This was moved from a Living in Japan discussion in order to be discussed and remain on-topic.

You realize that in the last two weeks Go! Comi and CMX have gone out of business and that Viz has cut 40% of its staff. Jokes about stealing content online are not appreciated by me.

my bad
 

I see. I didn know this. And no I am not using that as excuse for stealing any content. I'm not going to suck up and say that I haven't. My use of that joke definitely proves that I have. So sorry if I struck a nerve there, I was just trying to get a point across. That was probably a bad choice of words though. So I'll edit that out.;)

I have little sympathy for companies that fail to adapt. And I know people who work for Viz. The new paradigm is streamable and downloadable global content. I was paying for netflix until I realised my being in Japan stopped it from working because of outdated licensing structure.

There are no national borders on the Internet, and we don't need your shiny little plastic discs. What we do need is an easy way we can pay for non DRM content that can be watched whenever we want on whatever device we want.

Until companies can do that, they will die.

Back on topic, 12 years of education is usually needed to prove native level English, but it's case by case.

Unfortunately the pardagm is not downloadable content, it is the paradigm that the value of a manga or anime is zero. Scanlators and rippers put this stuff up on the Internet faster than publishers can license. So many of these kids don't even think that what they are doing is wrong, much less putting companies out of business. Let's not completely blame the victims for the actions of theives.

I know this is still off the original topic, and this thread isn't the place to discuss it in detail, but I thought MMM would be interested (though not happily) at the following bit of news I saw on Anime News Network:



The forum discussion is interesting. The site in question is advertising-supported, and its owner is looking to sell it, supposedly hoping for something in the range of over $10 million. It sounds like the publishers really need to bring the hammer down on these guys.

Most people are willing to pay for content. The problem is delivery. And delivery is curtailed by licensing structure which is outdated and greedy. I don't think the content lacks value; I do think copyright law and licensing agreements do.

There is no need for US companies anymore. Nothing personal. Japanese companies would make a lot more money by doing translations themselves and starting subscription services with downloadable content.

Make it as easy to pay for content as it is to steal it, and people will pay for it. Some people won't, but they are the people who wouldn't pay regardless.

For the record, I still buy dvds and blu-rays, and when I do, they rarely come with subtitles at all. I don't like paying $60-80 per disc for two episodes each, however. As long as the companies push people to pirate, the people who suffer are the people who do buy content on those stupid, shiny discs with silly DRM.

Again, little sympathy. The market has spoken. Capitalism at its finest.

You will understand please, Colin, why I removed the link. If people want to track it down then they will. And yes, it does sadden me, but it points to the problem of the present culture especially among the young that "everything should be free".

I don't want to go to into this as this isn't on topic (maybe I will move these posts to a new thread). But I think it is easier for the music industry to adapt than the comics industry.

Part of the problem is that because of the nature of the system, scanlations appear online before American publishers have even licensed a title. It is harder to issues CaD letters when you don't own the license. Good publishers do actively issue CaD letters to copyright violators, but it is a timely and expensive operation that not all publishers can afford to the extent they would like.

I am going to disagree with you here. The value of the manga and anime has been reduced to $0.00. You can't compete when you are charging more than that.

Many people are willing to pay...if not then there would be no industry...but that does excuse the stealing of content. I explained that above, and the industry is starting to explore ways to beat the timing issue. However, that doesn't excuse the act of stealing. You are talking about not capitalism, but post-apocolyptic capitalism on a non-post apocolyptic world. It is the Wild West on the Internet and you have a generation of manga "fans" that do not read books, but off their computers.

Make it is easy to pay for content as it is to steal it, and people will still steal it, still. People who want to pay for manga want to buy books. People who steal read them online. Will people pay to read them online? Maybe some would. I wouldn't.

Not paying regardless is an empty argument. They are stealing content instead of doing SOMETHING else. That something else could be going to a movie, buying a video game, etc.

WHY SHOULD I DO THAT IF I CAN GET THEM ON THE INTERNETZ!!!!

OH YOU GUYS!!!!


Inb4 Obvious sarcasm.

I think this was already said, I rarely watch anime online (or anywhere) and never read manga online but when I dosee anime the reason I do is because buying it is really expensive, and it really adds up if your a big anime fan. Twenty dollars for 4 bloody episodes! (No pun intended) Would you pay that kind of money on a series?

