But... it's better than the alternative which would be paying $30 for each DVD volume of a show - which I might add almost made the whole anime dvd market crash and burn at the same time... (ADV, Central Park Media, Bandai Entertainment, Tokyo Pop DVD and Geneon/Pioneer folded within 3 years of each other...)
Not to get too off-track but this is why I'm indifferent towards the whole "Sony Crunchyroll/Funimation/Aniplex" monopoly that everyone is condemning. Well, once upon a time there was almost a dozen companies who licensed/distrubuted anime. Guess what? Didn't work...
Entirely incorrect. The price of the releases was not why things fell apart, demand was inelastic. What popped the bubble was oveprinting of releases and overpaying on shows. There was this massive goldrush over what amounted to a pile of shit to quote Justin Sevakis from this fantastic ANNCast. Companies were making very irrational decisions, it was all on them, not the fans not buying $30 discs (they were buying them), nor the recession (Geneon's collapse preceded the recession). https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2009-12-03 (https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/aud...anncast017.mp3)
Let's start with Geneon. Geneon was doing things like budgeting for shows they had not licensed and knew would go to other companies. They paid FMA money for Heat Guy J thinking it would do Escaflowne numbers because it had some of the same staff, instead it flopped, and RightStuf still to this day 18 years later has the "Limited Edition" artbox of Volume 1 in-stock for dirt cheap. They paid so much for Demon Lord Dante, it was estimated they needed to sell 30,000 units just to break-even on it when no Go Nagai title had ever done particularly well (you need to listen to Justin's reaction to that (timestamp: 37:00), it tells you they really ****ed up there). One of Bandai's top 5 best-selling anime of all-time was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya which sold 80,000 units per volume, so Geneon needed all-time best-selling sales for that enormous bomb. They overprinted éX-Driver: The Movie to the moon, and RightStuf is stuck with quite the stock (screenshot is from October 2014), and one wonders if they'll ever get rid of it as it doesn't do well on eBay. Geneon was crazy to print that many given the OVA did just "okay" for Media Blasters. The retailer returns were the main thing that killed them in late 2007.
You then have one of the most obvious examples of Japan not understanding the North American market in Bandai Visual USA, and yes, that is an actual real slide.
Let's take a look at the Patlabor movies. They printed 10,000 individually numbered units of each movie for $90 MSRP for a franchise that never sold particularly well here, as well as standard editions for $30 MSRP. I don't know how the movies did for Manga Entertainment, but WXIII was a dud for Geneon (confirmed in that ANNCast), especially as they screened it in theaters on film. For Central Park Media, it never did particularly well, you can even see it with the releases. The New Files OVA first had a Volume 1 come out, then months later a box set with the rest of the episodes being subbed-only came out. Bandai Visual USA pulled an Atari (printing more copies of ET than there were consoles). Allow former Central Park Media employee Justin Sevakis to inform you how much Bandai Visual USA overestimated the demand.
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Originally Posted by Justin Sevakis
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Nathan asks:
Why are Bandai Visual's DVD Limited Editions of the Patlabor movies so cheap on Amazon? Not that I'm complaining (two of the best anime movies ever with a ton of physical extras, all for about $40? That's one hell of a deal), but it seems kind of strange to me considering that it's a limited print run and most of the other LE stuff Bandai Visual put out is obscenely expensive nowadays. Did it sell bad or something?
Why, yes. Yes it did.
Let me give you a little more background than that. When the ill-fated Bandai Visual USA first launched, their distribution partner was Image Entertainment, a mass market distributor that had been around for years, and once made a huge percentage of the laserdiscs on the American market. Hopes were high initially. Bandai was going to launch in stores coast-to-coast with two of the most beloved and well-made anime feature films in history: Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor movies. They would sell each in a giant, beautiful chipboard box, each as a two disc set. The box would also include the full film storyboards in book form (fully translated -- I don't know that any other anime has ever gotten that treatment before or since), and a separate book of art and essays.
