The Author of "Black Butler" announces "No More Illegal Watching Anime"

[Last Sinner]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

That's the other thing; I notice a lot of fansubs are nicer and better than the official subs. And I dislike dubs.

If the translators offered a lower priced DVD that didn't have dubs, and instead made the subs a higher quality, then I'd buy it. The official Nanoha subs had some pretty bad points, so much so that I prefer the fansubs.

If you can't give me the product that I want to buy, then don't be so bent out of shape when someone else does. Especially since they are doing it for free. Provide a better product than the pirates that's more convenient, and people will beat a path to your door.

That is so true. When randoms doing it for the sake of doing it outdo people in the industry - that is sad.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Komari

Yeah, I'm still scratching my head as to why DVDs and Blu-Rays are extraordinarily overpriced in Japan. It seems that only the hardcore enthusiasts (otaku and the like) and rich people would ever buy a lot of shows on DVDs.

They are priced based on expected sales. If they lower the price, they don't get any more money through the additional sales. If you can sell 1000 units at $100 each or 2000 units at $50 each, which makes you more money? The 1000 units because the overhead is lower and lets you make it more attractive for buyers. This is also supply and demand at work here in that demand for most DVDs is around 3000 units on average and they need to recoup most of the production costs through DVDs.

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

No, it's simply price fixing on optical media. It happened in the US too, when CDs first came out. There was a lawsuit, and the price of CDs dropped overnight. In Japan, that never happened, so optical media prices remained artificially high.

There is no price fixing in Japan for anime DVDs. In fact, the prices have some variability due to the extras. (There actually was a drop due to price fixing years ago.)

Originally Posted by Joe4evr

Another problem already present with the current options of Crunchyroll and Funimation's website/YouTube channel is that they're region locked because they don't care for anyone outside of the US. Even most anime that gets licensed in the US never make it to Europe.

It's not always that they don't care. Frequently, the rights are too expensive, are unavailable for some reason for the regions they do want. FUNimation actually has some things available outside the US on youtube.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Legal anime streaming websites in Japan... do they cost money or are they ad-supported like Hulu?

Both. Most are pay to watch though.

Originally Posted by Kaijo

If the translators offered a lower priced DVD that didn't have dubs, and instead made the subs a higher quality, then I'd buy it. The official Nanoha subs had some pretty bad points, so much so that I prefer the fansubs.

For most series, the official subs are either better or the same quality. There are a few random exceptions out there. I haven't see the Nanoha subs but I really doubt there is anything wrong with them given that most of the complaints were about the dub.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, sub only DVDs are almost exactly the same or only $10 MSRP or so cheaper. Suddenly making a show sub only does not make it that much cheaper to produce. The loss of the dub buyers barely offsets the cost of the dub. It is equally pointless to put out two sets of discs.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by bayoab

They are priced based on expected sales. If they lower the price, they don't get any more money through the additional sales. If you can sell 1000 units at $100 each or 2000 units at $50 each, which makes you more money? The 1000 units because the overhead is lower and lets you make it more attractive for buyers. This is also supply and demand at work here in that demand for most DVDs is around 3000 units on average and they need to recoup most of the production costs through DVDs.

That's also assuming that supply/demand is absolutely equal at all levels. You aren't taking into account elasticity. What if they could go from 1000 units at $100 to 1200 units at $90? That's an extra $8,000 there.

You're also assuming that variable costs account for much of the overhead, but with such low numbers of production I'd assume that most of the costs are fixed. Therefore, the more units of production you can spread it out to, the better off you are.

For most series, the official subs are either better or the same quality. There are a few random exceptions out there. I haven't see the subs but I really doubt there is anything wrong with them given that most of the complaints were about the dub.

I would hope that most people who comment about fansubs > company subs are talking about style and font rather than translation/transliteration.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, sub only DVDs are almost exactly the same or only $10 MSRP or so cheaper. Suddenly making a show sub only does not make it that much cheaper to produce. The loss of the dub buyers barely offsets the cost of the dub. It is equally pointless to put out two sets of discs.

Agreed.

[Marcus H.]

Actually "Muttan" (Azusa Nakano's nickname to her Mustang guitar) turning into "Mu" after taking out honorifics "as it should be in Westernization" would destroy the reference, for example.

