spain yet (though they are slowly creeping in given they were in charge of the Spanish dubs for Summer Wars and the Layton movie)

>>60715116
Wait, the french release Anime in German?

What kind of shows are that exaclty? Please provide sauce I am interested.

But I have to state that the picture you posted isnt related to your statement at all because Kaze is a german company and not quite affiliated with the french. Shogakukan & Shueisha bought booth the German company Anime-Virtual (who were forced to rename to Kaze) and its french "counterpart".

>>60715666

>Burden of proof
>internet

Hi, welcome to the internet. My name is Hal. Let me show you around. On your left is I don't give a fuck. And on the right is the people who care. You'll notice the much larger percentage of people on the left than the right.

>>60715692
To be honest, most of us watch them on a weekly basis, which might dilute the show a little bit for us.

I personally get much more enjoyment from tagging a few series to watch at the end of the season and catch up later, a marathon is much more satisfying for me, maybe you'll find some newer series more appealing if you gave them a more intense watch.

>>60715828
But the American anime market is much bigger than it is in France.

IT MUST BE TRUE BECAUSE I SAID IT AND IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME YOU HAVE TO COME UP WITH THE PROOF YOURSELF

>>60715619

You have heard of "middle ground", haven't you? It's possible to enjoy something without being either an obsessive basement dweller or obnoxious loudmouth.

>>60715798
Kaze seem to be operating alongside mangaUK over here, i'm hesitant buying manga release because of their genuine incompetence.

But if Kaze handled the mastering i might pick up a few of their series (though the only one released so far is Samurai Girls, which is just not my thing when buying)

>>60713919
Preordered Fate/Zero and Horizon BDs, all of them.

>>60715692

Honestly I used ot be like you. All the way up until about 2005, I always thought 'older' shows were better.

But then I really researched Anime and watched a lot of post 2000 stuff and really...there's tons of great shows. Considering Anime is making 5x as many shows each season than in the 90s. And that ratio has stayed consistent for the amount of good shows each season.

Just look at this list of shows I liked over the years:

1990 - Ranma 1/2 Season 2/DragonBall Z
1991 - Dragon Ball Z/City Hunter
1992 - Sailor Moon/Bubblegum Crisis
1993 - Slam Dunk/Sailor Moon R
1994 - Blue Seed/Sailor Moon S
1995 - Slayers/Neon Genesis Evangelion
1996 - Slayers Next
1997 - Rurouni Kenshin Season 2/Saber Marionette J
1998 - CardCaptor Sakura/Cowboy Bebop/Trigun/Kare Kano
1999 - GTO/CardCaptor Sakura Season 2
2000 - Hajime no Ippo/CardCaptor Sakura Season 3/Love Hina/GTO/Hand Maid May/Gate Keepers
2001 - Angelic Layer/Hajime No Ippo/You're Under Arrest/Fruits Basket
2002 - Princess Tutu/Azumanga Daioh/Ghost in the Shell SAC/You're Under Arrest/Pita Ten/Naruto
2003 - Planetes/Princess Tutu/Di Gi Charat
2004 - Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd GIG/Kerokero Gunsou/School Rumble
2005 - Ah! Megami-sama/Ichigo 100%/School Rumble
2006 - The Melancholy of Suzimiya Haruhi/Utawarerumono/Fate-Stay Night/Aria The Natural/Ah! Megami-sama/Code Geass/Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto
2007 - Clannad/Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann/Toradora
2008 - Clannad: After Story/Real Drive/Chi's Sweet Home/Kannagi
2009 - Kimi ni Todoke/Cross Game/Mitsudomoe/Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger/K-On!/Spice and Wolf
2010 - Kimi ni Todoke/Mitsudomoe/Ika Musume/Working!!/K-On!!
2011 - Working!!/Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai/Usagi Drop/Madoka Magica/Fate-Stay Zero

Notice the huge spike in the number of good shows after 1997 and all the way till 2011. Now compare to the graph at left.

>>60710571
Jesus Christ.. welp it seems that that 8million tab will be payed on way or another but for fucks sakes Kurau: Phantom Memory cost nearly a million to license...I loved the show, I own the dvd's all of them with the art-box but nope...it's not worth that much to me.

>>60715916
>The US population thinks anime has a middleground
You can't be this retarded.
Seriously, go out. To any city. Right now. Describe Slayers or Nerima Daikon Brothers (without the incest), and then say its an anime. Any facial change and I've proven my point.

