PinkuBentoBox

I have to admit that in the last couple years, my fondness for the Anime News Network has waned considerably. While I appreciate its editors giving me an opportunity to become a published writer, and remain a big fan of their work with Protoculture Addicts (the only anime magazine I’d willingly read), the website just isn’t what it used to be. However, it’s not without its occasional strokes of genius, and yesterday saw one of those by way of an editorial by ANN founder and former owner, Justin Sevakis. Titled “An Open Letter to the Industry,” the editorial covers a number of topics relating to the struggling anime industry, both domestically and in Japan. With the failure of major player Geneon earlier this year and the recent increased Japanese hostility towards fansubs, the future of anime both here and abroad has been a much discussed topic of late, with many greatly differing opinions. But what makes Sevakis’s analysis stand out so much is that unlike most other industry insiders, he doesn’t engage in an overly defensive and dismissive tirade against the evils of video piracy, and unlike most fans, he doesn’t blindly point fingers at domestic anime distributors for being greedy capitalist pigs. Rather, he fairly points out the broader problem as it concerns all parties involved, and uses his informed position to devise a possible, viable solution.

And if you ask me, he couldn’t be more right.

Ultimately, the anime industry was bound to break down using the model it does. Like Sevakis says, for domestic distributors to expect 20+ episode series to sell sufficiently based on blind purchases and mere word of mouth is ridiculous, especially when your average twenty-six episode series costs as much as eight times what a whole twenty-something episode season of a Stargate SG-1 or Futurama that anyone can preview in their entirety on TV goes for. When $50 can either get me eight episodes of something I’ve never seen before, like Welcome to the NHK, or a whole two seasons of something I’ve seen before and greatly enjoyed, like The Venture Brothers, just what do the domestic anime companies expect me to do? I’m not going to be a retard, I’m going to go with the show I know I’ll like, and then they’re shit out of money.

Of course, most of the domestic distributors have decided to counter this by offering one or two episode previews of the series they sell, but any anime fan worth their salt knows that approach is wholly unacceptable. Too many series, especially serialized ones, are impossible to judge based on so little; it took a truly excellent series like Fullmetal Alchemist a full eight episodes to build steam and prove itself worth something, and Gundam SEED Destiny was actually pretty good for a full dozen episodes until revealing itself to be a complete, steaming pile of shit. Any anime fan that was forced to choose between the two based on a two-episode preview and went with Destiny would’ve been royally fucked once they realized they bet on the wrong horse. By then they’re out ~$100 on Destiny DVDs. And given that the average anime fan is a poor teenager or college student having to scrape together every cent they can to get the latest releases, that’s a big hit, and nobody with any sense is going to remain in such a financially high-risk hobby for very long. Granted, one could always rent anime via Netflix or Blockbuster to preview the whole series before buying it, but then that’s a subscription fee every month on top of the high price of the DVDs, so consumers are essentially being punished for trying to be more educated by having to fork over even more money.

It gets worse when the original Japanese rights holders horn in on things and constantly try to push the domestic markets to charge even more for anime to bring the rest of the world in line with their own absurd pricing policies, and prevent Japanese citizens from importing the cheaper foreign anime DVDs to circumvent their own native country’s horrendous practices. It’s bad enough that the Japanese charge domestic licensers two arms and three legs just to make this stuff available to us at all and effectively started this entire mess, but it seems they just won’t be satisfied until they’ve completely changed our market to match theirs and make us pay as much as every starving otaku and hikkomori. Except where said otaku and hikkomori can just see this stuff on TV, we’d still be forced to pay out the ass, sight unseen. The emergence of Bandai Visual and its hilariously insane price tags for such generally undesired niche shit as Galaxy Angel Rune and Super Robot Wars reflects Japan’s ideal plan for our markets. And small surprise it’s almost unanimously laughed at by consumers.

Partially thanks to this dysfunctional setup, fansubbers flourish by offering free full-series previews of shows for those that still wish to buy DVDs, and offering a free alternative to own series for those that simply cannot afford to keep up with the high pricing. The selective purchasing by the former and lack of purchasing by the latter damages the already broken market further, as absurd business models push the consumers to piracy more or less out of necessity. And in the end, all it does is breed the obnoxious entitlement complex and victim persona that most staunch fansub advocates like to throw around, as well as further distrust of the industry on the part of its own consumers.

Let that whole process stew for a decade or so, and before you know it the whole thing’s collapsed. And like Sevakis implies, it has as much to do with Japan having the domestic copanies by the balls trying to force them into the Japanese method of pushing hundred-dollar DVDs on otaku shut-ins as it does with the back-and-forth between domestic companies and fansubbers. As much as everyone here seemingly wants to change, it won’t happen until someone gets it through the thick skulls of the stubborn Elevens.

And that’s a shame, because Sevakis’s solution really does sound very reasonable. High quality streaming or downloadable anime episodes made available at low cost or a small subscription fee and padded out with advertisements pretty much helps everyone out. If, say, subbed episodes came out a week after they aired in Japan for about $2 per episode, with a couple ads in between the eyecatches, it’d allow the fans quick, cheap access to the series they want to see (and make sampling series they’re unsure about so much more painless), the distributors and greedy Elevens would make their money, and the fansubbers might find new, lucrative jobs as professional translators (I know I’d buy a series online if Eclipse were being paid to sub it). Shows that passed a certain profit benchmark could get a second dubbed release to keep the voice people in work and cash in on the fanbase that goes exclusively for dubs, and the generally cheaper, speedier approach to getting anime to the viewers could even allow for the distribution of more niche titles that, under the current business model, would never get a DVD release in a million years (talking things like Monster or even Legend of the Galactic Heroes here). It’s a win-win…-win-win-win-win situation that, thanks to the old-timer executives’ fear of the internet, will probably never happen despite the fact that the entire industry will cease to exist if it doesn’t, and merely stays the course.

Sevakis’s editorial actually reminds me of a blog entry Marmot showed me a while back, where someone with experience in the music industry made a very convincing plea for the stubborn old-timers there to embrace the internet for the sake of its own survival. In a way, both the anime industry and the music industry (the film industry, too, for that matter) are in the same boat. The internet is their future, but a refusal to adopt it and a harsh reception towards its consumers when they do (and do so perhaps a bit too much too fast) risks dooming both parties at the same time. The only chance for the industry end of the equation to save itself (and ultimately, save the consumers, as well), is to change its ways and amend its business practices to accommodate the current generation and the evolving market.

And unfortunately, that’s also the least likely thing to happen.