WARNING: NSFW LANGUAGE

Below is a rather long IRC conversation that some friends and I had a few weeks ago. The topic, which I brought up, basically involved trying to figure out why the American anime industry hasn't changed its methods - something I think is absolutely necessary, given that quite a few of the domestics (with the glaring exception of Funimation, which has a gajillion really popular shounen series to fall back on) have one foot in the grave already. We didn't come up with a solution - or, more specifically, we couldn't figure out why they weren't taking the most obvious solution (i.e. the logical extension of what ADV's very clumsily trying to do with its video downloads) - but we did manage to narrow it down to the prior question of whether it was the domestics' fault or Japan's. Anyways, read the log, add your own thoughts, etc..

ME: aside from the dumb rights issue, is there any reason why the domestic anime companies haven't itunes'd up the fansub scene yet
FRIEND 1: I think it's all just obstinate japanese business practices right now
ME: seriously how hard would it be to license a can't-miss new show just beginning to air in Japan (something Death Note-ish, something that will sell a billion copies no matter how much you fuck it up)
FRIEND 1: PROBABLY REALLY HARD BUT FOR NO GOOD REASON
ME: release a no-frills subtitled version for download at $4-5 a pop a few days after it airs
ME: then sell the DVDs a few months down the road for extra buckazoids
ME: the only reason I can think of for not doing this is that the Japanese audience might opt for just grabbing the US-released shit rather than actually buying their own dumb overpriced DVDs
ME: but then, wouldn't they be downloading RAWs and things anyways?
FRIEND 1: YEAH
ME: I MEAN SERIOUSLY DOMESTIC ANIME COMPANIES
ME: SHOWING SAMPLE EPISODES OF YOUR SHOWS ON YOUR WEBSITES IS A GOOD START
ME: BUT MANY OF US DON'T FUCKING CARE BECAUSE WE ALREADY WATCHED THE WHOLE SERIES A YEAR BEFOREHAND
FRIEND 3: there are domestic annie-may companies?
ME: GET TO US THEN AND YOU WILL MAKE A BAZILLION DOLLARS (IT IS NOT ABOUT MONEY, IT IS ABOUT TIMING AND AVAILABILITY)
FRIEND 1: Basically they have one of the first big media phenomena of the internet age on their hands and they are fully intent to squander that and shoot themselves in the foot and send their industry spiralling into obscurity because they can't get past their twentieth-century methodology
FRIEND 1: SO BLAME THE FANS
FRIEND 3: YES IT IS ALWAYS THE FANS PROBLEM
FRIEND 1: The one thing I think about is how most people into anime are teenagers, and if being a teenager now is anything like being a teenager in the nineties, $30 DVDs are a rare luxury
FRIEND 1: BUT TEENAGERS HAVE A LOT OF TIME AND A LOT OF WHEREWITHAL TO AQUIRE THIS STUFF FOR FREE
FRIEND 2: It's cartridge games all over again
ME: that might be true, but I still think for a lot of people... errr
FRIEND 1: However, they still seem to be buying lots of stuff off of itunes. If you can defer it to tiny, incremental payments, teenagers seem to just think MAN THAT'S NOTHIN'
ME: well, put it this way
ME: most regular people would be willing to pay for a no-frills subtitled episode of comparable or better quality to/than a good fansub, if they could download it from a nice friendly website or through a nice convenient application or something
FRIEND 1: Teenagers will blow all their money on candy and pop and scamming beer and smokes outside of the internet, but the impulse reigns supreme on internet
ME: it's just easier than hunting through torrent sites and updating your software all the time, etc.
FRIEND 1: Yeah
FRIEND 2: HELL, I WOULD
ME: so I say to the companies, I say
ME: LOOK YOU DUMB DONGS
FRIEND 1: Shit, that's the whole reason I buy games on Steam
ME: US WEEABOOS ARE SITTING HERE
ME: FRUSTERATED
ME: WAITING TO GIVE YOU OUR FUCKING MONEY
FRIEND 1: going through the trouble of torrenting and downloading cracks is a pain in the ass
ME: SO WHAT IS THE GODDAMN PROBLEM PEOPLE
ME: THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY GODDAMMIT, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET SHIT FROM US BY SELLING EVERYTHING THROUGH BEST BUY
ME: BEST BUY IS FOR DUMBSHITS AND GRANNIES
FRIEND 2: Is Wii's Virtual Arcade set up similarly?