>>60715968
you have terrible taste in anime, so much wrong with this list.

>>60715821
So how is it Kazé is releasing French and German dubs on every one of their German releases while the French counterpart has several anime only released in France with only the French dub?

That said, at least the German manga industry seems somewhat healthy (despite cancellations of ongoing series but that's just cutting your loses)

>>60715968
Honestly some decline in the market is to be expected considering economic situations at the moment.

Tiger and bunny would probably have made a pretty good gateway series on TV though.

>>60715968

In 1990 you didn't have the kind of access you have to anime today.

>>60715968
More sales does not always mean more quality. I could just as easily look at your graph and say that it's proof that Japanese people got richer between 1985 and 1995.

Anime became more mainstream, but that doesn't mean it became better. Trying to make claims about the entire industry based solely on your personal tastes doesn't really mean much.

>>60716050

See >>60715828

>Hi, welcome to the internet. My name is Hal. Let me show you around. On your left is I don't give a fuck. And on the right is the people who care. You'll notice the much larger percentage of people on the left than the right.

Oh man, I got to use that twice in the same thread. Good times.

You guys do know the reason why the Japs are asking for huge amounts of money for the DVDs and such is because the US dollar isn't worth shit overseas? You see if we had an actual thing called capitalism these anime DVDs wouldn't be so expensive and we would have an actual market for anime. But the average joe is forced to buy anime from only one company and you know what means? Yep, you've got yourselves a monopoly because as long a particular anime is only available from one company the anime company can jack up the price to anything they want which I might add the government has a hand in creating this monopoly because of all the regulations that forces everyone to conform to one set of rules. Not to mention all the entitlement programs and the Federal Reserve pumping out all this money and the companies know they'll be able to pull this off due to it.

>>60716095

>In 1990 you didn't have the kind of access you have to anime today.

Of course not. I was 'barrowing' VHS tapes from an Anime fan I knew and the very rare stuff from Blockbuster/Hollywood Video I would find. I basically watched whatever I could get my hands on.

But still, look on a site like www.anidb.net. There was far fewer shows being made each season. And plenty of crap.

>>60715834
I have very little free time, so watching weekly helps me out in many ways. I livestreamed Idolm@ster that way, and had a lot of fun.

>>60715968

I'm not knocking new series- I understand that they are well-made. Many are very carefully and thoughtfully written, and even the lighter stuff is fairly evenly paced. My problem is that they aren't for me. They have a certain feel that doesn't appeal to me.

Also, for me a lot of my favorites are pre 90s- in fact, I can go all the way back into the 70s before the animation really starts to grate at me too much.

I've given the newer series and seasons a fair shot, but at the end of the day I haven't really been drawn to them. I suspect that many of those other "buyer" type fans may be like me.

>>60716114
I've never understood this, but what does it take to become a person who thinks that recycling stock phrases when you're unable to refute somebody's argument is actually a sign of wit and intelligence?

How are you not totally ashamed of the person you are? Do you display a note from your doctor, framed and under glass, declaring you to be mentally retarded, on your wall, the same way successful people display their awards and degrees?

I have over 300 anime series on DVDs. All of them are english dubbed. I prefer dubs. Before "entry level fag" gets bandied about, no. Much of my collection are shows from way back, like Go Nagai stuff. I have on occassion watched subs and have to say I did prefer the sub of Redline. I'm not sure I would watch anime any more if it wasn't dubbed. But who knows? If subs were all that existed, maybe I would get used to them.
Also nb4 can't read, because that is one of the stupidest excuses I've heard.

>>60716102

>More sales does not always mean more quality.

I never said they did. I was pointing out that more Anime was being made. Also, more sales doesn't mean popularity went down.

>Trying to make claims about the entire industry based solely on your personal tastes doesn't really mean much.

And I could say the same about your opinion really. But again, my point wasn't to make you like what I like. Stop being so defensive. My point was to show the huge spike in the number of shows post 1998. And like it or not, the ratio of good to bad shows stayed about the same. In other words, 5x as much Anime being made, I found 5-8 more Anime each year I liked, compared to the 90s.

I swear, everyone on 4chan is just itching for an argument, even to the point of ignoring peoples posts completely. 'You anger me with your positive outlook on Anime and your taste is shit, let's argue!'

>>60716131
Go check the yen against the dollar dummy.

>>60716070
Because French cant into German but vice versa?