And now for the silly part: each movie would be a limited edition of 10,000 units, and could be yours for the low, low price of $89.99. That's right, they made 10,000 of these things.
Patlabor was never a huge seller in the American market. Central Park Media's far cheaper collections of the OAVs and TV series would struggle to break 2,000 units. The movies are very good, of course, but for most of the American market, they're a hard sell even at sane prices. But $90 for a movie? In 2006, when the country was awash in cheap anime DVDs? Forget it.
Obviously, Image was pretty unhappy to be saddled with stacks and stacks of these giant, expensive boxed sets nobody wanted. Their relationship with Bandai Visual USA was terminated shortly thereafter (BVUSA distributed later releases through Geneon), and they've been trying to get rid of these things ever since. Which is good for us, because the Patlabor movies are amazing (especially the second one). But now it's 8 years later, and it looks like they're FINALLY becoming harder to find. As of this writing I was still finding them new for as little as $23, but most stores have sold out or are down to a handful of copies.
If you want one, this is probably your last chance.
Now, let's get to ADV Films, whose downfall was caused mainly by the ill-fated Sojitz deal. Sojitz aquired 20% equity of ADV Films parent company A.D. Vision in 2006, and infused them with cash to help license stuff. After 2 years, the plug was pulled, and ADV was crippled, especially as some shows weren't finished (Devil May Cry, Kanon (2006), Pumpkin Scissors, Red Garden, Shattered Angels, The Wallflower, Tokyo Majin, and Welcome to the NHK) and most never got box sets which also weren't out for long (only Comic Party: Revolution, Coyote Ragtime Show, Jinki:Extend, Moeyo Ken TV, and Nerima Daikon Brothers got them). The most damaging thing was how much they paid for all that anime. Nearly everything on this list they overpayed for. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...9-anime-titles
Like seriously.
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As an example provided in the court documents, the series 009-1 was acquired for $25,000 an episode. This title was not very popular at all and would need to sell about 10,000 units to break even on licensing costs alone, at a time when other sources indicate half of that was what a good title sold.
With bad business decisions like these, is it any wonder the bubble popped? There was also the whole Musicland thing. Also Bandai Entertainment never went "out of business". It was stated multiple times that they were still profitable, Bandai Visual Japan just decided on a whim to pull the plug. It's the equivalent of if Aniplex Japan pulled the plug on Aniplex USA despite Aniplex USA being profitable. Sure Bandai was in a bit of a decline, you can even see it with how barebones their releases became, but they were still profitable.
Also to go to what I said earlier, demand is inelastic. Geneon experimented with selling some shows for $25 instead of $30, and some for $20. The sales didn't really change much. Their box sets were also $200, and guess why they continued to be $200? They were still selling at $200. Here's me trying to quote the relevant bits of that ANNCast. I recommend just clicking the MP3 link above and going to 44:20, then later 66:00 (relevant bits start at 67:00 but 66:00 is needed for context).
Zac: That brings up another question, I gotta get this in. Was there ever any internal rumbling about switching over to the thinpak box set system that FUNimation's doing now? Because clearly it's doing much better for them than singles.
Chad: There had been talk about doing the releases. But here's the problem we had. We needed to make our budget. And we were releasing- We didn't wait until we had the whole thing dubbed and released. We were releasing it as soon as we possibly could, which meant by the time we got the first volume finished, we hadn't even gotten masters for the second volume, sometimes. So it's kinda like you can see it with the way we did Hellsing. Where it was out, it was released, and we didn't have the volume. That was a more obvious version of the nightmare we lived each and every month for each and every title. Um a lot of them weren't done because we had licensed it when it was going on air, and so that was never an option. It always we have to release the individuals, and we have to shoot for profitability. Because you know what, we tried it at $29.98, and we saw the sales. We tried it at $24.98, and it sold about the same. And we tried a few at $19.98, and it was about the same. Price did not really have that big of an impact, because quite frankly they knew what titles they wanted, "they" being the fans out there. They know what they want, if they willing to pay for it, they were willing to pay for it. And if they weren't willing to pay for it, there was the internet.
