Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Again, thanks for this, WTK. My package containing the complete "Nodame Cantabile" series, on R3 DVD, arrived on Monday. It looks and sounds great. I'm surprised that it's both subbed and dubbed and it's a Sony release yet it's not available in the U.S. All they have to do is market it. Curious.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Didn't Sony release only two DVDs of the newer Cyborg 009 series, which had just (almost) finished airing on Cartoon Network? They also had that odd release of Blood+, and the dub-only Astroboy. They don't seem to release much themselves. Urgh...

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

From my understanding, Sony (as in Japan) isn't shopping this around for some reason. The English sub/dub release had found its way to Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (all have the same discs). The English dub is also done in the U.S. as well (and not some hack dub). The ball is on Sony's side of court, it's up to them whether they want to do anything with it or not.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Anime is still pretty hot down here in Huntsville.

As for FYE and Movie Stop hurting Anime... that has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. It is these two stores that are bringing in the Newly Released Anime. Just because the two deal with used items you can't ignore the fact that they are two stores still bringing in a wide selection of Newly Released Anime. Without a doubt Movie Stop is the place I shop at for Anime for in store purposes.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

But around here in New England they barley sell a third of the new releases, Movie Stop is ok on prices and has more new animes then The FYE near me does. I didn't mean to single FYE and Movie Stop out and I didn't say they do hurt the anime market, I said Used dvds/blu-rays does hurt. Companies like Funimation doesn't make any money on the resale of a used dvd, Its hurts Funimation as much as a bootleg would.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

interesting chris...never stopped to really think about buying used anime hurting a company but it makes sense. i do want to support anime as much as possible so i'll reconsider buying "new" next time.

i was buying it used. thanks for the headsup!

william

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

RightStuf is having a 40% off sale 46% off for Got Anime members on all FUNi's animes right now. How much cheaper can you buy used animes for and hope they are not scratched.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

This is the first time in a long time I might pass on the Dark Lord's Funimation sale... i think I still have a bad taste in my mouth from getting the Soul Eater DVDs on sale during Xmas, and seeing the Blu-Rays coming out at just a few bucks more than I got them for in that sale. My fault for not keeping up, but at this point I can wait on most of the newer DVD releases, until they come out on Blu or get cheaper. Also, Funimation titles have been at really cheap prices on Amazon lately, and I can wait until I actually watch the previous volumes of series I'm collecting. Sad, because I easily filled up a cart of Funi titles to buy before coming to this realization...

Ah, who am I kidding, I'll put an order in if only for the Dragon Boxes, but just a smaller one.

On a side note, I've been looking to try some anime on my Netflix account, and they are sorely lacking... older series are either not there at all or missing dvds, and newer series are nonexistent. I'm not sure if this is intentionally done by the anime companies, or if it's just a sign of a declining fanbase and Netflix not feeling like there's enough demand...

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

I tried to rent anime from Netflix, It does suck bad.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Missing discs would suck. I'd guess it'd be Netflix not wanting a piece of anime rather than the other way around, but I don't really know.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

FWIW, 3 of the top 4 series that started in Japan in early January have already been licensed in the US. So maybe things are picking up a bit.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Licensed? Streaming license is not the same as a media (DVD/BD) licenes. Not all streaming licenses will be released on DVD / BD. And sometimes even if they do get licensed for a physical media release, the turn around time typically is at least a year.

The only fully licensed (announced) from the January simulcasts would be Infinite Stratos by Sentai Filmworks.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

I'd say at my peak I had around 500 anime discs... now pared down to about 150.

I'd say it's the quality of the anime coming out of Japan coupled with people getting distracted by other cheaper media (why spend $18 on a 4-6 episode anime DVD when you can get a movie on Blu-ray or an entire series boxset). This and in 2007... I graduated college. I had a full scholarship and a full-time job that basically paid for DVDs/games, my car, food.

Now I've gotta pay for rent and have a whole heckuva lot less free time to watch anime or catch up on fansubs. Open weekends are spent with my girlfriend who doesn't exactly seem keen on going to anime conventions with me. :D

I suspect a lot of other people "grew out" of the hobby as well from necessity rather than an active choice. Not to say I don't watch anime any more... I have all the Blu-ray boxsets of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood owned or preordered and I'm actively collecting the DragonBoxes.

Also, many of the series I started collecting were never finished... and were ones that I really enjoyed. I'm looking at you Lupin. :) I sold the individual volumes a while back out of spite, but still have all the movie discs.

Is there a complete Lupin box released anywhere yet at a non-insane price? I know Japan just re-released an entire complete boxset but I think it cost the equivalent of the flat screen TV I'd be watching it on. :D

EDIT: Oh, I remembered correctly. $1143. Does include every bit of the TV series and movies... no subs. :) http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=VPBY-12974

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

I know, but it's something. I do expect that Funi will eventually release Fractale. Freezing might be limited to the streaming webcasts though.

I don't mind the streaming-only stuff. At least it's a chance to watch. Besides, nearly all the anime I've purchased in the past 5-6 years were series I discovered through either streaming services or fansubs.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

I haven't heard about any Anime slump. Of course Anime, just like everything else, goes through down times, but I wouldn't call it a slump. It may just not be as popular as it was, but it's still popular.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

You haven't read the rest of this thread, have you?

