Category: Editorials

Japan is lookin’ to crack down!

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So, Japan has decided it wants the U.S.’s help is putting down fan-subs. I am actually a little surprised. Japan hasn’t really taken an interest in it even though it has been going on for years and years. I guess I never really thought about the effects of fan-subs on the Japanese industry. I don’t know if anything can really be done about it though. Besides if the U.S. anime industry isn’t making the plea is doesn’t seem like it’ll hold water.

Maybe that is why Japan is making the plea. If the U.S. industry won’t make a fuss then the Japanese are going to make sure that someone is going to protect their intellectual property. A good number of anime are now made with the idea that some of the projected profits will come from international distribution. So they seem to think they have two choices. Make less anime without the support of the U.S. anime industry or get someone in the U.S. to crack down on fan-subs. The real question is even if they get someone to crack down hard on fan-subs will it really do anything positive for the U.S. or the Japanese anime industry.

I feel that fan-subs have their uses and positive impact on the anime industry but they also doing harm to the anime industry. The problem is as long as there is some possibility of ruining it for everyone some jerk is going to go out there and make sure that he ruins it for everyone (And often times they are quite proud of it.) There are going to be people who watch fan-subs and the minute a title they watched get licensed they go and buy it in stores. Then there are people who will watch everything they can get their hands on and not bay a slim dime on anything in the U.S. or Japan and act like they are the heroes on the modern age. Most people fall somewhere in the middle but it’s hard to see which end of the spectrum most people all under. Do most fans buy the shows they really like that they watch on fan-subs or do they only buy a fraction of what they watch fan-subbed? A thread on Anime Jump makes me think people are not buying anywhere as much as they say they are.

And there is now this reverse backlash of people in Japan downloading fan-subs because of the sky-high DVD prices in Japan. Although, they have the opportunity to watch it on television that we don’t. So that’s where the ruining it for us kind of comes in. I mean fan-subbing has been going on for a quite a while with some complaint from the industry but very little action.

The problem is that up until recently most of the time fan-subs were inferior to legitimate releases. In the old days the video quality was almost always better on a legitimate release. Now if most fan-subs might be of lesser quality but only hard core video freaks can tell the difference. The only real draw that legitimate releases have are extras like DVD bonus features and exclusive items included with DVDs. I mean the Japanese CD market keeps itself alive despite outrageously high prices by including exclusive tacks on their CDs to prevent people running to reverse imports or downloading American CDs. I guess that DVD extras are less valuable then the actual content of extra tracks on a CD.

The thing is fan-subs are not going away any time soon. They were an integral part of the formation of an American anime fan-base so it’s hard to separate them from fandom. They actually have their positive benefits even today, despite what some company reps might tell you. Whether the benefits outweigh the costs are another story. I think as much as some people would argue against it we would not have anywhere the current U.S. fanbase without fan-subs.

There are those few examples where it seemed like everyone watched in on fan-sub and then decided not to buy it. So that really damaged the persona I think. There was Love Hina and then more recently it was seen with Rozen Maiden (that’s really weird that I dislike both of these shows, but I digress). But fan-subs are the only way some niche shows are even a thought in the heads of company reps. They have an insight in to what people are actually watching. They have a leg up on other media! Fan-subbers are working for free and the industry gets to look in on what fans think is good.

But I think that fan-subs can also give a very wrong impression of the market. Geneon assumed that since so many people were downloading and talking about niche shows like Rozen Maiden that it was worth the high price to license Rozen Maiden and they would make their money back. But it seems places like 4chan and the rest of the Internet was willing to watch Rozen Maiden for free but they were not willing to buy it on DVD and anyone who did not see it fan-subed was in no rush to buy such a show on DVD either.

Well, I wish fan-subbers were less worried about their e-penises and worked a little more on obscure and older shows. Do you really need 10 groups working on one show? (the answer BTW is no). I understand that subbing is in some ways almost an art form so you can have more than one translation that are both correct but have different subtleties. The thing is, after 2 groups are working on something, it is almost assured that most of the extra subbers are either adding nothing new or are sub-par to other groups doing the subs. A lot of times they are just a bunch a speed subbers trying to out do each other and just giving in to a fast translation with a horrible grammar and spelling.

I sort of agree. In fact, when there is more than one group I usually stick with the one I think has the best sub…not the fastest sub. For example with D.Gray Man, I always wait for the Black Order sub, even though they are a couple episodes behind. I think people should lose the pride thing and do more shows! More is better, the more we see the richer the anime community is. But can I really complain when people actually do this out of the goodness of their fanboy/fangirl hearts? Not really. Besides there are so many shows available there is no way I could watch all of them.

