Re: An Australian License for Princess Jellyfish?

[teonzo]

There are a few of us who are more than happy to nip to Amazon France and spend my money there *nudge nudge wink wink*, if Kaze feel like popping a subtitle track on some of their tastier licenses which don't have a dub or for some reason can't support the UK market (e.g. really old stuff that the French have a nostalgic link to which wouldn't sell over here). There's no need to even market them here or risk the ire of the BBFC, as we'll find them, I promise.

Monster... Legend of the Galactic Heroes... English subs there would be more than welcome.



Teo

[ilmaestro]

For now I will just quickly jump in and say that I think Rui is pretty much right in everything that she has said. I won't buy gimped releases, I would rather buy fewer shows directly from Japan. Since an increasing (and surely only to increase further) number of shows are streamed legally, I have no desire to spend much time and money on things that I wouldn't be 100% happy to have in my collection.

What companies are doing to stop importation (or contractually do their duty to hinder it) more figures into hardcoding the subs to the video. That will become a more common thing in the US in the next year too I suspect.

You and me both on the understanding front - the restriction for premium editions from AoA just now comes from their desire not to impinge on their relationship with UK licensees like Manga UK and MVM though. As they sell all rights for the UK to companies it would be a huge shift in model to start selling directly and impact on the entire way they do business.

For me, all these things end up doing is building ill-will towards everyone involved.

I will not buy releases with hard subs under any circumstances. This is a relic of the VCD era and not something that anyone with any level of sophistication should put up with.

[Shintaro_Midorima]

Oh yay Andrew is here.

So. Fancy releasing Bakemonogatari in the UK since Aniplex don't like people importing?

A limited edition release like Princess Jellyfish would be good ;D

Actually, more releases like that in general. Usually i'd be a bit unsure about spending £35 on something i've never seen (but would be happy to spend that or more on something I really like such as Kuroko no Basket, Area no Kishi, Chihayafuru, Bakemonogatati, Sasameki Koto etc...) but because it was such a nice looking release I got it. The cute jellyfish plushie was a nice addition but the box itself was just gorgeous. The only issue I have is with the way the DVD's are packaged in that set but that is easily fixed in future. Just put additional items in a regular-looking box, keep the dvd set looking nice and easily stored on a shelf on it's own so the chunky box can be thrown away.

[fabio de lunatico]

Just to clarify, my earlier post was not intended to critique or dictate anyone's purchasing habits. What an individual chooses to spend their money on is a choice for the individual and nobody else (unless, I suppose, you're married to/co-habiting with a serial nagger), and I've always held the opinion that nobody should feel obliged to buy local releases regardless of whether they're gimped or not.

I was just expressing my frustration at either having to effectively reward Japanese rights holders for gimping local releases (and for the most part they are responsible), or just going without. But on the plus side, we're not at that stage quite yet. Funimation, Sentai, and NISA are all still releasing BD or BD/DVD sets for $70, and the most heinous crime committed (Persona 4 debacle aside) is subtitles locked to the Japanese track. How long that will continue for shows as big as anohana and Steins;Gate I don't know, but I'll enjoy it while I can.

EDIT: As an aside, I'd be happy to wait longer for Blu-ray releases (a year after the final JP volume, for example) if that meant the Japanese rights holders wouldn't feel it necessary to interfere. If we're getting anime for a fraction of the price it sells for in Japan, we need to accept that something has to give.

[ilmaestro]

I would agree with that, there are a lot of shows I would wait for and actually buy that I would not buy at all given a gimped release. Waiting past a certain point, however (To Aru Majutsu no Index comes swimming to mind), starts to get me back to that ill-will feeling.

[Rui]

Waiting is an acceptable compromise for me too for local releases, especially with streaming now being an option. When Funimation delays something for years, it's annoying because the stream is usually unavailable to us and yet it takes forever for the discs to come, but thankfully they don't stream too many shows...

I feel as though the UK companies get a lot of conflicting feedback about what fans want - they want to pay 10p an episode, they want day and date releases with Japan, they want everything on BD, they want cheap box sets on DVD, they want DVD+BD packs, they will boycott DVD+BD packs, they want DTO, they want quality, they want moe series, they hate moe series. There's absolutely no way to filter out which of the voices are coming from actual buyers and which are just from noisy people who aren't going to buy a UK disc in a million years. One of the things I have long found frustrating is that I feel the only people who are listened to are the loud majority who say they want to pay next to nothing for terrible releases; that's the impression I get when the "well, you guys don't pay much so you'd better put up with crippled releases" arguments are trotted out. I don't know that we as a market ever asked for that. Didn't we buy every single copy of the special edition of Wolf's Rain?

