Lately it seems that the anime industry in the US is a bit unstable. Geneon recently announced that they were ceasing production of anime indefintely as of November 6. A merger that was suppossed to occur between adv and Geneon fell through without an explanation by either compnay. Recently I received an email from Newtype magazine informing me that as of March 2008, Newtype USA will no longer exist and is being replaced with a magazine titled PiQ...at half the cost of Newtype. I've been to both bestbuy and FYE looking for new adv titles, such as the wallflower, and was told that shipments from adv have not been coming in as scheduled, if at all. It has been theorized by some that the growing number of fansubs is partly responsible for the decline in anime sales. Without demand there will be no supply. Do you think the anime industry is picking up or slowing down in the United States? What are some reasons you believe contributed to Geneon's decision? What suggestions do you have regarding what anime production companies can do to increase sales, make anime more affordable, and promote anime? Do you think fansubs significantly effect anime sales, both positively and negatively? Do you think the success of the manga industry is overshadowing the anime industry?

Well, I do appreciate and enjoy the fansubs on a whole, because they are easily accessible through the computer and for those of us who don't have access to a college level Japanese class, or are not native born, i can safely say that having those translations is really nice ;p. As to the question of a lowering of demand. I highly disagree that there is a lessening of demand for anime. On a personal level, im always hungry for new titles that are of interest to me, but it's irritating when they aren't in English, as many of the good animes are not. While this problem is similar to people ripping music online, minus all of the legal and 'moral' ramifications(who can call making billions of dollars, and hogging it all to onesself moral). But it is similar in the sense that people don't go out and pay for the work that these artists do, and therefore, what company is going to pay people for stuff if they dont get anything in return? Furthermore, the loss of Newtype is a TRAGEDY! That is one of the most amazing anime magazines i have ever seen and we should petition to keep them in business....bitch PiQ....ah, anyway...It's difficult to imagine manga other than what is right on the page. personally, I like to see the characters come to life in an anime over a comic with words, but that is just me. Hopefully, there will be a solution to this problem (We need more anime like Evangelion!)

To me this all sounds kind of scary. I refuse to watch fansubs which in some instances leaves me out of a lot so I depend of the US anime companies to pull through and deliver legal copyrighted DVDs. I am shocked that Newtype is going out but the magazine is really really expensive so a cheaper version might be better. Newtype has such great detail, pictures, and extras so I am just hoping that those qualities will carry over to the next mag. I wonder if someone will take over Geneon's distributions or if the anime that they have liscensed will no longer be sold?

I think the problem is that the US companies have always saw that the North American anime industry as a "cash cow" and that they could milk everyone if they liked anime. Since the first release in the mid 90s, the prices have not gone down compared to Hollywood movies. I understand that the companies are trying to recover their cost for obtaining the licence, the marketing and translation efforts, but instead of pricing it where people will buy their favourite anime they charge an a ludicrous price for only 4 episodes. Who can afford to pay $20-40 dollars for 4 shows? and on top if the series has 26 or more episodes? That's a lot of money to be paying even if you do have a job. A full season of a US based North American TV series can be bought for $20-50 dollars which is more reasonable. In the end, their greed is what did them in.

The fall of Geneon is one that really hurt me personally. Geneon has always been my favorite distrubutor and to see them go feels really bad. Well that and I was buying 3 series that were discontinued.

I personally think the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The American anime industry has been on shaky ground for a long time. Anime fans are a funny bunch. It used to be that anime didn't get released stateside until years after it's run in Japan, that's why they didn't buy it. Then when it caught up and started releasing quickly, many people throw around the fact they don't have the money. So what do you do when you don't have the money? You grab torrents of the US DVD rip.

Many anime fans are funny in that they will rant and rave about how much they want a certain title to be licensed, but once it is they won't bother buying it. It's safe to say there are a lot of American anime fans out there. Just look at the number of websites like this one out there inhabited by Americans. But most just don't buy. I mean a show as popular as Inuyasha was only selling about 10,000 copies per volume. If all the people who claim to love that show actually bought it, I'd imagine that thered be more than 10,000 copies sold. So if a 'hugely' popular show like that only cracks that small amount, I figure more niche shows have no chance of turning a profit after dubbing, marketing and distribution.