Stealing is an issue, but buying is, not a very good way to spend money . . .

And if more people did buy, people would complain that "OMG, people spend so much money on that Anime snd manga!"

People want to save money for other things like a car that they'll use more or have more value.

Now that I think of it, I did see this one site where you could download anime but you have to pay twenty dollars a month or something, it might have/ right now be more.

Rambling over.

So why is stealing anime OK, and not stealing cars? Because cars have more value? How about stealing candy from a convenience store? That has less value, so is it OK to steal that?

"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway."

INSIDE JoongAng Daily

Here is the reality in Korea. Are Japan and America far behind?

I said it was an issue meaning not OK on any level I rarely do now-a-days. I know that everytime I do though is bad. It's also very nerve-recking that hardly any network shows much anime here, really just main stream, and 4Kids, that doesn't help them either.

What about us?
 

Well i live in Pakistan and regardless of the low pay rates here i'm willing to save up to buy licensed manga and anime but my problem is that no one here sells that stuff. The only option for me and many other fans around the world is to get them online and because the base price + shipping costs and custom pay on the goods there's no way im going to pay that much. I would benefit from such an online service. If such a service is available

I fully agree with this. Here it's slightly easier as there's Amazon/Ebay etc. but the cost of buying some anime/manga here is outrageous, because a lot of the time (to get the latest stuff) I'd have to get it shipped from abroad, and then if it's over a certain ammount pay a huge tax. If I don't buy it abroad I have to wait six-twelve months for it to get released here, and the animes are rarely (if ever) aired on television here, so I have no choice but to buy it abroad too.

I also want to add I think 'stealing' manga and anime can be justified. I'm quite a fan of Bleach (for example) and the latest chapters/episodes I have to read/watch online, because by the time it takes for it to get translated officially and published/aired I'll be years behind the rest of the world. If my only choice is to 'steal' manga online and read it there, or wait over a year in hopes that it'll finally be out for an outrageous cost, then I'll read it free online. It isn't fair to expect people to wait or pay such costs.

Edit: For the record, I would buy anime/manga if it was made available for a reasonable price. A lot of the time I watch anime online, but then later buy it when it finally becomes avaliable because I enjoy it. I think sometimes watching things online gets people interested in a series, thus making them more inclined to buy a series (sometimes, of course not always). Although for the series that never get translated or are not avaliable to buy overseas there isn't a choice but to watch online.

I like buying manga and anime just because I like owning them. They are nice and shiney. :)

If the manga or anime is good enough, I buy it. When I was younger I was stupid and thought I had a right to these things. WELL GUESS WHAT, you don't.

Saying you 'don't want to pay that much' is utterly stupid. If you don't want to pay that much, THEN DON'T WATCH ANIME. You can't go in a shop and say 'I don't want to pay that much,' and then steal the thing.

If you are stealing anime then stop making excuses and just admit it. If you don't like how the industry is then there are a few options:

a) Stop being an ass and watching/reading things you have no right to.
b) If you can't afford it - GET A HOBBY YOU CAN. Stop ruining the industry for hard working people who SAVE UP to afford it.
c) Invest money in it so the industry BECOMES something you like.

The more you steal stuff the worse the industry is going to become. If you complain about the industry but won't invest any money in it, then you are just an idiot. It's like planting some vegetables and complaining they won't grow when you don't want to water them :p

The companies will charge a lot because people pirate a lot. If they don't charge enough for the business to survive, they wouldn't last 5 minutes. The anime business is TEENY, they can't afford piracy. It's called common sense, not capitalism. Thanks to people like you, these things cost so much. If everyone bought anime they'd be able to bring the prices down.

You don't have the right to call yourself an anime fan if you are doing this crap. If you say 'I'm willing to buy it' and then say 'It's too expensive' then YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO BUY IT.

If you cared about anime and manga, then you wouldn't care about paying a little extra or waiting a little longer to help out the industry. You don't have a RIGHT to watch anime. It's not something you need.

[Sarcasm] I'm a fan of the iphone, but oh look, I can't afford it. Maybe I'll walk in the shop and take it because I'm a big fan of it, so it's my right to take things I want. [/Sarcasm]

To be fair, I would happily pay an extra dollar or two a month to have access to up-to-date digital versions simply because it's way easier for me to read than paper versions.