What's good about very experienced fansubs is that they have experience as to when should honorifics be left out (e.g. in informal situations) or be Westernized (e.g. in office discussions or otherwise formal affairs). The worst we can expect in official subs is trying to overdo themselves and ends up with an anime butchered like The Last Airbender.

[FateAnomaly]

Those people in Japan can just record the shows as they are played can't they? Is that also considered illegal?

[Roloko vi Britannia]

Originally Posted by FateAnomaly

Those people in Japan can just record the shows as they are played can't they? Is that also considered illegal?

Recording from a TV and using it for personal home entertainment only no. Uploading it on file sharing website afterward yes.

[raduccio]

I hope this author is talking about illegal watching anime in Japan because otherwise I disagree with what she says.

An anime fan in Japan can just watch as many shows as time allows for free when they air. He can even record them for personal use (if the companies haven't made it illegal).

It's the production company's job to make the show good enough to convince a large enough fraction of these people to want to pay for overpriced dvd's and/or overpriced show-related merchandise.

I'm not 100% sure but I think in Japan you can rent anime for a fee. Is this true?

I want to support the industry the industry as much as the next guy because I know that if a show doesn't make enough money it won't get a continuation and it will be left unfinished but it's difficult from where I am. The only shows that air are one or two mainstream ones that I hate, the same with merchandise.
Surely they don't expect me to buy merchandise from the US or Japan! The dvd's are expensive enough even without crazy shipping fees and who knows what taxes. If I have to pay VAT it's another 24%. And keep in mind that all I want to do is watch the show once.

They need to change their ways if they want the industry to be more profitable.
I hear that companies don't make money from tv networks in Japan. If that's true then I guess a big part of the problem is right there!
Also, if they want people from outside Japan and the Us to pay for watching anime they should make their shows legally available in those countries for watching. (not 30bucks for 3 episodes just to watch the show once)
How hard would it be to make a few well supplied official streaming sites with decent fees?

[Raiga]

Originally Posted by Roloko vi Britannia

I'm one of those who don't like the idea of paying to download anime/manga I'd just rather buy the actual DVDs since my computer crashes and looses data so it would be a big waste of money. Although I would like to see a legal manga site work like crunchyroll where you have the option to pay, but you can still read the newest chapters from Japan for free with ad-support after a set period of time.

Might be bringing up a dead point but I just noticed this while reading the first page.

One thing to prevent this sort of thing from happening would be to have an online account that tracks which episodes you've bought, so if your computer crashes and you lose the file, you can just download it again since the system knows that you've paid for it.

As for official subs vs. fansubs, most official subs have read fine to me but considering how badly they screwed up the translation of Haruhi of all shows they could have screwed up on, I'm kinda skeptical.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by raduccio

I'm not 100% sure but I think in Japan you can rent anime for a fee. Is this true?

Yes, it's true.

[ninryu]

it's impossible. the only animes on TV here in Israel are for kids or old ones. there's only two mangas store and they're both in Tel Aviv; of course they don't have everything I read, mainly yuri.
I think it's very selfish saying "buy it. if you can't, don't get near my series." outside of Japan it's very hard to be an otaku, specially with marchindase. to us out-side of Japan otakus it's impossible without streaming manga and anime.
if I could buy all my mangas I would do it, I really would, but I ain't got enough money and there's almost nothing here. just saying.

[synaesthetic]

You're forgetting the fact that there is a cost to the content producers. Producing all that material, marketing, printing, paying everyone's salaries--all that's a cost. So it does cost the companies something to share it.

However, like the music industry, most of these content providers don't get that the landscape has changed. Sharing is a good thing, and they should share.

Take a page from Nine Inch Nails--offer your work online, without any form of DRM, for free--with a donate button right next to it.

And the option to buy premium versions. Reznor has been putting up his most recent albums for download as MP3s. You can also pay $5 to get the album in FLAC. And you also have the option to buy a physical copy in either CD or LP--complete with album art, liner notes and other collectable bits and pieces.

And guess what? He's making shitloads of money. People will pay for something if they want it. But most people won't pay for something until they've tried it out, researched it and poked about it.

I don't fucking understand why people can't understand this. Fat old greedy white guys who think the Internet is a series of tubes, I guess?

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I don't fucking understand why people can't understand this. Fat old greedy white guys who think the Internet is a series of tubes, I guess?

