More “A, B, C” Title Discussion; ADV “Ready for Bear”?
Posted on June 30th, 2007 by CalAggie in Anime, LicensesRemember John Ledford’s mention of “B” titles a month ago? I had kind of forgotten about it until I came upon two things recently that mentioned it. This week’s edition of the AnimeNation News Podcast released on Thursday covered the topic and an ICv2 interview with Mike Balliff, ADV Senior VP of Sales, mentioned the phrase in a question about whether popularity in Japan is a good indicator of success in America.
Every week on the AnimeNation News Podcast, the hosts cover the news of the past week as well as two or three Ask John questions. The question from June 22nd, “Why Don’t ‘B’ Titles Sell in America Anymore?”, was the first of two to be discussed and below is the audio from the June 28th episode:
On the podcast, John explained that the lettered terms refer to sellability of a particular anime and not particularly to the quality. Shonen Jump-adapted anime Naruto and Bleach are likely to be considered “A” titles because they attract a broad audience whereas something more obscure (his examples were Hare+Guu and Kamichu!) would fall into the “B” or “C” categories because they aren’t as marketable. An interesting thing he mentioned was that Geneon has not “seriously concerned” licensing Monster because they don’t think it will be profitable in America. He also said that consumers have been “indoctrinated” into a thinbox mentality by heavily discounted re-releases and developing an expectation of lower prices overall; this hurts companies in that they don’t get the early revenue they need to recoup the licensing and dubbing costs.
In his column written last Friday, John lamented the feeling of entitlement that he says American anime fans have and said that selectively supporting anime hurts the industry. They feel the need to only support the high profile titles or only those they like the most. People buy what they are familiar with more often than stuff they have never heard of before. Fansubs do affect DVD sales because they are free and because of their availability. He finished his lengthy response with the following plea to the American anime fans:
America’s anime industry is not self-sufficient. It will not thrive and grow without the support of America’s anime fans. Fansubs are not a replacement for official releases. The cost of anime cannot be compared to conventional American home video. Ultimately, as common sense dictates, we get what we pay for. Select, high profile titles overshadow smaller releases because consumers refuse to support smaller releases. It’s reasonable for consumers to be hesitant to spend money on uncertain or unfamiliar goods, but anime fans need to act like anime fans in order to sustain a thriving anime community. Ultimately, looking beyond narrow personal policies, being willing to encourage the growth of the anime industry and appreciation of anime is the only thing that will allow America’s anime industry to bloom.
The ICv2 I mentioned above with Mike Balliff was mainly about the titles ADV has recently announced and the possibility of any appearing on TV. Balliff said that two of the titles, Pumpkin Scissors and Tokyo Majin, have “great potential” and everything he looks for in a great series: “great characters, quick pacing, and plenty of action”. He adds that they have a number of other licenses that fit that profile, admits that most haven’t been announced yet, and ends his answer with the phrase “we’re loaded for bear”. What the hell does that mean?!? According to the Free Dictionary, the idiom means “ready and eager to deal with something that is going to be difficult”. So, I guess the company is prepared to take on all its licenses? I sure hope they don’t put too much on their plate and risk quality for quantity.
Here’s the question that referred to Ledford’s quote and Balliff’s response:
ADV’s CEO John Ledford recently said in an interview that anime series with “B” and “C” levels of popularity will no longer make the grade here in the U.S. Is success in Japan a good indicator of success in the U.S market? If so, why don’t American anime companies make more use of Japanese ratings and DVD sales numbers to push their new series?
We look at a lot of factors when evaluating new licenses, including the track record in Japan. There are a lot of differences between the two markets, but we know each of them very well and account for that in our projections. I don’t think we’re missing much there.
Perhaps the confusion arises from the compressed licensing window. These days a lot of series are getting licensed and slated for North American release before they’ve even finished their broadcast run in Japan. Some would argue that was inevitable. All I can say from a sales standpoint is that it’s a lot of fun.
I love screening a new show that’s just getting underway on Japanese television and knowing that we’re going to bring it to fans here at home in just a few months (a la Le Chevalier D’eon, which is bar none one of the best releases of the year).
