Doom, Doom, Doom From the Land of R1; Why, It’s All the Fault of Fandom!

One would think that it would be very unwise to bite the hand that feeds, especially if you’re in retail. Gerry Harvey knows this all too well. After Bandai Entertainment pulled out of the US market (and Beez Entertainment has also pulled out of France/UK/Germany), I knew that finger pointing would begin and eventually it would be pointed at consumers. Oh silly fucking us, we’re here to provide you with jobs and income, aren’t we? Robert “Bob” Brown of the Anime Corner Store has always been quite “vocal” for a number of years with some rather insulting opinions, some of which I think he should really keep to himself. In particular I find his beef with his rival the Right Stuf (which he bizarrely labels “Brand X”) rather immature at times. Certainly I can understand that retail isn’t a great business to be in, however openly whinging to you customers via your blog and newsletters makes you look like a dickhead. While I switched over the Anime Corner Store to “Brand X” many years ago (pretty much due to the cheap prices) Bob’s never ending rants haven’t exactly persuaded me to return to his store.

Bob usually has a “State of the Industry” section of his weekly e-mail newsletters, which is pretty much doom, doom and more fucking doom, week in and week out for over the last four plus years. It gets a bit tiresome really (hey, I know I should unsubscribe…). Of course Bandai Entertainment’s demise got a look on in Friday’s newsletter. He quotes Ken Iyadomi's interview from ANN, but is rather blunt in his own assessment of what happened;

“The US fan base has driven the price of Anime so low that it must be a bitter pill for many Japanese licensors to swallow having such cheap versions of their shows on the market, with many now preferring simply to just stay out of this market. Fan's rarely consider this when they wonder why so many series now never end up with an R1 release”.

Did everyone get that? Its anime consumers fault. You know, the people who actually buy the stuff. OK, how about some facts here?

Anime Companies Fucked Themselves On Pricing
Sorry, but who exactly put the cheap box sets of anime in the market place? Oh that’s right; it was the US distributors themselves. Back in 2004 or so, the major companies of the time, Geneon, ADV, Funimation, Media Blasters etc., released single DVDs, then after the final disc in the series, boxed up the series cheaply some six to eight or twelve months later. This became a regular occurrence, practically like clockwork for some companies. Consumers certainly aren’t stupid. They can see patterns in price fluctuations of products and can sniff out a bargain a mile away. It became obvious to consumers what was happening and they began to wait until the cheaper box sets came out rather than buying single DVDs which was clearly more expensive. So what, you’re going to blame consumers for buying the cheaper product (the box set) rather than buying the more expensive one (single DVDs) which is practically identical? Well fuck me, whose fault is this? Is it consumers for rightly trying to get a better deal?

Consumers Are Not Responsible For Your Business Model, Nor Should They Care About It
The one thing some companies pull out is that anime’s business model is heavily reliant on video sales, even in Japan. US distributors have to make their money back on DVD/BD sales alone. Sorry, but consumers did not choose this model. Acquisition, production, marketing, distribution and sales of anime are in the hands of the companies themselves, not the consumers. We really have very little or more than likely no say in any of these matters. We’re not responsible for your budgets, which titles you acquire, your troubles with licensors, or the insane bidding wars you loons got into in the mid 00’s (a six figure sum for EACH episode of “Heat Guy J”? Get the fuck out of here). But most importantly, we as consumers shouldn’t have to care, or dare I say it, understand what it takes to get anime DVDs and BDs on to shelves. It should have absolutely no bearing on whether we purchase an anime disc or set or not. And why should it? What exactly makes it any different or special to any other physical media jostling for shelf space in any store?

Anime Does Not Exist in Some Sort of Vacuum Divorced From All Other Entertainment
Here’s what really gets me; do those in the industry who bemoan the current state of anime retail in the US really understand that anime is just one miniscule part in an ever increasing choice of entertainment? If a box set of “Dexter” or “Underbelly” or “True Blood” is say $40 or $50, then consumers rightly wonder why they only get 13 half hour episodes for $70. “But it’s the business model” you scream, “we have to make dubs and the big studios have an unfair advantage over us because the show has already made its money back”. Oh yeah? Well, so fucking what? Is that my problem? You want me to pay more for a title when other non-anime titles are cheaper and better value for money? People who aren’t hardcore fans aren’t going to pay $20 or more for half season of anime when they can get a DVD or BD set of a US, UK or Australian TV series for much less. It’s the truth. The reality is that anime is competing with all other forms of entertainment. It does not have some sort of special exemption in the marketplace.

It’s not like I’m not sympathetic to what most companies are saying, but they aren’t special entities in the marketplace. They have to solve the problems they currently have. The consumers cannot change anything about their situation. They aren’t charities; we shouldn’t have to “fund” what they do as such. I also want to comment on Bob’s following statement;

“Ken has also said recently that Bandai was the only one of the US based Anime companies to still be operating in the black. While it's hard to take claims like that seriously and imagine Bandai as the single profitable company in the industry, I can certainly believe that most of the other folks here in the R1 business are currently loosing money on almost everything they release, but are 'making it up in volume' due to the ultra low price points. Anime has become a product that no one in R1 can make any money on - not at production, or distribution. or retail. Trust me, I would know this”

I don’t know much about business, but one would assume that if you are continually operating in the red, then perhaps it’s time to refocus the business on something other than anime, or drop out of video market altogether. If it’s not working, and hasn’t been working for a while, the question has to be asked; why in god’s name do you keep doing it? Are you some kind of martyr sacrificing yourself and your business for a few thousand anime fans, many of which are unappreciative of what you do? Are these people masochists? Seriously I don’t understand what’s going on. If you are fed up with the industry and aren’t making any money, well, just leave.

I’ve bought several thousand DVDs, video tapes, laserdiscs and Blu-rays from the US anime industry over the last 15 years. I think it’s completely insulting to suggest anime fans that have paid for their anime (irrespective of what legit cheap DVD box set they bought) are in some way responsible for the current situation. The Japanese licensors don’t like cheap box sets? Tough. That’s how pricing for all home video works, not just in the US market, but in the UK and Australia too. Anime should not be an exception. If taking the blame for an anime company’s demise is the response I get supporting the legit US industry for well over a decade and a half, then retailers like Bob can go bankrupt for all I care. I shall continue to use “Brand X” for all my anime needs and continue to ignore twats like Brown.