Sign of the Times

Anime Expo 2008 has come and gone and there is real reason for concern when it comes to the North American Anime/Manga market:

1) ADV Films is in serious financial trouble, they are in the process of restructuring and saying all the right things, but the reality is that they are selling off properties and right now and are in a state of flux with regards to their product offerings.

2) Geneon is now effectively gone, while their employees are completing a number of the properties for Funimation [the new liscensor] their existence as an independent studio is now basically over.

3) "Fansubbing" was a subject of an entire panel with studio execs and legal council, who while they understand the past need/history for fansubbing, are seeing larger and larger losses on products that have been fansubbed before they have ever been released commercially in the North American market. Not to mention the rampant sharing of commercial episodes via Torrents and P2P systems.

4) The Manga industry is having its own issues as well, with the reorganization of Tokyopop, and the well documented drop in sales in major chain booksellers, along with the continued presence of "Scanlations" the Manga industry is feeling the pinch as well.

Not exactly the rosiest picture in the world is it? With the downturn [some would say nosedive] of the US economy the situation isn't going t0 get better, and may in fact get worse, so what can we as fans do to help the industry survive these lean times? In short, we need to start paying for the hobby that we love so much.

I have been around since the early days, when "Fansubbing" was the only way to get any Anime other than the odd offerings of the then fledgling ADV, Viz, Animego, and Central Park Media/US Manga Corps. I understand that there is a lot that has never been/ never will be liscenced over here in Anime form, so I understand the downloading of stuff like that, however, if and when those series get picked up, we owe it to the commercial companies here to buy the DVDs and delete the fansubs. The same goes for Manga, its one thing downloading a "Scanlation" when a series isn't liscenced, but as soon as it becomes available commercially we should be buying it, thereby supporting the company going to the trouble of releasing it in this market.

Now I know that the economy is weak and everyone is trying to find ways to cut back and still enjoy their hobbies [trust me I know how that is] and people feel that Anime is overpriced [unless you used to pay $65 for a 30min VHS personally I dont't think you should cry too much, but thats me] but the reality is that this is still a niche market. What this means is that the costs are going to be higher, we need to be able to live with that if we want the domestic industry to survive!

What does this mean? It means buying your favourite shows on DVD, buying that Manga instead of downloading it, or even worse going into a store and reading without buying! We have all got to do our parts. If it isn't liscenced this isn't an issue, but as soon as it gets liscenced we owe it to the producers to pick up the commercial copies of the shows that we enjoy and makes sure that they are able to keep bringing more and more quality products to these shores.

With any luck the industry will manage to survive this down period and come back as strong as ever.