(I'll first say that I neither watch anime nor read manga, so my opinion is solely based on how I see things from an outside looking in perspective from a business standpoint)

I'm going to try and keep this short, because I don't feel like rattling on only to have someone dissect everything I'm saying to try and validate their point, and then myself having to counter that the same way.

So essentially, the anime/manga market is weak. Everyone knows that. It's not that there aren't fans of the market, or that the market has been saturated. Rather, restrictions are put on the products trying to be sold that drive the consumers away.

The problem with this market is the kink in the "elasticity" of the products. Elasticity is a term used in business to essentially describe how much consumers are willing to pay for a certain product before they seek an alternative (in the case of anime, to not watch, find another hobby, pirate, etc).

In this case, anime is extremely elastic. The general price for anime and the time it takes to produce it for a western audience murders the market itself.
People can use the principle that if one person steals, it only increases the burden for others. Conversely, one can say that at what point can a business raise its prices before it's not just one person stealing, but a mass. This is why the concept of elasticity is important. Many companies are self defeating.

As for the concept of something like streaming videos for a premium, there really isn't anything to comment on. We all see how this effects music in a much larger market, so it's pretty N/A here. If someone could either get something for free or pay a dollar, that makes them no more inclined to pay a dollar.

What does this all mean? That the anime market is not lucrative to begin with. Not because of the consumers, but because of the hurdles required to produce the anime to westerners, which jack up prices and make the product not readily available. Saying the company is the victim when they've decided to partake in a self-failing venture does not sit well with me.

The western anime industry has been somewhat 'fine' for a while. People have just become more greedy and demanding, and in my opinion, with the recession the companies are now failing because piracy has tipped it over the edge.

Is it greed from the consumer, or the high prices and long waiting periods of the market? There is a correlation, but these are two different things.

Why is everyone talking like the Anime/Manga industry is about to go bankrupt any minute now? Where the hell are the sources that say it's in that kind of trouble! And for all those geniuses that list a couple of companies that went bankrupt, then maybe you should go back to Economics 101, or whatever it is they teach you in school! A company going bankrupt does NOT necessarily indicate that the INDUSTRY is going down the drain! Most of the time, it's because the business is dumb!

EDIT: MissMisa, I can't be bothered to reply to your rant up there, but are you really gonna stand there and say the Anime industry is TEENY?????????!?!?!?!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? What world are you in?

Is The Anime Market Collapsing?: DVD Sales Down by 50%, Says ICv2 President Milton Griepp

Attacked by Gorillas

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-04-01/n-america-2007-anime-market-pegged-at-us$2.8-billion

I didn't feel like sifting through Google too much, but one of these links offers some great data (and bar graphs!) on the drastic decline of the anime market as far as DVD sales go over the past few years (averaging around 40-50 %). If you want to do any digging yourself, you can.

You say that it's just poor decisions by certain companies, but you're acting as if any of these commanies have as much pull as an oligopolistic market. IMO, the market is filled with starving artists more than anything.

And you shouldn't tell anyone to go back to Econ 101 if you're going to treat "industry" and "market" as synonymous.

The world where stuffed Domokuns and Pocky outsell anime by billions.

"The anime-related market in North America was reportedly at its largest in 2003, when it stood at US$4.84 billion. The 2007 figure was over 40% smaller. Of that US$2.829 billion in 2007, character goods made up US$2.512 billion, while DVDs accounted for US$316 million. By contrast, the character goods market increased from 2006's US$2.41 billion to 2007's US$2.512 billion. The market for packaged videos and DVDs peaked in 2002, when it rose to US$415 million"

Oh my good lord! Do you people think the Anime/Manga industry is based in the US or something? I don't really care about the US. It's been in a recession for years, so if I didn't see a decline in sales of a bunch of Anime PUBLISHERS, I'd think the data was fake! Get over yourselves, the Anime Publishers of the US aren't what decides how healthy the Anime Industry is!

EDIT: Even though what you've posted is irrelevant, perhaps you should come back to the future for your next sources! We're no longer in 2007

The US has about 5 percent of the world's population, yet we gereate between 20 and 30 percent of the world's economic output (source: The Post American World). Stop dismissing us just because you're irrelevant.

