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[cajunator]

There is nothing wrong with anime pricing the way it is now.

 

[Jim E. Rossler]

- Not every anime is low budget, and often poor art or crappy animation is less a direct result of a lack of budget, but rather shitty work by the people being paid. The production budget for the average anime in Japan is probably higher than the average cost of most American produced animation series. Yet no one ever says Avatar is "unhealthy" because of a low budget. After all it's entirely animated in South Korea.

Compare Gunbuster (13M yen) to Avatar (110M yen)
Anime budgets are nowhere near as high as western animation

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

There is nothing wrong with anime pricing the way it is now.

You can only say that if you have a lot of spare cash lying around.

 

[cajunator]

You can only say that if you have a lot of spare cash lying around.

Hobbies cost a lot of money. This has always been true. Ever collected 1:18 scale diecast model cars? How about 70-100$ a piece? For a MODEL CAR? I had 30 of those before moving on to collecting anime and movies. Hobbies are not cheap.

 

[Jim E. Rossler]

Hobbies cost a lot of money. This has always been true. Ever collected 1:18 scale diecast model cars? How about 70-100$ a piece? For a MODEL CAR? I had 30 of those before moving on to collecting anime and movies. Hobbies are not cheap.

Didn't know watching TV is a hobby
Can I go down to my local Hobbytown USA and get some Anime with my RC Heli parts?

 

[duckroll]

Anime budgets are nowhere near as high as western animation

What's the source and break down on that though? My understanding is that in terms of "budgets" most of the money for such cartoons in the US goes to the cast and the directors. The actual animation budget is a very small portion of that. Is this untrue?

 

[cajunator]

Are you seriously arguing that anime is not a hobby?

 

[Jim E. Rossler]

Are you seriously arguing that anime is not a hobby?

Wanting to buy a dvd of a show you like but it costing $70 can't be justified because 'it's a hobby'
I guess my 2 little sisters' hobby is cartoons, they have some dvd's of those.

What's the source and break down on that though? My understanding is that in terms of "budgets" most of the money for such cartoons in the US goes to the cast and the directors. The actual animation budget is a very small portion of that. Is this untrue?

You're right. Yet they still find a way to make it back after paying the cast and staff all that extra money.

If you made a low budget original animation in the US, and got it aired on some channel 3am, when it came time to sell dvds and you wanted to sell it for $80 for 4 episodes, would you:
A. Be laughed out the door
B: Proceed to sell $80 dvd's to your hardcore fans

 

[RurouniZel]

Hobbies cost a lot of money. This has always been true. Ever collected 1:18 scale diecast model cars? How about 70-100$ a piece? For a MODEL CAR? I had 30 of those before moving on to collecting anime and movies. Hobbies are not cheap.

Yeah, I think part of the disconnect is that on the one hand, we feel that lowering the barrier of entry (less expensive discs with more episodes on them) will encourage more buyers. I happen to be in that particular camp myself. However I also understand the above where, no matter how you lower the price, you're not going to increase the market significantly because there's just less people interested to begin with. As such, if you lower the standard price for a while, the audience grows accustomed to the lower price and will refuse to pay more.

However when I went to Japan I learned that there would be merit to lowering the price, because while anime is suffering in sales, this really only applies to new discs. The ones companies actually make money on. Whenever I went into a store there was always 2-3 times more people in the used section for anime, videogames, etc. than there were in the new section. So in my eyes, there isn't a lack of interest, there's just a lack of interest at the current asking price.

Unnecessary things (hobbies) depreciate in value over time. Not just individually, but as an industry. Once the novelty has worn off, most people no longer want to spend what they used to on the same thing. This is why people wait for used copies or Black Friday specials, etc. But businesses fear that the market won't increase anyway so instead of trying to price the used market into irrelevancy, they're just trying to screw over the used buyer rather than convert them over to new. It's rather backwards, to be honest.

/2 cents.

 

[duckroll]

You're right. Yet they still find a way to make it back after paying the cast and staff all that extra money.