ME: WE ARE WAITING TO GET OUR ANIME FROM YOU... ON INTERNET
FRIEND 1: More or less, although there's apparently some problems with the limited storage space and inability to run games off of the SD cards
FRIEND 1: But seriously, Nintendo has managed to make $$$ selling games that we've been able to download with literally no problem whatsoever off of the internet for twelve years now
FRIEND 1: IT IS QUITE AMAZING WHAT PEOPLE WILL BUY TO AVOID MILD INCONVENIENCE
ME: and yet the dumb domestic licensers stick to cease and desist letters rather than actually trying to compete with the fansubbers via a comparable product
FRIEND 2: Dinosaurs
ME: they don't get it
FRIEND 2: the Ice Age is coming
FRIEND 2: AND ONLY THE COOL WILL SURVIVE
FRIEND 2: er actually I guess an internal body rivaling a Midwest summer afternoon is not very cool
ME: I want all of them driven to extinction by way of gigantic interstellar pans falling out of the sky
ME: (mass extinction level panstrumentality)
FRIEND 2: heeheehee
FRIEND 2: *body temperature
FRIEND 2: domestic licensers trapped in the Tezuka Zone
FRIEND 2: all getting stampeded by dinosaurs
FRIEND 1: I don't think it's the domestics as much as the Japanese companies
FRIEND 2: The corporate shogunate? It's likely
ME: there could definitely be some foot-dragging there, but I don't see how it could make sense
ME: having the American companies recover a shitload of money from the fansub scene would be nothing but good for them
ME: (more shows get licensed, etc.)
FRIEND 2: I read an interview with the American fellow Sega brought on to win over Americans to the Genesis
FRIEND 4: TSUKKOMI GAGS CAUSE MASS EXTINCTIONS
FRIEND 1: Yeah. Sega circumvented and then threw away the mastermind behind their growing corporate momentum in the west largely because the corporate overlords didn't really find the way he played ball to jive with their japaneseness enough
FRIEND 2: He mentioned the business culture over there is still pretty damned medieval
FRIEND 1: It's probably a bit more complicated than that, but when that SGGG game came around, Sega characatured the guy as some nasty, uncouth american upstart who meant nothing but trouble
FRIEND 1: Even though, you know, he was basically propping up their entire video gaming division
FRIEND 1: So I wouldn't put it past the Japanese corporate monoculture to shoot themselves in the foot just to avoid having to play by some other culture's rules
ME: SOUNDS PLAUSIBLE TO ME
FRIEND 2: Gonna talk crude here, but that seems like exactly what hara-kiri was all about
ME: although it also seems plausible that the american companies just haven't considered doing anything aside from throwing more DVDs at Suncoast
FRIEND 1: From everything I hear, they keep mewling "WELL WE *REALLY REALLY WANT TO*"
FRIEND 4: does suncoast even exist anymore or did it just close down at the local mall here?
FRIEND 2: The one at our mall did too, Alex
FRIEND 4: T_T my rewards card
FRIEND 2: Or at least, it was damned near gutted of titles AND display racks when I stopped in a month ago
ME: BUT WHAT WILL THE STAFF OF CUTE ANIME FANGIRLS DO
ME: NOW THAT THEY CAN'T RECYCLE 90% OF THEIR INCOME BACK TO THE STORE
FRIEND 4: I need to go see if Anime Club is still in business. If it is gone too then all I have left is Best Buy and animenation.com
FRIEND 1: And you know, they're *slowly* starting to catch on, but they always have to do it their own way rather than through some established medium like itunes
FRIEND 4: And best buy's selection is ass
FRIEND 4: unless you want to pick up one of the Mai-* DVDs they have lying around
FRIEND 4: or start Eureka 7 at disc 4
FRIEND 1: Or like ADV is doing, with basically nothing but d-list titles they still got stuck with the license for.
FRIEND 2: It's probably going to take an upstart company overseas picking up on that business model and succeeding like crazy hell just to get the damned boulder rolling
FRIEND 2: maybe not "rolling" so much as "hey I think it kinda scooted a little"
FRIEND 1: If someone had grabbed hold of Haruhi back in '06 and put it up on itunes, I don't think we'd be hearing these death whines from the industry now
FRIEND 1: I don't think the situation was that different back then