The Fan in Fansubs
Originally I was going to talk about the different between trespass and theft, but I read this morning an interview of Shawn Kleckner, the Dark Lord of RightStuf/Nozomi (DLK). What caught my eyes was this little statement in respond to their niche license/release strategy and how they’re hounded for not dubbing their stuff:
But we haven’t done that with some of our sets, like Aria, which I think will have a very niche appeal but which has a great fanbase that we want to support.
Bold emphasis mine. I mean, what the hell? A company that wants to support the fanbase? Inconceivable! To me it just sounds so 180 degrees away from these self-righteous doomsayers who think they’re saving the industry that I had to stop and marvel at the PR magic DLK is pulling here. And DLK is right–it is about supporting the fans. Because we all know the fans either all reciprocate or all wish the industry can shrivel up and die?
I hope my sarcasm is not lost on you. Fans are not a homogeneous group of people; and fans behave differently, sometimes even at odds with each other. For that matter, nor are all companies the same. And I hope the implication about Aria fandom is not lost on you either. Who are the fans of Aria? Why are they wonderful? It was the Aria fans who had to ask ADV “when is the next volume of Aria coming out” until it got passed onto Tokyopop? Sounds familiar? Aria fans are like Hikari no Kiseki, who partied up the fansubber’s code of ethics like it’s 1998 (but it might’ve been 2003, I can’t tell)? Some are embarrassing bloggers? We are not a mass market group that are likely to hover the latest Naruto or Bleach torrents. We’re much more likely to be aware what is going on in the industry. We enjoy a genre of a niche medium few in the US do. Aria fans are likely to watch fansubs and otherwise engage in productive fan activities.
I think RightStuf is a very special case. Like AnimeNation and what used to be AnimeGamerz (ok I guess it is not that special), they are rooted strongly in retail. And I am pretty sure because they have a retail side they also have better connection and access to the fans–enough to know to not piss them off by saying they’re a bunch of pirate who are burning down the ship they sail (whether true or not). And really, retail is where the rubber meets the road as a part of the car that is this anime industry. It’s where, at least in America, local licensees make their money. It’s why when Suncoast went away, Geneon Entertainment USA pretty much went with them.
And even from the bottom of the chain we can see that life isn’t easy–internet retailing is tough cookies at the turn of the century. A lot of those internet things died during the dot.com bust and the post-9/11 shockwave. RightStuf is a surviver in that regard. Moving up the chain you can see some of the issues that surrounded Geneon’s eventual demise in the retail space and ADV’s cuts, as well with the overall crowding of DVD on store shelves leads to increased competition not only among fan activities but also retailer’s shelf space. With the growing library of licensed anime on the market, licenses are being cannibalized, becoming less profitable and ultimately cutting into bottom lines of licensees and localization producers. And again, American economy is not in the greatest shape today as we seem to head into another cyclic bust.
Moving up the chain we have to deal with the uncertainties of the home video market; only recently did we survive a format war between BRD and HDDVD. During the war, while most adopted a wait-it-out stance, the uncertainty didn’t help anyone. The one US anime publisher that did adopt a format end up having to pay for it (thankfully not a whole lot). With the tightening of the market, too, the squeeze is on to make thinpak sets and sell at a lower price point; gone was the day where you can expect people to swallow up a cheapo boxed volume 1 and collect the rest. I’m hoping the days of gimmicky sales based on worthless extras (as opposed to worthwhile extras) are days of the past, but I doubt that day has come. And of course, DVDs are being squeezed by downloads, too, legal and illegal.
We also have to talk about digital distribution too, of course; everyone’s doing it. And the interview with DLK spells out the problems as we approach the top of the chain: the Japanese are behind. I think it would be fair to blame them for the bulk of the ills we’ve seen with how slowly the anime industry is adopting to the new ways of monetizing anime distribution. Anime fans tend to be internet-savvy and young, and I think most American companies are likewise ambitious and they want to capitalize on this. But it is a tall order.
So that’s that. But why did I even bother going through the last 4 paragraphs?
The primary reason why a company like ADV or RightStuf exists is to support the fans. Of course, all companies have to make money; that goes without saying. But they are suppose to make money by helping fans get what they want. (Note the cause-effect relationship. Only people like Steve Jobs can actually make people want the random junk a company has to give.) And here’s what’s mind blowing–fansubs are the way fans support the fans. Well, it’s pretty obvious. People make fansubs because people watch them. It’s a way to get a show out there, that interested people can check it out, and maybe they’ll become fans. It’s how fans help fans by giving them what they want. However, unlike doing it legally and for profit, fansubbers can cut the crap and avoid the last 5 paragraph of difficulties and hurdles legit companies have to deal with.