Yes but all the actual animators are still paid jack shit. It's not like they're funneling the money down from that 1 million per episode to pay the animators in South Korea more. It's the same in Japan. The budget and the salary of actual animators are not directly related.

Consider this, if the budget of Avatar is 1 million per episode, why do they have to pick a really cheap animation studio in South Korea instead of animating it in-house in America? The reason is that they feel that paying the cast and the directors is more important than paying for the animation work. What carries the series would be the vision of the directors and the popularity of the voice cast with the audience.

This is very similar to the issue in Japan. Animators are unappreciated, and hence their pay bracket remains shit. That's the point I was trying to make. If anime shows all got much higher budgets, it would be the directors and the voice cast who would benefit the most, not the animators.

 

[Steroyd]

Persona 4 - 07

Steroyd levelled down
Steroyd lost 2 eyes
Steroyd lost 50% of brain functionality.
Steroyd lost 25 manly points.

 

[Hitokage]

Yes but all the actual animators are still paid jack shit. It's not like they're funneling the money down from that 1 million per episode to pay the animators in South Korea more. It's the same in Japan. The budget and the salary of actual animators are not directly related.

Consider this, if the budget of Avatar is 1 million per episode, why do they have to pick a really cheap animation studio in South Korea instead of animating it in-house in America? The reason is that they feel that paying the cast and the directors is more important than paying for the animation work. What carries the series would be the vision of the directors and the popularity of the voice cast with the audience.

This is very similar to the issue in Japan. Animators are unappreciated, and hence their pay bracket remains shit. That's the point I was trying to make. If anime shows all got much higher budgets, it would be the directors and the voice cast who would benefit the most, not the animators.

Communist.

 

[duckroll]

If you made a low budget original animation in the US, and got it aired on some channel 3am, when it came time to sell dvds and you wanted to sell it for $80 for 4 episodes, would you:
A. Be laughed out the door
B: Proceed to sell $80 dvd's to your hardcore fans

I do not think comparing industries of countries with vast economic differences says anything. Why do you keep saying "low budget" when basically everything in a country like Japan will cost less than a country like the United States? Why don't we look at how much HK movies cost to make, and how much Hollywood films cost to make? The budget is not the issue here. The reason anime does not sell is not because it's low budget.

 

[Risette]

Oh, so you don't really want to discuss it and you're just leading me on to troll me? Sorry I wasted my time then.

Healthy industry = pandering to Branduil's impeccable tastes, duh.

 

[Branduil]

Healthy industry = pandering to Branduil's impeccable tastes, duh.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here who wants higher-budget anime with less otaku pandering.

 

[Jim E. Rossler]

Yes but all the actual animators are still paid jack shit. It's not like they're funneling the money down from that 1 million per episode to pay the animators in South Korea more. It's the same in Japan. The budget and the salary of actual animators are not directly related.

Consider this, if the budget of Avatar is 1 million per episode, why do they have to pick a really cheap animation studio in South Korea instead of animating it in-house in America? The reason is that they feel that paying the cast and the directors is more important than paying for the animation work. What carries the series would be the vision of the directors and the popularity of the voice cast with the audience.

This is very similar to the issue in Japan. Animators are unappreciated, and hence their pay bracket remains shit. That's the point I was trying to make. If anime shows all got much higher budgets, it would be the directors and the voice cast who would benefit the most, not the animators.

That doesn't change the fact $80 dvd's would be a joke here, no matter HOW small the potential audience might be. We need to look at why they sell much more cartoons at a lower price in America than In japan, and what they can do to alleviate that. I made a big post about some low-cost Ideas near the bottom of the last page
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32772325&postcount=14659

I do not think comparing industries of countries with vast economic differences says anything. Why do you keep saying "low budget" when basically everything in a country like Japan will cost less than a country like the United States? Why don't we look at how much HK movies cost to make, and how much Hollywood films cost to make? The budget is not the issue here. The reason anime does not sell is not because it's low budget.