Might be fat old Japanese guys in this case

[synaesthetic]

Well in this actual case it's a middle aged Japanese woman, but her point of view is skewed. Instead of toeing the party line and putting out this letter, she should react to the rampant piracy of her work proactively. Put a website up, offer the comic online for free (go-go Google AdSense!) and make the actual printed volumes give you more stuff.

Hell, she really wanted to bowl 'em over? Get some scanlators in on it, and start translating the comic to different languages. The Internet knows no boundaries! More ad money!

More money, the true fans get cooler stuff and the broke-ass motherfuckers can still read the comic (and the mangaka makes money from the ad revenue)!

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by bayoab

For most series, the official subs are either better or the same quality. There are a few random exceptions out there. I haven't see the Nanoha subs but I really doubt there is anything wrong with them given that most of the complaints were about the dub.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, sub only DVDs are almost exactly the same or only $10 MSRP or so cheaper. Suddenly making a show sub only does not make it that much cheaper to produce. The loss of the dub buyers barely offsets the cost of the dub. It is equally pointless to put out two sets of discs.

Then they've lost me as a customer.

Instead, they can't complain when they broadcast something over the air, someone records it, and someone else touches it up with subtitles. They've already put it out for free, so they can't complain when someone watches it for free.

As I've said, the black market supplies what people want, when the official suppliers won't. That means there is a demand, and people WILL get what they want, regardless of what you or I or someone else thinks.

Lastly, the anime movement started with fansubs, and even if the DVD market dries off, they will continue with fansubs. I simply don't care about most dubs. In fact, the number of dubs where I liked the dub more than the sub, I can count on one hand, and probably have at least two fingers left over.

Originally Posted by GDB

I would hope that most people who comment about fansubs > company subs are talking about style and font rather than translation/transliteration.

Both. The Nanoha subtitles were just plain ugly and hard to read sometimes. Also, Japanese to English translation is more an art form than a hard science, so you can get several ways to say something, and each translator can do something different and still be "correct." Whether literal correct, or perhaps taking a bit more artistic interpretation to get the ideas across if not in the exact way.

For instance, In Nanoha, there was a character who was about to be blasted and she was totally panicking and swearing. One translation had "No way! Impossible! Ridiculous!" while someone else used "Sweet mother of God!"

When fansubbers do it, they do it out of love, so they put more effort into the translation. While a company is doing it for the money, and just wants to shovel something out that someone will buy; only the bottom line matters. Sure, sometimes you can get a decent product, but I find it to be hit-and-miss, and mostly miss.

[synaesthetic]

It's not so much corporate-apathy as it is "what makes money." In the R1 market for commercial anime DVDs, the dub is where they put effort. The subs are usually an afterthought--and for a while even DVDs would sometimes lack a subbed Japanese audio track. Because the dub is considered more important.

[Equidistant]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Both. The Nanoha subtitles were just plain ugly and hard to read sometimes. Also, Japanese to English translation is more an art form than a hard science, so you can get several ways to say something, and each translator can do something different and still be "correct." Whether literal correct, or perhaps taking a bit more artistic interpretation to get the ideas across if not in the exact way.

For instance, In Nanoha, there was a character who was about to be blasted and she was totally panicking and swearing. One translation had "No way! Impossible! Ridiculous!" while someone else used "Sweet mother of God!"

When fansubbers do it, they do it out of love, so they put more effort into the translation. While a company is doing it for the money, and just wants to shovel something out that someone will buy; only the bottom line matters. Sure, sometimes you can get a decent product, but I find it to be hit-and-miss, and mostly miss.

The thing about official subs isn't so much that their translations are poor or anything, it's that their slanted towards whatever market demographic their targeting. It's still no reason not to buy, I mean even if I don't like a R1 releases translation, subtitle font, etc, I still want to own the actual DVD, and if I feel like re-watching the show, I'll just use the fansubs.

[synaesthetic]

^What he said. I bought the Nanoha R1 DVDs and don't regret it one bit.

[MHMorpheus7]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

You're forgetting the fact that there is a cost to the content producers. Producing all that material, marketing, printing, paying everyone's salaries--all that's a cost. So it does cost the companies something to share it.

However, like the music industry, most of these content providers don't get that the landscape has changed. Sharing is a good thing, and they should share.

Take a page from Nine Inch Nails--offer your work online, without any form of DRM, for free--with a donate button right next to it.

