Aniplex of America Blu-rays

[Nostalgic Twilight]

Packaging shot for Durarara!!x2, Volume 4:

[Naiera]

Hawt.

[mrclt1994]

Some pics from AoA's Facebook page of YLIA and DRRR!!x2 Ten vol 3

Your Lie in April Set 1

[Show spoiler]

Edit: Durarara!!x2 Ten Vol 3

[Show spoiler]

[Girls With Guns]

AoA will be setting up their own Twitch page... never used that site, but it may be of interest to us AoA Fan Boys, lol...

https://www.facebook.com/AniplexUSA/...type=1&theater

https://www.twitch.tv/aniplexUSA

[BigOnAnime]

If anyone further continues to doubt Aniplex hates money, Madoka might be going OOP permanently. The RE's are now going OOP.
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/...l=1#post352505

[Naiera]

A company is founded to make money. Continuing to claim that they "hate money" is preposterous.

[BigOnAnime]

Then why make decisions that cause you to miss out on a lot of money? I know a business is supposed to make money, but certain decisions make you wonder if they actually like money. Madoka is an evergreen title for them, and was as successful as SAO was for them. This isn't an old title that's selling nothing anymore (this isn't like freaking 009-1, an Aniplex title ADV had, later FUNi that was never popular nor sold well), this is something that would be a big loss to them, especially given future installments are still planned for Madoka.

Other missed opportunities:
-Not putting English subs on The Garden of Sinners: Recalled Out Summer JP Blu-ray and not selling it as an import for a series that OVERPERFORMS. The $400 import sold out before release from less than 2 months of pre-order, the $150 DVD LE sold out in under a year
-Waiting two years to bring over the RE version of the Garden of Sinners Blu-ray Box when the DVD LE was OOP
-Not releasing Rurouni Kenshin, it's their #3 all-time streaming show on Hulu, and it still streams well on CR. Plus I hear Netflix has far better masters than MB had, so with vastly improved video quality...
-Unlikely to re-release Fate/Zero S1 on Blu-ray
-Unlikely to license Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and unlikely to stream it
-Won't re-release Baccano!, won't stream it
-Won't license and release Darker Than Black, won't stream it
-Won't release AnoHana TV
-Won't license Katanagatari, won't stream it
-Won't license and release Hotarubi no Mori e
-Unlikely to grab and/or at least stream Sekirei, Persona 4: The Animation, Black Butler (though they supposedly have Book of the Atlantic), FMA, Wagnaria!!1&2, and Angel Beats! when everyone loses these (NISA lost Wagnaria!!1 already, S2 expires late this year). Everything except maybe Wagnaria!! are HUGE evergreen titles.
-Unlikely to release Wagnaria!!3, might not release Nisekoi S2
-Aniplex Japan didn't bother with a Rurouni Kenshin Blu-ray Box re-release to tie-in with the successful live-action movies
-Didn't bother to at least stream Dog Days S3 in English-speaking regions when S1 and S2 are
-Won't release the Erased Blu-ray Boxes as imports with English subs on them. Erased is going to end up being one of AoA's biggest shows of all-time, it became mainstream and critically-acclaimed in the anime community months ago. This though, isn't as big of a missed opportunity as Recalled Out Summer.
-Won't do a V1+artbox option to get some extra sales right away.

I don't have a problem with Aniplex wanting to sell shows themselves and wanting a bigger piece of the pie, I really don't. I want them to be making money, they deserve to as they invested a lot of money into the production of these shows. So to see them make many of these decisions baffles and continues to frustrate me. Currently I have most of my frustration towards Aniplex aimed at their Japanese branch rather than their American as most of the issues are seemingly coming from AoJ, who seems to also be restricting AoA way too much.

[KillaCam]

Hmm with this news I'm glad that I picked up the RE's instead of putting it off. Now I'm wondering if I should go ahead and get the SAO RE's now as well before they end up OOP! I'm still sour over not being able to get the LE's but I guess RE is better than not having it at all...

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Then why make decisions that cause you to miss out on a lot of money?

How do you know they knew or thought they would miss out on a lot of money? Maybe they're terrible businessmen, but obviously not terrible enough to run their company into the ground. They cater to a niche within a niche within a niche, and, as far as we know, are still going strong, so they probably aren't that bad. They don't take risks and they don't diversify too much. That's good business sense for a company like that.

I think you know full well that they would never knowingly say "no thanks" to more profits, so continuing to claim that they hate money is, as I said, preposterous. You KNOW they're in business to make money.

[Magikor]

Originally Posted by Naiera

I think you know full well that they would never knowingly say "no thanks" to more profits, so continuing to claim that they hate money is, as I said, preposterous.

Isn't that exactly what they're doing though? These things go for obscene amounts on auction sites after they're officially no longer in production, so there is still clearly a market for the OOP items. How is the way that they just sit on licenses to popular shows like Kenshin, Fate, Bacanno!, and likely soon, FMA without any plans to reprint them any different than saying "no thanks"?

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by Magikor

Isn't that exactly what they're doing though? These things go for obscene amounts on auction sites after they're officially no longer in production, so there is still clearly a market for the OOP items.

