Offical Neon Genesis Evangelion Info/Update Thread

[nabelnabel]

It's very, very easy to watch EVA with FMTTM without shelling out tons of money for a used set on eBay. I guess for some diehard collectors / fans they want to have the original version physically, but for me - I have a nice looking set, and I've given the creators the money for it that they deserve, and I have a way to watch the original if I so choose, even though I don't own version physically. That's good enough for me.

[v_i]

Originally Posted by IdeaOfEvil

I'm not gonna keep beating a dead horse, but there were ways they could have at least tried. Cuz even if you didn't want to use Kickstarter, or some kind of dedicated customer/payment plan, they could have used some kind of pre-order program to offset the cost. Look at how Funi was strong arming DBz fans with that ultimate collectors edition to get it made through a pre-order system. The cost of the music rights for Eva could have at least been mentioned to fans right off the bat if they did something similar, and it would have then been on the customers/fans to get it licensed at that point. But no. Nothing was said, and the choice was taken out of fans hands and made for them not to include it in any way. And like linked above, just look at what fans are paying for older formats of the series. Do people really think that if they increased the limited sets by another $100 while they made sure to make 1000 of them that they wouldn't have sold out? It's not that far fetched to think fans woulda payed for it based on the secondary market sales as of late. It was just a lousy marketing decision to not let fans in on the planning for these new discs, imo.

Let's do some math, shall we? Let's assume it's $150,000 for each performance. We don't know the exact number ($100,000 to $250,000 have been floating around). There are 28 performances (26 ending themes, plus the 2 times it's used as an insert). That's $4.2 million.
Now, let's go to Kickstarter for a sec. AnimEigo's Gunsmith Cats Kickstarter holds the record for most backers of any English-language anime Kickstarter at 4,249. Because Evangelion is huge, let's say you could get 10,000 people to back a Kickstarter for Evangelion to include Fly Me To The Moon (the honest truth is most buyers don't care). Each backer would have to pay $420 on top of the cost of the set. So bare minimum, you're paying $480 for a dinky single BD case with a slipcover. That's sadly not realistic.

[gundamcero]

Originally Posted by v_i

Let's do some math, shall we? Let's assume it's $150,000 for each performance. We don't know the exact number ($100,000 to $250,000 have been floating around). There are 28 performances (26 ending themes, plus the 2 times it's used as an insert). That's $4.2 million.
Now, let's go to Kickstarter for a sec. AnimEigo's Gunsmith Cats Kickstarter holds the record for most backers of any English-language anime Kickstarter at 4,249. Because Evangelion is huge, let's say you could get 10,000 people to back a Kickstarter for Evangelion to include Fly Me To The Moon (the honest truth is most buyers don't care). Each backer would have to pay $420 on top of the cost of the set. So bare minimum, you're paying $480 for a dinky single BD case with a slipcover. That's sadly not realistic.

Math is hard

[The Collector FX]

Yeah I don't see people coming together to shell out $5 Million via Kickstarter just to have Fly Me to the Moon. (or whatever platform) I think the fans wouldn't be able to put their money where their mouth is on this one.

Plus hosting fundraisers to help foot royalty/licensing fees isn't possible. That stuff is decided when the contracts are drawn up and written prior to payment. So even in a hypothetical situation where a company hosted a fundraiser, what would happen if they agreed via contract to pay licensing fees for a song but a proposed Kickstarter that's supposed cover the expenses didn't foot the cost?

Problems. That's what would happen. The rights holders would get pissed, withdraw said agreement and probably never do business with said company ever again...

[v_i]

Originally Posted by The Collector FX

Yeah I don't see people coming together to shell out $5 Million via Kickstarter just to have Fly Me to the Moon. (or whatever platform) I think the fans wouldn't be able to put their money where their mouth is on this one.

Plus hosting fundraisers to help foot royalty/licensing fees isn't possible. That stuff is decided when the contracts are drawn up and written prior to payment. So even in a hypothetical situation where a company hosted a fundraiser, what would happen if they agreed via contract to pay licensing fees for a song but the proposed Kickstarter didn't foot the cost?

