2/9/2022 0 Comments Jaded anime otakuThis new otaku was consumed not only with a simple desire to absorb as much anime as was possible, but a willingness and eventual demand that the anime they watched was as close to its original form as possible. ![]() ![]() What happened instead was the perfect market killer otaku was born, with a combination of otaku aspects that are individually very good for a market, but in specific combinations absolutely deadly. After all, this is a very solid conclusion to draw and is still something that rings quite true outside the entertainment media industry. #Jaded anime otaku licenseIt’s not as if 100% of the license price was simply the Japanese thinking they had the greatest thing since sliced bread or simply wanting to make a big quick buck (though there can be no denying that is as equally responsible) but a signifigant portion was simply a genuine assumption that a very large fan community support a consumer market on a certain level. This is where Justin fails to take into account the very real impact of the market mirage created by this growing fandom, which gave the impression of a safe investment and a strong belief that these immense asking prices for licenses were justifiable. What does that mean? If you are the Japanese, you start thinking that for every attendee, you are going to see DVD sales, and you are thinking this because that’s what history has shown. To add to the frenzy, a staggeringly large number of cosplayers were appearing as characters from titles that were not even licensed in America yet. Yes the market grew huge, convention attendance soared, and moreover there were tons of cosplayers there. When Toonami/Adult Swim and Tokyo Pop combined to create almost the perfect storm of more than doubling the size of the anime market in a single year, the speculation passes an event horizon which can only be seen in hindsight. More shows got on TV, there was still no internet to get to the viewers first, and anime became a more expensive media commodity. #Jaded anime otaku tvStrong home media sales were the only thing that allowed anime on TV specifically labeled as anime. Eventually this made the consumer market grow, and people wanted modern anime and more of it as well. At first it was truly a boom in the traditional sense, that of product sales, and because the only product that could be both easily licensed and easily produced was home video, that’s where those boom sales were to be found. Those commercial maxims are simply those of production and distribution, and for a long time their effects dictated market growth extending into and past the DIC era of anime exposure and the basic creation of an actual anime specific market. It was a time when anime (and almost all international media for that matter) could only exist in a physical form subject to the same rules that govern any commercial commodity whether it be shoes, bread, MRI machines, or heroin. Justin’s opening simply sets the stage of what being in the fandom used to be in terms of obtaining anime. Each section of Justin’s piece has a title and it is that title that is listed in red at the head of each section of my response to it.Įditorial: An Open Letter to the Industry Justin Sevakis's article is not going to be reproduced here, as doing so would cause this entry to reach a level of tl dr approaching biblical proportions. ![]() After mistakenly thinking I had sufficiently addressed the heart of those issues back on a few audio podcasts I may or may not have made it into (I don't check up on these things), I believe that the indelible written word is the only forum for this expression that is truly appropriate. In contemplating a response there were a few key points that were very interesting and carried with them many more industry related aspects than they may have appeared on the surface, to an audience on the outside looking in. Not so recently (late November 2007), Justin Sevakis wrote Editorial: An Open Letter to the Industry over at ANN, where he is Director of New Media. In the infamous words of Rockwell, “ I got a feeling somebody’s watching me.” Although the comments may indicate otherwise, it does seem that a number of people do actually read this ongoing muse into anime as an entertainment market, and as such is the case I believe it my duty to make it worth reading.
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