Who knows how many they could sell? You can't press just 50 copies. Aniplex' relatively small production runs allow them to know that they'll almost certainly make money off a given title. Pressing, I don't know, 500 more copies to please what turns out to be just a handful of extra buyers would lose them money.

Originally Posted by Magikor

How is the way that they just sit on licenses to popular shows like Kenshin, Fate, Bacanno!, and likely soon, FMA without any plans to reprint them any different than saying "no thanks"?

How do you know if any given title could make them money? A handful of collectors clamoring for a title isn't proof that it's worth it to Aniplex to have more printed.

They do print more when they know there's money to be made, like with Bakemonogatari recently. I think you can be pretty sure that they know which titles have enough demand for them to be able to make money off a re-print.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Naiera

How do you know they knew or thought they would miss out on a lot of money? Maybe they're terrible businessmen, but obviously not terrible enough to run their company into the ground. They cater to a niche within a niche within a niche, and, as far as we know, are still going strong, so they probably aren't that bad. They don't take risks and they don't diversify too much. That's good business sense for a company like that.

I think you know full well that they would never knowingly say "no thanks" to more profits, so continuing to claim that they hate money is, as I said, preposterous. You KNOW they're in business to make money.

Aniplex Japan actually has taken risks before with many of the shows they've produced before (which they're able to do given how damn successful they've been over the years, look at the publisher breakdown here), so to say they never take risks is a bit misleading. See this for example (was in response to this about Pony Canyon).

[Naiera]

I never wrote never. And your claim of them "hating money" is ever so more misleading and wrong

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Naiera

I never wrote never. And your claim of them "hating money" is ever so more misleading and wrong

They're very successful as a company yes, particularly in Japan and they've never needed us to survive (they could block all Aniplex titles permanently here and still survive), but they could be even more successful, that's the point I was trying to get across in my initial post. Aniplex is going to see some big blows to the revenue they see from overseas soon, particularly due to Madoka, FMA, and FMA:B going OOP, and the latter two no longer streaming. FMA and FMA:B are some of the most successful series in the history of the R1 anime industry (especially FMA, the recent Blu-ray is doing very strong numbers), so imagine how much money they'll start missing out on when they're most likely OOP permanently.

Originally Posted by Naiera

How do you know if any given title could make them money? A handful of collectors clamoring for a title isn't proof that it's worth it to Aniplex to have more printed.

They do print more when they know there's money to be made, like with Bakemonogatari recently. I think you can be pretty sure that they know which titles have enough demand for them to be able to make money off a re-print.

I doubt Bakemonogatari is more of an evergreen title than freaking Madoka, which has been much more profitable to them, and some of these are no brainers. Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are way too big, to claim they wouldn't make money with those if they were to release/stream them themselves is absolutely absurd. Some of these are absolute no-brainers.

[Naiera]

Can we not just move on from the "hate money" nonsense, please?

[Oniros]

I think Aniplex is unsuccessfully trying to manufacture a level of scarcity akin to the Disney Vault. Unfortunately, the way I see it, is that instead of keeping their titles on demand at high prices ("I should totally be there day 1 before it goes OOP") they'll absolutely destroy the anime home video market in North America with the absurdly high price barrier. Even Disney realized that in 2016 the vault doesn't fly anymore and introduced DMA and other initiatives recently.

On topic: I'm really glad I somehow convinced my local library to buy the Madoka standalone releases + Rebellion.

[neoz]

^^^

Sadly, I have seen library versions gutted. Coverart torn and or cut and other terrible things. I know mine sales stuff but again it looks terrible.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Can we not just move on from the "hate money" nonsense, please?

So what would you call them not making any more money on big evergreen (i.e. continues to sell well) titles due to their own decisions, even through streaming (I don't see them throwing these up onto CR and such)? These titles aren't 009-1.

Originally Posted by neoz

Sadly, I have seen library versions gutted. Coverart torn and or cut and other terrible things. I know mine sales stuff but again it looks terrible.

I can see some idiot realizing their worth, and then throwing them up on eBay for $200-$500 a piece.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

So what would you call them not making any more money on big evergreen (i.e. continues to sell well) titles due to their own decisions, even through streaming (I don't see them throwing these up onto CR and such)?

Something less hyperbolic. You disagree with their decisions but lack a lot of information they surely have on sales potential, etc. Saying that they HATE MONEY is preposterous and silly. You have some good arguments against Aniplex, but you throw it all away with such childish statements.

[BigOnAnime]

I know how many of these titles sold (why do you think I'm mentioning only a select number of titles, and not something like Hell Girl (which BOMBED for FUNi) or Kamichu which aren't that valuable?), and plenty of the evergreens are obvious to us, the fans, some of which overperformed, like so. Also, keep in mind the market has inelasticity (not to the same extent as the Japanese of course), as shown by when singles died and sales didn't increase, as well as the Geneon ANNCast (timestamps 44:20 and 66:00). If someone REALLY wants to buy a show, they will pay the price, and plenty of those evergreens would continue to sell in AoA's hands, like Gurren Lagann has (that import was expensive as hell, more so than importing it from Amazon Japan, but it still sold out).