Thinking of Buying You
I’m thinking about the new Nozomi Entertainment licenses–Aria, Marimite, Emma.
How many people will buy these titles from them? They are priced attractively, albeit available only through Rightstuf’s own site, some select specialty stores and online stores. If you are reading this blog, odds are the retail availability hurdle is not a major problem (save, of course, international readers). In fact given Rightstuf’s track record we might be seeing some big sales on their titles as they have done with The THIRD and Piano. It’s not expensive. Waiting is not a bad option.
But is it a good option? The attractive bundles are 12, 13 episodes a pop, and you can get them below $40 USD as a pre-order already. It doesn’t beat out the prices of some really, really cheap, low profile ADV bundles, but considering that these are new licenses, it definitely means Rightstuf is skipping straight to just one kind of buyer–those of you who are looking for a reasonably priced DVD set (much like how a lot of American TV shows are bundled), and can live without a translated dub.
The lack of a dub is done as a business decision, it seems–dubbing costs a truck load of money and when you aim so precisely as Nozomi’s licenses are, you just can’t afford to hike up your production costs. Likewise, dubbing also take a truck load of time, and I think while some people are willing to wait for a nice release, just the way they want, no one would rather want something later if they can have the same thing now. Especially if you are investing into this product (aka. Nozomi themselves). A long production cycle means you could lose out on the hype and promotion that fansubs generate. It can mean the delay will eat into the shelf life of your release. More importantly however, you just won’t see any return on your investment until later. And that really bites.
To elaborate a bit on what I mean by aiming precisely, it seems that they are pushing for a very simple paradigm, that a relatively low-priced, reasonably speedy release of the entire series aimed at a select group of people who are already fans of the show. Hey, I dig that.
Having the right price is rather important. A millionaire can be a casual manga reader just like a struggling salaryman. In the same way, as anime aim mostly at people in their late teens and 20-something, you have some people who are already making steady money and also a lot of people who are living on low-end retail income while struggling in college. And everyone in between. The low price casts a wide web, and obviously that affects Nozomi’s bottom line in a very direct way as we all know.
Wait, I did say precise, right–so who the hell would buy Aria or Marimite if they don’t already know what it is? Recall Mamiko Noto’s visit to America last summer. The three Marimite cosplayers are fans of the show. And I think it’s exactly these people Nozomi is aiming for. Is it worthy to note that on that Otakon, I made a few rounds in the dealers room, only finding very few Marimite merchandise, period?
These anecdotes are there to let you know how I feel about this issue. Aria, Emma and Marimite are very much definitive niche titles. Especially Marimite. There is not a terribly lot of fanfare surrounding these titles (although Aria has a lot of fans overseas, I suppose), and especially in the US. It shows, with Nozomi’s fairly cheap but targeted approach in marketing.
Because “niche” is really another term for “it’s not going to sell many units.”
I would imagine as much as having a translated dub of Marimite would be lulz, or a properly-acted dub of Emma would be epic, but Rightstuf is selling these DVDs to people that largely have seen some of the fansubs. And if you can tolerate fansubs, you probably can live without dubs.
It might be worth noting that both Emma and Aria have a presence in the US as manga. In fact you can pick these up at your local big-box bookstores. I wonder how that change things… considering that buying 7 (or 9, I guess) volumes of Emma manga would cost nearly as much as buying the 2 DVD box sets…
WTB Marimite novels!
Or I guess, what I’m trying to say is, please buy Marimite when it comes out. It actually needs your support. Rightstuf could have charged a higher price on these babies as the market can support it, and then lower the price over time as per custom, but somehow they aren’t. Coupled with their “lol get your name in the credits” nonsense, maybe they’re trying to do something. I’m just slightly worried that they won’t get the numbers they are looking for.
I think if the licensing companies are truly serious about combating sales loss due to fansubs, they should be doing more of this, even for non-niche titles. Sure, produce a super-attractive, expensive, dubbed box for a wider audience, but there is money to be made in the meantime off the people who should be a loss: the ones who watched fansubs already and are gonna bitch about how much dubs suck anyway. To me, it sounds effective. The alternative strategy, keep bumping up prices to make up for those sales losses, isn’t helping anyone.
