Have any of you noticed a decrease in forum activity?

[arilando]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

And by the way...

Keep in mind that this doesn't take into account the length of the show either. There are a fair bit more short 3-minute/5-minute shows than there were a few years back. That isn't to say that overall production has not increased, and that the industry hasn't recovered to some degree, but it's a bit more complicated than any single set of stats would demonstrate on its own.

Yeah, you're right, there are a lot more shorts than there used to be. So maybe it's not quite at what it was in 2006 (I will check later), but even if a substantial number of the anime airing in 2014 were shorts, there can be no doubt that there has been a major recovery. I will check later to see how many "full time" shows aired in 2014 and 2006.

[arilando]

Alright, it seems like 49 of the TV series in 2014 were shorts, while 26 of the TV series in 2006 were shorts. So even with a large number of shorts in 2014, there were more (1 more to be precise) "full time" TV series than in 2006. I cannot see that as anything but a full recovery.

[cyth]

Isn't that the Japanese market you speak of? Only a handful of articles are interesting to overseas audiences and distributors.

As was said, ad rates are terrible, the tech market overhyped, and CR is most definitely lying about having 500k subscribers. The only recovery the overseas niche market has made is in terms of lying to itself of its own size. Until it gets customers to start paying for anime, it cannot hope to reach what was like before 2006. But in all honesty, that seems pretty impossible to achieve in a short time frame. The focus has shifted away from owning storage mediums like BDs, after all.

[hinode]

The question is what makes the studios the most money. You can't be sure that an overseas home video release is more profitable than a streaming deal with Crunchyroll or other sites (and a lot of shows get both).

It's not just the quantity of licenses but how much the American companies pay for them, and on this count it's not even close.

Back in the mid-2000s, R1 licensors were paying significant sums of upfront money to anime production committees; IIRC the standard was over $10K per episode back then, but my memory's a bit rusty on the exact details since it's been about a decade. The likes of ADV and Geneon USA occasionally ended up on production committees themselves on shows where pre-air licenses contributed an especially large proportion of funds. Most shows were unprofitable for the R1 companies, with the unsurprising result that many of them went bankrupt unless they had a cash cow like DBZ was and is for Funimation.

Streaming licenses nowadays are for little to no upfront costs + a percentage of ad/subscription revenue, which makes it much cheaper for Crunchyroll/Funimation to snap up almost everything. They're also paying for the broadcast version, which is usually aired for free on OTA networks in Japan (or at least Tokyo) and for late night shows usually doesn't even generate meaningful ad revenue, rather than the home video version that gets sold for premium prices in the domestic marketplace.

IIRC home video licenses nowadays have significantly lower upfront costs as well, but I'd have to doublecheck a bunch of old ANN podcasts to make sure my memory isn't off on that. This helps keep the surviving R1 licensors sustainable but means much less revenue for Japanese production committees.

[Mentar]

I'm sure that several mods will be groaning and rolling their eyes seeing me repeat this, but the increasingly restrictive rules on the AS forum have been taking their tolls. Many formerly active people with run-ins with mods over board policy have left - and while it's naturally true that this is a normal thing on boards in general, it's my personal insignificant opinion that many long-standing AS members wouldn't have left for greener pastures if AS hadn't employed what I feel is an increasingly invasive moderation.

Also, is it really just the overall stabilization/decline of the anime market? I don't have easy access to objective numbers, but in my observation the manga/light novel board seems comparably lively, though that could also be caused by a higher number of subforums on the anime side. Most of the people on my anime/manga/LN contact list are nowadays discussing LNs and mangas rather than anime. However, the latest rule adjustment on AS made it clear that especially the light novels community is explicitly NOT seen as a target group for AS - this was explicitly spelled out to me in a former thread. Consequently, with the interest of the community gradually shifting away from anime and towards LNs, AS is losing out.

It would be really interesting to see the aggregate usage numbers of the anime subtree (number of total posts per year since its inception) compared to the aggregate usage numbers of the manga/LN board.

[arilando]

Originally Posted by cyth

Isn't that the Japanese market you speak of? Only a handful of articles are interesting to overseas audiences and distributors.

That was a response to the "number of anime produced". See the comment i replied to:

Originally Posted by Solace

Google can give you plenty of sources. The industry has recovered slightly, but we're still nowhere near the English licensing frenzy and huge number of anime produced that occurred in the early 2k's.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Mentar

However, the latest rule adjustment on AS made it clear that especially the light novels community is explicitly NOT seen as a target group for AS - this was explicitly spelled out to me in a former thread. Consequently, with the interest of the community gradually shifting away from anime and towards LNs, AS is losing out.

It would be really interesting to see the aggregate usage numbers of the anime subtree (number of total posts per year since its inception) compared to the aggregate usage numbers of the manga/LN board.

Interesting, because whatever anime adaptation thread I step in the LN/manga crowd is there happily spoiling away. I had to bookmark the ignore list page, a function I never used in the past, simply because there's no other way to filter these guys out. They get a ban, they come back, they spoil some more, they get reported some more. I feel like the mods get more tired of me reporting them.