Problems. That's what would happen. The rights holders would get pissed, withdraw said agreement and probably never do business with said company ever again...

It could potentially happen, but the Japanese side would have to be on board from the get go. AnimEigo's Kickstarters for Megazone 23 and Gunsmith Cats were not only for the Blu-ray, but for actually licensing the anime in the first place.

Considering not a single Blu-ray of Eva (US, UK, AU, DE, KR, IT) besides the Japanese one has FMttM, my theory is it wasn't even on the table. Khara may have just said "no." I honestly wouldn't be surprised if whenever it gets re-released in Japan next, it drops it as well.

[Bobo1313]

Don't forget the 5% Kickstarter takes plus they say their payment processor takes an additional 3% to 5%.

It sucks but at some point you just have to accept reality. Until that song enters public domain, there isn't a chance its being included, and there's no guarantee it'll enter PD anytime soon as there are legal loopholes that big companies have been exploiting for a while.

[IdeaOfEvil]

The basic point that I'm saying is that you should have given the fans the choice instead of making it for them *shrugs* Because what if the fans did come together to afford just one version of the theme to be on a disc? Eden of the East got that with the Oasis intro song appearing in the extras section of its bluray release (did Speed Grapher get the same with Duran Duran?). So, what if fans came together to get at least one of the FMttM versions with Eva? What if they got to see for themselves that they couldn't afford even one of the Eva themes? There's a big difference between being told "no" and trying for yourself until "no" is the inevitability.

And again, I'm not arguing over this intro possibly being afforded or not. I'm saying that people rolling their eyes at fans who are upset is what's the problem, and not having let those fans at least try to afford the theme is a way these arguments could have been avoided.

[Ajc228]

Originally Posted by IdeaOfEvil

The basic point that I'm saying is that you should have given the fans the choice instead of making it for them *shrugs* Because what if the fans did come together to afford just one version of the theme to be on a disc? Eden of the East got that with the Oasis intro song appearing in the extras section of its bluray release (did Speed Grapher get the same with Duran Duran?). So, what if fans came together to get at least one of the FMttM versions with Eva? What if they got to see for themselves that they couldn't afford even one of the Eva themes? There's a big difference between being told "no" and trying for yourself until "no" is the inevitability.

And again, I'm not arguing over this intro possibly being afforded or not. I'm saying that people rolling their eyes at fans who are upset is what's the problem, and not having let those fans at least try to afford the theme is a way these arguments could have been avoided.

To my knowledge, Speed Grapher never included Duran Duran on an American home video release.

[v_i]

Originally Posted by IdeaOfEvil

The basic point that I'm saying is that you should have given the fans the choice instead of making it for them *shrugs* Because what if the fans did come together to afford just one version of the theme to be on a disc? Eden of the East got that with the Oasis intro song appearing in the extras section of its bluray release (did Speed Grapher get the same with Duran Duran?). So, what if fans came together to get at least one of the FMttM versions with Eva? What if they got to see for themselves that they couldn't afford even one of the Eva themes? There's a big difference between being told "no" and trying for yourself until "no" is the inevitability.

And again, I'm not arguing over this intro possibly being afforded or not. I'm saying that people rolling their eyes at fans who are upset is what's the problem, and not having let those fans at least try to afford the theme is a way these arguments could have been avoided.

I feel more of the backlash to people complaining is down to how good we're already getting it. Khara is notoriously nearly impossible to deal with, yet somehow, a miracle was pulled off, and not only are we finally getting Eva on BD, they managed to convince Khara to let them include the classic dub, yet all the discourse seems to be complaints. The people making these sets aren't ignorant. They know fans want Fly Me to the Moon. If they could have included it for one episode, don't you think they would have done that?

The other factor is that often, they can't be public about things that go on beyond the scenes. Whether it's legal, as in they signed an NDA (not unheard of), or just business (you never, ever reveal how much you paid for a license), it's quite possible they couldn't have gotten fans in the loop, even if they tried.

