Bandai Entertainment will focus on licensing rights to other companies, particularly in digital distribution, broadcast, and merchandising. The company will be restructured as a result, and most of its contractors and three of its five fulltime staff members will be laid off."
So, this news hit about a week ago and it stirred up a small shitstorm of anger in the anime community. Now, I haven't been a member of the anime community in some years for reasons that I will get into later. But I felt the need to comment on this, at least so that years from now, if someone stumbles across this little blog, they may understand how at least one person felt.
The views that I'm seeing are from those of the 'commercially hardcore' people that state that the 'pirates' and 'bootleggers' have forced this action by robbing the anime industry of the money that it rightly deserves. I will not deny that anime companies, or any company that puts effort into a project, deserve to be paid for their time. They say that torrent sites have caused the collapse of the North American anime market and we have brought this on ourselves. My opinion later.
The second viewpoint is that Bandai attempted to release sub-standard products here in the US compared to its Japanese counterparts. The DVDs released with special packaging, collectibles, and other such bonuses overseas. Here, they released at about 30 bucks for 4 episodes, and occasionally, you got something nifty if you bought the first DVD in the set. They also attempted to release the DVDs 'cheaper' in the US than they did in Japan, but that changed when they realized that the Japanese would just import the stuff from the US to avoid paying the higher domestic prices.
The final viewpoint, which I'm closest to falling in with, is that lately the anime has just been pure shit. In a quite taken from a Japanese site, "They say the tastes of US fans have changed, but really they are the same. The problem is all the anime made in Japan is now for the creepy otaku demographic and doesn’t interest them.” And that is pretty much true. Lately, the anime that has come out of Japan has been of two varieties. The 'moe' stuff of preteen girls that the Japanese seem to obsess over, or the opposite end of the spectrum, the 'oppai' fan service anime with breasts so large that they have their own gravitational pull.
An example of moe anime (released by Bandai and retardedly popular):
And now for the 'other' type:
Honestly, I can't bring myself to watch either. The latest anime that I watched fell into the latter category, and I kinda had to force myself to watch it. I watched it with my sister and her husband, and all the time we were just rolling our eyes. Especially when things like this happened.
So, yeah. The American anime industry has collapsed. Or is collapsing. ADV, one of my favorite dubbing companies shut down a while back. Now that Bandai is closing its doors to distribution, that only leaves a few others. So, yes, internet piracy has contributed to the decline of the market. Pricing has contributed to the decline of the market. And shitty content has contributed to the decline of the market.
However, that's not to say that those are the only problems. My issue, my REAL issue (aside from the shitty content point above), is WHAT they choose to release stateside. Epic shows like Macross 7 and Macross Frontier will never see a stateside release due to the licensing issues over who owns the anime, and who owns the music. Considering that those two are heavily music based, that makes it far too expensive for the companies involved to risk. Then, they choose to release other shows that were made in Japan for younger audiences and market them over here for children as well. That doesn't always work. Children in Japan aren't as sheltered as our children are.
Take a show like "Konjiki no Gash Bell". It's a story of a young demon sent to the human world to find a human partner to aid in his battle to destroy all the other demons so that he can become the ruler of the demon world for the next thousand years. Well, that obviously wouldn't fly on American broadcasts, so they changed it up. Instead of demons, they're called Mamodo. They come from the Mamodo world and are fighting to become the Mamodo king. Unless your kid goes and Googles what Mamodo means, they'll probably never know about the battle for the demon world.
Now, I can understand wanting to protect your children from foul and evil beasties. Fine. BUT, when the only thing you offer is that watered down version? No. Hell to the fuck no. Compare the two intros.
Japanese:
English:
It hurts me where my feelings live to watch that. I'm almost sure that things like Beyblade and Bakugan were cool in Japan. But they have to complete retardate everything they assume is for children. But, that's been the way of American television for decades. Can't solely blame that, but it hasn't helped the anime situation.
Finally, there are the purists. Those hateful, despicable, vile and loathsome creatures that absolutely REFUSE to accept ANYTHING outside of its native language. They refuse to watch dubs, they refuse to accept English translations. They learn an entire language JUST so they can watch their cartoons in the language they were meant to be in. These people piss me off. They're the kind of people that will sometimes refuse to buy a domestically released product BECAUSE of the dub, or what company released it or whatever. They are the elitist snobs and most annoying of the fandom, in my opinion.
In closing, piracy has not helped the cause, but it is NOT the only factor that has caused the downfall of the American anime industry. And honestly, with the stuff they've put out lately, I don't care to see it anyway. Everything I cared to watch has already been released, so..
"So say we all..."