I have to admit I’m on the fence with this issue. Selling is not cool but when it is completely free it is harder to say. Especially since the shows aren’t licensed in the U.S. I can understand Japan’s problem and quite frankly they don’t owe us anything. I mean if I could never watch another fan-sub again I would be upset. But I would still be buying anime. My disappointment would come from all the shows that will never make it to the U.S. But I have to say if the prices of DVDs were not so high in Japan, I wonder if they would be seeing such problems?

I think if DVD prices were lower in Japan we would still have the same problems we have in the U.S. The only changes would be that Japanese consumers might buy more DVDs and American might import more Region 2 DVDs. The only people who can change the situation in America is Americans. Either U.S. fans have to suck it up and support the industry or the U.S. industry has to break some heads and hearts and crack down on the bad boys of fan-subbing. I’m not saying they should try to take down everybody who downloaded Monster but maybe you can take down some of the mega download sites that have half the licensed shows out in the U.S. Something is going to change and I hope it does not hurt either industry too much on either side of the Pacific. But I also don’t want to hurt the U.S. fan base either. It’s sort of nice that you can run into several anime fans at work or school and not be outrageously shocked.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Shonen Onmyouji
Reading Rockin’ Heaven
Listening to Abingdon Boys School

Hisu (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching The Story of Saiunkoku
Reading 20th Century Boys
Listening to Daybreak’s Bell by L’Arc-en-Ciel

Lights, camera, Nippon live action!

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In America, if a cartoon gets really big, someone gets the idea that it might make a good live action movie. Nippon is no different in this regard. They have been making anime in live action movie form for a while now. In fact, the number of live actions is far beyond the scope of this blog. We are merely going to look at some of our favorite recent anime that have made the jump to the live action format.

One of the most popular and anticipated anime adaptions on both sides of the Pacific, have been the Death Note movies. The anime has mostly been a direct adaption of the manga. Other than a few added or removed scenes, it’s very faithful in its adaptation. The movies takes the 12 book manga and condense them into 2 movies. Like any film that takes that much material and condenses it into two movies, it requires them to remove series characters and plot lines. A lot of the middle, and a good deal of the end, of the manga is either removed or greatly altered. I know a lot of people loved the ending of the movie over the ending of the manga, while other people were rather indifferent to the movie’s ending. I think your preference really comes down to what you thought of certain characters.

The Death Note movies excite me! Especially now that it is licensed and going to be shown at two film festivals here in the U.S. And hopefully that translates into some theater showings afterwards. I really liked them because they basically end where I care for it to, and it ends in the way I would have wanted. I also feel the characters are brought to life nicely. L is right on target as far as I’m concerned. There is this part where he is making kebabs out of cakes and I thought, “yes, this is L!”

Well, apparently Japan loved L and his actor enough to make an L only spin off movie.

And I love L, too! But I’m not so sure about the L movie. Since it will be a completely original script I have no idea what to expect. However, seems like they are just throwing foder to rabid fans and churning something else out. I will probably watch it anyway…

Honey and Clover is a wonderful series that was an easy adaption to the live action realm. It is the story of a group of art students and how they deal with life and what it throws at them. The original manga is a very syergistic mix of comedy and drama. The live action movie tends to focus more of the drama of the story rather than the comedy, for better or worse. Also, Takumi Mayama comes of a bit more creepy than his manga counterpart. In the anime, he does have a somewhat obsessive (and definitely creepy) crush on Rika Harada, but he is a full-blown stalker in the movie. I know some people don’t like the casting of certain characters but I think they did a pretty good job in general.

The series, Lovely Complex, has kind of blown up. First a manga, one of the best selling shojo manga currently in Japan, then this live action movie, and the anime just finished up this year. The manga is licensed and now so is the live action movie! It is a cute, compressed version of the first 8 or 9 books. The seires is a very funny romacne between a below average height boy and an above average height girl. It was quite funny when I realized that Risa, the girl, is only 5’6 or 5’7. It has some really odd humor at times but it is typical humor of live action Japanese television. However, they are really weird and random since they are completely made up moments not appearing in the manga. Minus that, the movie does a good job of bringing the series to life. Teppei Koike, is a great and adorable live version of Otani.