And if they had only included it for one episode, do you not think we'd be having this exact same discussion about including it for all the eps? It's impossible to please all fans. What we got already was a monumental undertaking. Does that mean complaints should be pushed under the rug? No. But there often is a valid reason things are the way they are.

[Member-571539]

Originally Posted by IdeaOfEvil

The basic point that I'm saying is that you should have given the fans the choice instead of making it for them *shrugs*

It was probably never an option. Even Netflix couldn’t make it happen.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by keitaro

ADV was able to release Eva back in the day without issue.

As has been explained multiple times, music license fee prices have exploded since.

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by gloomranger

It was probably never an option. Even Netflix couldn’t make it happen.

And yet Square Enix managed to get it for one crummy commercial...

[Academyratio]

That's different though. Square Enix didn't have to pay for multiple different versions of FMTTM. This has been mentioned in the previous page.

[IdeaOfEvil]

Originally Posted by v_i

And if they had only included it for one episode, do you not think we'd be having this exact same discussion about including it for all the eps? It's impossible to please all fans. What we got already was a monumental undertaking. Does that mean complaints should be pushed under the rug? No. But there often is a valid reason things are the way they are.

That, again, comes down to if the fans were at least able to try - then yea, we wouldn't be having the exact same arguments (the general "we," mind you). Like you, I'm not saying/thinking/believing all arguments would be gone. But we might have afforded one song while arguing versus having no song and arguing =)

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by Academyratio

That's different though. Square Enix didn't have to pay for multiple different versions of FMTTM. This has been mentioned in the previous page.

It's almost as if some people just don't want to understand.

[v_i]

Originally Posted by IdeaOfEvil

That, again, comes down to if the fans were at least able to try - then yea, we wouldn't be having the exact same arguments (the general "we," mind you). Like you, I'm not saying/thinking/believing all arguments would be gone. But we might have afforded one song while arguing versus having no song and arguing =)

That's a fair argument. I wish the industry worked that way, and for some series, it could. Eva is just such a special (and hard to manage) beast in so many ways, I wouldn't be surprised if Anno himself was checking every single back of the box blurb or menu transition (only half joking here). Notice how not a single Manga or ADV produced extra made it over?

[gundamcero]

I'm happy with what I got. Don't care about the song enough to ***** really. It is what it is.

I'm honestly surprised we even got a blu-ray this century. Of course people are never satisfied.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by v_i

That's a fair argument. I wish the industry worked that way, and for some series, it could. Eva is just such a special (and hard to manage) beast in so many ways, I wouldn't be surprised if Anno himself was checking every single back of the box blurb or menu transition (only half joking here). Notice how not a single Manga or ADV produced extra made it over?

A likely part of that problem is that Manga and ADV likely own the rights to said extras, so you'd have to pay them to get them. Like heck, the commentaries for Martian Successor Nadesico made for the EAC releases never made it to the RightStuf releases. One of the rare times English-produced extras made their way back on another release was everything ADV made for Noir somehow made it to FUNimation's releases (BTW, many of those will disappear when the inevitable re-release drops the extras DVD).

[Girls With Guns]

Welp, it has gotten so incessantly nauseating having to slog through all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about F**k Me Royally Over the Moon, I'm unsubscribing from the thread now so I can concentrate on being excited to receive my Ultimate Edition in the next month or so. Have at it, kids. And remember, don't run with scissors!

[v_i]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

A likely part of that problem is that Manga and ADV likely own the rights to said extras, so you'd have to pay them to get them. Like heck, the commentaries for Martian Successor Nadesico made for the EAC releases never made it to the RightStuf releases. One of the rare times English-produced extras made their way back on another release was everything ADV made for Noir somehow made it to FUNimation's releases (BTW, many of those will disappear when the inevitable re-release drops the extras DVD).

Huh, interesting. Did the 2008 Nadesico box set keep them? I have a copy on my shelf, and want to make sure it's not missing anything. (Off topic, I know...)