Is anime dying?
With the fall of Geneon USA‘s DVD sales department, are we looking at the beginning of the doom of all anime as we know it? Some people seem to think so. After all, Geneon is well-liked by fans and its releases receive positive reviews from most, there seems to be no reason why they should be in trouble now, having started operation half a decade before anyone in North America has even heard of Pikachu. It’s tempting to point fingers and, just like the Napsters of the music industry, it didn’t take long before fansubs are getting blamed for everything from the death of anime to Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
I’m not very familiar with the North American scene, so I don’t know what Geneon did to get here. But surprisingly, after a quick inspection of my shelf, I don’t seem to own anything from Geneon USA at all. Perhaps I’m unconsciously an ADV fanboy. Well I did almost buy the entire set of Starship Operators once, but Rightstuf was being bitchy and asking for my credit card bill so I cancelled the order. Okay I’m digressing.
Frankly I think that the R1 companies were too eager to cash in on what they perceived to be the biggest thing since Pokemon. Everyone loves anime and Japan, right? Well, the problem with the apparent popularity of anime is that it was not built on solid foundations. The rise of broadband internet, the birth of peer-to-peer file-sharing and the digitalization of the fansubbing chain, they all coincided to suddenly propel anime into uncharted territories from niche to semi-mainstream. It seemed like a whole new market popped out of nowhere and everyone wanted in all the money to be made. But perhaps it wasn’t as easy as people thought.
There is certainly money to be made, but the way to do it is not to license every single half-baked series and flooding the market with releases. For a while, it seemed like the American companies took a leaf out of a certain movie, with a slight adaptation: “If you dub it, they will come.” Just two years back, I saw a list of monthly R1 releases and I wondered to myself, “Are there really that many American anime fans?” Well, maybe that’s why anime is “dying” in North America. Perhaps it was never really as “alive” as it appeared to be, as the companies wished it was. (Like an undead zombie masquerading as your best friend.) I don’t think that it’s actually in any danger of dying, it’s just the victim of an overheated market and false hopes. Anime will survive. It just takes a lot of trial and error to get it right in a relatively young market.
Then again, maybe I’m waaaay off the mark here. Maybe anime really is dying like Odex says. And maybe fansubbing really is killing the industry. But sometimes, you have to rethink what are the real core components of the industry and what are the things that are only there because of inertia. Just because it has always been this way doesn’t mean it will be this way forever. Natural selection will take its course.
On a side note, it’s not like Geneon USA is going out of business after this. They are just going to cease their DVD sales operation. I’m guessing they will follow Kadokawa USA’s example: license the titles and then hire other companies to do the actual work.
Wow, what a random and incoherent rant this has been. One week of cramming an entire year’s worth of topics and four days of examinations must have really fried my brain.
P.S. Team Fortress 2 is like morphine injections to the brain.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
It’s not dying. FUNimation and VizMedia are doing quite well. You might want to take a look at this week’s edition of “Hey, Answerman” on ANN.
Zac explains the sitch in the NA Market on anime.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2007-09-28
I very much agree with Zac’s opinion that Geneon’s fall does not mean that the anime industry is dying. Just that not everyone who wants to invest in anime survives.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Yeah, everyone’s treating as if Geneon is the sole anime-related company in the US or something. I was going “isn’t there like, ADV and others?”
But Pioneer before this, was already licensing anime, long before Pokemon or CCS came to America. You’d think they have a solid base to cover up what trouble it has. But I guess they were making more losses than ever or unexpecteedly.
Anyway, I also think people are over their heads with this…
September 28th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
You playing team fortress 2? Let’s play together man. Fuck anime. It’s gay!
September 28th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Okay, add me.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/DarkMirage/
September 29th, 2007 at 12:07 am
I dunno, I mean, fansubs have been around a lot longer than anime has been popular in North America. I mean, I remember watching scratchy VHS fansubs from penpals in like 1996, the Internet barely existed at that point, let alone BitTorrent.