Nodame Cantabile is a delightful adaptation of the popular josei, classical music manga. A lot of the live action adaptations contain a unique form of Japanese humor. As Natrutaki mentioned about Lovely Complex, TV shows tend to have an odd Japanese humor not usually seen in anime or manga. I think of all the movies and shows we mention, Nodame Cantabile best captures the humor of the original manga. It is about as close to a truly live action manga you’re going to get. The only laughter inducing casting is the totally Japanese Naoto Takenaka as the totally European Milch. In Naoto Takenaka’s defense, he makes a pretty darn good Milch.

Speaking of music manga, NANA is probably one of the most adaptable manga into live action. It has an overall real world feel to it, with characters who have believable flaws and grow as the story moves along. It combines music with love and friendship. The music is very good and both singles were hits. This movie as did very well in the theaters, and that is why it got a sequel which I have yet to see! I am holding out hope that the movies get picked up, as the manga is doing well and the anime has also been licensed. I was really impressed with the casting for these roles, especially that of Nana Oosaki. Mika Nakashima looks almost scarily like Nana herself. And Hiroki Narimiya who plays my favorite character, Nobu, is very charming. The movie takes place in what I like to call the first arc of the story, roughly the first four books. Nana Komatsu and Nana Oosaki both move to Tokyo at the same time pursuing different dreams but fate brings them to living together and so beings the story of two Nanas. They stick pretty closely to the manga, a few things take place at different times but overall close to the original. I am looking forward to the second movie, I know Mika is still playing Nana and Hiroki is returning as Nobu. I am interested to see if they start to deviate from the story a bit because the next parts of the series take a decidedly darker turn. If it stays on target, I think I know where the second movie will end.

The Cromartie High School movie is an adequate adaptation of an extraordinary manga. The setup for the live action movie of Cromartie is the same as the manga. Takashi Kamiyama is a good student that winds up at Cromartie high school. A high school filled with nothing but delinquents. Delinquents that include a robot, a Gorilla, and Freddy Mercury. About half way through the movie, it decides to go into its own story about aliens trying to take over the world using the students of Cromartie high school. It’s definitely true to the general spirit of the manga although it has its own style of humor.

I loved the Cromartie anime and was anxious to see the live action version. While I wasn’t disappointed, I wasn’t really impressed either. Clearly it was a step down when Hayashia had no purple mohawk that moved of its own volition. But it did make me laugh and still kept a lot of great moments from the series. I thought the Takenouchi story with motion sickness and switching with the plane hijacker were particularly hilarious and well done.

I would be remiss to not mention that my favorite manga, Maison Ikkoku, got turned into a live action movie and TV series with variable quality. I have oddly enough not seen either, but I have been sort of curious about the TV series. I know that Kyoko Otonashi is played by the woman who portrayed Hermes in the Train Man live action TV series. I liked her in Train Man, so I have a good feeling about that series. I also know the live action movie is supposedly horrible. If anyone has seen either give us a comment. I’m curious to what people think of either of them.

Last Quarter, another Ai Yazawa manga, was made into a live action movie. Since most girls have a major crush on Hyde it is hard to be objective about him. But his role is fairly small. Hiroki Narimiya is also in this movie, as the boyfriend who has a much bigger role than in the manga. The story itself is very odd and supernatural but the players in it are all very human. This is Ai Yazawa‘s power, in my opinion, but I’m not sure the movie gives the character development enough time. It pushes the most developed characters, in the manga, to the side in favor of bigger named actors. And the surprises come off as a little obvious in the movie. It was an okay watch but the characters came off a little flat.

Mushishi is most probably the most critically acclaimed movie on this list. It’s the story of a wandering mystic/scholar, named Ginko, who deals with the mysterious creatures know as Mushi. Mushi are primordial creatures who have a wide variety of strange abilities. Ginko’s job is to fix problems that come from humans and mushi interacting. Mushishi is,for the most part, a series of stand alone stories in which Ginko wanders into villages and learns how the local mushi and humans interact. The stories are often like modern day fairy tales. The movie is an adaptation of 4 stories from the manga. I heard some people complain that they don’t like the look of Ginko or wish that the movie had a new story that was not in the anime or manga. I think that the actor and the costume for Ginko looks good enough. I think the stories in the original manga are excellent so I don’t mind a direct adaption of their brilliance. When it was shown at the Venice Film Festival, they played it under the name Bug Master. It seems to be making the art movie circuit and getting positive reviews. I wonder if this is a title that will be picked up by someone like Viz or will one of the big boy studios like Sony swoop in?

