Anime no Chikara: The Soul of Pachinko?
1. Pachinko is big bucks for franchise owners. Ko is like a hound on this stuff. So I’ll share some of the stuff he shared, and other things–
- Rio anime (and also to some extent Umi Monogatari yeah?). We get pachinko anime because it’s a good crossover media marketing thing.
- Brad summarizes what Ko said. More pertinently, pachinko machines are an exploding market of sorts? Marketing is fierce and tie-ins are worth the big bucks. I mean sure, I will put in a few yen into a Nadesico machine. Or a My-Hime machine. Older franchises revive because they are big-time, well-known signifier.
- I wonder if Sailor Moon is going to take the plunge with its global revival soon… These revivals tend to lead to more SKU tie-ins (Mai-Hime BDs come to mind) and possibly one-shot animation or whatever like Fist.
2. Listen to this inadequate Ian Condry lecture about the interplay between merchandising and animation. Inadequate because it lacks video! But worth it if just for the Code Geass pitch session anecdote. Props to Alex L. for making it possible.
The Condry lecture painted a cloud-like picture. Online social networks, predictably, will continues to move to increasingly commercial in nature. I think it fits well with anime fandom in a sense that it is also very commercial (and not really all that revolutionary social/economically speaking) but yet very much a collective of individuals, as opposed to a “group.” Interaction from the commercial entities to the “cloud” is usually in two layers, one as an agent and the other as an insider. The difference is in the motivation–one shills, the other serves a personal self-interest implying an at-odds relationship with the commercial entity. Both are necessary; one for the purpose of recognition and the other is to disseminate actual information and add credentials. And both roles are increasingly not as much as what it seems to be. Kind of like you get the guy who blogs for Microsoft, and the guy who leaks MS info to the press.
The fact that most anime media companies ignore the whole fan scene on the face despite basically living off them (if this means anything) seems to suggest that likewise fans behave in a similar way–that we partake in a commercial relationship and in a way which identifies ourselves in relationship with these commercial entities. Like, for example, WAH loves Akiyuki Shinbo and would not mind having his child. That is an identity he shares with other fans and in context of the industry. WAH spent $4 (IIRC, correct me if I am wrong) on a copy of Tenamonya Voyagers is another kind of identity in which he relates to the industry, but it is an individual, personal fact. [Coincidentally WAH also asked a question in that recording.] Well that’s not the best example, but it’s like how some people pride on consuming only fansubs and not buy any actual licensed goods, or in reverse like how some people only watch anime on DVDs and never fansubs. (Or that they sometimes flaunt these personal decisions.) And subsequently, how that kind of thing is considered flaunting. On the other hand it’s much more acceptable to say “Senjougahara is mai waifu” or otherwise identify with something that constitutes actual fandom. Sort of. Even when both dimensions of the fan individual are crucial, if anything, as marketing data to commercial interests.
The difference is kind of like what I talk on my blog and what I do my social networking with on twitter and forums, versus the actual anime I consume, maybe?
I’ll lack your video…
I paid 9 dollars + shipping for a Hurricane Polymar VHS.