Year in Review: Conclusion
Covering a few personal and not-so-personal bits about this 2008 year in review.
Year in Review: Sunshine & Kisses Drive to Origination, Shrine Maidens Lost Memories in Coded Euphoric Frontier
Running for your lives.
With style.
Year in Review: She’s Going the Distance, a Great Feat of Strength
Going to mention a list of 12 lists of 12 items each. So a nested list. All 144 items. Annotated for the most part. Don’t ask me why I use these pronouns the way I do…
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.
Blogs Are My Neo Venezia
This is part threefour of a semi-embarrassing series of posts inspired by the Aria anime.
It’s not exactly the first or last time anyone would map the “otakusphere” to a geographic representation, a geometrical representation of online fandom. I’m just taking that a baby step further.
One of the reoccurring themes in Aria the Natural is just that–there is a web of relationship that ties us together and forms the thing that is Neo Venezia. And to that end, blogs and bloggers (and, it’s not just limited to blogs) are the features of this “blogosphere” or “otakusphere” or whichever non-word you prefer to use. I prefer the word “community” myself.
But who am I?
Woody? Akatsuki? Al? I didn’t know at first.
If bloggers are like undines, what would Aria Company be parallel to? Is Animeblogger.net Orange Planet? Jeff Lawson Alicia-san? Sounds like flattery at first but it isn’t if you really think about it. Those things are not what makes Neo Venezia the place I found so charming. And it’s not the countless pan shots of its aquatic scenery that makes it charming (unlike most travel videos).
We are all pieces of a big puzzle.
What is charming about Aria is how shamelessly Akari explore and highlight the stuff that happens. Stuff of people’s hearts and desires. Of the reasons why good people do good things. And how great good things can be. It’s totally embarrassing. It’s just as embarrassing to cover up your own motivation with lofty $5 words about theme, character, various worldviews, and descriptions of how authors, their works and the audience relate to each other. Aren’t you embarrassed when you defend shows like Naruto? I would be if I did.
There is a degree of shamelessness that is necessary to really enjoy Aria. It’s not unlike how some people enjoy fanservice, boobs, and declaration about admiring teenage pilots’ butts. But sometimes it takes a dose of courage to stand up against negative and unpleasant feelings, too, and Aria didn’t shy away from that entirely.
Maybe it is flattery to call someone a slutty-eyed blond who is shy about sharing what’s on her mind? I guess. But finding your own orientation and how you are connected to the rest of the society is rather important. And sometimes to acknowledge that you need to stop being shy or excessively prideful.
It’s a longing question.
The mind longs for what is missing?
But all the more, I think Aria is a story about why. One way to look at Aria is that it does a great job laying out a framework that can be applied to any organic, human society. Being over 50 episodes of “why things happen” gave Aria a lot of time to cover a wide range of material and train the audience to approach these issues with the right tack.
I don’t know if it is conscious on the part of the writers for the show, but one head trick Aria uses frequently is by not explaining why something happens, it actually focuses and highlights the “why” issue clearly for the audience. After so many episodes of stuff happening not knowing why, we learn to look for the reason. It’s a bit like some other, slice-of-life (what a taboo metaphor) exploration-sci-fi like:
Canal Trek: The Next Generation
And Aria is generational. Aria explored the theme about generational torch-passing. If you are the parent of a teenager, maybe it has a tip for you? But for bloggers who has blogged, has stopped, and has picked it up again, but differently, you may be no different than Grandma–a silly girl who took after a fat, alien cat. And that is fine too. It’s somewhat interesting to see how all these ex-undines stopped doing it, but are still a part of the big picture. And likewise I think a significant number of influential bloggers today are probably no longer blogging.
It would also explain well why bloggers come and go, why some band together while others do not. Some strive for the next level and some are content where they are. Many are just happy that they’re here; others enjoy their relationships but question their rightful place in the community and the greater society at large. Everyone leaves a footprint, and it affects not just those who are walking behind you today but also those who have a ways yet to come.
Beyond Neo Venezia
I believe it’s a human tendency to long for and find a place they belong. Perhaps you are like Akari who has found something to live for. Perhaps you are like Aika who has something trusted to your care. Perhaps you are like Alice and it only made sense to apply your talents where they belong. The image Aria paints for us is one of interdependence in that a square peg longs for a square hole.
Sometimes the square peg needs to realize it is already in a square hole? I think Akari taught us this lesson well.
And it’s seen in blogging. Some of the most popular blogs are episodic review blogs with some comments, and there are no shortage of such thing; but at the same time, each blogger is given an unique perspective, tools and talents. And some of us are just really good at something, so we apply just that. An organic, online social network can exist independently, in an interdependent web without the harbor of some third party (like Facebook or Livejournal).
A healthy, 21st century-minded, online social network may indeed span across all of those platforms, a contextually-loose but well-related individual makes the best guide to the internet. It is just that some of us chose to be undines–some do it because they love to discover and navigate, some do it because they are called to guide, and some are just really good at it.
Most likely, all of us are a bit of all three.
The internet is a world without national boundaries besides the limits we choose to impose on ourselves. That goes for bloggers, people who read a single internet forum/Usenet group/IRC channel, and anyone with the freedom to do the things they want online. Perhaps you found where you belong, and that is good; but when that isn’t the case, remember there’s more stuff out there that you don’t know, smarter smartasses spewing nonsense, and people who are even more embarrassingly ludicrous than you can imagine.
And that is the healing message of Aria as applied to people on the internet.