The pitfall is that fansubs are seen as a way that eats into total sales. I think that is a fair assumption. But I think of it like how a big box store think of shrink. It happens, it’s unfortunate, but it’s life. You can add anti-theft devices but if it’s done at cost of pissing off your paying customers, well, you better think of a better way to handle the problem, even if it means eating the loss. It makes sense to tell people to not steal, but that’s not going to work at all because we’re not stealing.
So here’s the main point of my post–when companies go head to head with fansubs, it is a losing fight. And by that I mean both fans and the industry lose (with a small exception). For one reason–the industry is a capitalistic mechanism. While I am not going to say anime is going to go away if American licensees don’t make money, but ultimately, as suggested in the DLK interview, the anime industry is here to serve the fans. If the people serving my needs are well paid, happy, and doing their jobs the way I like and working hard for their keep, I think that is a good thing.
(I mean, like DLK says, I can’t download a plush. Nor can I download that blasted Misato figure they will probably never ship to me. I have to rely on them to serve my need here.)
This is the ultimate reason, no matter if you watch fansubs or not, why you should support (or not support) the industry. And this applies to any industry. I want to also be clear that how much you support the industry doesn’t really factor into how big a fan you are. When it does, it becomes a matter of being a fan of the industry rather than being a fan of what that industry is about. (And it is hard to feel good about supporting an industry where some of the most important workers are paid below the poverty line–the animators.) Anyone who tells you that you are a bigger fan just because you spend more money is telling you a lie, in my opinion. But I do think big fans spend lots of money, if they have it, even if the latter does not justify the former.
What makes the fan in fansubs is actually a different topic all together (maybe a part 2 for this post), but let’s just say it has more to do with passion and motivation than ethics. If companies are serving your needs, you should pay and use their services. If they are not, then don’t. It’s not rocket science. But at the same time, understanding what fansubs are helps answer the question of what the industry needs to do to complement and minimize the impact of fansubs, rather than to fight it. It’s not only a road to greater profits but also one that helps everyone sleep better at night.
I think the ranting and raving as spurned by the poor condition of the anime industry is more a fault of people who fail to capitalize key segments of the market’s demands more than fansub pirates, on top of the various ailments beset on the rest of the economy. It’s hard reading the ebbs and flows of the economy ahead of the time, after all. But seriously, I would like to see some of the numbers that Avatar flaunts all the time. I hope they’re not just comparing it to tracker counts on popular torrents and have something more specific, ones broken into demographics. Thanks to people like JP I have slowly learned how to examine bikinis very closely. Or should I thank Super Rats? Or Strike Witches? Anyways.
To end on a positive note, reading that interview, RightStuf seems to be doing well for itself financially. DLK sells a lot of DVDs, so he says. Here goes hoping his dark magic keep RightStuf true.
I love how Kleckner sounds that casual in interviews. He’s just another fan, not a businessman looking to capitalize on a fad.
Right Stuf is truly in-touch with the current US anime culture and it shows. Now only if they could work on some more niche series, hint hint.
Well, I don’t really know what Kleckner has in mind. I just don’t know very much besides this kind of fan marketing. But I think my point is looking at things from a retail perspective. When your retail strategy is bringing in the volume, it’s hard to fail even if you go and license Piano and other things that don’t sell.
And it’s hard to build a successful internet retailer. RightStuf today is really a survivor. I think you can just contrast this with Broccoli’s FLCL and how the anime store didn’t fare nearly as well and see what is truly important here.
It’s hard to tell what he has in mind because he is running a company, so he can’t tell us everything. I’d really like to see him and Fukunaga at an unmoderated Q&A panel, where they shoot the breeze unscripted.
Well yeah, that’s why Geneon is dead, ADV might be dead in 2-3 years (or less), and Bandai/Funimation are cutting costs across the board. Right Stuf hasn’t been hurt as much by most of this.
TRSI has consistently had backing from the industry itself, while Broccoli decided to go with some strange “indie” plan for their releases. We see the results.
I doubt that being a retailer gives RightStuf much cushion, but it probably gives them a lot of data. They might be able to look at that data and a) gauge the state of the anime market; b) develop an intuition of what is likely to sell; c) keep Irresponsible Captain Tylor on their virtual shelves for fifteen years.
They also probably have developed a pretty good idea on the price-sensitivity of their customers by observing the response to sales and weekly specials.
Another thing is that RightStuf used to do the fulfillment for Geneon and TokyoPop. It wouldn’t surprise me if both companies came to regret moving away from TRS.
But yes, Kleckner displays a disarming customer focus in that interview.
I pretty much agree with your points…just I wish that there were enough perceived Aria fans to support a dub, but I’ll take what I can get.
But, yeah, while I do think on some level that fansubs are hurting things [on the business end], I shake my head at making enemies out of potential customers.
You’d be surprised, as far as the cushion part.