Zac: So you just had this core of people buying, and that was it, and you really couldn't expand out?
Chad: There are probably magical price points, but when we're dealing with-Okay if we have to do a bundle at 40 bucks, and the individuals are still at 30, we're going to that market so which will mean we will eventually come out with a bundle, but we have to give it a chance to find its legs. Because for example, Samurai Champloo outsold Naruto for the first year on a volume by volume basis, and we were charging 5 bucks more. Quite frankly-if you remember our other conversations about Rumiko Takahashi and you know, Cybusters, we needed the money!
Zac: So it sounds like waiting for the box set was just death. You just couldn't wait, because you'd be losing money that entire time.
Chad: Pretty much, and we needed the revenue. We had interest payments to make, and we had sales figures to hit, and if we didn't hit them, then heads would roll, and we didn't them anyway, and heads did roll. So it was a very difficult situation to deal with. And we knew that the price point was eroding but at the same time, title, definitely had much more impact. The fact that it said Samurai Champloo on the box cover, meant, much more than the price. There were certain exceptions, and certain times where you could do a bundle and you would do the price point, and it would really make a difference, but since we had to release the individual volumes first, because of the timing and the budget, we couldn't release a low price box set until those had come back. We wanted them to try to sell them as they were. But if we had released the box set at the same time as the last volume, first of all no one would buy the last volume. None of the retailers because they would say "Well this box set is much cheaper. Oh and by the way, since you're undercutting these individual volumes, you can have them all back now." So there was this game. [Me: Meaning Geneon had to pay back the retailers for said unsold volumes they were sending back. This is one of the main things that bankrupted them.]
Zac: Your box sets were never reasonably priced though! Like they were always like 130 buck for Trigun, it was like 130/150.
Chad: $199.98. But that was because it was continuing to sell at $199.98. And in our last 2, 3 years, we did start to have some more reasonably priced box sets. We did Tenchi Universe, it went from like $199 to $79. But when we price it at $79, that means it hits at Best Buy, Musicland, and Amazon at lik $59 or 55 bucks, 50/60 bucks. And it moved, it sold a lot of units and we didn't like the thinpak so much as we liked the multipack. Because in the thinpak you still have to redesign each of the covers and print each of the covers. Which takes your inventory costs and multiples it by 7. And on that single 8-disc cassette that was only 2 DVD amaray-cases wide, that cost us less than half of an 8-disc thinpak.
[Wanted to also get this in.]
Timestamp 67:00 (Go back to 66:00 for the question that sparked this. Not quoting all of that.)
Chad: But no, it was not actively "Let's see how bad can we screw people over". It was, okay, um we're going to sell 5,000 units at $29, and we're going to sell 5,500 units at 24 bucks, and 6,000 units at 19 bucks. There's absolutely no incentive to go at 19 bucks because the extra thousand units cost----you lose money! So we'll make less people happy, but we'll have roughly the same amount of money and we'll hopefully be able to invest that in the future.
(Dialogue not 100% accurate, I tried to get it as close as I could.)
Now, I’m curious to know what you consider Top 10 worthy?
This list is indictive of my personal enjoyment and favoritism not necessarily artistic quality.
Top 10 Anime Movies
1. Macross Plus: Movie Edition
2. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time
3. Akira
4. Ghost in the Shell
5. Ninja Scroll
6. Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack
7. Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space
8. Gurren Lagann the Movie: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars
9. The End of Evangelion
10. Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn
Is there any reason FLY ME TO THE MOON is too prohibitively expensive to include on the blu ray release but nbd for a CD release like FINALLY (which presumably has a smaller audience)?
Is there any reason FLY ME TO THE MOON is too prohibitively expensive to include on the blu ray release but nbd for a CD release like FINALLY (which presumably has a smaller audience)?
Probably because the record label who produced FINALLY actually paid the license for both songs to be in the soundtrack prior to release, which includes streaming. Different standards for different formats.
