Re: An Open Letter to Kun Gao: Re: Your Ransom Note to the Remaining Anime Industry

Gerardo Campos wrote:
Starcade <darkstar7646@xxxxxxxxx> wrote on Thu 09 Jul 2009 03:07:22p:

On Jul 9, 1:00�pm, Gerardo Campos <macr...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Right, if the show is not very popular, it makes sense to pay less
for the license.
If those providing the license allow that price.

If there is no agreement, then do not get the license

Here's where the fact that a number of series needed American money to
be completed comes in. You seem to forget (probably conveniently)
that the licensing price is negotiated, but that the original owners
of the anime (the Japanese) have the final call. They could well have
a number that, because of the need for American money to complete the
series, they CAN NOT go under.

I have not forgotten the license price, I used the license prices that you provided in the math calculations, in a previous post.
Yes, that is my impression, but, I am just using the numbers provided
by Mike.
Which were numbers provided to me by the blog and the survey in
question -- you'd probably have to go back to animeanime now to get
them, and back about 18 months at that.

Ah, so the numbers come from someone that publishes a blog and from some unknown people that answered a survey, I though those numbers came from real industry reports.

Yes, buying an anime DVD is expensive, but since must of the setup
costs have been recovered (studio, casting, equipment, press,
distribution channels, etc.), now should be cheaper to produce them,
and that reflects the price for the consumer.
So you are basically throwing in the towel, then, on new titles!

No, I keep buying titles, I recently bought:

The girl who leapt through time USD35.99 Dollars at Best Buy
Escaflowne (Jap, Eng dub/sub) USD$39.99 Dollars at Best Buy
Saint Seiya (Jap, Spa dub/sub) MXN$5,880 Pesos at Mr. CD.
Guyver (Jap, Eng dub/sub) USD$63.00 Dollars ar Barnes and Noble

(Frankly, so is most of the industry, at this rate...)

And you assume something that I'm not able to -- that those costs have
been recovered at all.

I said most of the costs, not all of them.

We've lost three of the six major companies from two years ago (and
several minors as well) because your assumption, in most cases, is not
the case.

Is a capitalist environment, all the companies are fighting to have the largest market segment, part of the process makes some companies to disappear.

I would dispute that we've lost three "major" companies in the last two years. Geneon is the only major company that we have lost during that time, and that appears to be do to internal shenanigans, where the main Japanese branch wasn't allowing them to compete and market effectively. Central Park Media was already on a deathwatch since the bankruptcy of MediaPlay, which owned the Suncoast and SamGoody franchises. Though F.Y.E. bought up the remains of MediaPlay, it never really replace it. As for Bandai Visual USA, it never was a major player to begin with. In fact, it was perhaps the smallest player in the whole North American market. But its failure was do to trying to treat the North American market the same as the Japanese market with high priced, low episode count DVDs that everyone but Mikey said was market suicide. But don't confuse Bandai Visual USA with Bandai Entertainment, which is still very much in the game.

As for the other anime companies, we still have Funimation, Viz Media, ADV, Bandai Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, Media Blasters, and RightStuf's Nozomi Entertainment. Of those seven, only ADV is known to still be on shaky ground. We may still see a couple of companies go out of business as the market continues to realign itself, but the market will still continue to exist.

Farix
.