On a more seriously note, The company fusion of two of the largest publishers of their respective countries sure is an lucrative option. So my guess is Shogakukan & Shueisha forced Anime-Virtual to do that when they bought up.

>>60710571
lol ADV is for chumps. Funimation 4 Lyfe!

>>60716070
Shogakukan & Shueisha bought Kazé, Anime Virtual (a german label with a lot of licenses) and Viz Media Europe, and started to sell series under the better known name, Kazé.

http://www.anime-virtual.de/news/detail.php?SNID=1&DID=134

>read this entire thread
>economics, market trends
>topical debate

Every once in a while, you do me proud /a/.

>>60716026

I'm not sure how you managed to misintepret my words that much. I was talking about the enjoyment of something, not people's perceptions of it. I am not a bitter "normalfag" hating shut-in, nor am I a Pocky stuffing cosplayer who runs around screaming kawaii at anime conventions. I am someone who enjoys watching and discussing anime. I don't fit in to either of the extreme examples of the fandom. I occupy the middle ground.

>>60716170

Well I really don't know what to tell you. Sounds like you have an issue with the cleaner more polished animation style post Love Hina.

I can tell you, from a character development and formula standpoint, there's still many Anime post 2000 that feel like earlier shows. Real Drive, Utawarerumono, Cross Game, Princess Tutu, etc. I don't think what makes a good Anime changed with the animation. I too still prefer the character focused and well balanced Anime of the 80s and 90s. You just need to look for them. But they do exist even post 2000.

ITT: Everyone thinks they're an expert in economics and taste. No one is.

>>60716303
That wasn't really what I was getting at. I love lots of post-2000 anime, I'm not trying to argue that point, or your personal tastes. All I'm saying is that correlating your own positive opinions to another positive trend and expanding it out to any kind of greater general argument is a very sketchy argument at best.

Somebody who likes lots of 80's and early 90's anime, and whose number of liked shows DECREASED with the increase in the size of the market, could just as easily claim that the market's growth correlated to a decrease in the quality of anime, and it would be just as valid an argument as your own.

ITT: Economics

>>60716414
>>60716402
It'd be nice if they start publishing in the UK, the market here is pretty poor.

MVM is probably the best publisher here, but they rarely get much new, MangaUK pretty much licence everything they see

>>60716402
>>60716414
My actual point however is that they would not be able to use the Kazé logo if it wasn't the same parent company behind it or at least some sort of agreement between the german and french counterpart.

I might have jumped the conclusion though because Kazé simulcasts/streams (like Persona 4) seem to be only accessible from France and not from Germany (feel free to correct me on that one)

>>60716402
>>60716414
Just checked, yet Viz Media Europe actually was part of the company of Anime-Virtual.

>>60716460

I'll have to think about why things don't click for me. I'm not sure it's the style, or the animation- there's something else going on for me. I look at a lot of the new character designs and I think they're pretty good. Same goes for the animation and motion. It may be different from the older series I like, but it's still good.

My big challenge is that I don't want to wallow in nostalgia- I don't want the new things to just be a shallow remake of what I used to like. I'm not saying the series that you suggested are like that at all, however.

Maybe a good example is New Wave music- it died in the mid to late eighties, but is seeing a bit of a regrowth now. The music being made now is similar in form, but is following its own path- it isn't a slavish copy of what was done before.

Like I said, I suspect some of the older anime fans are like me, and perhaps could be a useful buyer market.

>>60716590
I believe Kaze own a UK site, anime-on-demend.com

Site has a nice design, but terrible name, at least crunchyroll is a catchy name. Also it's pay only, which seems like a terrible option.

>>60716522

....I don't even know what to say. because you are completely overlooking my point and then claiming I'm overlooking yours.

Once again, my point was not to force my opinion on someone else. It was just to show someone that there is MORE Anime being made, and he should try and give it more of a chance. Yes, I used my own personal experience as a measurement, but I never said it was some factual measurement of all the good shows. I would never claim such a thing because I haven't seen every Anime.

I don't know why you keep trying to make this some major case comparing 'your taste vs other peoples taste'. That was never my point. I mearly was trying to give someone else an example of someone (me) who used to think Anime was superior in the past, but found plenty of good shows once he tried looking for them.

There were 3 major factors in ADV's demise. The licensing fees are not company killers. Remember that commits for licensing take place at different times than execution of the contract price.

The biggest one was the downturn of the USA economy starting in mid 2003 as the general (non-elite) american population ran out of money and had to curtail their spending for the necessities due to multiple fake crisis (electricity, food, petroleum) which ended up raising prices in all 3 categories.