Is there any reason FLY ME TO THE MOON is too prohibitively expensive to include on the blu ray release but nbd for a CD release like FINALLY (which presumably has a smaller audience)?
The long and short of it.
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Originally Posted by gloomranger
Here is a series of long since deleted tweets by you-know-who, that dives into the complicated issue of how and why “Fly Me to the Moon” will likely not appear on future releases of Evangelion…
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I've recently learned of at least 3 well known older anime that are/were unlicensable because they used English songs and never cleared the rights internationally. I don't think fans understand what a nightmare it can be when this crops up, especially if it's an OP/ED.
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Japanese TV shows can often clear international songs to air in Japan only through a central clearing house, but that's a shortcut. REALLY, the song composer and their publisher get to negotiate each use of the song. If it's famous, that can be $$$
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If it's an opening or ending theme, used every episode and maybe also as a BGM? Each "performance" is a SEPARATE LICENSE that has to be negotiated and paid for on its own. Even if you could pay the cost, many artists, especially successful ones, would just say
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If licensing is out of the questions, the BGM scenes are the real killer. If Japan still has all the unmixed audio stems and can re-score the BGM scenes, great, but not many old shows do. You're just screwed.
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Even weirder, Japan REALLY wasn't paying attention to this way back when, so some of these shows got released Stateside back in the day, uncleared music and all. And now that someone realized the issue, it's completely off limits because there's no good way to fix the issue.
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You generally won't hear this talked about publicly because it's pretty embarrassing to the Japanese producers that they screwed up decades ago. Many times nobody thought these shows would ever get releases outside Japan, at least not w/ any original audio!
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Also, it doesn't matter if these are cover versions or original recordings. The "sync" license is with the songwriter and composer. Sorry to say, Cipher The Video is probably never gonna get an overseas release.
It's a damn good thing the production team behind the recent JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime shows got Warner Bros backing to do the licensing correctly, so they can have songs like Roundabout and Freek'n You on the fly for broadcast, streaming AND home video (hopefully in perpetuity).
I should probably go inform the other customer I just talked to today at The Source Comics & Games where we were both considering buying the Sword Art Online Platinum Collector's Edition (not anime lool) on the shelf and debating its LGS pricing. He needs to know!
[Show spoiler]that his fate on whether or not he was going to buy the item has already been determined, independent of its price.
The fact all 5,000 units of the Evangelion Ultimate Edition sold out in under 8 hours despite being $275 before shipping should further tell you that demand is indeed inelastic, just like in Japan, though not to the same extent.
Heck, there was The Garden of Sinners selling out in under 2 months despite being $400.
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posted on 2010-12-13 10:00 EST by Egan Loo
Aniplex of America announced on Monday that it will release ufotable's entire Kara no Kyōkai - the Garden of sinners film series in an English-subtitled Blu-ray Disc box in North America on February 8, 2011.
The discs themselves have elegant, clean menus, and while there aren't a lot of on-disc extras (usually just a trailer or cute little preshow warnings against recording in the theater), the presentation here is still highly competent. It's a lavish release to be sure, but as American consumers are rarely ever asked to choke up 400 dollars for any media release – let alone anime, which has dramatically come down in price over the last 10 years – it's impossible to justify the price tag to anyone outside of extreme hardcore Type-Moon fans with a small mountain of disposable income. Kara no Kyoukai is certainly a memorable and unique experience, but just as the series itself is difficult to immerse yourself in, the price tag for this release – which as of this writing is sold out anyway – simply cannot be reconciled. It would be nice if Aniplex eventually decided on a more reasonably priced version of the series, if only so even more adventurous viewers looking for something new and challenging can expose themselves to Type-Moon's brutal creation.
All of the discussion on here over the last 100 pages about the pricing of the Ultimate Edition versus the value it provides should prove to you that the demand is in fact not inelastic. That's a cliche that oversimplifies things, and it's a crutch argument. It may be true in certain instances or it may not necessarily be true. Meaning that you're using facts to support an already-held viewpoint. Regardless of that, it's an annoying over-generalization and a trite cliche. Things are not that simple.
