HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII (1 Viewer)

[James_Kiang]

So I checked Best Buy's website this morning for availability on Gankutsuou. They have it in their system, but apparently none are actually at the stores. I figured that had to be a mistake - maybe I checked too early or something. I drove over to the dangerously close Best Buy near my work only to find that they indeed do not have it in store. Grrrr...John, why do you do this to me???

 

[Max Leung]

I couldn't find Gankutuou at HMV nor at the local Best Buy. Par for the course here - which is why I put up with the zip.ca service fiascos!

Zip.ca doesn't have it either. Man, it is so sad that the internet gets all the hard-to-find anime first.

 

[TheLongshot]

Mine had plenty of Gankutsuous this morning. On the shelf, actually. I didn't have to search for it on the new release carts.

Course, nowadays, paying $25 for a DVD is highway robbery, but that seems to be the going rate for Geneon nowadays... :rolleyes

Jason

 

[Max Leung]

Heck, here it is around $42 CDN (Last Exile and Paranoia Agent), which is about $30 US. More like a bank robbery than highway robbery.

 

[James_Kiang]

$25 for a disc and box is acceptable to me. A lot of the boxes at Best Buy tend to go for $34, which really is a bit pricey IMO. That pretty much kept me from picking up the Tehnjo Tenge box as well as...now I can't remember...the other somewhat recent girls fighting at school series. That was seriously overpriced.

 

[Kong Chang]

Jason:

At least Geneon is smarter than ADV who is having financial troubles. Geneon at least with the profit they are making from individual volume sales can buy newer series. Can you say that with ADV? With companies making less profit because of the "wait and buy cheaper boxset" mentality of anime fans these days, companies can't afford to buy newer series which are inflating at a ridiculous price nowadays. But Geneon is smart enough to catch onto this trend and is not budging from making that profit to bring in good series.


Alanna:

The reason why many people are enamored with Voices of a Distant Star is because the creator who made this did it all on his Apple G4 Mac computer, by himself. He animated it, he did the original voicing with his wife, he scripted it and everything. Everything done by one guy which is a major feat. To make something that beautiful by one person really created a major shockwave through the anime industry in Japan. I think people are enamored from his feat of work than the storyline itself (although if you watch "She and Her Cat" which is a cuter story).


James Kiang:

Gankutsuou comes out today. ^^ I may pick up a R1 copy of this.


All:

Honey & Clover ended airing with 24 episodes. Ep 25 & 26 will land on the 13th DVD volume in R2 Japan. As you also may note, CLAMP's Tsubasa Chronicle 1st series ended, and a 2nd series has been announced to be due out on April 2006. 1st series was already 26 eps, so 2nd series may also be 26 eps. Wheee.

Blood+ has been released for 3 weeks now in Japan. This is the animated tv series of the Blood the Last Vampire movie that Production I.G. was promising 2-3 years ago. This anime is actually more animated and less CG than the original and takes place in current modern time rather than in the 1960's like in the movie.

Fan favorite manga turned anime Paradise Kiss has also been released for a couple weeks now. This is directed by the same person who directed Victorian Romance Emma, Midori Days, and some other anime series (which I am forgetting). Character designs by Nobuteru Yuuki (of Escaflowne, Lodoss, X Movie fame)

New anime, looks interesting, have yet to watch, called Musashi just got released as well. Interesting premise and looks dark. May have to look more into this one.

Another series to look out for for you Shounen Jump fans is Black Cat based on the manga of the same title. This has been out for 3 weeks as well and is a story about an assassin (an eraser) called "13" and 2 sweepers. I haven't read the manga so not sure on the plot just yet, but it is interesting and doesn't look like it will go beyond 26 eps just yet.

 

[JohnAD]

James:

My Sith fleet is interdicting California at the moment . Something about an 'Episode III' coming out next week. We're just excited to get the first legal copies.

John.

 

[TheLongshot]

Course, because of that, I've put off buying a lot of their titles because of the price. I only picked up the rest of Paranoia Agent when DDD had their sale. I picked up the first four Last Exile discs in a box for about $10 each. Just like Paranoia Agent, I'm probably only going to go with the first disc of Gankutsuou for a while, partially because I'm having an anime party this weekend, and partially because I have so much else to watch. (Working on BotS II now...)