But I'll take what I can get these days. There aren't many great forums out there for discussion. Most people moved to dumps like /r/anime because places with proper discussion rules feel too intimidating. There's also been a global decrease in traditional forum usage, I feel. Most large forums still swallow everyone around them, but smaller communities keep disappearing, and not necessarily out of lack of growth or potential user base.

It's disheartening to say the least. So if people wanna use the forum to discuss LNs more, then I guess leaving it to organic, actual growth is actually preferable to stagnation.

[Mentar]

Actually, with invasive moderation I did not mean the anime threads. If anything, I need to commend the moderation team for their efforts to keep the relevant threads as spoiler free as possible - they are doing a great job there. Of course the protection can not be perfect, and spoiler can temporarily slip through - but usually some reaction after hitting the "Report" button comes within minutes.

I'm rather referring to some of the rules in the manga/LN thread. Like forbidding to mention or link to LN translations - even unlicenced ones. Or forbidding to thank the translators who are putting in efforts. Or (this one actually made me laugh) some weird rule that even _summaries_ of LNs must not be too detailed (!). This one was completely absurd, because these kinds of summaries wouldn't count as copyright violations even if the material _was_ licenced. I can come up with only two explanations, of which I can't say which one is more disappointing.

1) The AS mods have decided to consciously hamper the LN community in order to drive them off the site - they are unwanted here for some inexplicable reason.

2) The mods are acting in a weird spirit of anticipatory obedience towards what they consider the wishes of the industry, copyright laws be damned.

I remember a time when AS established itself as primary crystallization point for the anime fanbase, consciously skimming the greyish rim of the law. Those were exciting times, the golden age for AS in my opinion. With Crunchy the site clamped down significantly, and things have only continued to slip down this direction.

Now, since 95% of animes are conversions of LNs, Mangas or games, it's unsurprising that most of the hardcore fans have shifted closer to the source. New material for most shows first comes out on manga or LN nowadays. But instead of accepting this trend and supporting it just like AS did with Anime in the earlier times... ah well. Nevermind. What's the point discussing it?

[cyth]

I don't know man, seems to me AS isn't as big or as worrying for the industry as it used to be. Sure, cottage publishers probably lurk in every topic, but they don't have any power to stop scanlators, not on this site.

Anyway, I doubt copyright is really the reason for the rules. Or the perceived hate. But let's wait to see if there's an answer from the mod team.

BTW, despite my whining, I also think they're doing a good job.

---

Maybe just to touch a bit on copyright stuff, since it's been a while ... This past year it's become clear some /r/leagueoflegends Reddit moderators are "in bed", so to speak, with the game's developer. The developer is a bit of a Nazi when it comes to controlling the narrative. Their efforts have resulted in some moderators signing NDAs, which is super bizarre considering it's just a discussion board, but it generates a lot of traffic for everyone involved, so it is a strategic point, desirable to control.

I won't go too far into the details, I just wanted to point out that something similar was happening on AS before the bubble collapsed. While there was obviously legal pressure not to publicize DVD rips or fansubs, I believe it was some guy from Bandai that kept in touch with the admin team. AOD forums is another example of the escalation of these relationships. The more industry presence there was on a forum, the more clamped down it was on piracy-related issues.

These kinds of relationships really are damaging because they put on invisible handcuffs. When let's say some guy comes to a forum and gets special status because he's either a publisher or something, it sets tones for discussion. I hope AS retains its user base, maybe even attracts some new blood, but for their sake and the future of this forum these kinds of relationships should be avoided.

So in a sense I agree with you: things should loosen up a bit.

[relentlessflame]

We have no relationship with the industry. No one on the staff is in touch with any industry reps. We are not bound by any "invisible handcuffs", and I haven't seen anyone from the industry get "special status" for ages (not as long as I've been an Admin anyway). But we do have opinions about how much piracy we're comfortable with allowing on the site, and the conditions by which we're prepared to allow it. Our opinions about what we believe should be allowable may not be the same as what others feel, but when has that ever been the case? Some people found it stupid that we removed all links to fansubs the moment an English license was announced considering it wasn't even released yet and wouldn't be released for a long time. Heck, some people found it stupid when we removed all links to Media Factory works when we received a C&D, because their view was "what are they going to do about it?" But this site has always made decisions based on what its staff believe is morally and ethically justifiable, represents an acceptable risk in their own judgement, and can be practised consistently. Whatever decisions we make for this site obviously are not going to stop the rest of the Internet from existing, or change everyone's personal views on piracy.

The death of the "golden time" for fansubs wasn't because of our policies, it was because the industry itself provided an answer to the problem fansubs were created to solve. And let's not be naive and pretend that this same pattern isn't going to recur for light novels, as it has already begun to recur. We will establish rules for the LN threads that are consistent with our site's overall policy about pirated material and can be applied in a fair and consistent manner across the entire site. That's what we must do. Some may not agree with the rules we settle on, but again -- that has always been the case. Individual members of this site have always tended to be more liberal in practice than the site's own rules, and that's fine. But we have considered the feedback from the previous thread, and will be announcing the clarified rules along with the forum restructuring shortly.

Anyway, this thread has been driven off-topic and I think has run its course, so it should come as no surprise that I'm going to lock it.