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

:lol:

As far as what RobLutter said about paring down, it's probably fairly easy to do for a number of series that used to be single disc only and now are in compact sets.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

The number of discs wouldn't go down in most cases, though... I mean, if you wanted to, you could just throw the discs into more compact packaging yourself. I've contemplated doing that, myself.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

A few things I've sold the larger sets and gotten the compact sets, but mostly I sold a lot of discs I wasn't watching. :)

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Back in the early 90's I was the manager of a Saturday Matinee in Paramus, NJ. Back then their were no mall stores selling anime, or Japanimation as it was called back then. I was a fan, I would rent the tapes at Tower Records & make copies for myself, and I knew other people were into them so I would special order the tapes to sell in my store. Retail prices back then were between $40-$75 for an anime tape that would run between 30 minutes to 2 hours. Sometimes they would be $50 each for a 2 tape series and each tape was only 45 minutes. I think Guy was like that but I haven't watched them since I dubbed them to DVD back in 2003-2004.

They would sell out within the 2-3 days and the customers would be asking when we were getting more in. I would order more tapes and the same thing would happen so I told my district manager about them. He had never heard of them but since they were selling he had me make up a list of the top 10-20 anime tapes at the time so he could order them for all the stores in his district. Within the next 6 months every Saturday Matinee & FYE store had it's own anime section. Soon after that so did Sam Goody & Suncoast. Right around then a lot of magazines started to cover Anime & Hong Kong action films so they really took off in the US.

Now everything is so readily available the specialness of them has worn off, at least to me. Back then I couldn't wait to go to Chiller Theater conventions to see what new Hong Kong movies or anime the dealers were selling because you couldn't buy them in the US. Now with Netflix, Amazon, Best Buy, etc... their is no excitement about getting something that only some people had access to.

I remember when Street Fighter the Movie first showed up at Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in NY they were selling VHS copies, on blank tapes not the commercial releases, for $40 a tape with no subtitles. They were actually making copies at their table because so many people wanted to buy it. Now it's been released with subtitles, dubbed, with American music added, r-rated, unrated, etc... It's great that everything is so accessible now but that also makes it not as desirable, again just my opinion. Also having a wife & kids I just don't have time to watch a series like I used to when I was single or have the money to spend on discs like I used to.

Sorry for the long post but this thread brought back a lot of memories.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

So, are you taking credit for the early '90s anime boom in the U.S.? :D
If so, thank you. If not, thank you anyway. Great stories. I remember those days as well and probably went past you at some of those conventions. (As a regular reviewer of anime since about 1994, I like to think that I had some influence, too, although I'm guessing your actions on the ground had much greater impact.)

While you can find out more about current anime on the internet, I miss the human touch where'd you go to dealers' tables at conventions and comic shows and talk to other fans and sample scenes on the dealers' monitors and such. The excitement at my first discovery of the "Street Fighter II-V" series and seeing it on fan-sub VHS tapes bought at those tables has been hard to duplicate in the years since. And I showed those tapes to my daughter and nephews and even did a presentation on the series at an academic conference! The DVD release just couldn't match the original viewing experience of those tapes. The image on those tapes had a different, more dramatic look. The DVD made some changes in color and lighting that altered the experience and I can't quite explain how.

These days, I get most excited when I discover something old and little-known in the U.S.--usually on Japanese VHS pre-records (which have extraordinary visual quality but no subtitles), like the boxing series, "Ashita no Joe" (Tomorrow's Joe, 1970); the baseball series, "Star of the Giants" (1968); the women's tennis series, "Ace wo Nerae" (Aim for the Ace, 1973); and the literary adaptation, "Dog of Flanders" (1975), all TV series that will NEVER get released in the U.S. I watched episodes from two of these series (Ashita no Joe and Dog of Flanders) for the recent August Animation Challenge over on the DVD Talk board (see link below) and they were just amazing discoveries.

Yet at the same time I also watched the first volume of "K-ON!," a recent series about high school girls forming a band, and I had a great time with that. It was just a lovely slice-of-life comedy-drama about ordinary girls who decide to something difficult--and have fun doing it. Why can't an American series do something like this? So they're still churning out interesting stuff in Japan.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Not taking credit for the whole US boom but I did bring anime to Saturday Matinee and FYE stores.

I agree with everything you said and will have to look for some of the titles you listed. The early Chiller Theater conventions always felt special to me because you would find so many things that you didn't even know existed. Movies, Anime, wrestling tapes from Japan with blood, fire, barbed wire, etc...

Now you can jump on the internet and find anything you want in minutes but back then you only had 2 times a year to go to the convention so you saved your money up and hoped you didn't find too much stuff that you "couldn't live without".

I also have the complete Street Fighter 2 V Japanese series with subtitles, bought at a local comic book store, as well as the American commercial release of the series. I've always wanted to sit and watch each series to see how they are different but never had the time to invest in doing it.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

You'd think this would force Japan's hand on the whole one-and-done season style. There were so many great animes that could have had second or third seasons. Cowboy Bebop anyone? Or GITS:SAC? Witch Hunter Robin? But I guess they are holding fast.

Then again, I also heard the slump in Japan is due to the huge amount of output and the abysmal wages paid to people in the industry.

Bandai charging $30 a disc didn't help on this side of the ocean.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Love the story :up:

I see what you mean about it not being rare and special any more. The flip side is that mainstream releases probably mean cheaper prices, more selection, BD, etc.

Re: Just how bad is this "slump" they say anime is in?
 

Actually, I'm REGRETTING selling my Anime collection, as the Blu-ray replacements are simply upconverted, and more specifically, very careless upconverting.

Seems like the Anime folk who have the potential to keep Anime at its best, simply don't give a flying fuck and are merely slapping a Blu-ray label on it to get a few extra bucks.

So, I'm not buying this shit anymore. There are a few good titles, but 95% of the crap I bought, will not be re-purchased again.