I say low budget to hit home the fact you might not make your money back, you dont have money for much marketing/exposure and you cant afford a loss

 

[Shouta]

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here who wants higher-budget anime with less otaku pandering.

I don't mind low-budget anime, I just want less otaku pandering.

I'll take another Violinist of Hameln if I goddamn have to!

 

[RurouniZel]

iDOLM@STER 19: A Takane episode... where we learn nothing about Takane.

Well, there's always next episode.

 

[Branduil]

iDOLM@STER 19: A Takane episode... where we learn nothing about Takane.

Well, there's always next episode.

Do you think the audience for this show actually wants to learn things about the characters?

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

That doesn't change the fact $80 dvd's would be a joke here, no matter HOW small the potential audience might be. We need to look at why they sell much more cartoons at a lower price in America than In japan, and what they can do to alleviate that. I made a big post about some low-cost Ideas near the bottom of the last page
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32772325&postcount=14659

Anime BDs already have limited editions and bonus incentives like soundtracks, drama CDs, special artwork, etc. Getting VAs to sign some CDs or whatever isn't going to substantially increase the number of people who are willing to pay $80 for 2 episodes of anime.

 

[Dresden]

I always thought it needs more feelies, and things that have no technical value yet will get people to buy the crap out of your Product.

For instance, randomly making seiyuu sign the discs before they go out for shipping to stores, it doesn't cost much to pay them to sit down for a day to do it but It will SURELY boost sales more than enough to pay them to do it.
Limited editions are guaranteed to have an autograph in them
Ultra collectors editions come with special character covers that are signed specifically by them, could have done that with Infinite Stratos/Clannad girls

A limited run of Nendoroids, and the ONLY way to buy one is to buy a BD first, the figures pay for themselves when the hardcore buy them due to their limited and collectible nature, and it raises BD sales as well.

Lol, so basically, all the stuff that'll make the same niche crowd of hardcore fans buy it while alienating 'normal' fans?

 

[RurouniZel]

Do you think the audience for this show actually wants to learn things about the characters?

I do. :-/

 

[duckroll]

I say low budget to hit home the fact you might not make your money back, you dont have money for much marketing/exposure and you cant afford a loss

But successful anime more than make their money back. So I'm not sure what the issue here is. The biggest reason why a large majority of anime are barely profitable is because it is a very saturated market. You want to know why popular cartoons in America can make a ton of money? It's quite simple, because they are all long running shows in a relatively small niche. There isn't a ton of competition, and the less popular shows get cancelled and killed off very quickly. In Japan there are like 30 shows every season. There are so many things which are totally not comparable between the two industries.

Anime as we generally know it suffers from several disadvantages - many shows are short, syndication like what it done in the US is not meaningful because of the length, there are too many copies of any popular trend, there's a general lack of truly talented writers and directors, etc. Successful anime are either flash in the pan surprises like Madoka, or they are long running brands like Dragonball, Gundam, Eva, which have been cultivated over a long period of time. Code Geass is something Sunrise is trying to develop in the same way now.

Let's not act as if there are NO successful anime. There are, and the sales for the top shows are actually going up instead of going down. The issue with the health of the industry is the gap between shows which are successful, and shows which are borderline, and shows which outright flop. There's a pretty significant gap, and that is a natural result of over-saturation.

I believe it is possible for the anime industry to reinvent itself completely and change. But this is not something that any current anime production company in Japan will be willing to do. At the same time, it is really unrealistic to expect some sort of crash because most of the main companies all have cash cow brands. At worst they will scale back on productions (this is a good thing) and focus more on what's popular instead of releasing a ton of garbage at the side as well hoping to find random success.

The companies in the biggest danger in the anime industry are ironically those who rely too much on original content and don't have a safety net in terms of popular franchises they can continue milking.

 

[Instro]

Im@s 19

Dude, there needs to be a spinoff with Police Chief Takane and the Detective Twins.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

That's not the same thing as magic.

I think it's definitely possible for the anime industry to be healthier than it is right now.