It also gives fansub-viewers a chance to put their money where their mouth is — i.e., “I won’t buy this show even though I liked it because Bandai wants to charge $40 a pop for 3 episode discs” — and throw some money into the industry they claim to still support (and that I have no doubt most do).
As soon as I heard the news about the Aria release I thought “I can understand why they are doing this,” mainly for the reasons you outlined. This isn’t the same as, say, Naruto or a Ghibli movie, where sales are high enough to justify the expense of recording a dub; the sales will be small, but they will be sales to dedicated fans who don’t need a marketing campaign to be persuaded and in all probability couldn’t care less about a dub in the first place.
These are indeed niche titles; my definition of which in addition to “it’s not going to sell many units.” is that they aren’t appealing to casual viewers who will think “I’m not buying this, the dialogue’s not in English.”
I welcome this approach, I really do. I’m not bothered with a dub, and if the lack of English language track makes the discs more affordable as a result so much the better!
I think RightStuf, because of their position as a retailer, has a very good idea of the size of the market, and also a good idea as to the price-sensitivity of the market.
But I also think they’re fans, and they want to see Emma, Marimite, and Aria on DVD, too.
Already planned to ^_^ Not sure about ARIA though. And I don’t even know what Emma is - now THATS niche.
Re:Martin:
I don’t know if I can safely say that those shows won’t sell many units. Emma, for example, was marketed with some mainstream push in Japan (and I think it failed somewhat). It is a show that has some mainstream appeal if you look purely at the content. But we’re talking about mainstream as in, average high school bookworms, and not the average anime-buying demographic.
re:dm:
I think they know they can command a very profitable operation just by being able to sell those titles on their own site. Given their volume I suspect they are reaping massive savings this way. But, of course, my point in the post is the opposite side of the coin–that they are probably conceding potential markets (that probably don’t really exist) by not spending the extra money to sell it to a wider audience. Even if just in terms of making it available to more stores.
re:otou-san:
I see what you are saying and I disagree to the extent that you are just saying what’s convenient for you? Let’s ignore the bit about “combating fansubs” as I see all of this is actually aided by fansubs. If an anime is released in your local region, why would you not buy it? To me there is only one valid answer to this question; everything else is some form of an excuse. Some excuses are better than others, but that’s what it is.
Personally, I’m kind of torn on this whole situation. I agree that business-wise it makes sense to just sell to your core audience, especially considering the downward spiral the anime industry seems to be in. In fact, I don’t think we’ll see a re-emergence of a dual market as much as dubbing on the stuff that the companies think they can get on TV, or might appeal to audience outside of anime fans.
But on the other hand, I was watching Madlax the other day, dubbed, and I found it on the whole far more relaxing than the feeling of watching all of the fansubs that I have been watching. And while I don’t have a problem buying the stuff that I’ve watched (and enjoyed enough to watch all of), it will lose some of it’s enjoyability for me.
I’m the kind of sub-only viewer who would always check translated dubs out on shows I buy, because I like those shows and I would like to see how it is dubbed. In that sense I agree that obviously a sub-only release carries less value than a sub-dub release. No brainer here.
Side note: I have a tendency to buy sub-only shows. I think out of all the US releases of such I own at least over half of them. I believe one large reason behind it is price.
I haven’t gotten around to watch Emma, but I’ve read the manga few years back. Maybe I should buy it as well. I’ve pre-ordered Aria and Marimite (my first US DVD purchase!) even though I live in Australia and don’t have an extra drive to play R1 DVDs (I got 1 each for R2 and R4), but let’s think about it later once those babies have arrived~ xD
..and hurray for no dubs, since I’ve been paying $ for a feature I’ve never used (except for making fun of it). But I’m not rly complaining since it’s still way cheaper than R2 releases. Now I’m eagerly waiting for a Nanoha release (which won’t happen? lol), especially for the cast talk~
The only anime distributor here (Madman Ent.) will _never_ release Marimite or Aria. I think they should learn that these so-called “niche” people are the freaks that will definitely buy what they like (i.e me). Nice to see Aria pre-order ranks #1 in rightstuf. ;)