Problem is, all of this uncertainty is leading those who do actually buy DVD's to do so wearily. At this point I refuse to buy any series that hasn't fully released in the fears that it won't make it to the end. Either due to company closure or in the case of Viz's recent cancellation of MAR.

Where does this all ultimately lead? It's a lose-lose all around. First, all of those who already justify their constant theivery of intellectual properties will find even more reason to do so. Those of us who support the industry will find ourselves going up against companies similar to Honneamise doing direct releases to the US based on a Japanese economy. How many of us have been willing to jump on the recent releases that are 1 or 2 episodes but cost about 40 bucks? I thought not.

And so ends my rant.

It'd be cheaper if they released anime in Japanese with English subtitles instead of dubbing a series and losing money. Since anime is supposed to be foreign it should be kept to originality, like how manga is more affordable and is kept in the right-to-left format.

When you translate things from Japanese into English, subtle translations are lost, honorifics are mostly absent and Japanese events or terms are not explained. This is where fansubs come in handy because some distributors explain what the honorifics mean and (sometimes) keep them.

Additionally, imported items like anime is supposed to be up the rocket in pricing. But indeed, you have to be a millionaire to buy anime, and to find out that you have to buy five more DVDs to complete the series? And what gets me is that they release a box set months later, whereas TV shows like Heroes and Grey's Anatomy's box sets are affordable and with a lot more episodes included. It is part of the marketing scheme and we're being taking advantage of.

This doesn't say I don't pay for my anime online, though. For 60 dollars a year I have access to nearly every anime series released by fansubbers and English dubbed distributors. I'm just a computer person and prefer to start a collection since it doesn't take up space unlike DVD boxes.

And finally, the loss of NewType is to be expected somewhat. I stopped buying it twice because I couldn't afford it. I really thought it was gonna flourish but after 5 years, things are likely to fall...

Holy crap,Newtype dead D: ? The end is near =__=;...

Anyway,I think it's a combination of not only fansubs but the costs of dvds in certain countries.The fact that you have rabid fanboys and fangirls that will do everything in the abilities the heavens gave them to subtitled an anime that is out in japan,especially if it's good,rest assured they're going to do it.And not only that,once word gets out that an anime has been subbed,there's going to be lots more fans making sure it stays flowing around on the net regardless if a license is snatched up.It may hurt the distributing company in a sense,but should the company go belly up or the license gets cancelled,you still have the subs to fall back on...

which is sad in a sense because an anime getting bought and licensed in another country is a way to expand its fanbase,thrust gaining more revenue for said company and creator of the anime.You also have to keep in mind that the prices are higher to counter the costs it took to get acquire the anime,though in some cases this only hurts the company because it makes it hard for some of us to get an anime that we like or seems interesting.

A point that Entity made,honorifics and certain events and meanings are lost when being translated to english or another language,thrust leaving many of us dumbfounded at what happened.I'd like to add more to this topic but I'm getting booted off the pc,I'll be back another time to finish up ^-^;.

Newtype dead!? Argh......I never even got to subscribe.....This hurts...It's like a hole in my heart...

Well, you could say that it's because A-a lot of people are just cheap and B-some of the prices for DVDs. Now I know that after obtaining the license and translation and so on, the price will have to be higher to make up for money lost, but there are some halfway-reasonable releases and some are just clear signs of greed. Some series have 5-6 episodes on one DVD and are priced at about $18-$19. That may be a little much, but I can at least manage that. But then there are the absurd releases: $40 for 4 episodes!? *cough*Honneamise*cough* I'm not walking, talking money! That's just a clear sign of greed. There is no reason to price ANY single DVD at $40. In the end, it's really because of the hefty prices. I often find myself not buying some series because of hefty price tags. The prices sometimes stop the people who ARE buying the DVDs from buying them. Lower prices would also mean that the people who aren't buying the DVDs at all might consider them, now that it's within a certain price range. If the prices can even get CLOSE to what most common US TV DVD series cost, then we would probably see sales increase. Maybe not skyrosket, but they will definitely increase. Ok, I should stop ranting now.