While I understand about ADV, the side benefit is that it has allowed me to buy some cheap stuff that I wouldn't have bought otherwise. I know it isn't good for the industry in general, but I'll take advantage of it...

Jason

 

[Kong Chang]

The way the R1 anime industry is going. Pretty soon the only way to buy anime is via Japan again, which means $48-78 USD per volume for 2-3 episodes per volume.

Please support individual volume release sales.

 

[Max Leung]

I'd love to. Can't afford it. This is why I rent from an online rental service. Hey, at least I can request anime titles so that Zip.ca can buy them (they usually buy them from Amazon.ca - they can't import from outside Canada though because of licensing/legal issues and whatnot).

Current Geneon prices are just too damn high on a Canadian salary and Canadian taxes. Plus the prices are usually at an exchange of 1.50 compared to the US MSRP. (IE $30 US = $45 CDN for Geneon titles).

Anime conventions are a nice way to get anime for cheap though.

Berserk, which I'd love to see more of (a friend had a few AVIs on his hard drive - yes, evil), is $34 per volume here. Ugh. Pretty darn expensive considering Geneon's habit of putting on 3 or 4 episodes per disc (single-layer so you get lots of compression artifacts) for most of their releases. I hope Gankatsuou uses the entire space of a dual-layer disc for the best presentation.

 

[Max Leung]

I'm not sure why ADV is having so much trouble - to me it looks like they overextended themselves and made some bad business decisions. For example, why is there a double-dip for Farscape? And 2 episodes per disc (non-Starburt edition) - are they crazy? And who the hell greenlit DVD-18s for the Starburst volumes? Stupid stupid stupid.

And look at the horrid picture quality of Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu. Geez, the DiVX 2nd-gen fansubbed versions are superior for chrissakes!

Now the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex volumes were quite good - reasonably priced ($24-27 CDN), and you can choose to get the special editions for 50% more. Pretty good DVD mastering. Overall good quality. I wish ADV would spent more care on fewer releases instead of releasing any damn thing from VHS quality sources. (rant over)

Blah, I'm still bitter over the poor RahXephon video mastering. Now I know why the boxset was so cheap.

 

[Max Leung]

While I was looking around Amazon.ca, it seems that Gankutsuou (damn that word is hard to spell) is reasonably price for discs 2 and up - I guess this is Amazon's pre-order pricing? 30% off of ~$35 CDN makes them around $25 CDN, which is quite good!

How reliable is this pricing? Too bad I wasn't diligent enough to preorder volume 1 - it probably would have been $25 CDN too! It is $34 CDN now that it is released, or $41 with the collector's box. Hmmm...any suggestions?

 

[JohnAD]

Max:

Berserk is a Media Blasters title.

All:

I picked up The Count of Monte Cristo vol. 1 and Ghost in the Shell: SAC Official Log vol. 1 last night. Only a few more days, and I can start getting caught up on my anime .

John.

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, the double dip has multiple reasons. One, to get visibiltiy back to the series with a new release. Two, to get a cheaper product that takes up less shelf space. Three, the new special features to get all of us who bought the first time to buy again.

Now, I've heard that they have had problems with those new releases. I don't really know, since I only have one of the Starburst editions (Season 1, Vol 3) because those are the only episodes I didn't have.

Getting back to anime, I actually watched all of the first disc of Gankutsuou. I just couldn't help myself. :b So far, pretty interesting. There are only a few times the "patterns" filling in the clothing and hair for most of the characters bother me, mainly when the characters move their limbs. The story is pretty good so far, and you just know that bad stuff is on the way.

Jason

 

[Max Leung]

Thanks for the correction John. Darned Media Blasters. Or maybe it's just HMV.

To be fair to ADV, the original Farscape releases, if they are dual-layer discs, should have pretty amazing PQ.

 

[Andrew Beacom]

I can't afford to buy a lot of stuff so I buy stuff I know I want like GiTS:SAC. I also use GreenCine to watch alot of stuff to get an idea if it's something I want to own. With GiTS I rented the first 3 discs and liked it enough to start buying.