First, I think the interviewer misinterpreted Ledford as talking “A, B, C” with regards to the popularity in the Japanese market rather than its potential popularity across the Pacific and thus didn’t need to include it in the first place. Second, Balliff thinks that a smaller licensing window is fun and is correct in a business sense. The prevalence of fansubs of episodes airing after licensing announcements generally decreases because Animesuki drops listings of them and most subbing groups drop them to avoid being sued. The business is less affected by piracy on the titles they announce early and thus they have a better opportunity to make money. I’m sure that Balliff really likes turning titles around quickly like many anime evangelists do - it’s the “so excited I gotta tell everybody” feeling. The trade off of a shorter release window is losing some free promotion from letting fansubs circulate, something I think can be worth it for companies if they time their announcements.
Sorry for the relatively long post as this probably could have been divided into two separate posts but I care about how the domestic licensing process and don’t want future anime releases to stop having their episodes released because of bad sales numbers, as was the case with Funimation not picking up the second 50-episode season of Kodocha. I must admit that I haven’t watched Kodocha so maybe I’m part of the problem. It wouldn’t hurt to give it or other niche titles a shot, I suppose. Maybe I’ll check out the box sets…
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You can’t really blame customers for selectively buying anime- personally, I purchase what I think I’m going to enjoy and would want to watch again (although given my tastes that doesn’t necessarily mean they would all be ‘A’ series). I’m not going to buy any old crap just because it’s anime- for one thing, I’m already spending as much as I can afford on the habit. Yes, I may rent or ‘acquire’ a series I wouldn’t want to buy, but if I couldn’t do that I just wouldn’t watch it, since it wouldn’t be within my budget to pay for that on top.
Or in short, while I do care about the state of licensing, it has to come second to keeping an eye on the bank balance.
Actually I like his little plea, because it’s honest. The jist of it, IMO, is what I noted below:
1) you NEED fansubs to promote the less mainstream titles, that’s how people fall in love with those titles in the first place. John implicitly recognizes this.
2) but invariably these small fry fans (I put myself squarely in this category) have to step up to the plate and buy. It’s ok if only 50% of Naruto fansub viewers buy (I just made up the number), because that’s 50% of a lot. But if only 50% of Simoun fansub viewers buy, that’s hardly any sales.
3) In that way, John’s plea chickens out by asking fans to do what fans do. Depends on who you ask, you get different definitions of how a fan should act. But yea yea it’s a pride thing, partly. I don’t look down at fans of anime who don’t own anything legit, but they should all know they suck more than people who buy the legit releases. ;)
And LOL @ Le Chevalier D’eon. I sure won’t be buying that…
There’s no cases where 50% of fansub viewers buy. Not -one-. ;p
Is there a substitution effect? Heck yes. Nobody buys all the shows they watch fansubbed. People are going to gravitate towards the shows they really enjoyed, and not buy the ones that they didn’t enjoy. This isn’t a surprise to anybody.
But part of the beneficial effect is redundant. If a show’s a really good show in a genre you generally enjoy, watching the fansub isn’t necessarily instrumental to your purchase of the show. You don’t have to have watched all of Eva to hear that Eva was pretty good! Indeed, there are all sorts of reviews and previews and what have you, specifically oriented to giving people an idea of how good a given show is; your strong players don’t need the extra support, because they’re strong players.
But the harm it does to relatively weaker players is pretty large. These aren’t necessarily lousy shows! But for a lot of shows, once you’ve watched it, you’ve extracted a lot of the entertainment value out of the show - just like reading a detective novel, “whodunit” only works once. In an environment where you’re watching everything on fansubs as it comes out, though, the value for those shows for you takes a big hit - you’ve already got the entertainment out of it, so you’re not nearly as likely to purchase, even though you might have purchased and enjoyed the show if you hadn’t already watched the whole thing.
Those are precisely the shows that operate on smaller margins to begin with, so the damage that it does to them is proportionately greater. An extra thousand people buying Azumanga isn’t going to make or break that show, but there are plenty of niche titles where that’s the difference between a bit of profit and a big loss.