Editorial/Rant: I'm an elitist dick.
American Anime Industry: Put your hands up, and calmly step away from the mainstream. This is an order.
Not to be a jerk, but I'm really against anime gaining any more popularity than it currently has. Don't get me wrong, I want Bandai and ADV and Akamatsu Ken to eat as much as the next guy. Give em your money and the TV ratings. Just not so much that they start buying diamond studded yachts and private islands to hold exclusive Battle Royale's with midgets.
I may be a dick, but I'm also not one of those guys that expects you to read a seven page missive with no pictures put in between paragraphs.
And it's not because I want dirty peons invading my "special" club. Trust me, I want the whole world to know the awesomeness of loli-in-a-bag and stupid memes like "DattebayoUguu~FYGDesu" more than you can imagine. But it's not to be.
And I'll tell you why.
The problem herein lies is that when things get popular, some people start seeing $$$.. y'know, like this: $_$ (imagine KA-CHING! sfx when you read that). People that are just going to get in there and fuck things up because "hey, this Jap shit is too weird and adult to market to our target demograph: being every single living person who owns a thumb."
Hello 4Kids. Hello Illumitoon. Who's next? FOXanime?
I suppose more success = more licences... but it's not gonna be your Haruhis, Honey & Clovers, or Ourans making the big bucks. Noone's sitting in a boardroom saying, "shit, let's licence Bartender and make us some real money!" Hell, it probably wouldn't even be a Death Note or Code Geass breaking out. Oh, they'll make some money... but not the kind that gets corporate fatcats salivating over newborn Jewish babies. And this isn't even getting into the pitfalls of potential rising licencing fees... I don't see a whole lot of benefits for Obscure Cultural Reference Anime Series X just because of Bleach blowin' up.
Manga has the same problem.. and perhaps it's already in deeper than anime, since they seem to have a more inroads with the "regular" young folk. I'm not going to get too into it, but generally I think the difference in quality between an anime DVD and volume of manga is telling. With manga the translations are looser, and the end product is more prone to mistakes and an overall impression of less attention paid to details.
We'll always have fansubs (or will we?) but I like to buy stuff on a shiny disc, kept in an amaray case with pretty pictures on it. None of us like to see anime sodomized (except for the ones with "those" scenes).
At the end of the day, I'm just saying that I want my wallet to stay relevant to the companies licensing this stuff. When us nitpicky geeks aren't buttering the right side of the company's bread anymore it's gonna mean trouble.
Hopefully we're not already there.
Note: If this rant reads ill-thought out, well, it's because I basically freestyled it off the top of my head (y'know, like Eminem in 8 Mile. I'm pretty cool like that).
posted by Crayotic Rockwell at 5:31 PM
9 Comments:
Where did you get the Negima picture? ;-) KonoSetsu win
12:44 AM
> And it's not because I want dirty peons invading my "special" club.
Ah ah. It has been a long time since the dirty peons invaded. Mass of cheaply available *translated* goods and the advent of the internet has been the fall of the animanga fandom.
Btw, don't tell me that you consider Kanon elitist ?! O_o
5:16 AM
Er... You do realize that anime is business in Japan, right? KA-CHING and all that. The production studios don't make anime to fill your life with joy and wonder, they want to take your money. More success = more anime of the same kind. (Yet Another Moe-Moe/Loli Show #876? Heaps of shameless fanservice like Gundam Seed and Code Geass? Sure! Shows that have no loli and less fanservice, and focus on *gasp* story and intelligent characterization instead of Teh Cute? No way! No-one watches those anyway.)
Anyway, I wouldn't care less about the popularity of anime in the US (or anywhere outside Japan, for that matter), if it wasn't for one very important factor: money. I'm short on money and the situation won't change in the near future. Japanese anime DVDs are goddamn expensive. Therefore, when there's a show I'd like to buy, I always hope that some US company would license it so I could buy it. Money talks, sadly. :3 So as far as I'm concerned, anime and manga can get as popular over there as it wants, as long as it's cheaper than Japanese releases and has well-translated subs.
5:34 AM
The best indication of whether a series will get licensed is the ratio of perceived popularity in Japan to perceived popularity in the US. Popularity in Japan makes the licensee charge more - popularity in the US makes the licensor willing to pay more. So things that are very Japanese in nature are unlikely to be licensed anytime soon.
8:20 AM
An interesting post. :P
As kuromitsu says, money does talk, and chances are that the titles that grab the most money here in the US aren't anime's shining examples. I'm happy as long has good stuff is released though, and if it isn't, money's not coming out of my money for it. What I do worry about is what the mainstream's perception of anime is, and how sales might factor into it. :/
8:25 AM
Wow, I have comments? On a blogger account? THIS IS BATSHIT INSANE!
Anyway...
BigN/Kuromitsu: I guess what I'm trying to say, is that the more popular anime becomes with the mainstream the more important those titles which aren't "shining examples" will become, and the less appeal licensing those quirky moonspeak niche series will have, since us "hardcore" nerds will account for far less profit than we used to.
I mean, they'd still have to license non shounen big money shows because there's only so many titles available.. but our preferences would have much less sway. Unless you consider what you like to be in line with Joe American down the street I guess (which I ain't knockin' if you do).
At least that's my scientifically unfounded concern, anyway >_<
Anonymous: that pic was one of my last remenants of danbooru.. although it's probably on Sagubooru now, and you'll find it in better quality.
ialda: I don't consider Kanon elitist.. but the people at Crispen Freeman Worship Centre--I mean Anime News Network would probably consider a good percentage of us who blogged about Kanon elitists ^_^
10:09 AM
I believe you forgot to consider the fact that the biggest market for Animations and manga/manwha outside Japan is Korea, followed by China. In Korea, there is a subset of established manhwa artist who creates very artistic works or works that has literary value ( good plots, character development, and memorable quotes ), but they don't tend to sell well. These high caliber artists usually relies on combined income from their works being used in mass media, games, or stuffs for fans.
10:29 AM
>Crayotic Rockwell
I don't see why it is a problem what kind of shows are popular. Most of us started with shows such as Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Robotech, etc. Today's casual viewers watch Bleach, Naruto, and the like. As some of us got curious of other shows and eventually learned to appreaciate other titles, so will they, creating a market for them.
Well, hopefully. I rarely agree with Zac (of ANN), but I agree that it's probably just not worth for companies to license titles that only interest hardcore fans who who most likely already have them in their preferred format (Japanese DVDs, high quality fansubbed video). This doesn't really have anything to do with the popularity of other shows... though, hey, it may happen that some company makes big buck with Bleach and Naruto and decide to have a try at Kemonozume because they can afford the risk, which is why I'm all for Bleach and Naruto getting popular with Jane and Joe American. :3 I may not care about them, but their popularity may one day help me to titles that interest me.
2:34 PM
Cray you are so manly I wanna suck your elitist manhood.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL PSYCH
1:44 AM
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