Is Anime Dying?

[Kira]

I have notice that a lot of series are now out but no one is really them. I myself included. The reason for this is, that like all good things need to go "boom" and once that happens, you get to many series and the quality of these series goes down, because once some thing becomes hot, everyone wants to milk.

I have actually stop buying anime, and mainly buying manga now, the only series are Hellsing, Bleach, and Naruto. Now there are a lot of great series out there, just not in the state yet. I have recently came upon High School of the Dead, now that is such an awesome manga!

I might but DeathNote and the anime, once that out, I'm still debating about bleach, and I still don't care for Hellsing Ultimate. I just don't like Anderson voice. Yes I am very picky when comes to anime, I only want the best and expect the best, I was so disappointed with the re-release of The Slayers...the picture is worse!

[oldwrench]

The anime industry is still going strong. More titles have been licensed in the US than ever. Check out the few I reviewed in the anime recommendations. You might really like Fighting Spirit and Petite Cossette. Beck is another hot one out right now. There is so much out there to chose from.

[Kira]

But that is what I mean, yes there are all these titles, but out of all those, only a few are really worth a checkout. Like cgi movie. you had movies like Toy Story, Monsters Inc, it was expensive to make, but now, its alot more cheaper, so anyone can make a cgi movie now, thus now you have a lot of "Ok" cgi movies.

[Zeratul2k]

I agree with Kira, most anime lately just don't live to the expectations of the public. Or it could be just that everyone is comparing latest anime with the cream of the crop and that's why it seems so poor?

People have recommended Beck to me lately. I want to get it but I just don't have enough space on my HDD and don't have money to buy DVDs to make some room. It will have to wait a little.

[oldwrench]

Perhaps anime isn't dying, but Geneon is going out of business. I just saw this at rightstuf.com so many great titles will be going out of print. Who knows what the future will be for the licenses of a lot of great anime. I looked through the Geneon catalogue and had heart failure at what will soon be gone.

[oldwrench]

no time now to go into it, but things I've heard at the Sogen Con are really scary. I'll write some more later. I'll just say that the anime industry is in a lot of trouble right now, and it's mostly the "fan's" fault.

[Freya]

O_O

[Kira]

and it's mostly the "fan's" fault.

Okay now that is a very unfair statement, there are in fact a lot of great titles, but these American company still push what ever they can get their hands on, instead of waiting for the good stuff.

[oldwrench]

The reason I put fans in quotes was because I was referring to those who download their illegal fansubs or watch everything on u tube and don't support the industry by purchasing anime. That's like stealing cars and saying you're supporting the auto industry. They aren't fans, fans would support the industry.

[JHawkNH]

I actually believe the problems with the anime market are due to one event and three groups.

The event is the downturn in the US economy and the riase in gas prices that have cut off alot of the spare cash that we use to buy anime DVDs.

The groups are:
1. The people who download fansubs and don't buy the DVD's when they are released in the US. I don't believe any of these poeple would by DVD's even if fansubs didn't exist, but they do lead to a major problem, they make the market for anime seem larger then it actually is. Which brings us to the second group...
2. The Japenese studios that produce anime. Because the 'downloaders' make the market apear much larger then it actually is, the studios believe they can charge a premium for their product. This unfortunetly means that some shows are so expensive to buy from the studios that the US companies will probably never see a profit from the title.
3. The US companies that license anime. How could they be part of the problem? Because of good intentions. All anime fans want to see their favorite animes brought over to the US and the US companies have been doing everything they can to grant every anime fans wish. But the problem is that some shows are more nich then others and will never turn a profit in the current market. It is ok if a company loose some money on a few series as long as they can make it up with other big series. (This is the main reason ADV and Funimation are still in business) The problem is that the US companies are bring over to many series that will never make a profit in an attempt to make fans happy and they are loseing to much money on these series. This makes for good customer service, but bad bussiness sense.