fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2767 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2767 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Work. Again. Sorry if response time is slow. :(

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 011 secrets from Secret Submission Post #394.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big (also random unsubstantiated claims about famous people) ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

PFFT. Ganbatte, Nippon!

I'll be honest, I don't think this is going to increase their sales that much. The reason why anime/manga is so popular is because it's so readily available for free. Take that away and a majority of those 'more than half of US readers/watches' are just going to move on. I do feel for the creators, though.

Yeah it's always utterly spurious when someone asserts that any download is a "lost sale". Most of those people wouldn't be downloading it if it wasn't free.

Exactly. To be honest, the American anime/manga craze is long over. I don't think they're going to make as much money as they think they will. It's their right, of course, but I don't think it's *actually* costing them 20billion or so when the majority of those people wouldn't actually be buying anyway.

Besides, they're hugely to blame for charging exorbitant licensing fees for shit that American companies wanted to localize way back at the start of the anime/manga craze, forcing them to set ridiculous prices that no teenager/very young adult could afford. Seriously, $40 for a single DVD that has two episodes? $300 for a box set of one season? When you compared that to North American shows/cartoons where box sets themselves cost $40 it was utterly ridiculous.

So everyone just turned to piracy because they weren't going to be able to watch it otherwise. None of those were "lost sales."

Ugh, I'd forgotten how pricey stuff used to be. It'll be interesting to see how they go after Piratebay, since everyone and their mother has been doing that with little success lol

They doomed themselves, honestly. If they'd made legal anime even remotely accessible (and online) from the start there wouldn't be anywhere near as much piracy, and more people would be accustomed to buying it. (See: the overwhelming success of iTunes and Amazon.) Sure, it is now, but it's way too late. Like you said, the anime boom is over.

Yeah, they should have struck when the iron was hot. I remember when anime used to play every night on AS, and now it's only on Saturdays. All the knockoff anime shows/commercials are gone, and it's rare to find it outside of CN or fox kids. Remember the demise of Tokyopop? lol

Exactly. With anime and manga being as expensive as it is, I'm not going to pick up something on a whim at the store. Buying a US DVD out of the $5 bin and not liking it is one thing. Spending $30 or more on something only to not like it is something entirely different.

The only way I buy anime is if I've watched it first and know that I like it.

Where the hell did you buy anime DVDs - even at the start of DVDs being a thing for anime - that they cost $40?

Where the hell are you buying them NOW that they cost that much?

And don't bother shaking a cane at me, I started when you needed $50 to buy three episodes on VHS in sub and dub (meaning two VHSes, if that's not clear).

To be fair, Aniplex still sells them for the Japanese price.

Victoria, BC, late 1990s-early 2000s? That's exactly what they cost at retail in the few shops that sold them, and I've had friends from the US say exactly the same thing about their hometowns.

And hahah yeah I remember buying bootleg fansubbed VHS tapes off the internet in the early 90s too bro.

Aah, Canada...okay, yeah, that makes sense then. I was just flummoxed because even the very first anime DVD I ever purchased still only topped out at $30.

I was just cutting off the "you're too young to remember" argument at the pass. No slight intended.

Pretty much. I spent so much money on manga in high school. Like pretty much all my birthday money, allowances, neighborhood babysitting gigs, whatever went towards it. Looking back, it was such a waste, it almost makes me cry. And then when I went to college, I didn't have the space for all that, I ended up giving most of it away to friends and donation. I kept my Azumanga Daioh and Rurouni Kenshin stuff and that was it.

$1500-$2000 worth of manga. Gone like that.

Regardless of how much I still love the medium, I am never dishing money out like that again.

Publishers really just need to take all the effort they're putting towards combatting piracy and put it towards making a subscription service for manga like Netflix and Crunchyroll. Assuming it was priced reasonably around $10 a month, I'd sign up for that in a heart beat.

ETA: And don't get me started on series that last for 40+ volumes or series that go, go, and go... until the author takes a indefinite hiatus. God, I remember how much some of my friends used to love DN Angel and x1999. I don't even know if the Western world really has an equivalent to how easily some authors can drop a story outside fanfic WIPs.

Edited 2014-08-01 06:00 (UTC)

Ugh, you don't need to tell me, x1999 was my One True Fandom for years, and I was in denial for so, so long about them never finishing it.

I was lucky since I never got into it like some of their other works. One of my friends in particular though... when Tsubasa came out, she got pissed at the inclusion of x1999. She went on a whole tirade about how CLAMP was essentially playing their fandom and acting like they were providing some great fanservice when they could just, you know, go back and actually finish the damn series.

I couldn't blame her.

[ SECRET POST #2767 ]

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating

Re: Japan cracking down on anime/manga pirating