Re: Another Anime is Dead Rant

On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:08:21 -0800 (PST), starcade@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Nov 26, 2:41 pm, afedakendragon <afeda...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Nov 26, 5:05 pm, starc...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

You're presuming something that, even from his comments, I'm not:
That there is any value in the license to begin with -- and, I think
that's his point. That there is NO value in the current licenses and
that the only way to really save the matter is to go with a much more
simultaneous release -- else, why bother?

There is no value in the current licenses in the CURRENT MODEL. There
is no value in selling snow to eskimoes. Don't sell snow to
eskimoes. Sell snow in the desert. GO FIND THE DESERT.

Actually, that's why the whole thing is dead, and you said it more
perfectly than you think.

Selling snow in the desert is useless because it's not snow anymore.
It's _water_ -- and that's something akin to what the industry has not
realized. As Sevakis said: There's no value in the anime itself once
they've already seen it. NO financial value whatsoever.

What are you going to sell to whom in that situation?

Water to thirsty people.

Or in this case, Anime, to organizations that can make use of it to
promote products, or services.

Snow is water. And people need it in most parts of the desert. This
is my whole point. Quit trying to sell that old and beat license as a
retail product. Start tying to sell it as a promotional, paid and
sponsored product.

Sell anime to someone else. Quit going after a target demographic
that has already demonstrated that they're not willing to pay. Target
the market that will pay. Change your product. Change your market.

Fine. You just ensured that you're down to about six series a year --
the only way that could be workable is to turn the US anime business
over to the likes of Cartoon Network and the like. They provide the
studios, the dubbers, the whole shooting match. That's pretty well
about it.

Take that year old license, and repackage it. Use anime as a
promotional material to drive another product. Find a new broadcast
medium. Find a new distribution medium. The license is already paid
for! Sunk cost arguments aside, it'd be foolish to just toss away a
license without exploring other methods of extracting value from it.

WHAT VALUE? And what value would you get from a Kaleido Star, for
example, in any of the above respects?

Promotional value. Sponsorships. Adveritisements.

Run a double feature and cross promote Kaleido Star with Cirque du
Solei. Sell a few more of those seal plushies. Run it on the family
channel.

The "Kono bangumi wa, goran sponsor no teikyou de okurishimasu" phrase
really does translate.

(Just as an example -- insert an anime you are more familiar with
here...)

Anime has no value to the fans who download it. That doesn't mean
that they have to be the primary consumer, the only consumer, and the
only source of revenue. You can use it to drive sales, grab eyeballs,
and do any other number of promotionally oriented things that will
generate revenue.

If you can grab those eyeballs -- and they haven't "been there and
done that" already.

They're not even trying. They're going after those same eyeballs
who've already agreed aren't going to bother to buy. Eskimoes.

Go show off to other target markets. There are niche networks for
just about every interest. Pair them up with the appropriate anime.

Take a subscription based model for instance. With competing
services, the number of titles available, the sheer variety of what
you can get, is what drives people to your services. You can't tell
me that "AnimeStreamingService-X with 10 titles" is going to sound
better than "AnimeStreamingService-X with 20 titles."

Provided that you can't just rip it off the streaming service (or have
the raws TO BEGIN WITH) and just throw it up there.

C'mon now. I thought we went through this. They're not going to win
on price. You can't compete with free. The rippers aren't going to
subscribe. The "bad" fans aren't going to subscribe.

The only way to compete with free is to compete with speed,
conveneince, quality, and selection. A company would be stupid to
give up the license they already paid for, and damage their selection.

Basically, any real such solution would have to sic the lawyers on the
whole mess.

Lawyers don't stand my snow's chance in the desert. :-)

In fact, several comments I've read in the forums basically say that
they should just toss the dubs out of the business and be done with
them.

That would gut their DVD sales even more than the downloading does.
I'll bet that most of these DVDs wouldn't sell enough sub-only to
cover the now lowered production costs. Now they'd have absolutely
nothing left to compete with the fansubs.

They have nothing left to begin with. Most of the argument here would
be to go ahead, gut the dubs, and basically make sure that the series
comes out essentially simultaneously with J-release -- else, it's gone
anyway, dubbed or otherwise.