 

[DaveGTP]

I just wait on most anime releases these days, just like video games. Prices now drop so fast there's no benefit to being an early adopter. I wince to see volumes Stacey paid $22 for drop to like

 

[TheLongshot]

I agree. It is the reason why I don't buy too many series on the first run. It is also a big reason why ADV is hurting. Why pay for the new crap they are offering when you can get an older series for cheap, not to mention they they will probably clear it out anyways at some point.

Considering I'm so behind in my collection, and the price of everything, there isn't much incentive in buying a new series unless it is something I REALLY want to see. There aren't too many of those out there. (Paranoia Agent and Gankutsuou being the only two in recent times.) I mean, I liked all the word comming out about Twelve Kingdoms, but I waited until the first box came out to buy. I liked what I saw of the first disc of Scrapped Princess at Katsucon, but I'm probably not going to buy until a cheaper edition comes out. I'm enjoying watching Fullmetal Alchemist on CN, but that doesn't get me hot to pick it up right now, particularly since it is still fresh in my mind.

Jason

 

[Kong Chang]

The way it's going now, the anime industry will slowly die off and hardcore anime fans who tend to spend like money grow on trees cannot support the R1 market anymore.

ADV is going the way of Streamline. ADV was competing against Streamline Pictures in the past, which is why ADV started adopting dubbing. But even Streamline folded, and ADV soaked up almost all of Streamline's licenses. ADV will soon fold too and all the cheap licenses they used to have will be up for grabs but at a higher price than what ADV used to pay for them.

Even Sony who was gonna go with anime market folded their license of Cyborg 009 after 2 volumes, which didn't sell well for them, and stopped releasal of further volumes (there is like 2 series of this show).

Media Blasters is hurting too with Funimation licensing shows from under them. Berserk sales really helped them but they haven't been able to find a good series as good of a sale as Berserk, and the profit from Berserk probably didn't last that long for them either.

Bandai is slightly hurting as well and slowing their licensing projects. Though, they do have a few things up their sleeves. Be on the lookout. What's keeping Bandai up is allowing Cartoon Network to air some of their stuff.

AnimEigo, who used to be the big U.S. anime industry in the early 90's, is now just a tiny speck on the anime radar and only licenses older popular shows from the 1980s for diehard fans. Central Park Media (CPM) who used to be AnimEigo's competitor is along the same lines as AnimEigo. Both don't have the cash backup to afford new series and can only afford older shows, which we all know don't sell well in the R1 market.

Geneon and Funimation are the only two I can see out survive everyone else. Funimation...well, as you can see licenses everything to air on Cartoon Network...so they'll make the money back from all the airing over the DVD sales, which benefits them in the long run. In addition, they've been licensing some prominent series and with the cash flow from the airing on CN, they can afford those expensive licenses. As for Geneon, their higher priced individual volumes and delayed boxsets helps booster their profits to invest into newer shows direct from Japan. And their licensing tends to be high-in-demand stuff so they know people will always buy individual volumes rather than do the "wait-until-it's-cheaper" boxset.


Dave:

Remember that the drop in price is on the retail side. So the ones eating the cost are the stores or online retailers.


Jason:

Even though ADV may sell of older series for cheap. If they can't afford anything new, they won't have anymore older stuff to sell when those newer titles become old. There are not many hardcore upfront buyers left for the R1 market...and true hardcore anime fans have taken our money back to the root of anime and buying Japan R2s because the quality is far more superior than the R1s. The industry blames on saturation, but Japan is even more saturated than the U.S. and has less buyers but they are not blaming it on saturation, they just readjust their marketing and cost of DVDs (and in R2 DVD the prices are going up slowly but surely to compensate for the lower percentage of buyers) and limits production of certain popular, high-in-demand titles. Anyway, we'll see how the R1 market goes. I do see a decline of the R1 market, moreover the decline of fans will also grow too. Most of this is just a fad and it'll come and go like everything else for them.

 

[Max Leung]

Interesting analysis Kong.

I think piracy is a huge issue now too - considering that anime fandom seems to be rooted in the internet plus commonly available broadband connections, things aren't looking good.

Quite a few R1 DVD releases are hitting the internet days (months sometimes) before they officially hit the stores - that really has to hurt.