Having seen pictures of the Mushishi movie, I am very anxious to see it. Ginko looks good to me, I’m not sure what the complaint about him is. But then I haven’t seen a drop of the actual movie. Hopefully living in NYC will give us an advantage since we get just about every movie that has a theatrical release. I have a feeling a larger studio may have their eye on it, maybe not Sony but something like New Line Cinema. This may also be why I can’t seem to find a subtitle track for it. Although, changing the name to Bug Master? Not a smooth move. While not wrong, it makes it sound lame and doesn’t inspire people to pack the theater.

I am always interesting in live action versions, maybe because I like to see how close they can come character design wise. Because, let’s be honest, we would love to have some of our most beloved anime characters living and breathing. Just as much as I like to see my favorite books. They aren’t always perfect, sometimes they aren’t even good, but I think it is a kind of adventure in itself to see how they turn out.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Story of Saiunkoku
Reading I.N.V.U.
Listening to The Pillows

Hisui (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Welcome to the NHK
Reading Bleach
Listening to Catch You, Catch Me by Gumi

I got Geek Backed, booyah!

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Well, well, well, color me shocked. I never expected to see a special Geek Nights episode about my little e-mail. Here it is:

While I applaud the idea of not buying bootlegs and not pirating after something is licensed, the real thing hurting anime DVD sales is people not buying DVDs. The quote/unquote rule of fan-subs is, if you enjoyed watching a show you should buy it. Not if you LOVED it, not if it CHANGED your life, but if you just liked it and were entertained. No matter what, the U.S. anime industry is not like the Japanese industry. The U.S. doesn’t get to rely on advertisers for their revenue. For the most part, they have to rely on us, the fans. So while renting anime is all well and good to see if you like the show, shouldn’t the same rules apply? Because otherwise while it might not make people feel as bad, it is just as hurtful to the industry. And since most DVDs are well priced, even cheap, it’s not too hard. I also here complaints about the price of U.S. anime DVDs. But if you really think about it, $30 is a good price for 4 or 5 episodes. I remember paying $30 for two episodes of Cowboy Bebop on VHS. Now, I’m not saying that is right, but anime is a niche market so it seems ludicrous to expect the same price on the DVDs as the latest Spiderman movie on DVD. Anyway, what I’m getting at is we all need to buy more anime. Period.

Before anyone starts complaining, Narutaki was wrong in one regard. When you rent anime it does in fact give a small amount of revenue to the anime industry. It’s not the same amount of revenue as buying the DVD in the store, but there is some profit going to the anime company. I know all about this because I used to work at a video store. I told this to Narutaki after she already sent out the e-mail.

So I sent this to Rym and Scott as an idea to see what they had to say. Apparently, they had a lot to say. Their forums also came alive with the usual internet hate but also worthy discussion.

Some of the people on the the forum really make it seem like you wrote some sort of vicious attack letter which I clearly think is not the case. It’s not like you opened your letter with, “Hey dirty pirate scum! Why has the righteous fist of Saber not smited your unsightly putrescence from this earth we love so? You horrible doll touchers.” See that’s a vicious attack letter. I really saw nothing in your letter what warranted people telling you to go die or that you were stupid.

I have found that most of the time when people react that violently to something you say, it’s because there is some underlying issue. I have two theories on the subject. I think Scott in particular had such anger because he must feel some degree of guilt over not supporting the industry more or because he frequently argues with some one over a similar issues (like indie comics) and can’t win with them so he decided to take it out on you.

I definitely want to clarify that I don’t think people should buy things they don’t like just to support something. I love Geneon, and am sorry to see what is currently going on with them, but I wouldn’t buy Rozen Maiden ever. EVER. But if I like a show, I like to buy the DVDs when I can.

No one should ever buy Rozen Maiden or anything by Peach-Pit.

But I really felt like that was a straw man argument they were using. You never said to buy anything they did not like, but they very much made it seem like you were an advocate of buying garbage to support the industry.

They made some really interesting points that I had not thought about. I especially like the ideas about pushing anime out of niche, as Nintendo has pushed itself back into #1 by marketing to more than their general geeky market. However unlikely it seems to have anime on one of the big three TV networks, it is a grand idea.

I always felt that the general business plan of the anime industry was to buy several broad appeal titles to support the more niche titles in America. You buy and make money off shows like Hellsing and Bleach so you can take a risk on shows like Fighting Spirit and Master Keaton. You try to get both markets and hopefully do better with a diversified portfolio of titles. How well that works is currently up for debate, but the idea is you try to get both markets. The casual fans and the hardcore Otaku.

If the industry only bought titles that were easily marketable then we can say good-bye to anything that isn’t shonen fighting shows. I don’t think anyone would want to see that happen. Therefore, it seems to make sense that buying DVDs of shows that are small and niche is the only way to support them, it is not like there is any merchandise to buy.