And the option to buy premium versions. Reznor has been putting up his most recent albums for download as MP3s. You can also pay $5 to get the album in FLAC. And you also have the option to buy a physical copy in either CD or LP--complete with album art, liner notes and other collectable bits and pieces.

And guess what? He's making shitloads of money. People will pay for something if they want it. But most people won't pay for something until they've tried it out, researched it and poked about it.

I don't fucking understand why people can't understand this. Fat old greedy white guys who think the Internet is a series of tubes, I guess?

Totally agree.

What is curious is that a 62 old writter from my "under development" country can get this idea (getting benefits from "pirating") and a 26 old mangaka from a highly developed country can't. Who has the old mindset?

Plus, working for the industry = enslaving yourself. As pointed before, the whole industry "pirates" the creators works. I wouldn't be surprised if some big circles from Comiket earn more money by self-publishing their works than some autors working for big publishers.

[Heiwatsuki]

The author does have a point, being a manga artist isn't easy, its like a gamble, make a unselling manga as a beginner, you will most likely go into bankrupt.If people try to get the media through illegal means, the author will not be able to make a living. anime and manga, as you are all aware, a job too. Though im pretty angry at the fools who actually sent letters saying that they watched the authors publications through a foreign site. im even wondering if they were even aware its illegal and causing lower income for the author. Personally, i love anime and manga a lot, right now im poor, official translations and dubs fail and official volumes take forever to release, so i cant really buy manga or anime right now due to many reasons that are all common to many people. Though in the future, when i get a steady income, ill definitely buy the official manga(the dubs are extremely corny so yeah.. lol).But im against the idea of completely removing anime and manga off the web. the manga part is slowly coming true, but if its anime too..ill be really sad.. This may sound like im an idiot and a real nerd but.. anime and manga are what is currently keeping my will to live. Right now i hate life, i would like to die. but i have hope in the future when i grow up, ill have a better life. so i keep living with that hope. to kill the time, i enjoy Japanese media. When i heard the news that many of the manga sites were removing their mangas, i was extremely depressed and worried. I hope anime wont get removed too.. Taking away my manga and anime is the same as taking away my will to live, and a huge part of me. BTW im just stating my feelings here. I hope that the people in japan try to buy more of the official releases... After all, they live in the anime and manga paradise. also if im correct, manga costs less there? BTW sure to be sure, does anyone know if buying anime and manga in the us will be any good? will the money go to the American manga companies or the manga author or both?Also i agree that they should be trying to make the official releases more better. Try to improve their product just like nexon tried to improve maplestory to get more players off private servers.
1. One complaint is Overpriced. around 10 bucks for 1 manga book(even more or less in other regions) is just messed up.The economy is not very good in America and other places right now.
2. More effort on advertisement might help the foreign manga and anime industry
3. Higher quality and effort on translations. The official manga translations are horrible.. like one person said in a previous post, its a hit or miss.. usually miss. They dont put any effort into making the subs into more of the actual characters personality. They just add whatever would work. EX: School rumble manga: harima kenji doesn't talk like a delinquent....
4. More effort on the anime dubbing? Most of the voice acting in anime is seriously corny. the only anime dub i found decent was the movie Princess Mononoke(though her voice couldive been more younger sounding).
5. Whatever else people have complaints about
BTW i dont know much about the prices and things in japan, so if i said anything that was wrong. please correct me, and please be aware im only stating my opinions. And i AM ignorant of the things going around me. If anything i said was foolist, please correct me by giving me the correct information on what i was wrong about.
.1final thing. Everyone please help the manga and anime industry by buying their products instead of pirating!

[Kaijo]

Thing is, the internet is global and there is no stopping it. As a US citizen, I go to Chinese sites all the time to watch stuff, because the Chinese don't care about copyright or Imaginary Property.

My advice for a Mangaka is to get a regular job and write in your sparetime. Give your stuff away for free, first. Put it up online, give to your friends, get the word out. If the stuff is good, your fanbase will grow, and a company will approach you to make a deal; hold out for a good deal! Your stuff is popular, and so the company needs you (before another snatches you up).

If your stuff is bad, then you shouldn't be making a living on it anyway. It's harsh, but that's the free market. No one is under orders to like or buy your stuff.

A lot of people get this, and make money with advertisements, and by producing CDs/DVDs, merchandise, etc. themselves. They keep all of the profit. It's not hard in this day and age to self-publish.