{"id":31413,"date":"2013-06-07T11:44:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T15:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/?p=31413"},"modified":"2013-06-07T11:44:51","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T15:44:51","slug":"ask-john-editorial-on-animesols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/ask-john-editorial-on-animesols\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask John Editorial: On AnimeSols"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anime<\/a><\/p>\n

Interesting to me to notice that the three-year-old and ultra-modern looking (and excellent) Eve no Jikan movie Kickstarter effort<\/a> has garnered over 1,700 financial supporters and raised an amazing $106,000. Similarly, the just completed 15-minute long Kick Heart short film<\/a> generated over $200,000 from over 3,200 contributors despite the fact that Masaaki Yuasa’s Kemonozume<\/em> and Kaiba<\/em> television series were ignored by the majority of international anime fans, and his Mind Game<\/em> and Genius Party<\/em> features remain largely unwatched by international otaku. Even Kansai Club Publishing\u2019s recent crowdfunding campaign<\/a> to publish a hardcover collection of Osamu Tezuka\u2019s lesser known manga short stories drummed up over $45,000 from just over a thousand contributors. Yet AnimeSols evidently has, I\u2019m guessing, a number of supporters in-between that of Kansai Club Publishing and the Time of Eve<\/em> movie, yet as of this writing AnimeSols<\/a> has collected only $17,530 in pledges for all eight of its titles combined, an amount that\u2019s not even enough to hit the funding goal for its single most popular title by a wide margin, Creamy Mami<\/em>. The tremendous support for a print publication of Tezuka manga may benefit from the intangible perception that the work is \u201cliterary\u201d and \u201cclassic,\u201d and therefore deserving of financial support. Comparison of AnimeSols to Time of Eve<\/em> and Kick Heart<\/em> seems to clearly illustrate the long-speculated belief that American fans just aren\u2019t particularly interested in vintage anime. Average American otaku may not even like the majority of Masaaki Yuasa’s animation, but it still gets more fiscal support, despite being much shorter and far more esoteric than the much longer and very mainstream-oriented anime offered by AnimeSols, because it\u2019s new; it\u2019s not thirty-years-old or a ten-year-old revival of a thirty-year-old title.<\/p>\n


\nThere\u2019s been justified discussion elsewhere about anxiety from potential AnimeSols contributors over getting stuck with incomplete DVD sets as a result of subsequent offerings not reaching their minimum funding goals. Unceremoniously uncompleted American DVD releases of titles including Fortune Quest L<\/em>, Corrector Yui<\/em>, Soar High Isami<\/em>, Tenshi ni Narumon<\/em>, and Monster<\/em> are seemingly difficult to give away. Not only do American otaku typically dislike vintage anime, regardless of how much they may vocally claim otherwise, they like supporting incomplete releases even less. Personally, I\u2019ve already promised $30 to $40 for each of the eight titles AnimeSols currently offers. I do appreciate vintage anime, and I am stepping up to put my money behind my claims. I\u2019m honestly a little bit worried about expending so much to purchase vintage anime DVD sets. I\u2019m equally if not more so worried that I won\u2019t be charged because, at this time, with about a month to go, none of AnimeSols\u2019 initial 8 titles look likely to hit their target financial support goals. I am curious why the DVD replication monetary goals are so seemingly high. I\u2019ve personally been involved in anime licensing and DVD production, and that was during the height of the American anime licensing boom, so I\u2019m not sure why these particular titles cost so much to release on domestic DVD when they theoretically aren\u2019t encumbered by royalty minimums and licensing fees since they\u2019re not being sub-licensed to any domestic distributor. But that\u2019s a very cynical and alternate inquiry that I\u2019m not presently interested in examining.