WOW, I didn't know the US was a super power :eek: When did that happen? :cool: Care to explain how that changes the fact that Anime Publisher sales in the US isn't what decides how healthy the Anime Industry is?

The data is relevant; it sure wouldn't have gotten any better from 2007 til now, because it's "pre-recession". If you can't agree with that logic, than you're just a fool.

Now now, no need for the name calling!

It's irrelevant because once again, it's about the US of A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When you realise that the Anime industry would survive even if Japan didn't get a cent from the US, then come back to me :)

"You realize that in the last two weeks Go! Comi and CMX have gone out of business and that Viz has cut 40% of its staff. Jokes about stealing content online are not appreciated by me." - MMM

All three companies in question are from the US.

When you realize that this thread is about the decline of the Anime market in The US of A!!!!!!!, then come back to me:)

Haha, dude, you're embarrassing yourself and your fellow compatriots!

So the west = USA? :cool: Thanks for the memo, I'll go let everyone in Europe know :rolleyes:

The west =/= USA, but the three companies mentioned at the start of the thread do :vsign:

I've never met someone with such selective reading skills! lol

Phew, I don't know what it is, but the only imperical data I can find is between North America, Japan, and China.

I was able to find a couple of things so people can consider this topic more "global."

"Unlike in the U.S., "anime" and "manga" in Japan are central to popular culture and everyday life. Here is a report on this market that is expected to soon amount to Y10 trillion -- a whopping US$100 billion."

Unfortunately thisd data is from before the recession, but at the time of writing, the US market was projected to grow to twice the size of that of Europe here:

"Japanese anime is expected to grow along with the spread of new media. If the size of the Japanese market is set to "100", then the size of the U.S., European, and Asian markets are estimated to grow to "200", "100", and "50", respectively."

Again, unfortunately, things still look bad for the entire worldwide market, citing from just last year:

"In Iwata’s view, there is no room for growth since Japanese animation has reached the saturation point in the global marketplace. Due to the worldwide recession and illegal net distribution, Iwata concluded that the North American marketplace is battered, the European marketplace is in grave condition, and the Japanese companies cannot rely on the Middle East, Asia, and other regions as potential new marketplaces. He added, “as it stands, we may have to go back to the way it was in the past — back to selling Japanese animation only to the Japanese marketplace.” In order to survive in the current adverse climate, TV Tokyo is proceeding with new initiatives that include animation on American video-distribution sites. "

In order to help fix this global decline, TV Tokyo turns to American websites, with the leading western market, to help aleviate some of the losses being incurred.

Well yeah... compared to Japan, our anime industry is tiny. And compared to other industries like film and games, outside of Japan, the industry is tiny and struggling. We should support western anime releases as much as possible.

As you know probably know noodle the 'anime industry' in England is practically non-existant. We have a few websites run by fanatics and one magazine.

EDIT: Are you on about the whole anime industry or what noodle? I'm on about how western companies are struggling to make ends meet. Most of the anime we get in England is from the USA, and it doesn't make much money here. Japan, on the other hand, well anime is a regular part of life, and easily and cheaply available, without translation. So they'll be doing fine I imagine.

I'm actually glad you understand this. I love the UK, but I feel like Noodle has so much anti American sentiment built up for no reason. We can't control (in it's common sense) how the markets are, and it just so happens that the US market is the leading market for anime next to China outside of Japan.

For some reason, Noodle is trying to say that I'm acting like the US is the center of the planet, when all I've done is show that North America has plenty of data to suggest that it has a much larger market for anime than the UK, therefore the effects of a decline in anime in North America are a lot more detrimental than that in the UK.

This has nothing to do with US/UK relations.

Just out of curiosity, of the anime you watch in the UK, about how much of it is in American English since you've said a lot of it is from the US. I didn't know you guys got anime from us in a dubbed fashion, if that's what you mean.

The anime/manga market in Japan isn`t really what is being discussed to begin with, so it doesn`t have much of an impact on the subject. There is surprisingly little "stealing" of manga in Japan. Everyone buys it, and just because of the nature of it digital versions are not very popular.
"Stealing" of anime, yes, but only to an extent as most of the time it`s easier to just record the show yourself - legally - from television when it airs. People who will buy still buy. Right now the biggest neck for DVDs in the Japanese market is the fact that while everything is broadcast in 1180i, most of the time only a DVD comes out. But that doesn`t prompt people to copy the DVDs - it just makes them think very hard about buying them when they have the show recorded in full quality on their HDD recorder. The market has started to figure this out and is putting more stuff out on Blu-ray and even occasionally at a normal price, finally. But it will take a while to catch up.

