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Japanator Discusses: Bandai and the state of the industry

Japanator's Jeff Chuang writes, "In the wake of Bandai Entertainment's exit of physical distribution in North America, the fans and the rest have taken to alarm and to the internet to express their reaction and concerns. Both regulars and old-timers alike have chimed in with their 2 cents, and here at Japanator we'll be riffing off what Kotaku's Charlie Maib said about anime."

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OtakuStudy2935d ago

Brilliant multi-perspective article... By far the best article I have read on this issue yet.

Tuxedo_Mask2935d ago

The anime industry seems to be a very niche industry in the West, but it is growing. I can't help but worry that the apprehension of Japanese companies to expand and try to gain new viewers globally means that all of the progress that anime has made will slow, or even worse regress.

Piracy is a problem, but it's a problem in every industry. If you offer your customer your product at a fair price I think more people would be willing to pay for it than not, especially since they know that by paying for it they're funding the future of the industry.

Pricing has to be different depending on where you're marketing. Not too many people will pay $100 for a disc with two or three episodes on it. Rather than attempt to get people to collect these overpriced discs, why not wait until you can offer a complete collection before you waste the time and resources in even manufacturing these minimal efforts? I would think that the cost/profit ratio would be much more in the distributor's favor if they only released complete collections at a reasonable price. I can't think of a reason why anyone would only want episodes 1-3 or 4-6 anyway. It's a series, not a collection of baseball cards.