The Basis for Purchase of Plastic, Or the Problem with Content on a Disc
SDS’s post will be primer material for what I’m about to talk about.
Having seen Inception just this weekend, let’s just start with a cliche from the film: an idea is infectious. However an idea is like an virus without a host if it isn’t heard, if it doesn’t take root in a mind. But what is a virus like when it isn’t inside a host, doing its thing? What is an idea like when it isn’t being acted on? When it isn’t being processed by the intelligence of man or spread like viral marketing?
It’s probably in the form of a silicate polymer, a piece of plastic, or in its time-honored tradition of dead trees and grooves on stones.
But as much as words, sounds, images, and the like can be stored in physical media, they are still just representations of ideas. In OSI terms (for example), it’s kind of like the transport layer versus the application layer. Before an idea gets into your head, it has to get through the previous six layers of communication hurdles. In other words, while seeing may be believing, an idea has a long way from being even visible.
So let’s talk about merchandising. Publishing anime on DVD is an arduous task. Besides the packaging, all DVDs are alike physically. While it is the transport medium of what makes anime fandom, well, anime fandom, it is as cut and dry as a script in the hand of the scenario writer. Until it get storyboarded, drawn, filmed, edited, and with the audio track added, it’s nothing like the finished product. This is hard work. Like a certain sketch comedy anime said, it’s not something you do by yourself.
But the idea in that scenario script, once became “anime” and then consequently consumed, it becomes, if one may borrow an analogy, a mustard tree. Such is the substance of faith, as in other words, the belief in a vision. Or in this instance, the inception of an idea.
Those who believe (ie., fans) will no longer be driven by what’s written in a book or on a DVD, but by the ideas that are now thriving within their minds. They may seek out those writing, on paper, plastic or what have you, but the changed man, woman or child will now have a directive that is coherent with the ideas growing inside of them. As such, the ideas they consume next will reflect the ideas inside of them.
Logically, does this mean only non-fans buy DVDs? If you already got your mustard tree, why do you need more mustard seeds? My yard is only yea big. But this is not exactly the case.
Put it in other words, let’s say you have become a fan of a show because you’ve seen it and fell in love with it. You might want to get a copy just so you can re-experience it over again. You might want to get a copy just so to spread your love for the show to the people around you. You might want a copy for archival, reference purposes. You might want to get a copy to support the people who has made the inception of that idea, in you, possible.
That’s all well and good. But SDS brings up another point implicitly–every one of those points that I raised in the prior paragraph is meta. In fact, if you really like, say, My Neighbor Totoro, as an idea, you are not necessarily any more likely to do any of the above. Why do I say this?
Because we don’t sell DVDs to kids. We sell them toys. Parents might buy DVDs to placate them, but that is a meta function that grown-ups have learned over the years. This is a big reason why majority of entertainment media is aimed to create an experience first than to disseminate ideas. Edutainment, right? Fables are rarely fun to read.
However, we do sell toys to kids, because they relive the ideas in their mind differently. It is a function of, dare I say, imagination. In fact it is this reason why fans create fan works. This is the reason why fans become creators. Imagination is something of a mystery; some people have more than others, some say an external force operates with it, I don’t know. But unless the idea has germinated in your mind, your imagination is going to do squat with it. (In fact, you probably won’t even remember the idea.) This is why fans buy fan…things. Like a Fender American Vintage ’62 Jazz bass guitar, or a MG Qubeley MK-II. Even if it is an alternate way to “relive” some kind of experience, because you are doing it in your own world, on your own terms, within the directive of the idea inside of you, it is not exactly a meta function. You are engaging the work, the actual intellectual property, the idea, directly.
As to how those directives work, I don’t dare to guess. Ask SDS maybe.
TL;DR (1): Fans engage with the IP in direct, non-meta ways. DVDs are meta products.
The question that I want an answer to: so who buys DVDs? Obviously, a large part of the anime industry thrives on the meta of fandom. The city of Baltimore pulls in millions of dollars in tourism revenue thanks to Otakon every summer. Otakon exists because there is all this anime-related fandom. I believe DVDs serve in a similar manner as the city of Baltimore, for the purposes of fans. After all you gotta have it to talk the talk, to walk the walk. You can’t party until you are there. I think. Fans know to obey all the unspoken rules.
[Tangent: new media (the semi-legal, technical, business term) challenges some of these unspoken rules, which is why there's all this debate about copyright and all that jazz. I'm just plugging in another spoke in this framework.]
Here’s the unspoken rule question that started me on this post: why do adults collect Toy Story DVDs and children collect Toy Story toys? Shouldn’t we all be collecting Toy Story toys and nobody should be collecting the movie on BD/DVD? I mean, they are already toys! And the toys are infinitely more meaningful than some shelf-gracing plastic pieces. Heck, you can see them with your eyes! And if not (as it is the case in reality), why not?
I am probably biased in saying this, but the logical next thing I would have to discuss are so-called non-fans. They are the people who watch an anime and move on to the next thing. They are mostly defined as consumers. Perhaps I’m going to hit a snag in terms of defining who are fans and who are not, it might be better in the context of this discussion to say fans are those who are now infected with the IP, the idea. This way I can sweep all that semantics under the rug. I am not even sure if being a fan or not matters, or if it is the right word.
What I am trying to get at is that non-fans are those who the idea is transmitted to, but no application occurs. Fans, on the other hand, will divert their time, energy and resources to follow the directive as fans. If both are equal consumers, who consumes new media/IP better? Probably the non-fans if we assume both are equally entertained. Presumably the fan would divert resources to old, existing IP.