People complain and complain about how much anime/manga costs in the "west".... Without realizing that the price is directly related to the fact that they`re not buying. Things cost money to publish - and if few people buy then it costs MORE money because the initial investment has to be paid off by fewer people. You can`t expect a company to sacrifice itself and go bankrupt just to supply anime/manga.
If people were buying it like crazy then the price would start dropping. It would become truly profitable to license and publish - so more companies would spring up and compete bringing prices down even more.

But everyone comes up with some complaint or other and doesn`t buy... So the companies that do go through the trouble have to charge a lot to scrape by.

"High prices". Anything over $0.00 is a "high price" to thieves.

"Long waiting periods". Publishing a book into English is not like waving a wand. I realize in this Internet Now generation we must have everything now, but the physical publishing of a title takes months. There is little that is going to change that, but it doesn't excuse stealing.

Did you see my link about the comics industry in S. Korea?

The question was essentially, "what drives a normal consumer to become a thief?" We've already pretty much declared that a thief is a thief, whether it's a penny or 100 dollars, but there are plenty of people here who have openly admitted to pirating here, albeit being general consumers. So why did they choose to take a piece of something, when they've also admitted they'd paid for the products as well? There has to be more than saying all of us are just natural born stealers.

The "long waiting periods" are relative. I never said it could be done quickly; in fact I said it takes a long time, hence why people feel the need to pirate. I don't condone pirating at all, so don't assume I do.

I never said everyone is "natural born stealers".

Again, it is relative to anything being over the price of $0.00. Some people excuse their stealing because they think they are owed their favorite titles on the the day it is released in Japan. That isn't how the industry works (for now).

You've eluded the question, though. If any price is too high for a thief, then why do we continue to have consumers who do both? In this case, I think you're implying it. By this logic, if 0.00 was the determining factor, then we'd have zero consumers.

You have to look at when the average consumer is going to be turned onto pirating, not the thief who is already going to steal. People are going to steal regardless, whether it's anime, cars, jewelry, whatever, even when they know it's wrong. You can't form an argument around people who you already know are going to act a certain way; rather, it's more important to find out at what point the consumer is going to find an alternative means of entertainment.

I don't usually watch the dubbed versions (there is usually the ability to choose Japanese with or without subtitles, or an English dub with or without titles.)

Dubs are always American English. Even English fandubs are usually always American English.

I can't think of an anime company that publishes Japanese manga in the UK, that's based in the UK. Viz Media abd Tokyopop are the major UK manga publishers, and they are American.

The only UK company I can think of is Sweatdrop Studios, but they don't publish Japanese manga, they publish their own.

I just looked up Viz Media on wikipedia, and this is what I found: 'Viz Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga and Japanese entertainment company that steals money and has a stick shoved up so far up their asses they can't even understand what half of their consumers want of them.'

Yeah. Really shows what the 'manga fans' think of the industry.

Dude, once again, get over yourself! Me looking at the global picture of Anime instead of looking at USA only does not mean I have anti-America sentiments. If you think it does, then you are ridiculously over sensitive!

:rolleyes: Riiiiiight! You were comparing it to the UK when you didn't even mention the UK. Listen, you say something like the US has 5% of the worlds population and between 20 to 30 of the worlds economy, then I'm gonna point out you're being arrogant because that has NOTHING to do with the subject. If you feel that's insulting the US, then once again, get over yourself, it's about YOU and only YOU!

Lastly, would you care to show me your sources about the US being the second biggest seller of Manga/Anime next to China? Last time I read anything about this, the industry in France was 5 to 7 times larger than the US! If things have changed drastically since I read that, please let me know!

EDIT; will reply to the rest later!

I heard that France has a bigger anime industry than America but I'm not sure. Their anime/lolita/fashion/convention culture is HUGE. They even have a Baby, The Stars Shine Bright shop <3 Their conventions get so many people!

Englands largest anime convention (that's purely anime, so this doesn't include the London Expo) get's around 1200 people.