2nd was the pirating of adv titles. The belief that every title would be pirated caused fans to hold off on purchases and simply wait for the pirate version to be released.

Thirdly, ADV went to war with real lawsuits on their fans in the end of 2004 and during 2005 which caused a short-lived anti-adv fan campaign that had long lasting effects on sales. Many, including myself, vowed during that period to not buy adv ever again (and i haven't). I even donated my adv discs to the public library in order to decrease adv sales in my metro area and I was not the only one with that belief doing that across the usa.

>>60716708

Well, I'd actually argue that the vast majority of DVD buyers, at least in America, are like you. They focus on older shows from about 10-15 years ago. DBZ, Cowboy Bebop, Kenshin, Eva, etc. Because that's when Anime hit its peak in America and those are the types of shows on Adult Swim.

So don't worry, the market is following your views.

>>60716741
Is there anything like that for Spain, Germany or Italy? I think Germany had something but it was DRM-ridden and used Windows Media Player (the official one by microsoft)

Nice to know at least UK and French are getting simulcasts in HD (gives me hope it might expand to the rest of Europe)

>>60716708
Japan is famously (and exaggeratedly, I should add) resistant to change.

If I had to guess the main cause of "oldfag burnout" I would say that it has more to do with exposure than anything else. Independent sources of distribution with a high product turnover mean that you have fewer chances to "vet" your anime choices, compared to the cherrypicking that took place in the past.

I realize that's not ALL of the issue at hand, of course - even in the past I know there were shows that I didn't like, but I certainly never wallowed in an environment where I could even have HEARD of 100 new shows a year, let alone watch them all.

oh, Kazé is starting to sell manga in Germany:
http://www.anime-virtual.de/news/detail.php?SNID=1&DID=222

Ao no Exorcist -> Blue Excorcist (Shueisha)
Toriko (Shueisha)
Nurarihyon no Mago -> Nura - Herr der Yokai (Shueisha)
Akuma to Love Song (Shueisha)
Midnight Secretary (Shogakukan)

I just hope that the other publishers mantain their licenses.

>>60716781
If you really only meant to show that there are more shows being made, you could have come up with a far less narcissistic way of doing it than actually listing all the show you like. Don't do that, say things like
>Notice the huge spike in the number of good shows after 1997 and all the way till 2011
and then try to backpedal and claim that you aren't making an argument about personal taste.

>>60716882
>So don't worry, the market is following your views.

That's terrible news. My views are a great barometer for if something is going to fail. The amount of energy required to turn this train around is more than the various companies involved are willing to spend.

On the other hand, and being less negative, at least it's a starting point. We at least know who to target to get some money together for a revamp of anime in North America.

>>60716457
>I'm a middleground fan
Well that's nice fag, normal people won't see you as that though and they do, you're a small miniscule exception.

For fucks' sake, a good number of people think having an interest in twin ponytails = closet pedo.

You were the one who misinterpreted.

>>60717030
>That's terrible news. My views are a great barometer for if something is going to fail.
I hate this meme, but I know that feel.

I like the logic in this thread that has basically been:

"""How can ADV go out of business when so many like their shows? Everyone I know watched downloaded ADV shows!"""

>>60716974

I am terribly sorry. I forgot I'm on 4chan, where all taste is subject to ridicule and opinions are a huge measure of a persons taste.

From now on whenever I post, I will completely remove all forms of options and taste from my posts, as not to upset people like you who will go ballistic at the very hint that someone differs from them. And to dumb down my posts enough so someone can't get the wrong idea.

Please don't get the wrong idea, I'm really going to change. You have my word.

>>60717137
Where in god's name did you get something like that from this thread?

>>60716931
I live outside of Germany but I'd like to watch some anime dubbed even if it is to keep my German alive while watching anime.

Are the German dubs ok lately? They were godtier back in the late 90s (Digimon, Golden Boy, Cowboy Bebop) but I've been out of touch for a long time and I caught a glimpse of the absolutely atrocious Unlimited Blade Works dub (though I read it was brought over by a company who don't actually know what they are doing)

>>60716892
No idea, i'd check the local communities. I only found out about the side from a UK news site.. Which considering is not the best of starts.