Or else these companies and their financial departments with their sophisticated forecasting tools could have calculated exactly how many additional UE units they could and would have sold (while reaching a sellout point that retains high integrity for their brand). But too bad things aren't that simple. Or else they would have allotted more units and they would have had a perfect market-clearing sellout point after say 1 to 10 weeks of pre-orders. But it turns out that customers are much more complicated than that and it's impossible to correctly gauge demand with any semblance of certainty.
You kinda have to be a diehard fan of anime in general to justify the prices of its physical media - even for household name shows like Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. Especially Sailor Moon, as owning the whole show and it's movies will cost you around $600+, whereas the 4K Collectors Edition of Game of Thrones Complete Box Set, for example, tops out at $300. You gotta be an extreme, super, eat Cup Noodles for 2 months to afford this shit to be a fan of Sailor Moon lol.
Being a fan and consumer of anime on blu ray (and even DVD as there are still literally tens of thousands of IP's/shows that have to get a release on blu ray and can be just as pricey) is f***ing expensive.
But... it's better than the alternative which would be paying $30 for each DVD volume of a show - which I might add almost made the whole anime dvd market crash and burn at the same time... (ADV, Central Park Media, Bandai Entertainment, Tokyo Pop DVD and Geneon/Pioneer folded within 3 years of each other...)
Not to get too off-track but this is why I'm indifferent towards the whole "Sony Crunchyroll/Funimation/Aniplex" monopoly that everyone is condemning. Well, once upon a time there was almost a dozen companies who licensed/distrubuted anime. Guess what? Didn't work...
I thought about bringing up Sailor Moon and DBZ before as part of my earlier post, but thought it might be a bit of a hornet's nest.
Dragon Ball Z fans have been continually messed with over basically every Blu-ray release, when fans have been consistent about what they really wanted (4:3 original aspect ratio, high quality encoding, original dub if possible, new dub along with it is fine if available). What did they get instead? Different aspect ratios, DNR, varying audio and video sources of questionable quality, you name it. Everything except for the product actually desired. I think the Level Sets were the closest release, and then that effort was apparently dropped because it actually took some work to do.
As for Sailor Moon, there's better masters out there (I think that can be seen from an Australian? release and possibly from a few digital streams, if memory serves), but Viz basically just dropped the ball hard and expected everybody to pay a premium for shoddy work.
This just goes to what I was saying earlier about entertainment companies being super weird and conspiring to release products that customers don't want. The worst is when these new products aren't even as high quality as the DVDs that preceded them (which is considered basically true for both DBZ and Sailor Moon in most cases).
An anime distribution company can charge a premium if they put in the work and deliver the product people asked for. It's another story if they couldn't be bothered and just slapped the most readily available master on a disc with auto-algorithmed DNR.
To your greater point about anime pricing in general, I've acquired many series for reasonable prices, but it does require patience and deal hunting. Standard anime pricing is barbaric, but during the stronger sales, it actually usually becomes reasonable outside of a few specific properties/companies.
As for Funimation, Sentai, and Aniplex, I have specific feedback for each of them generally.
Funimation: Do a better job on your on-screen subtitle translations (like for signs or other on-screen information), and fix your payment options on your streaming service (I was unable to fix a payment issue that happened on their end because their website UI doesn't allow proper control over payment). Other than that, you're doing mostly fine, and your Essentials pricing is on-point most of the time.
Sentai: A digital option like Funimation provides would be nice, but not required (and would likely drive already reasonable prices up). The biggest thing I'd ask would be to allow the Blu-ray consumer to select whichever combination of audio and subtitle they like. I prefer watching with English dub and Japanese-based subtitles so I can get more context from the subtitles while enjoying the audio in my native language. It's also an accessibility thing for other viewers, where hard-of-hearing English viewers would appreciate being able to select subtitles for that audio option (which is impossible on many anime titles, not just on Sentai's).