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m more concerned with the future of AnimeSols and its crowd support. AnimeSols is presently hosting a poll inquiring, among other things, which other titles fans would like to see available on the site and potentially contribute money toward. While the lengthy list includes 49 specific titles, very few of them are ones that most American otaku have even a vague awareness of. While many American otaku may be at least aware of what Dear Brother<\/em> (Oniisama e), Urusei Yatsura<\/em>, Esteban – a Boy from the Sun<\/em>, Kimagure Orange Road<\/em>, and Hurricane Polymar<\/em> are, I imagine that the overwhelming majority of American otaku haven\u2019t the faintest clue what Maicchingu Machiko-sensei<\/em>, Chikkun Takkun<\/em>, Atsuhime<\/em>, Norakuro-kun<\/em>, Moeru Oniisan<\/em>, Space Ace<\/em>, Demetan Croaker<\/em>, Doterman<\/em>, Osomatsu-kun<\/em>, and Spoon Obasan<\/em> actually are. [I said I like vintage anime. I\u2019ve watched episodes of all of those aforementioned shows.] I\u2019m personally thrilled by the possibility of officially licensed American DVD releases of titles including Moeru Oniisan<\/em> and Atsuhime<\/em>, and to a slightly lesser degree Maicchingu Machiko-sensei<\/em>. But if roughly the most widely recognized and beloved titles in AnimeSols\u2019 pocket are all failing to reach their funding targets, the possibility of much lesser-known future offerings gaining any significant degree of support from the American fan community seems very remote.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to proclaim doom and gloom. I\u2019m actually encouraged to see off-beat and independent anime productions Kick Heart<\/em> and Eve no Jikan<\/em> get as much support as they\u2019ve received, even if the most widely supported campaign only received contributions from roughly 3,000 people from all around the globe. 3,000 may not be an especially large number of anime fans, especially when last year\u2019s Anime Expo drew 130,000 fans. But 3,000 is still an exponentially larger support base than the mere 20 people who have pledged any degree of monetary support at all for the official American home video release of Osamu Tezuka\u2019s Blue Blink<\/em> television series. Aggressive support for vintage Tezuka manga and support for esoteric anime like Kick Heart<\/em> suggest to me that America does have fans with an interest in anime more diverse than the currently airing shounen adventure blockbusters and this season\u2019s fan-service shows. The domestic acquisition and release of vintage anime series including Cobra<\/em>, Rose of Versailles<\/em>, Dirty Pair<\/em>, Kyatto-Ninden Teyandee<\/em>, Unico<\/em>, Lupin the Third<\/em>, St. Seiya<\/em>, Mazinger Z<\/em>, and Captain Harlock<\/em> suggest that an American audience for 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s anime does exist and will collect DVD releases. So I want to encourage the American otaku community to open its collective wallet and expand its horizons to embrace more anime that\u2019s older than rubber pirates and orange-clad ninja. Traditionally Japanese distributors attempting to self-distribute in America have not succeeded. Toei has tried twice. There\u2019s Studio A.P.P.P.\u2019s Super Techno Arts, Bandai\u2019s Honneamise effort, Gamers\u2019 Synch-Point. But AnimeSols\u2019 effort to literally bring its offerings directly to the rank & file fan and invite support, suggestion, and criticism directly from the American end-use consumer is a revolutionary effort that I\u2019d hate to see American fans snub. I personally, and admittedly a little bit selfishly, encourage every one of America\u2019s anime otaku to seriously consider contributing to AnimeSols or, in lieu, use the site\u2019s survey<\/a> to tell Yomiuri TV, Tezuka Productions, Tatsunoko, and Studio Pierrot why you\u2019ve chosen not to contribute, so at least these Japanese studios can gain a better, more responsive understanding of exactly what it is that American otaku want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interesting to me to notice that the three-year-old and ultra-modern looking (and excellent) Eve no Jikan movie Kickstarter effort has garnered over 1,700 financial supporters and raised an amazing $106,000. Similarly, the just completed 15-minute long Kick Heart short film generated over $200,000 from over 3,200 contributors despite the fact that Masaaki Yuasa’s Kemonozume and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-john"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31415,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31413\/revisions\/31415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}