>>60717164
>I forgot I'm on 4chan, where all taste is subject to ridicule
...
>I love lots of post-2000 anime, I'm not trying to argue that point, or your personal tastes

>>60717030

All joking aside, I called the 'failure' of the American Anime Industry back in 2001. And it was precisely for that reason and the dependance on dubs. So it really shouldn't be a big shock to people some 10 years later. If your best selling product stays the same for 15 years, then you aren't gaining profits. Even if ADV sold 100,000 copies of Eva every year, its still not going to make up for all their other products that didn't sell.

>>60717272

The Joke
----
Your head

>>60717341
>overreacting to an imagined attack on your personal tastes
>"joke"

ADV's problems were:
- didn't know shit about what they were selling
- didn't know shit about what the market wanted
- surrounded themselves with yes-men and whores
- hired voice actors based on personal connections rather than talent
- over inflated sense of self-worth (both egotistically and fiscally)

> hurr durr we must be right because we're so big and it's totally not a fluke due to a few series we lucked out on and speculative demand

> oh shit it was a fluke let's blame piracy and the fans

i hope you burn in hell, ADV

>>60717316

Okay, so to turn it around, and if I'm reading this right this has to happen:

1. Several series have to be made that really appeal to all the people who will buy but have stopped doing so. More series on a regular basis have to do this.


2. Dubs are good, but getting people into subs is important too.

For point 1, it should be doable. I mean, if I can read an SF story made in the 50s and enjoy it (ex. "A Logic Named Joe"), and I can read an SF story made last year, then it should be doable with anime too.

There's only ONE way I see any sort of anime revival and that is for SOMETHING to air on TV.
No seriously SOMETHING
And when I say something I don't mean "Watch Fate/Zero at 1:00 AM on Sundays on obscure channel that rarely anyone has#4556"
It has to be something that people can easily see
Toonami had an entire line up of anime starting from 4:00PM
InuYasha did pretty damn good in Canada since it aired at 10:00 PM on Fridays which was perfect.

The problem nowadays though is that kids anime tends to just be Naruto rip off #4667 and even kids can recognize that.
And teenage or adult anime is aired on Adult Swim(and we all know how that goes) or on Channel one billion for DirecTV only.
Just look at Nicktoons, they aired Kai and it got enough good reception that they've aired the movies AND now Dragonball GT.

>>60717316
I'm not sure dubbing killed them. And it's not like they are dead since they are still around as Sentai Filmworks, Section 23 Films, Seraphim Digital, Seven Seas, etc. They're hurt though, and doing things different now.

>>60717531
While a lot of those are kind of harsh criticisms, they aren't entirely untrue, but the last one is definitely the one that mattered the most. Their biggest mistake was riding a bubble and not expecting it to burst.

>>60717531
>hired voice actors based on personal connections rather than talent

But Funimation uses the same VAs.

>>60717607
Honestly, Fate/Zero at 1AM would probably get it a lot of fans. While the daytime Toonami block was more child oriented, a lot of people's favorites from a decade ago were the late-nights. Hell, 20 years later, Aeon Flux still has a huge cult following, and that was another late night adult-targeted animation.

I'm not actually surprised that this argument has continued as it has throughout this entire thread.

The fault is not ADV, repeat, the fault is not ADV. Surprisingly we got the answer early in this thread, it's also been repeated many times, some people still don't get it.

>>60710962
Is the most sensible post in this thread. Back in the 90s anime was unheard of. In the late 90s when Cartoon Network began broadcasting anime like Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z, and Tenchi Muyo anime became big in the US to the point that all you'd have to do is license something and you'd make money off it. Even titles like the Adventures of Mini Goddess made money for god's sake.

Japan took notice and began raising licensing fees and having bidding wars with US anime companies. Those early 2000s prices became standardized to the point that Japan has refused to lower them at all.

There is a very bad problem in Japan that companies refuse to change their practices in order to modernize. In some respects it's astonishing anime companies even use computer graphics. A 2008 article in the New York Times discussed the problems American companies face when dealing with Japan. They mentioned you can still find human operated elevators in Japan, yeah you heard me, like from the 1920s because, 'if it was good enough then it's good enough now'. That's standard Japanese business practices.

You may have heard about how a Swedish company was helping Square Enix with a Final Fantasy game and gave up because, among other absurdities, the Japanese asked for the code to be FAXED to them.

Yeah, it's kinda like that.

Dealing with Japan is impossible unless you throw money at them and very few companies can throw money at them while waiting for a response, maybe Disney, but not much else.