TL;DR (2): To sell DVDs, you need to engage and create consumers, not necessarily fans.
To wrap up, well, we know it is very hard work to make anime and then to sell it on discs (or even as a digital streaming or download product). We know consumers consume, fans do fan stuff, and only some fans are consumers. It’s also likely that pure consumers consume more than fans. I guess you could say some are fans of consumption, which is kind of a meta thing. Like selling gotta-catch-them-all collector edition crap to people who have that meta thing going on. But that’s meta. It only works on people who are old enough to be affected with those other sorts of ideas. Kids, not as much.
In the grand scope of things, the purpose of derivative copyright protects the business model of making money on fans. When your typical Japanese anime production committee breaks down their licenses, the infectiousness of the idea and the nature of the directives associated with that idea will play a huge role in terms of who will make more money. I can’t begin to imagine how complex this plays out in a franchise not protected by copyright (eg., idol groups). I guess that’s why those tend not to be a by-the-committee thing unlike late-night anime.
It also makes sense why it is extremely within the interests of the media industry to reinforce, modify or add “unspoken” rules type things. Because in the end it is those things that sell DVDs and CDs, that make us into fan-consumers, if we are not much of a consumer to begin with. Social engineering is better than DRM any day.
Fans of disposable entertainment has it rough. Yet we keep on perpetrating this lifestyle, at least in America. Maybe it’s just too much fun to give up.
Some homework questions:
- For R1 licensees, does it make sense to sell “anime”? Does it make sense to sell, say, “Hoshizora Kiseki” or “Maison Ikkoku”? It’s a branding distinction, but also a matter of business method. Mostly think about what Funimation and Sentai is up to, and think about what Geneon, Aniplex and some of the newcomers are up to.
- Why is it that we collect DVDs? What are the unspoken (or spoken but not really unspoken) rules about our fandom? In other words, what makes one piece of plastic superior than the other piece of plastic?
- Why is your favorite anime your favorite anime? Does it have anything to do with your imagination? What’s the last imaginative thing you’ve done in regards to a specific anime/manga/etc title?
- What are some ethical and positive “directives” that should be encouraged along with consuming anime? (Like, watch TV in a well-lit place not too close to the TV. Just kidding).
Okay, well, here’s a thought: How about the enthusiasm built around when DVD releases significantly change (usually intending to improve) the content of the show? Bakemonogatari’s redone animation is one example, as is Kamichu’s additional scenes and special episodes. This is completely subjective, but I believe I’m seeing it happen more, and I think it’s because DVD producers are aware of their product’s relationship to fandom. Ditto limited editions.
I know what you mean. It’s not really subjective–the numbers back this up.
Enthusiasm is the greatest when the DVD release has extra episodes (see K-ON’s bonus episode). So by making your thing direct-to-DVD, yes, you can get people more interested. But that’s only because if they already have that idea in their brains, so you have this catch-22 situation of “they won’t buy until they’ve fallen for the show, but they can’t until they’ve watched it.”
[...] I didn’t concentrate much on the act of buying anime, and was planning a follow-up post, but Omo over at Omonomono beat me to the punch. He brings up some good points that I want to touch upon [...]
I speculated in the comments over on SDS’s post that the primary motivator for what compels anime fans to buy things on DVD is different from what compels fans of other media to do so on account of the methods we employ in order to see anime being different. If you see something in a movie theater and like it, the main incentive to buy the DVD or Blu-Ray on that first week of release is so you can have a copy at home (along with whatever extras are included). For anime, whether we use BitTorrent, legal streams, rental services, or DVD purchases they’re ALL “home video” copies. “So you can have a copy at home” no longer serves as an extra motivator because that’s how we saw it in the first place. That’s why it’s my feeling that, more often than not, the anime itself is not the deciding factor in whether someone makes a purchase. It’s the extras: stuff like an English audio track, fancy packaging, physical goods included (box, booklet, etc), bonus features, and the like. Redone animation for existing scenes isn’t as alluring as things newly added.
Convincing anime fans to spend their money boils down to giving them something better than what they’ve already gotten for free in a fast enough time. Not easy considering that we can now get free HD soft-subbed encodes of things within like, a week of broadcast. I’m interested in seeing if Section23′s approach of concentrating largely on titles that were never fansubbed to completion is a sustainable one. On the one hand, their version is the only way to see the shows in full, thus making the show itself the “extra” in lieu of a dub et al. On the other hand, most things that aren’t fansubbed entirely are the result of some sort of popularity deficiency. The gamble here is “are the tastes of people who fansub anime far enough out of touch with enough other anime fans?”
For my sake, let’s hope so. I want to see the second half of Golgo 13 with subtitles, damn it!
I think what you speculate is partly true, but I’ve seen the same factor affect mainstream buyers (which is partly why mainstream DVDs are chock full of extras).
If there’s a difference, it is still largely a matter of access that SDS alluded to in his response to this post. It might come out as something like fansubs being a similar product as home video, but I think in general that is a struggle all media producers have. I haven’t really seen anything that’s specific to anime fans (at least American ones) besides the whole fansubbing ethics thing.
[...] (For a nice dialogue on the commercial aspects of fandom, see also the posts that led up to the one quoted, one by SDS and another by Omo.) [...]
[...] states” is what hype is all about nowadays; ideas and minds are not simply fetid pools of infectious entities whose purpose is driven purely by evolutionary survival. That’s what hacks do. Because, in [...]