Your definition of 'healthier' is 'producing things which appeal to me'. This has nothing to do with any economic definition of healthy.

By any economic definition of healthy, the anime industry is recovering nicely from the collapse of the mid-2000's and is nearly back to the same level of revenue that it had in the early 2000's. It's becoming increasingly healthy as we enter the 2010's, though some of that recovery is on the back of working conditions that most people would rather not speak openly about.

It's been pretty interesting reading the Mirai Nikki manga, for the most part Asread has done a very admirable job of following the manga directly for the anime and haven't tried to fuck things up. The small deviations they have made, are mostly to explain things that actually were kind of unclear in the manga, up to and including adding transitional scenes where in the manga characters just seem to teleport from point A to point B. The anime adapation of Mirai Nikki is quite good, actually.

 

[RurouniZel]

Let's not act as if there are NO successful anime. There are, and the sales for the top shows are actually going up instead of going down. The issue with the health of the industry is the gap between shows which are successful, and shows which are borderline, and shows which outright flop. There's a pretty significant gap, and that is a natural result of over-saturation.

It's the exact same situation with videogames. The successes are widely successful, and virtually everything else flops/bombas etc. Call of Duty continues to sell more with each successive installment, most of the other games don't even come close to that and are lucky to break even.

 

[Hitokage]

At this point, you guys need to distinguish whether you are talking about creative output or economic output when talking about health.

 

[hellclerk]

It is extremely easy to play an armchair critic and make very general statements about how easy such a plan is without considering any specifics. It's easy to just assume that such a plan is a guaranteed success and it is stupid that no one ever considered it. But when you sit down and actually look at the sort of numbers shows are pulling in, and you break it down by distributors, and you look at their marketing tactics, it becomes a lot harder to even justify trying anything like this for even a single show.

Let's presume you want to have a serious discussion about this. We'll take a typical 11 episode noitaminA series as a point of discussion.

- How much would you charge for a blu-ray set of the entire series in Japan?

- How many copies more will you have to sell at that price to stand to profit compared to releasing it on 5 blu-ray volumes at 7800yen each?

- What is the likelihood that you will be able to sell that many more copies simply by selling it for cheaper?

- Are the audience for the show even the type who would buy a show on home video? Or are they just interested in watching it once?

- If you end up selling the same number of copies for the cheaper set compared to how many copies of each volume you would normally be able to sell at the normal business model, how much money would you have lost with this experiment?

Let's consider these basic points for now. We can expand the discussion further if there is interest.

Well here's the thing, such a model isn't mutually exclusive to the current model. In fact, it would be a good long term investment to grow this kind of business model alongside of the "premium otaku" model, in fact, that's what I proposed. The only difference would mild branding and slightly altered release schedules. This would not remove the current otaku model, but instead lower the barrier of entry to buying it. Pricing models exist in the US TV season boxset model, as do content models. Hell, they exist in the US anime boxset market. This system also wouldn't necessarily lose money either, it's just these budget set-ups have slightly lower margins because disc content products are cheap as shit to produce, even BluRays. And again, these more budget products aren't mutually exclusive to the premium ¥7800 otaku boxes.

If I really wanted to, I could put up a comprehensive (if generalized) plan for going about this, but I really feel it's unnecessary considering the many examples of this working within a wide market.

 

[Jim E. Rossler]

Lol, so basically, all the stuff that'll make the same niche crowd of hardcore fans buy it while alienating 'normal' fans?

No, something to justify the ass-rapingly high prices the hardcore are asked to pay
And normal prices with just plain dvd's for the standard show, like every other dvd release on earth

 

[dimb]

[Idolm@ster 19]

Well, this was certainly an episode of Idolm@ster. Nothing really remarkable about it (although compared to many other shows the production values are still superior), I find in the interactions between a few of the characters fairly enjoyable but whenever I see the laughably over the top 'rival studio' or the painfully dull 'manger' interact with the cast I'm reminded of how artificial the whole product is.

"Checkmate."