>>60717843

This means that companies like ADV were screwed regardless of their business practices. Japan got money thrown at them and due to their antiquated business practices thought it would continue. Surprise to nobody, the floor collapsed and Japan STILL REFUSES TO REALIZE IT'S THEIR FAULT and they'll continue their idiotic business until it kills them.

There is no future for anime in the west other than fansubs and Crunchyroll until the current business owners die off and are replaced. Good luck waiting around for that.

>>60717607
A late night slot isn't terrible, considering the audience.

Though i'd rather shoot for 10/11pm than 1am

>>60717843
It's a pity that a royalty based system rather than a flat licence won't happen.

Kurau was great. Probably not $960000 great, but still great. It's one of those shows /a/ never talks about.

Like, literally never talks about, not even in those "Let's talk about shows /a/ never talks about" threads.

>>60717951
Do we actually know that they don't get royalties as well as the licensing fee? That's pretty common practice in Publishing, music, motion pictures/TV , and software.

This isn't even a lot of money.

>>60717998
It's probably been mentioned more times since these court documents came to light than it has in the past couple years.

>>60717902
But you see the thing is, the audience doesn't seem to cut it anymore.

Sailor Moon, Hamtaro and whatnot were INCREDIBLY weeaboo but because they were showed at a time where anyone could see it, it eventually gained popularity outside of the typical anime fans.

I guess what I'm saying is that appealing to normalfags CAN be a good thing sometimes.(just not for /a/)

>>60717531

>- didn't know shit about what they were selling

They knew exactly what they were selling. They're just even worse because they didn't make the effort to market it. And focused on editing their shows to high heaven with dubs, script changes, etc. For fuck sake, they changed Lina's Dragon Slave script and ruined the entire Kenshin OAV simply by changing the word 'determination' to 'spite' therefore making his cross seem like the act of hate.

>- didn't know shit about what the market wanted

Again I think they knew more than they let on. But again, they had to focus the market on dubs. Otherwise no one would buy their DVDs. One of the co-founders of ADV has actually been on record as saying 'I think our dubs are superior to the original Japanese'. That kind of egotistical opinionated shit makes me wish they died 15 years ago.

>- surrounded themselves with yes-men and whores

Totally.

>- hired voice actors based on personal connections rather than talent

In the early days, most companies did this. because dubs literally were just get a group of friends together and do a quick dub. Later on, everyone was using the same like 10 voices for everything. But this in and of itself became a problem as dub lovers and dub actors tried to create their own like 'niche' market and because WAY too big-headed.

>- over inflated sense of self-worth (both egotistically and fiscally)

Totally. When you start saving millions to make a live action Eva movie, while your company is loosing 20% of its profits each year, you have lost all scope of reality.

>>60717843
There seems to be a blossoming indie market in japan. If there was a decent indie studio worth investing in...

It could be interesting if a new studio is nurtured by a licensing group and to attempt a new dynamic. Though there isn't any guarantee of them producing quality material.

Who the fuck decides these prices?

>That'll be one-hundred-and-nine-thousand-two-hundred dollars.
>Wait, no, isn't that a bit cheap? Actually, let's go for one-hundred-and-nine-thousand-two-hundred-and-one dollars.

>>60710962
How are most of these absurd prices? We're talking about paying maybe as much as the budget for ONE episode of these series with some of them. Outside of the ones that are nearing a million dollars, those numbers look complete fine to me. 100k dollars isn't a lot of money.

>>60718164
A third party company who ADV claims was inflating prices and skimming money.

ARM was probably skimming on some of the sales. That's a pretty common business practice in Japan.

>>60718050
Well, i'm not saying "the audience" is strictly anime fans, I rather more broadly meant highschool kids, college students, geeks who've not had any real exposure, or harbour preconceptions, etc.

Not that licensing a kids show to show at kids hours is a bad thing. I'll bet Shugo Chara or Yumeiro Patisserie have the potential to appeal to the next generation of sailor moon type fans

>>60718100
Imaishi and Yamakan started up a company for the express purpose of doing just this a few months ago.

>>60718272
>Shugo Chara
>dubbed
>on television
We should all be so lucky.

No wonder they charged shitty prices for these.

>>60718198
100k isn't alot, but there weren't very many that sold that low.

>>60718212

>A third party company who ADV claims was inflating prices and skimming money.

ADV claims a lot of thing.s Nearly all of them have been proven to be false or opinionated bullshit over the years.

ADV is the Electronic Arts of Anime.

Buy everything in sight, complain that you are bankrupt.