One of their biggest advantages is that they’re tiny and have another job (i.e. running the store); it’s not essential that they always have some anime to be working on. Thus, they can afford to sit out a few months and wait for a good licensing bargain, a Japanese company to drop their asking price, a new show to hit the market, etc, etc. The big companies can’t do that - they have production staff that can’t sit idle in between shows.
You’d be surprised how many fans work at most anime companies, but it’s true that TRSI is much closer to being -run- by them. I don’t know much about Ledford’s actual liking of anime, but he’s emphatically not One Of Us. ;p
Honestly, I’d like to see some kind of examination of how to turn the anime industry from “let’s sell the anime” to “let’s sell the fandom experience”. I’ve spent as much on figures in the last six months as I have on anime (and probably twice that on manga, heh!) It’d take some bravery on behalf of a Japanese company, but we’re already starting to see some of that with the free-beer release of some of their shows on Youtube et al. You could argue that the Gundam franchise is like that anyway - there’s always been a recognition that it was intended to sell Gundam models, not Gundam DVDs.
I wonder what it’d look like?
The two 1/6 PVC figures I last ordered were about $20 less, total, than my last CD Japan order (which was all CDs). And both are more than the cost of all the DVDs I bought from the $5 Geneon sale plus the deepdiscount summer sale. It’s really no brainer where the profit is. And why I look favorably towards BV when they were around.
As an aside, 20 years ago people were already making Gundam anime with intent to sell gunpla to make the actual buck. Today we have people making moe shows with intent to sell pillow covers, figurines, etc. In a way that is how Japan evolve this industry: a $100 gunpla kit is pretty badass huge with hundreds of parts; most are in the $10-50 range. But the average full body dakimakura cover is like $100-$150 and probably cost WAY WAY WAY WAY less to make.
Of course you can say very few pervs buy them, but I’m not so certain how few there are compared to the more hardcore gunpla or figure collectors.
And I guess it’s also important to note that not all anime are the same. Some are made as a loss leader, others are not.
What would it look like? I think that’s how the Japanese anime industry stay partly afloat to begin with. A trip to Wanfest is probably what it looks like.
Avatar has a point I missed — printing DVDs is, in a way, just a hobby for RightStuf, particularly when they go the sub-only route (no need to distract any voice-actors from their jobs in food service).
Like Omo, my manga, anime-related novels (and other books), and anime-related CD purchases come to about 2.5 times my DVD purchases (I don’t buy figures, really, but I do buy character art). I have one all-music CDJapan order that by itself is half my DVD purchases so far this year. And, a lot of those purchases are the result of having seen fansubs. And, as I noted earlier, I’ve purchased as many hours of DVDs as hours I’ve spent watching anime, this year. So I think the (Japanese) industry has actually gained more from fansubs than they’ve lost, in my case.
Author made a comment on his blog about the spending issue:
http://ani-nouto.animeblogger.net/2008/07/09/the-show-versus-its-merchandize/
I think he’s not out of touch–more like, fans just spend money differently. The fact that some don’t spend any at all (and subsist on a fansub diet) doesn’t mean we all don’t spend money; nor just because a bunch of AoDVD goons buy crappy vol1 box extras means all paying fans like that sort of stuff. I think the Haruhi box sets are a good example of this.
The retail end of rightstuf probably helps them orient their marketing appropriately in that aspect as well, because they know how well all the titles they sell, across different publishers. It has also to do with knowing how to mark up your goods appropriately. For example, people do buy expensive special edition sets, and on those units more money is made per unit sold, but invariably you also have to produce a budget, regular edition to capture that market. It seems pretty interesting, in that sense, in how RightStuf release their goods in thinpaks only. Their choice seem to indicate the “Bandai Visual” buyers are not really biting.
I guess I differ from Author in being print-media-centric. I find it’s much easier to appreciate the art when it is in book form, and almost all of the manga I read haven’t been turned into anime (at least not into anime that I watch — I’m following Venus vs Virus in book form while i never got past episode two of the anime; I’m not sure what I should say about Tsukihime… other than the manga is quite good). I miss the wonderful artbooks of the nineties (e.g., The Art of Nausicaa, or Nadesico: Gekinade Zenbu). About the only people who still cater to that sort of fan are Gainax.
What do you mean wonderful artbooks of the nineties? There are more artbook per series nowadays than ever before…at least that’s my impression.
But yes, different people dig different things, different anime tend to drive different kinds of sales, etc.
Really? I haven’t seen many…. of course now that Sasuga no longer really does retail, my opportunities for just happening across such things is greatly reduced. I wish there was a Kinokuniya in Boston.
Real late comment: to answer your question, just look up how many books are associated with Nanoha :sigh:
[…] guy, Lance Heiskell, definitely took the opportunity and gave a soft PR pitch. A while ago I wrote a post on RightStuf’s Dark Lord and I think Heiskell was doing something similar here. His efforts […]