The impression I get is that the rival studio being so mustache twirling is supposed to be funny, but it mostly just comes off as predictable, and their evil plots are usually painfully boring. I still wish they had killed Hibiki when they drove her out into the middle of nowhere and pushed her off a cliff though.

 

[duckroll]

Well here's the thing, such a model isn't mutually exclusive to the current model. In fact, it would be a good long term investment to grow this kind of business model alongside of the "premium otaku" model, in fact, that's what I proposed. The only difference would mild branding and slightly altered release schedules. This would not remove the current otaku model, but instead lower the barrier of entry to buying it. Pricing models exist in the US TV season boxset model, as do content models. Hell, they exist in the US anime boxset market. This system also wouldn't necessarily lose money either, it's just these budget set-ups have slightly lower margins because disc content products are cheap as shit to produce, even BluRays. And again, these more budget products aren't mutually exclusive to the premium ¥7800 otaku boxes.

If I really wanted to, I could put up a comprehensive (if generalized) plan for going about this, but I really feel it's unnecessary considering the many examples of this working within a wide market.

I'm interested in discussing it. But if you're not that interested in detailing something for discussion, there isn't much more to say. I'm not discounting that alternative models can exist. I'm explaining why the companies involved are not really in a position where it makes a lot of sense for them to want to risk trying stuff.

Here's one important thing to consider: You can desire for a model to co-exist with the current one, but that might not be a realistic outcome. If you offer a much lower priced alternative, you have lowered the price entry forever. If you offer a 10,000yen boxset for an entire series, how can you realistically sell 7800yen volumes along side that? There is a very real risk that the 10,000 people who would happily buy the 7800yen x5 series, would instead go "wait a minute..." and buy the 10,000yen boxset instead. And if there are only another 10,000 people who would normally not have bought the series at all buying the boxset, and a mere 500 people end up buying the expensive volumes, you just killed your entire business model.

See what I mean?

 

[Crash Station]

You guys had a whole Mirai Nikki conversation without me?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It's been pretty interesting reading the Mirai Nikki manga, for the most part Asread has done a very admirable job of following the manga directly for the anime and haven't tried to fuck things up. The small deviations they have made, are mostly to explain things that actually were kind of unclear in the manga, up to and including adding transitional scenes where in the manga characters just seem to teleport from point A to point B. The anime adapation of Mirai Nikki is quite good, actually.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here who wants higher-budget anime with less otaku pandering.

Otakus are what finance the industry. 99% of what Hollywood and Bollywood make are catering to specific fanbases, to expect the anime industry to be any different is lunacy. Granted, there are many different subsets of fanbases for live-action films, so it seems superficially that 99% of Hollywood and Bollywood produce are more diverse, but it's not the case. Hollywood's production today consists mainly of big-budget summer action movies, generic romantic comedies, torture-porn horror remakes of classic horror films, and the occasional art-house film made primarily to qualify for the Academy Awards voting. There is very minimal original-ness in Hollywood these days, and for the same reasons as the anime industry. You know who gives you money year-in and year-out, and you know what they like. So you make what they like. They give you money. The industry continues. Everyone's happy, except hipsters. Business as usual, in every media market in every developed nation around the world.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

At this point, you guys need to distinguish whether you are talking about creative output or economic output when talking about health.

The problem is, not only are the two not related, they're often mutually exclusive.

 

[Hitokage]

Otakus are what finance the industry. 99% of what Hollywood and Bollywood make are catering to specific fanbases, to expect the anime industry to be any different is lunacy. Granted, there are many different subsets of fanbases for live-action films, so it seems superficially that 99% of Hollywood and Bollywood produce are more diverse, but it's not the case. Hollywood's production today consists mainly of big-budget summer action movies, generic romantic comedies, torture-porn horror remakes of classic horror films, and the occasional art-house film made primarily to qualify for the Academy Awards voting. There is very minimal original-ness in Hollywood these days, and for the same reasons as the anime industry. You know who gives you money year-in and year-out, and you know what they like. So you make what they like. They give you money. The industry continues. Everyone's happy, except hipsters. Business as usual, in every media market in every developed nation around the world.

