Shameful Otaku Secret!

CCY weighs in

Yes indeed, we’re up to part 5, and almost done. We’re starting to see some repeating themes in these answers and the comments, so I’m going to wrap everything up with what we’ve learned at the end. And then the whole world will be solid, right? Yeah, essentially what I’ve done is create that bunch of old men sitting around the garage in lawn chairs fixing the world’s problems while drinking Keystone out of a can. My latest virtual old fart, CCY, writes the site Mega Megane Moe (which is a surprisingly descriptive name) and was an early supporter of my corner of the internet.

In typical fashion, CCY’s response consists of a dam-break of ideas:

What I’ve seen so far from the responses is pretty much spot on one of my thoughts: the “FANSUBS BAD” attitude that the industry for the most part holds needs to change. True, there are some unscrupulous people out there, and illegal subs / torrents do damage sales, but limiting the amount of ways to get anime out there (or attempting to) by trying to be the sole provider won’t fix the problem.

I liken it to Whack-A-Mole. You slam the hammer down on one fansub group and two more pop up in different places. Perhaps it’s a bit mean of me to say this, but you’re not going to stop pirates, at least not without going Odex and alienating the entire fanbase. Just look at video games, movies, other TV shows; stopping a force like BitTorrent is something beyond the scope of any company today.

Rather, I think a focus on more positive solutions would work better than trying to crack down on the negatives, at least for the time being. People like fansubs because they’re fast and free, and dislike official releases because often they are neither.

Idealistically what I would love to see in effect, is some sort of ad-supported (but otherwise free) streaming or download mechanism, similar to the Anime Network online streaming from a few months ago. Bookend the videos with ads, place banners above or below the anime, whatever, as long as it’s not too intrusive. It seems to be a win-win situation, as long as it can generate enough revenue or even just any profit at all.

What some companies like Gonzo are doing right now with same-day paid downloads is a good stop-gap, but a majority of anime viewers can’t take advantage of this, if you consider that many are teenagers with little to no ability to pay for things online. Taking advantage of this massive audience will be the big challenge for the industry.

I love the idea of ad-supported content. As someone who works on the internet, I’m familiar with that (ad-supported content puts food in my mouth), and most of us are probably also familiar with the success of Hulu. But there are a couple things that are potentially problematic with that. The big one being, if there really are such a significant number of penniless teenagers watching, the CPM on those ads would be ridiculously small and advertisement could never compensate in the way Hulu’s network-backed system does.

Thing is, I’m not certain that’s true. Buyers of anime have been younger folks, the kind with no rent to pay, textbooks to buy, kids to feed, etc. who don’t have to budget 50 bucks for a DVD series out of all those other more “important” costs.

One problem here is that we’ve made a lot of assumptions in every installment without really having access to the kind of hard data that could drive real decisions. But I’m not sure if that data exists — there are no metrics on bittorrents, although someone like Crunchyroll may have some age metrics.

But CCY’s overarching point is the same as Kabitzin’s: finger-pointing isn’t constructive. Instead of trying to resist a changing market, roll with it and capitalize on it.

TheBigN’s big idea

TheBigN is another American blogger whose work I love to read, although he updates somewhat infrequently. He’s one of the writers at the awesomely-named Drastic My Anime Blog (a great reference though I’m not a big Scryed fan), and though he seems to like Strike Witches, I value his opinion. TheBigN is in med school, so I assume he’s pretty smart, and I’ll choose my words carefully because he may be cupping my balls someday while I turn my head and cough.

What could I as a consumer actually do to fix it? I don’t think buying anime DVDs and merchandise by myself fixes the problems that the industry, no matter which one you’re talking about. It definitely wouldn’t hurt to do so (in fact, I regularly by DVDs, CDs and manga during the year. Enough that I’d probably cringe if I paid attention to what was coming out of my pocket), but at the same time, it wouldn’t necessarily help the situation at hand. And though you could say that’s better than downloading fansubs and that’s that (which I feel also help a little and hurt a little). One thing I can do as a consumer is complain that we’re not getting the best deal out of things, based on what you’ve already said about getting “good” stuff out of here (good in the eye of the beholder of course) as quickly as possible and with the best cost-benefit ratio possible. And trying to let the companies know that things could be better might help, but then I don’t necessarily know how.

I do think there needs to be a good, solid dialogue between the industry and the fans about the problems on both sides of the issue, and some consensus might be made. How to go about that though is another question though. Surveys? Panels? Calls to action? Either way, there needs to be a way for both sides to be able to communicate in order to learn things. Like how/why the industry is exactly in trouble. We see evidence like companies restructuring, and folding in the like, but coupling that with falling DVD sales, fansubs and torrents, etc. how does this mean that the industry is in trouble, for example? Are companies able to do things free samples and get feedback on whether or not these shows are what people would want to buy? How would fans be compelled to buy things instead of grabbing them for free if they present themselves well, like what GONZO’s trying to do? What are the incentives for both sides here, and can they coexist, or even better, work together?

It would be good to try and ask and answer questions like that from both sides, if just to get some bearings on this complex issue that’s not going to get simpler anytime soon. What we can’t do is lob bombs at each other, since that just ends up alienating both sides from each other and making the situation a lose-lose for all involved.

There may already be answers to some of these example questions, but in essence this is a great idea we can all get behind. Let’s open a dialog. Let’s get people on both sides of the equation — consumers and providers — talking.

How does that happen? I don’t know exactly, either; companies in various industries have made giant leaps by becoming more transparent thanks to the power of the Internet. Corporate blogs and the cluetrain style of marketing have made consumers feel like they’re being listened to. I think anime buyers, like any other consumer, would feel much better about supporting companies that they feel aren’t just faceless corporations, but groups made of people who actually want to provide them a good product.

I suppose as consumers we have our own responsibility if there is to be a conversation. Our desires are important, but let’s face it — getting everything for free is probably not a reasonable desire (although the Internet and its largely ad-supported content do make it theoretically possible). Perhaps omo’s insistence that we vote with our wallets is the first step in saying what we need to say.

Any thoughts on how to get the conversation flowing?

The Baka-Raptor way

When I asked Kabitzin my survey question, I knew I’d probably get something short but well thought out, like most of his posts. When I asked this next blogger, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to get. Baka-Raptor, known (since the day of his sell-out) by the same name as his Maddox-worshipping site Baka-Raptor.com, is in law school, and promises a blog post on international copyright law sometime in the next decade. He’s great at distilling his opinions down more concisely than just about anyone (see Kurenai: “The ending was terrible.”).  Here’s what he had to say:

I’d appoint myself overlord of the anime industry. All anime production would be under my control. Anime would be so good that everybody would want to buy it. Problem solved.

But if that can’t happen…

I believe in the free market. Anime is a desirable enough product that it’ll make it over here in some way, shape, or form. Whether it’s downloadable, streaming, DVD, dual audio, on TV, first episode free, all you can watch for a monthly fee, or some new business model nobody will see coming, things will work out in the long run. We just need to let business run its course.

I submit this as proof that all so-called Libertarians actually believe in dictatorships. Just leave your guns at home when you go vote for Ron Paul this November, ya fascist!

I kid.

I’ve never been one to think that the market corrects itself automatically, but I’m no economist. Frankly, it seems like someone’s got to actually do something while we sit around waiting for “business to run its course.” Fundamentally though, I am with the dinosaur. Boil it down, he’s saying the sky is not falling, and that the onus isn’t on the consumers to hold the sky back anyway.

Are you with BR, or do we as consumers have more responsibility to make something happen in the short run?