>>60718339
I'm sure if they were willing to 'sell out' to a kids audience the companies situation will be less dire.

ADV was a shit company

They deserved what they got

>>60718583
Other companies buy a lot of stuff too that probably isn't likely to sell very well. It looks to me like the point of this was to show the stuff they specifically didn't make money on.

They published a lot of anime, most of which aren't listed there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:ADV_Films

>>60718637
On the contrary, marketing to children is one of the most expensive endeavors a media company can take. Enjoy spending 30k on a 1 page ad on a popular kid's magazine.

>>60718637
That being said
I just realized how hard it is to sell anime to kids nowadays.
It seems show's have actually gotten more adult(atleast visually)
even Disney is gonna run into a wall with Naruto as the violence is just gonna be too much to edit out.

At these prices /a/ could easily raise money to license a series.

>>60718849
Looking back on it I'm really surprised that Tenchi Muyo ever aired on American TV.

>>60718583
Going by current times, the better analogy would be to compare them to THQ, because that's exactly what THQ did: Bought the licenses to dozens of franchises without any plan on how to use them. The ones they did use they made into 2 bit video games that were universally panned by critics and consumers, thus selling like shit.

THQ failed to adapt to the changing market for Video Games, where consumers expect a "Higher quality" game, and now the THQ stock has been below $1 for over a month and is at risk of being delisted from Nasdaq.

>>60718930
>jobless neets/students
>raising thousands of dollars

>>60718849
To be honest it's why i was mostly thinking of soft fluffy shoujo series, most shonen gets kind of violent for your average 3.30pm show.

Though i guess they could air it at a early evening slot.

>>60718979
I assume he's going off one of those "If everyone of you donated $5" schemes. I mean, it's possible, but realistic? Fuck no.

>>60718849
They could licence things like Poyopoyo and target kindergartners. I'd buy it too, Poyo's fucking adorable.

>>60718930
I don't even buy licensed anime, what makes you think I'd want to buy the license itself?

>>60718979

Something like the AIR movie cost 20k to license. If 1000 people gave just $ 20 that's enough. And we're not talking about just the NEETs, but the normalfags who come here to try and fit in who would be throwing money at it. see: Katawa Shoujo.

>>60719075
But what can we DO with the licence?

Mastering and publishing BDs costs about $10 grand for a print run of 3k.

There is always digital publishing, but the licence might come with certain things we have to oblige by to keep the licence, like DRM and region locking.

If ADV ever completely dies, I want to try to buy the rights to Princess Tutu.

In my fantasy world where I'm making 120 grand a year.

>>60719188
This is the Obama era. Get a government grant.

>>60719255

The sad thing is...I could see that working.

Also, ADV should rot in hell simply for this.

One thing i think a company should do is stop being segregated by regions.

Create 1 copy for all english speaking regions rather than farming it out to sub-licences

>>60715968
You need to adjust the yen figure by the inflation rate. Otherwise, the numbers are very off.

It would also be educational to have a chart listing the amount of moe moe puffy nipples/puffy vulva shows by year.

>One thing i think a company should do is stop being segregated by regions.

Lol copyrights.

>>60720958

Only a problem is the Japanese company refuses to give out worldwide licenses.

>>60721026
Let me guess they are afraid of cheap US copies cannibalising their sales?

>>60721146
People are free to import whatever the fuck they want, so I don't see how that would make a difference form the current situation.

>>60721168
>People are free to import whatever the fuck they want
But that's wrong.

Japan - Population: 127,000,000
United States+Canada - Population: ~350,000,000

This whole "50,000 sales" shit is retarded, since equally few shows sell that much in Japan as America. Do you think the average anime in Japan gets more than web advertising and promos on otaku radio shows and stuff? No you dumb nigger, they are NICHE FUCKING ENTERTAINMENT. There is no payoff for buying a TV commercial for most of these things.

The big popular shounens and stuff have had significant TV advertising over the years.

>>60720049
Good luck selling Hollywood and the mainstream entertainment industry on that one.


Anyways, almost all of you are missing that these numbers come from a lawsuit where ADV alleged ARM ran them out of business with inflated license prices.

>>60720049
>One thing i think a company should do is stop being segregated by regions.
>...rather than farming it out to sub-licences

You didn't learn anything in university business courses or from observation of the market. You have a naive view of effective business practices and effective distribution systems. Consider that most other industries, especially american ones, have distribution systems that stake out territories and defend them vigorously either by contract or demand. You have in your hands a cellphone whose utility is parceled out like that for example. Even the marketing campaigns occur on a segmented basis with different marketing firms for different regions despite it being the same product and essentially the same ad copy.