Except, you know, for the market anime hasn't been serving as well recently.

 

[InfiniteNine]

I do. :-/

She is supposed to be mysterious!

 

[RurouniZel]

The movie market in particular also has many more opportunities to make money, which is why they can afford to raise their budgets. Anime movies have this luxury to some extent, but TV shows are much more limited. They're basically commercials for the home video release, and pretty much only make money that way.

She is supposed to be mysterious!

I know, but I'd still like to know a little teensy bit more.

 

[duckroll]

Except, you know, for the market anime hasn't been serving as well recently.

It's your fault for not buying 500-800 dollar series though. If you had bought a few thousand copies of each volume of Michiko, I'm sure they would have made something similar after that!

 

[Ezalc]

Do you think the audience for this show actually wants to learn things about the characters?

I just want to see more Azusa/Takane boobs and/or Makoto fight scenes.

 

[duckroll]

I just want to see more Azusa/Takane boobs and/or Makoto fight scenes.

According to Branduil you shouldn't be the target audience anymore. Sorry.

 

[Hitokage]

It's your fault for not buying 500-800 dollar series though. If you had bought a few thousand copies of each volume of Michiko, I'm sure they would have made something similar after that!

I assume you're implying that you'd be buying the other few thousand made.

...unless you already did so.

 

[Ezalc]

According to Branduil you shouldn't be the target audience anymore. Sorry.

Fuckin' Moe...

 

[duckroll]

I assume you're implying that you'd be buying the other few thousand made.

...unless you already did so.

I would have, but the NeoGAF Credit Card got rejected. It turns out SOMEONE maxed it out by ordering all the unsold Arjuna DVDs in Japan in bulk from a warehouse. It was you wasn't it?

 

[RurouniZel]

Learning to use a cellphone will help make friends 07: Summer activities continue, and Rika once again is the only one with a slight amount of common sense, suggesting that they should all exchange contact info via cellphones. It is amusing to see Kodaka and Yozora struggle trying to figure out how to use them.

I like how finally, after Yozora once again going too far in bullying Sena, this time it bites her in the ass! I fucking hate Yozora, so I was glad of it. Yeah, Sena's a bitch too, but not anywhere near as bad as megabitch Yozora.

Spoiler

Basically, she gets Sena's phone info from Kodaka, and proceeds to set up a massive auto-spam to her phone, bringing Sena to tears. It bites her in the ass though, because Sena runs to Kodaka for help, and Yozora realizes that they're growing closer because of it, and since it's obvious she likes Kodaka she actually hurt herself by hurting Sena. Take that, megabitch!

 

[hellclerk]

I'm interested in discussing it. But if you're not that interested in detailing something for discussion, there isn't much more to say. I'm not discounting that alternative models can exist. I'm explaining why the companies involved are not really in a position where it makes a lot of sense for them to want to risk trying stuff.

Here's one important thing to consider: You can desire for a model to co-exist with the current one, but that might not be a realistic outcome. If you offer a much lower priced alternative, you have lowered the price entry forever. If you offer a 10,000yen boxset for an entire series, how can you realistically sell 7800yen volumes along side that? There is a very real risk that the 10,000 people who would happily buy the 7800yen x5 series, would instead go "wait a minute..." and buy the 10,000yen boxset instead. And if there are only another 10,000 people who would normally not have bought the series at all buying the boxset, and a mere 500 people end up buying the expensive volumes, you just killed your entire business model.

See what I mean?

Easy, because the box set doesn't come out for a good month after the last volume comes out and then is still largely striped down from owning the ¥7800x5 set. Those who would have bought the volumes now buying the box set get combined with the consumers who wouldn't have bought the box set otherwise, and they make it up in bulk. Now are you not only making at least the same amount of money, you're also appealing to a wider audience, thus seeding future otaku consumers as well as improving your word of mouth market along with your dedicated casual market. It's a basic upstream model really. It's a positive growth, pro-consumer model that allows a wider viewership while not ignoring the core that buy all the merch. And most importantly, it maintains interest and mindshare in that people can now look forward to a new product. Focusing too hard on an already oversaturated niche can and will end in a total failure of the marketplace, so using the profits from gouging the consumer who takes it, they can build a wider market that sustains the products for both the otaku and the casual viewer.