R

[Just Passing Through]

Didn't we buy every single copy of the special edition of Wolf's Rain?

R

To which I reply, I bought the Patlabor Special Edition Movies on sale for £18 three years after their release, and they were limited to 1000, and the physical extras on those justified the initial RRPs. We're a small fickle bunch with a whole lot of anime to choose from.

[mangaman74]

Waiting is an acceptable compromise for me too for local releases, especially with streaming now being an option. When Funimation delays something for years, it's annoying because the stream is usually unavailable to us and yet it takes forever for the discs to come, but thankfully they don't stream too many shows...

I feel as though the UK companies get a lot of conflicting feedback about what fans want - they want to pay 10p an episode, they want day and date releases with Japan, they want everything on BD, they want cheap box sets on DVD, they want DVD+BD packs, they will boycott DVD+BD packs, they want DTO, they want quality, they want moe series, they hate moe series. There's absolutely no way to filter out which of the voices are coming from actual buyers and which are just from noisy people who aren't going to buy a UK disc in a million years. One of the things I have long found frustrating is that I feel the only people who are listened to are the loud majority who say they want to pay next to nothing for terrible releases; that's the impression I get when the "well, you guys don't pay much so you'd better put up with crippled releases" arguments are trotted out. I don't know that we as a market ever asked for that. Didn't we buy every single copy of the special edition of Wolf's Rain?

R

I don't mind paying more for premium editions as long as I think it is worthwhile. As an example, I got the 3 PMMM limited editions and I have the DRRR!! set on preorder but I think I will pass on Bakemonogatari (£150 including shipping for a 15 episode show that I havn't seen* doesn't seem like a good deal when the only bonus is a 36 page book).


* I recently saw the first episode on a streaming site purely to jugde whether to buy the blu-ray set - can't say it impressed me enough to part with £150. As a comparison I only watched a trailer prior to buying PMMM but I felt it was a better risk as the cost was split in three so if I didn't like the show I could have stopped after the first boxset. DRRR!! I have already seen the UK dvd so it is an upgrade that I believe is worthwhile.

[Rui]

It would be interesting to collect thoughts on why we buy the LEs we do and why we pass on others. The appeal of each individual series is going to be hard to put an exact value on, but I passed on Patlabor during its initial release period because I'd already bought it before and while I enjoyed it it wasn't exactly a top tier series for me. Actually, LEs of movies in general are a much harder sell to me. I passed on the Gurren Lagann movie special editions too. Japanese movie LEs tend to come with some outrageously sexy extras and I'll be more tempted, but on the whole because a movie is a one-off experience I don't get as swept up and start throwing money around nearly as readily as for longer series. Maybe I'm weird.

I passed on the JP BD release of DRRR!! because it came shortly after I'd bought and watched the Beez DVD release, and again I'm resistant to feeling as though I'm double dipping even for a measurable upgrade. By the time the cheaper US version came onto the scene I decided I wouldn't mind having the BD after all, so I placed an order.

Bakemonogatari with subtitles is something I've wanted for a long time. I have the imported BDs already, but I'm buying it again to get subtitles so my other half can watch it with me. He patiently watched Nisemonogatari with me on Crunchyroll a while back, and liked it, but he had no idea who anyone was so he's been looking forward to it for ages. I think it's a very important series for the English-speaking world* to have access to at last. It's an interesting point Mangaman makes about the appeal of breaking it up into shorter packs; it could easily have worked as three US sets with its disc count and might have been a more tempting option for him while not affecting my purchase either way. I wonder what the Madoka sales figures were like using that model for it not to have been chosen again?

R

* well, those who are in the correct country, or willing to spend a little money breaking some rules -_-

[fabio de lunatico]

The thing with Patlabor is that it's never been all that popular in the West. CPM found the TV series a hard sell, turning out an awful dub (apparently there was no director present at recordings) that they ended up dropping part-way through the New Files OVA series. Regardless of how awesome the extras crammed into those sexy heavy-duty movie boxes were, even 1000 sets were never going to sell out at £35~ each (though I managed to get both for around £55).

This is why the Western anime industry will survive: as Bandai Visual found out, very few properties will sell for Japanese prices. It's just the big hitters that are likely to either be gimped in some fashion or Aniplex'd.

[vashdaman]

Didn't we buy every single copy of the special edition of Wolf's Rain?

R

To which I reply, I bought the Patlabor Special Edition Movies on sale for £18 three years after their release, and they were limited to 1000, and the physical extras on those justified the initial RRPs. We're a small fickle bunch with a whole lot of anime to choose from.

I think the Wolfs Rain LE (the book one) was an unusually attractive set though. That and it had half the production run of the Patlabor. And it's probably a more popular show over here too.

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