The other problem I had with Geek Nights’ forum rant is it’s really easy to say, “You should get your anime on prime time NBC/HBO because then you would rake in millions of dollars.” But it’s not easy to do. Slots on primetime TV are outrageously valuable. From what I gathered Geek Nights want the industry to gamble on making a huge push to get their stuff on network TV. I have seen them try this to a less risky extent and it has failed. I remember a while back, ADV was going to a lot of the big TV licensing conventions trying to push their stuff, and I don’t think it has done that much for them. Almost no one is going to take that big a chance on anything that has not proven itself a million times over.

It would certainly be a false assumption to think just because you could get something on a big network that it would succeed. Doing so would be insanely costly, so much so that if the show didn’t succeed a small anime company would go under due to lost revenue. Also, almost everything on primetime is made in-house from their own studios. They want the creative control and power. So that also adds to the difficultly of getting something squeezed in there.

My analogy is become a rock star. You can try to be a rock star by playing it safe or by throwing caution to the wind. You can go to school and get a flexible job while still playing shows in the hopes that you get discovered. Or you can drop out of school and solely devote yourself to your music. You have a slightly better chance of making it big when you go all out this way but if you fail you have nothing to fall back on.

In my opinion, the anime industry is taking the safer route. They cater to a niche audience while very slowly trying to get their shows to have a broader fan base. They do this with the hopes that some of the bigger games in town will notice the growing popularity of anime and take a chance on them. It has taken several years, but anime is now on cable TV on a fairly regular basis and has gotten as far as the kiddy shows blocks on network TV. That is a pretty big accomplishment. It’s no where as big as being on after Heroes but that’s not going to happen any time so IMHO no matter how you try to market it.

They also mentioned that DVD sales numbers aren’t really what makes a company money. This is a pretty crucial point. While I don’t think that is 100% true, the fact that merchandising is a key element to making money cannot be overlooked. DVD sales numbers can affect what titles they pick up next or whether they pick up the next season of something. For example, buying the book of a new author doesn’t make the author more money on that one book. Authors have contracts and are paid a lump sum, so unless you are a big name you don’t get royalties for your books. So whether it sells 10,000 or 1,000,000 you get the same amount. But if your book happens to sell that 1,000,000…on your next contract you have more power about what is going on. You’ve proven people are interested so this time around maybe you can get royalties. So knowing book publishing rather better than the DVD market my thinking has been, if I buy the DVDs I am showing support for future titles I hope to see.

They also mention it does not matter when or how you buy a DVD, but it certainly does matter. If you notice, when ever a movie comes out they always care about its first few week earnings. The sales figures that matter most are almost always the initial sales figures. If you want to see titles succeed, your best bet is to buy them when they come out. Because if people don’t purchase niche titles then you will generally see a diminishing of what titles you see overall. So if you are a sienen or josei fan you can kiss your titles good-bye.

Does this mean your only a real fan if you buy something at full price when it comes out in the store? Hell no. Buy things when you want to buy them and for how much your willing to pay for them. But don’t lie to yourself, and don’t lie to me, saying that it is all the same.

Also, someone mentioned the anime industry wasn’t in trouble. It seems to be from my view. There are much fewer titles being licensed than 3 or 4 years ago, DVD sales are down, and Geneon has just about thrown in the towel. It isn’t the worst state but it is certainly not headed in a good direction. And I just can’t agree that consumers have zero to do with that. Yes, they aren’t completely at fault. There are problems on both sides of the fence. Ask John just addressed this a bit in his latest article, too.

I also have a nasty feeling that if things continue they way they are going, then it is going to push the anime industry into playing hardball with the fan-subbers. If people keep watching fan-subs but are unwilling to pay for the DVDs they like they are now, then I see a series of music industry style crackdowns coming up. It’s already happening overseas in places like Singapore. If you want to see them shutting down Anime Suki and sending out lawsuits to downloaders like they were candy on Halloween, then people just have to keep doing what they are doing. Will that stop fan-subs and bootlegs? No. Will it be very annoying and create bad blood on both sides of the issue? It sure will.

And I was kind of proud, not only did Scott call me an idiot, but people on the forums called me mentally challenged, and someone told me to die! I have never said anything to cause such a ruckus on the Internet before. Bully for me!

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Death Note movie 1
Reading Mushishi
Listening to FREENOTE

Brainwasher Detective (Hisui) Currently:
Watching Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
Reading MPD Psycho
Listening to Platinium