I think any surge in fansub popularity has been proportionate to the growth of the medium here (USA), and indeed, from my point of view it’s only recently that commercial anime has been a viable alternative. When I started watching the sutff, it was ALL fansubs.
But who can say, in these trying times. Hope you don’t mind if I Steam friend you, been reading your blog for ages.
September 29th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Did you buy TF2 or purchase it from steam?
September 29th, 2007 at 1:57 am
“Yeah, everyone’s treating as if Geneon is the sole anime-related company in the US or something. I was going “isn’t there like, ADV and others?””
In the Answerman article, it was mentioned that Geneon tended to be the ones that licensed shows that were really popular to otaku and not to the mainstream in general, and the lack of sales shows that result. I think it’s more than that, but for me, Geneon did license shows that the “faithful” loved and wanted to see come. That might be why shows like Nanoha and Zero no Tsukaima were picked up even though they don’t seem like “mainstream hits”. The company also apparently had a friendly rapport with fans, unlike ADV and FUNimation in terms of how they do things. So you could say it’s more personal than anything else. :P
September 29th, 2007 at 3:32 am
This is easy to fix by taking a page out of Apple’s playbook. Start offering SUBTITLED only episodes of anime within months of the moment it’s appears to be a licensable and profitable anime. Stop creating these ridiculous, trashy dubs and stop waiting years to release a popular series. Partner with an etablished online service to offer single high-quality episode downloads at a reasonable price. Go the extra mile in your subtitles by adding karaoke OP/ED and making sure you translate for fans like the manga companies do, not for my damned grandma.
SURPRISE MR CAPITALISM! The only way to beat the fansub “market” is to do it better. Easy access to higher quality, faster releases with fewer translation mistakes will beat fansubs any day. Sure, there are always going to be a group of people who download fansubs of an entire series, but they wouldn’t be buying DVDs or anything else, so what is the point? Is your business model to get revenge, or bring in new customers? Continuing to release expensive, SLOW, POORLY DUBBED dvds won’t do that.
September 29th, 2007 at 6:11 am
You’ve apparently missed that Geneon has some of the better dubs on the market right now. And frankly, I’ve been watching subs for a while, and I’m getting somewhat tired of having to read them. Basically, I’ve downloaded the entire subbed series of Nanoha and A’s, but you can bet on me picking them up the moment I see it on the shelf at Suncoast (funds notwithstanding).
September 29th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Being a European I don’t know the American anime industry very well, but if it’s simular to the local industry it would be pretty..well..stupid to blame fansubs for anything.
Without fansubs a lot of the anime that is released over here wouldn’t sell very well. Excluding series like Dragonball, Pokémon or Naruto very few anime is airing on free TV. Hardly anyone shells out ~20 € (28,5 US$) for a DVD of an anime they know nothing about. The only reason why a few people know whether a particular series is any good is that they’ve enjoyed the fansubs before. A few of these people will recommend the series they liked to their friends and that’s basically most of the marketing. Most of the companies releasing this stuff just don’t have the money to start huge marketing campaigns, thus word-of-mouth advertising is very important for them.
Who would have known that anime like Paranoia Agent or School Rumble would be worth the money? Without having seen the fansubs before I wouldn’t for sure.
September 29th, 2007 at 8:33 am
It’s interesting to note that manga sales seem to be doing quite well. Several manga titles regularly crack the USA Today Top 100 (sometimes making the top 20 iirc). I hope the fears of the NA anime industry’s death are overblown, because it would sure be odd if there were a disconnect in these two markets.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:04 am
If fansubbing is killing the industry, the industry needs to die. Adapt, or die and be replaced: It’s capitalism’s evolution.
The anime import industry has excelled in bringing to market sub-par work at over-inflated prices. The prices, the delay before the product comes to market… All can be fixed by moving to online distribution and making extra profit on the tail-end via DVDs and merchandising. Even the major US TV networks are doing this, and they’ve been the MOST resistant to change.
