Posts Tagged “Anime”

ICv2 reported in its Guide #51: Anime/Manga that sales of anime DVDs in North America fell more than 20% in 2007 and that the estimated market size in retail dollars is $275-300 million. That drop of a fifth might seem shocking at first but once you also take into consideration a corresponding 21% drop in anime releases, the number doesn’t seem to be too much cause for alarm. The amount of releases decreased in 2006 as well to the tune of 19% so I believe the market is still consolidating through more calculated and fewer licenses. The guide writers are nevertheless optimistic about the future of anime in America based on signs we’ve heard before including a “growing awareness” among US audiences, the eagerness of US companies to shorten the gap between Japanese airings and DVD release, and those companies’ willingness to try new methods of digital distribution and lower-cost packaging.

On the manga front, it appears that 2007 was another strong year but its growth rate is beginning to taper. The profileration of new titles is still the major problem facing publishers and retailers, something that I think might become an issue for some publishers in the near future. The manga section at the Borders here in Davis almost takes up two full aisles and forced the fantasy books into another set of shelves. I personally think that the US manga market might become a bit oversaturated in the near future when I look at the projection in the ICv2 article of 33 volumes of manga being released a week but it’s just a small thought right now.

[via ANN]

Today Netflix announced that all subscribers, except for those on the bare minimum 2-discs-a-month plan ($4.99/mo), will have no restrictions on how many hours they can utilize the company’s instant watching feature, a move the company likely made to counter the expected announcement of iTunes movie rentals at Macworld tomorrow. Last month, I signed up for the lowest unlimited discs per month plan ($8.99) and thus had eight hours of instant watching per month so now I can see more movies aside from returning a disc and waiting a couple days for the next one to arrive. This news also allows for a more convenient way to watch some anime series in their entirety or at least a healthy dose of episodes. [UPDATE (1/15): Forgot to mention that instant watching still requires IE6 or higher and Windows XP/Vista. Thanks, Scott, for reminding me about the Mac crowd still being shut out from streaming movies on Netflix.]

In a cursory click-through of their listings, one can watch entire series including Mezzo, GitS: Stand Alone Complex, Gilgamesh, Comic Party Revolution TV, Jinki: Extend, and Chance Pop Session as well as large portions of series such as AIR TV (8 out of 13), Air Gear (21 out of 25), Pani Poni Dash (14 of out 26), Saiyuki (25 out of 50), Utawarerumono (14 out of 26 episodes), and Xenosaga (8 out of 12). [It seems that many of these are ADV titles but that may just be a coincidence.] Also some feature films that are available to be watched online include Perfect Blue, Blood The Last Vampire, and Ninja Scroll.

The obvious caveat is that these will be dubbed versions but for those who don’t mind that much, such as myself, this could be a good way to check some series for free if you are already a customer. However, I’m more inclined to use my now-unlimited streaming for movies and TV shows (30 Rock Season 1) since the anime selection is very limited and watching my physical library is a higher priority.

Over the weekend, the dub casts for both Code Geass and Lucky Star were announced. Johnny Yong Bosch now has another high-profile protagonist role as Lelouch and Wendee Lee will be following up her Haruhi performance by taking on Konata. There are also two overlapping actresses: Kate Higgins will voice CC in Geass and Kuroi-sensei in LS while Karen Strassman will be Kallen and Miyuki. Both titles are being distributed by Bandai with Code Geass v. 1 debuting on Adult Swim next spring while Lucky Star is TBA with 6 volumes planned and special editions in the works. I can’t help thinking how poorly Konata’s opinion of dubs would likely be, if she cared at all about them in the first place. Fuller casting details after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I found an online tool called the Blog Readability Test from a post on Evil Avatar that is supposed to test “what reading level is required to understand your blog”. I assume it applies some kind of reading-level algorithm after searching the front page of whatever website you type in; Mental Floss [via Game|Life] thinks it’s likely an implementation of the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula. I guess the results could be interpreted as an indicator of whether you should simplify or tune up your writing depending on if you are targeting a particular audience and who that audience is. The below results were obtaining by entering the main site addresses so readability results will very likely vary among individual full-length posts.

WARNING: This is not meant to be criticism of any particular blogger(s), but rather just as a interesting post about artificial classifications of writing. So don’t flame me, blame the formula!
Read the rest of this entry »

This afternoon I watched the first episode of Keitai Shoujo on BOST TV, the newly launched anime digital distribution service. (Is it pronounced bost or boost?) It was a nice quick experience considering that anime was my only option for my region (USA) - I didn’t have the privilege to pay to watch episodes of Shinigami no Ballad or Hanbun no Tsuki, although I could watch the non-credit openings for free. What these three titles have in common, though, is why I am optimistic on how this venture will affect the online anime market by giving them a chance to make overseas revenue.
Read the rest of this entry »

The preview disc packed in with this month’s issue of Newtype USA contains the first episodes of The Wallflower (Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge), Magikano, and Yawara! I watched all three episodes in subtitled form and short answer: I didn’t like Magikano but did enjoy the other two. You can read my long form opinions after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

This morning ANN published an editorial by Justin Sevakis, the founder of ANN who now works for Imaginasian TV, in which he described the sorry state the industry is currently in financially, how it got to that state of affairs, and the problems preventing any significant change from happening. Apparently, the numbers are “terrifying” and the business model is clearly failing. His doom-and-gloom piece, I think, made many good points about how difficult the situation is now for licenses to break even due to years non-interference with fansub distribution.
Read the rest of this entry »

The poll about Newtype USA and pricing has been growing old in the sidebar so I felt a new question was well overdue. I wanted to see the method of behavior in which people typically watch anime series so the question is “Which of the following best describes your anime watching behavior?” The options are watching week-to-week, marathoning or multi-batching the series on fansubs, buying the DVDs as they come out, waiting for the box set, or just watching it on TV.
Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, I was browsing through the top song charts of various countries’ iTunes Stores and I was surprised to find “Sousei no Aquarion” by Akino, the first opening theme to the anime of the same name, on the Japanese chart. I then thought to myself, “Hey, wasn’t that one of Funimation’s Kickoff ‘07 licenses?” I checked and found I was right but then I began to wondering why I hadn’t heard anything about an upcoming release. The landing page for Aquarion says “Coming Fall 2007″, which seems to be a projection that be missed since it’s almost winter and there’s still no definite word. Meanwhile the other six titles seem to be doing fine.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m currently selling some of my anime DVD’s because I need some money for next month’s rent and also I want to free some shelf space. (Can’t believe I got myself in this situation in the first place…) Anyway, I already sold some to people in my anime club during the past few weeks but there are still a number of them remaining so I decided to just put them up for auction. The first group of auctions ends around 1:30am-2am PST 11/26, the other around 2:30pm-3pm PST that same day, all but one have Buy It Now options, and I’ll be shipping them by Media Mail. Listings below the fold!
Read the rest of this entry »