Aniplex: Do more collaborations with Funimation, or provide standard editions at reasonable prices yourself. I like your stuff, but I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on one five-hour show. But you already know that.
I haven't been to this thread in like a week or so, but it's interesting reading what I've missed.
As a DBZ fan, funimation is indeed a painful company. I bought the series collection on dvd, which contained the orange brick versions back in like 2010 or something, before I knew any better. Bought the Kai bluray parts as they were coming out, I think they were some of the first blurays I ever bought. I bought the Dragon Boxes back in 2013 before the prices went insane, so yay for me. I didn't buy the level sets initially. I remember seeing them on the shelves, but I'd just been buying the series on Kai, and the used the same orange motif as the seasons, so I just assumed they were the same shit. I never bothered with the season sets on bluray as I'd heard they were essentially the orange bricks again. I was excited for the 30th ann. collection, but then they revealed what it was, so didn't bother. Was gonna skip the steelbooks again, which used those same discs as the 30th, but I did like their designs, and eventually there was a 2for1 sale, so I picked them up at half price essentially.
I just want a Dragon Box bluray set though.
I did eventually get the 2 level sets from ebay, as even though incomplete, I'd heard they were like the best version of DBZ and the collector in me needed them.
Back to the DVD topic though, I'm so glad they're dying and people are finally moving on to blurays ...a decade late and after they've already been superseded by UHD, but I don't expect that to be the mainstream for TV series for a while, so whatever. I have already been buying UHD anime films when available though.
I hate DVDs with a passion. As soon as blurays started popping up, I decided I was going to only get those from that point on; why would I want to buy an inferior product when I knew there was a better version? Same reason I don't buy previous gen game releases when they get released on next gen too. The only times I buy anime on DVD now is if it's an old out of print series or it's like ridiculously cheap. I've picked up a few DVDs for like $5 here and there, I don't mind that.
Anyway I started with DBZ Kai and FMA Brotherhood, my first blurays I'm pretty sure <3 The frustrating thing is though, I'm Australian, so Madman would still do DVD only releases for things, which, why would I buy? I wanted to buy things like Haikyuu and Deadman Wonderland, but we only ever got those on dvds, but I saw them getting blurays in other countries, so I figured I'd just wait until we got those too, but we never did. That happened far to often for me. I'm glad I don't really have this issue anymore.
Back to Evangelion though
If you're really eager for the Ultimate Edition and you missed out before, it is still available here in Australia. Though, there is no special preorder price like the US and UK, it's the full $519AUD, or whatever the equivalent is i your currency. We are Region B and idk if Madman ships overseas, but if you want it bad enough, I'm sure you could figure something out. Just though I'd let people know
They've likely implemented geo-locking, it's been fairly common and can work in a variety of ways.
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Originally Posted by BigOnAnime
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Originally Posted by WTK
via Mania.com forums
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Originally Posted by ultimatemegax
Recently people have been annoyed at licensors requiring subtitles with Japanese audio. Kadokawa took it a step farther with the HLP movie. If your BD player's country is set to "Japan," the change audio option disappears from the menu completely. All you can see/hear is the English track. Of course, if it's re-set to "United States," then the Japanese track re-appears (with locked subtitles). They're getting creative with reverse importation now!
Edit: picture from teramiya, a big NA release blogger in Japan.
With DVDs, the US and Japan were in different regions so that cut down on casual reverse-importation to some extent.
Even back then they were concerned. There was a short time period where Kadokawa sent composite masters on purpose to deter reverse-importation. Notable examples include Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Girls Bravo, Maburaho, and Scrapped Princess.
You can often find North American anime DVD releases on Yahoo! Auctions Japan. You can sometimes find stuff that's OOP and being scalped here, and import it back to North America for less than what people are charging, like say, ADV's Evangelion Platinum thinpak. This is from an auction from last year.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
They always overbought especially Walmart. Cost them nothing. This is what MB always did Hentai.
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