If the current anime import industry can’t make the leap (whether due to their own fault or the copyright holders), then it needs to die for a more reasonable, more modern business model to rise from its ashes.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Oh, and incidentally, I wrote something on this today that covers my views in more detail.
Things will get REALLY interesting, though, when internet delivery of regular TV content takes off in the US.
September 29th, 2007 at 11:04 am
you actually managed to cram one year’s worth in one week? i have to learn that.
September 29th, 2007 at 11:05 am
TF2 is sex. Better then even the first TF. And it’s not anime dying, you are just dying away from the anime scene >_>
September 29th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Tsubaki: I bought it via Steam. I realized that it’s better because I lost all my old game boxes anyway. (i.e. Half-Life 2)
Gatekeeper: Sure.
September 29th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Join this Steam Group you guys xD
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SOS-Dan
September 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
lol joined!
September 30th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Anyone Seeding “Negima?!” ?
CS 1.6 FTW
September 30th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
hi darkmirage, can i link you to my blog? i’m a fan of anime, especially haruhism, and aya hirano! i just created a blog and hope to link with as many animebloggers as possible. as i often read your blog, i wonder if i can link your blog to mine.
if u agree, u can email me or can just contact me via my blog. if possible, link my blog to urs too hehe. thx! and i’m from sg too! :D
September 30th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
hi darkmirage. i wonder if i can link u to my blog. i’m an anime fan, especially haruhism, and also an aya fan! i’ve just created a blog recently and hope to link to as many animebloggers as possible. i’m from sg too XD
if u agree, can u just email me or contact me via my blog? my blog is seiryuulostmymusic.wordpress.com. hope to hear from u soon :)
and anime is not dying!! i’ll ALWAYS SUPPORT ANIME!!! YES!! XD
October 1st, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Being a “softcore” anime fan myself, I am not sure about the state Geneon is in. I think that anime may be really declining, but not that much as we think.
With the advent of technology in the last decade, the availability of entertainment has hit such a hardcore state that we can practically just download any form of entertainment off the internet, like pornography, games and the occasional hentai serial out of nowhere. Most companies never bothered to enforce the licenses in the first place and this leads to the rampant spreading of fansubs and downloads. It just takes a video recording machine and a link to anime exclusive channels to be able to redistribute animation in whatever way one wants.
It is not surprising that as you have said, fingers will start pointing in every direction, but have the animators/distributors ever blamed themselves? For example, Odex offers inferior quality anime (I regretted buying Girls Bravo) at disgusting resolutions despite the advent of Hi-Res TVs and SM3 graphics card at this age. It contradicts them, as a distributor, to bring the best to the customers. Animators are the same, their storylines never sidetrack from the occasional dystopic theme like Claymore and Ghost In The Shell. IMO, the most creative anime I have ever seen right now is Hayate No Gotoku, which involves piecing in content from other anime into the story to make it more realistic, but at the same time create laughs using out of the world MLT (Mo Lei Tau) scenes and the occasional beeping from censorship.
However there is still a market for anime out there. As long as there is room for creativity, and a community to sustain interest in it, anime can still be kept alive. Haruhi has been gone for a year now (2006 since it last came out), but it is still quite popular among anime fans as a reference to sexual fetishism and fantasy (I mean, which girl would let you touch her star shaped mole on her chest?). This in turn would force animators to work on equally, if not better pieces of work like this. If Gundam and Dragonball Z has survive for more than a decade, and have their themes ported and referenced in many aspects (I just found out that one of DBZ’s themes is on Pop n Music 13), I am sure any good anime out there would have such a same effect, provided if they are able to capture the hearts and minds of their fans. Gundam wasn’t as popular back when Tomino made MS Gundam, but ultimately it still rose after Zeta Gundam because of it’s exploration into war themes.
If anime is to be revived, it has to be dependent on the conscience of the downloaders and fansubbers alike. If these people are willing to work hand in hand with the distributors, I don’t think there will be another Odex case sooner or later. With anime currently priced ridiculously and with disgusting quality, it is not surprising that anime lovers would turn to downloads as they are FOC and are of usually better quality.