Speaking of the price of anime dvds...are the US companies really charging astronomical prices for anime? There was an article in the Jan 2008 issue of Newtype (RIP) regarding this very issue. We are actually paying a lot less money for anime than people in Japan do. The author of the article, compared the price of a Naruto movie Dvd, Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, on amazon.com in Japan in the USA, this is what he uncovered

Movie in USA = costs roughly $25 = was released last summer
Movie in Japan = costs roughly $45 = released 3 years ago

Most of the time Japanese anime dvds have 2 episodes and they charge $30-$45/dvd. So is it really fair of us to complain about an anime dvd with 3-6 episodes that is both dubbed and subbed and has pretty packaging?

Seriously, the last thing I'd complain about is the price of DVD's. Most DVD's are pretty well priced considering what were getting. Anime isn't priced like American TV series for a lot of reasons. American series like Lost have high visibility and a large fanbase. The reason they can sell for a low price is that the return they are going to get back on it will be huge. A good TV boxset will sell hundreds of thousands of sets while, as I previously stated, the top anime sales will be around 10,000 for highly popular series. You HAVE to raise prices to try to crack even.

Then think about the cost that goes into bringing anime to the US. The first is licensing. Licensing has gotten progressively more expensive because of Japan's view of American demand on anime. Take a look back to the "hayday" of anime in America... around 2003-2005. Companies here stateside were licensing like crazy anything they set their sights on. This made it seem like anime in America was just exploding and so with this increased demand for their goods, came an increase in their fees ultimately. Then you have to pay dub actors. Some may argue that they should just release DVD's as subtitle only, but then they lose a large group of people. Many English speakers are dub only watchers while others can simply be swayed by the availability of a dub.

But going full circle here, the price is still a non-issue. Anime DVD's RETAIL for 30 bucks. But if you shop correctly and hit those sales, you can get them easily for half price. Hell, if you're really patient, it's not at all uncommon to buy series for a few dollars a disc down the line. I don't think I've ever paid more than 18 bucks for a DVD using sales and preorders, aside of the premium stuff. Last I checked, that price is just about the price you pay for Hollywood type DVD's with similar runtimes.

they aren't gone...to be truthful a lot of merging is going on from all sorts of companies...because in the us people can't keep up with the net's demand of people insisting of ripping and contributing "stolen" material on yourtube and the likes...and anime, sadly, is on the going out fad/faze people are not into it as much as they use to, americans are famous for this, as a former american I know I have seen it quite well, and they have to merge in order to stay afloat while one more day passes and sales goes down one more percent...although I see other fads that are becoming way too popular, but we're not going to get into that one at this post

I picked choice of anime titles as main reason.
But there are other reasons of course.

Like the fall in anime sales is a worldwide trend. Companies attribute it to internet dling (naturally). But I think its also attributed to the advancements of other entertainment, and the poorer quality of anime relative to the present year. etc etc etc

I think the major reason Geneon is gone because the anime are unpopular. If u checked their list of animes, most are unfamous (like almost all other companies) but unlike others, they have extremely little good titles as well.

Their company is like mass producing a bunch of low quality animes.
Though the lack of famous titles culd be lack of advertising, but i sure heard of the company alot of times.

I understand that many people are hardcore fans and refuse to watch anime in english but there are some of us who want to relax and just watch a show without having to read a book along with it. And is anime really that expensive? There are websites out there like deepdiscount.com that sell volumes for $15-$18. Plus all the anime sites are always having specials and now even Best Buy is selling anime pretty cheaply compared to more retail stores. And now that the distributors have started to make thin packs and box sets it isn't that expensive. I have over 50 different complete series and my collection is growing. I don't want to have to worry about my computer crashing and losing everything. I understand that for the younger generation who do not have jobs the price can be harsh but there are ways around that. When I was in high school and couldn't afford to buy all I wanted my friends and I had an anime club where every weekend we would get together and watch anime and we would all share our anime so that we all got to see a ton more than we would have solo.
Advertising is everything. But it would not be cost effective to just advertise anywhere. If you are an anime fan then the sites you go to for anime related reasons you will find lots of banners and ads.
Culturally I think that we should work on getting more people interested in anime. It is not something that you can just expect people to pick up. It is something that should be explained and show ther person examples. I used to think that anime was just weird until I had a friend have me watch Chobits and I was hooked. Get out there and encourage people to join in on the fun!