 

[Branduil]

If you offer a 10,000yen boxset for an entire series, how can you realistically sell 7800yen volumes along side that?

The same way you can sell 7800 yen volumes when people can watch and record the entire series for free.

 

[duckroll]

Easy, because the box set doesn't come out for a good month after the last volume comes out and then is still largely striped down from owning the ¥7800x5 set. Those who would have bought the volumes now buying the box set get combined with the consumers who wouldn't have bought the box set otherwise, and they make it up in bulk. Now are you not only making at least the same amount of money, you're also appealing to a wider audience, thus seeding future otaku consumers as well as improving your word of mouth market along with your dedicated casual market. It's a basic upstream model really. It's a positive growth, pro-consumer model that allows a wider viewership while not ignoring the core that buy all the merch. And most importantly, it maintains interest and mindshare in that people can now look forward to a new product. Focusing too hard on an already oversaturated niche can and will end in a total failure of the marketplace, so using the profits from gouging the consumer who takes it, they can build a wider market that sustains the products for both the otaku and the casual viewer.

And what happens if this business model goes the same way it did in the US when anime companies in the US tried the same thing? Consumers started realizing that a short time after the volumes are complete, there would be a box set at a much lower price. As such, volume sales started declining rapidly as fans simply waited for the box set instead. Eventually it resulted in the companies having to give up and convert completely to a box set only strategy. In the US, the actual price difference between all the volumes combined and the box sets wasn't -that- large. If the same thing happened in Japan, a lot of companies might really go out of business.

 

[wonzo]

iM@S 19

Don't mess with Takane. This show would be better served without the bland self-insert producer and the really dumb rivalry with Studio 961. Poor Chihaya ;_;

Guilty Crown 6

jesus christ this show's really fucking stupid

 

[RurouniZel]

And what happens if this business model goes the same way it did in the US when anime companies in the US tried the same thing? Consumers started realizing that a short time after the volumes are complete, there would be a box set at a much lower price. As such, volume sales started declining rapidly as fans simply waited for the box set instead. Eventually it resulted in the companies having to give up and convert completely to a box set only strategy. In the US, the actual price difference between all the volumes combined and the box sets wasn't -that- large. If the same thing happened in Japan, a lot of companies might really go out of business.

This is word for word what happened to my sister and I. We got tired of feeling robbed for purchasing the individuals, so we stopped.

 

[/XX/]

Otakus are what finance the industry. 99% of what Hollywood and Bollywood make are catering to specific fanbases, to expect the anime industry to be any different is lunacy. Granted, there are many different subsets of fanbases for live-action films, so it seems superficially that 99% of Hollywood and Bollywood produce are more diverse, but it's not the case. Hollywood's production today consists mainly of big-budget summer action movies, generic romantic comedies, torture-porn horror remakes of classic horror films, and the occasional art-house film made primarily to qualify for the Academy Awards voting. There is very minimal original-ness in Hollywood these days, and for the same reasons as the anime industry. You know who gives you money year-in and year-out, and you know what they like. So you make what they like. They give you money. The industry continues. Everyone's happy, except hipsters. Business as usual, in every media market in every developed nation around the world.

You say 'fanbases', in plural, and the problem is the extremely specific conditions made to appease only an extremely isolated market group like that one. The industries you have mentioned rely on targets of a much bigger size and broader in demographic terms, sometimes encompassing entire communities inside the fragmented society they are part of. That typical business model would have been a decent fit to the Japanese animation industry if it were catering possible 'fanbases', as you mention, and not to a particular, concrete or highly specialized outfit on a homogeneous environment.