These are just my 2 cents worth of thoughts. Feel free to dispute it.
P.S Sorry for the long post xD. I flunked all my subjects in school except for GP, and this is my A level year. What a way to go.
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:52 am
I my-self is a would be Otaku. But financially I can’t afford DVD. I want to download more sub than I have now (2 subs over 3 years). But I don’t have the time to and hard drive limit.
All the anime company in the US is targeting either the hard core otaku (not many people) and little kids. They sell DVD and air late night on adult swim. They air during day time for little kids.
If they open up their market even more. I mean really to every dy people.
They need some thing for every one air on network TV (like NBC & FOX) during prime time (7:00 PM to 11:00). But NOOO!! American TV won’t show import. But one thing is that most american don’t want anything not american, no matter it good or bad.
October 16th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Not sure if this has already been said in so many words, but I don’t buy the english versions mainly because I don’t listen to them in english, I just go back to the japanese dubs with subs. So no point in spending $30 for 4 eps, and then I could buy the $30 Taiwanese versions that gets me a 26 ep series (which I sometimes do) but not to support the original people, because I doubt any of that many is going back to the original creators.
So it’s basically not worth it, it’s much easier to get fansubs, and the fansubs are usually subbed better as well.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Geneon went bankrupt because its marketing department was fucking stupid. End of story. It’s ridiculous to blame fansubs for the problems when the whole issue was one huge Geneon fuckup, and it’s plain to see when one looks at their business practices.
First and foremost, Geneon didn’t put any of their more recent titles on TV. Selling the rights to air a show on TV earns a hefty royalty fee, up to 30% of the series licensing fee which is an enormus boon to a company and serves as free advertisement for buying DVDs. How could one go wrong?
Geneon didn’t get a TV airing for most of their stuff because they only licensed niche shit, hoping for a cult special like “Elfen Lied” to explode under their asses. This made their properties TV-proof and their opportunes for DVD sales limited. This would have been well and good if what they licensed was cheap, but most of their niche titles like “Rozen Maiden” and “Higurashi” seem more popular than they really are because they were free to watch and download, no one would actually pay money for a show with seriously flaws unless they were a hardcore otaku, which is rare in America.
To make matters worse, Geneon’s marketing did a shit job of promoting these DVDs online and didn’t do much to put them into stores, either. Given how painfully bad some of them are, I’m not surprised chain stores that picked up titles like “Paranoia Agent”, “Hellsing” and “Tenchi Muyo” years ago wouldn’t go for such trash. Not to mention when people actually find DVDs outside of the internet and learn they’re very expensive, they tend to, you know, not buy them.
The final nail in the coffin was leasing the dubbing rights to Bang Zoom! Entertainment, a post-processing studio. On average, BZE produces shit dubs and is well known for horrible direction and casting, but they’re an economy class dubbing studio if one ever existed before. Dirt cheap. Fact is, people recognize a terrible dub when they hear it and when clips of some dubs leaked, that just made people not want to buy the DVDs more. “Fate/stay night”, which was fucking huge property in 2006, has fallen into virtual obscurity because of a bad anime adaption, horrible dub and nonexistant promotion. Considering that was a prelicense, a.k.a. paying a premium price for a show that would likely be more expensive to license after it aired and became more popular, it turned out to be a big disaster.
Given this, Geneon fucked itself with its inane marketing practices and deserved to fail because of it. They had a few titles I liked, but for the most part I hated the shit that passed out of their asshole.
Sayonara, bitches. You won’t be missed.
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:22 am
I wish they’d sell original DVDs of anime here complete with the freebies (like cards and other cool stuff). Then again I doubt many other people would buy to make it a feasable venture for any company. o_o;
June 29th, 2008 at 3:36 am
Nonono Anime is not dieing! Just because One Company may be dorping doesnt mean All of Anime is! Needn worry, Anime is here to stay!