You license for both. And you release for both. Nothing is stopping
Viz from doing their Deathnote DVD releases, despite the presence of
the streaming broadcast.

Funi doesn't quit showing FMA on CN because they're afraid it'll cut
into their DVD sales. They do it to promote their DVD sales.

I think the winning idea here is to do MORE with your licenses, not
less.

Sell it for cheap for the first run stream. (IE:Try to steal the
fansub audience.) Sell it again on DVD for the fans who want QUALITY.
(The "Good" fans.) Promote your DVD with a TV broadcast. (The
mainstream audience, or hey, maybe a niche target.) And while it's
being broadcast, negotiate for a cut of the advertising revenue. (The
promotional audience.)

And while you're doing all that, you can stick it up on iTunes, at any
stage in the process. (The Mobile A/V audience.) Cross promote
exclusives with the cellular companies. "Full Metal Alchemist: Only
on AT&T." (The cellphone audience).

Heck, both Japan and Taiwan seem to do well with live action
adoptations of their properties. No reason we can't do that too. And
sell the resulting product back to the Japanese for kicks!

Related games. Books. Magazines. Right now, Newtype USA uses a
magazine to promote DVD sales; flip that model on its head, and use
the DVD to sell magazines. Release shows like old serial fiction, one
episode a month included with a manga anthology, using the older
license to promote your current good.

And then there's licensed goods. Hello Kitty is a marketing
phenomenon, but not without effort. Kitty-chan stationary. Clothing.
Household goods. There's no reason you couldn't brand up another
anime in the same fashion.

And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Better folks than me are working on this issue. Hopefully the R1
anime companies are listening.

There are myriad ways of supporting such a venture. A low subscription
price. Advertising. But it has to exist, and it has to be easier to
use than bittorrent. It has to show new anime DAYS after it airs in
Japan. It has to be available to most of the world. It can't lock out
Mac or Linux users. All of these are reasons people will use to
justify continued piracy."

BINGO. And that's the problem. They can't show what they haven't
licensed, and their licenses, at current rate, are rank worthless.

They're worthless in the current market, with the current model. That
doesn't mean you have to use the current model. Or sell to the
current market. Snow to eskimoes.

Water in the desert, if it doesn't evaporate by the time you deliver
it.

If you're too slow, you die.

(It gets more perfect, the more I think about it... Think of anime as
snow in a desert. First, it melts. Then, it warms. Then, it
evaporates. D -- O -- A.)

There's a loooong period of time between those though. C'mon. U.S.
copyright law currently allows for what, life of the creator plus 85
years?

Gonzo is making anime based on IP that's several hundred years old.
The Romance of Three Kingdoms is THOUSANDS of years old.

I admit that for some, speed of releases is a driving factor. But
it's not the only factor, and it doesn't have to be a limiting factor.

By that standard, re-runs and classic TV shouldn't have any value
either. But there's no shortage of television shows in syndication,
and the DVD market for TV BoxSet collections seems to be doing just
fine.

Nothing in that quote contradicts what I've said. Their licenses have
been completely bled dry due to fansubs.

Why is it such a stretch for you to imagine that this direct sales
supported model might not be the only model?

Why is it such a stretch for you to understand that people aren't
going to pay for it unless _FORCED_ to do so?

You're right. People aren't going to buy.

So don't sell to people. Sell to organizations. Sell to
broadcasters. Sell to promoters. Sell to anything and anyone that
you think could benefit from using your license to do their work.

These licenses still have value, just not in the retail DVD market.

On a related note, I think that the R1 Anime industry is working under
a physical product model. That doesn't work in content based
industries. Both broadcasters and performers figured that out years
ago. Print authors are figuring that out pretty quickly too. (Right,
SeaWasp?) Don't even get me started on software.

I don't think physical distribution models are sufficent today for
content based industries, and I suspect that anime falls into this
category. Distribution is dead. The money is elsewhere.

Yep -- it's official.

The industry, as it stands now, is too far gone and it can't be saved.

Ya know, none of the industries I mentioned is dead. And all of them
have made or are making the necessary changes to ensure that they
still get value on their licenses.

I don't know that using any of those industries as an allegory for
anime is really appropriate, but if we go down that road, take note
that none of them has disappeared.
--
Abraham Evangelista
.

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