>>60721475
There's a ban on importing anime now? I better report myself to the local authorities then.

It isn't listed here but some of the OVAs and such that they licensed cost them less then $5000 if I remember correctly. Wouldn't it be nice to get a few thousand together and get the rights to some barely known OVA series or something?

>>60720049
>One thing i think a company should do is stop being segregated by regions.

You are an example of how a desire for something shapes your logic processes and rules out other applicable data, info, or constraints. Thus, you can use nothing but absolute truths yet still come out with the wrong answer. It's very common in anime fandom. In university engineering courses, they try to shake that out of you.

ADV would not be out of business if SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA were already active.

>>60721542
Certain products have their domestic distribution limited only to certain regions. Rarely do these end up being enforced, but there are a lot of things people import/export that they aren't explicitly allowed to as retailers.

Madoka's American BD release, for example, and it was also very common with older video games.

>>60721513
At least in english speaking regions, the Anime fandom seems uniquely unified, Won't printing one copy for CAD/US/AUS/UK be vastly cheaper?

Obviously have offices per-region to handle localised marketing and distribution rather than do it all remotely from a single place. ADV more or less did it in the UK, they had an office staffed by a couple of people and a warehouse. Though yeah, i'm aware of how they ended up.

This isn't some local brewed beer where they breed a lot of local pride.

Kurau was great and I loved it, but it's obviously not the kind of show that would be a big seller, so what's with that price? Does it have some kind of pedigree behind it? I guess this sort of explains ADV's retarded marketing for it (every trailer they put out made it out to be some EXTREME ACTION ANIMU).

>>60721475
>>60721168
>People are free to import whatever the fuck they want
>But that's wrong.

Corporations agree that it's wrong with regard to profits. If you can't have a monopoly, the next best thing is control of the market. That's why they had the USTR and Congress work on another treaty to follow after ACTA called the TPP. The TPP has regulations for product distribution as well as implementing more severe forms of DMCA. Since pirating is a form of product distribution, it would fall under TPP as a felony if the amount of distributed product exceeded a certain MSRP value. Part of the goals of TPP is to prevent parallel importing as well as currently legal distribution to unauthorized re-distributors. I can't post it all here or you will mock it as TL;DR. Go look it up. If you the People don't find a way to kill TPP now, it will surface in a few years just like ACTA did and be resistant to defeat.

>>60722084
Region coding, have you ever heard of it?

Japan is making single BD disks for Region 1, but that's about the extent of what they can do without getting other corporate lobbies up their ass.

>>60722218
I have a few BD discs that are coded both AB

No reason they can't make it a standard practice, just print one copy and ship it.

>>60718294
That company (Ultra Super Pictures) is pretty much a joint between Nitroplus, Good Smile Company, Pixiv, Max Factory, Bushiroad and tree animation studios (Sanzigen, Ordet, and Trigger).

Looking at the founding companies, whatever they produce can't possibly be anything more than a big commercial for merchandise. Even if their business model turn out to be novel, their products won't be able to stand on their own. And with current economy and JPY to USD/EUR exchange ratio, there's just no way Japanese merchandise is going to sell well enough.

Their first product is Black Rock Shooter anime, ffs.

ADV would have been protected from fansubbers and scanlators by this and would be still in business. The demand for those titles is there, but the pirates selling copies for $0.00 each killed sales. Yes, a price of $0.00 in a transaction is still a SALE; you would discover that in court under TPP. As a downloader, you have knowingly purchased stolen merchandise. If you gave a copy to your friends or family, you can be charged for selling stolen property. The sale of stolen property across state lines is a felony in my state so you can add your usa state's penalties on top of the TPP penalties.

>>60722103
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/00104713434/us-proposals-secret-tpp-son-acta-treaty-leaked
-chock-full-awful-ideas.shtml

http://keionline.org/node/1091 has the leaked (although older) February 10, 2011 US government draft of the intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

I wonder how much you can get a few older series (late 90s/early 00s) and movies for.

Not big hits, but cult titles that passed the major publishers or have since receded their licence.

It'd probably be pocketmoney, and far more flexible licence wise too.

>>60723354
That would depend on who the distributor is. For instance, Gundam ZZ is old, but Bandai will likely demand 2 Million dollars if Funimation gave them a call.