(Untitled)

[bam2]

GDH (Gonzo) International President, Arthur Smith, talks about the current state of the anime industry

If you have any doubt that the anime industry is in trouble....Please read this interviewIn spite of a lot of really great support I've seen here, and on Myspace...I have had more than a few nasty jabs thrown at me...accusing me of everything

Comments

[zrana]

That is an awesome interview, thakns for the link!

I recently directed some of my anime club to the comments and likes you've had on your LJ, and one person brought the attitude of "D'uh! It's called a recession! It's only natural after a period of growth. They're just exaggerating. The anime industry will survive just fine." But they just don't get just HOW BIG of an issue illegal downloads are for anime compared to any other industry out there--and the fact that anime is not a 'big money' industry with multiple avenues of generating revenue.

And when it came time to choose new series to watch, what does the majority go with but fansubs? I'm not going to take pity on them when the new in progress series get the fansub releases stopped in the middle of the series. (On sub is even RahXephon, so they video quality is obviously worse than DVD, the only good thing is that several club members actually own the official ADV release of that.) I don't care if switching out DVDs is a pain, and if putting avi and mkv and mp4 files on a playlist is more convenient.

And meanwhile I find it funny that some fansubs are getting to be TOO high in quality for some people to be able to play on their computers without lag issues, or the file even playing at all. I kind of want more fansubbers to do this, so that it limits who can actually watch them and reduce the fansub audience for those titles as a result. That is, if we can't get them to stop fansubbing in the first place.

*meanwhile, starts putting alot of anime series on her Christmas list to send to her mom, so she can catch up on stuff she's been meaning to get* >.>;;;

I can honestly say I haven't downloaded any new anime series for several months, and when I did, it was only one episode--that I haven't even watched yet. I'm proud of myself, considering how for the last several years, fansubs have been my primary method of watching shows, and my legal anime purchases HAVE declined during that same time period. My early new year's resolution has been to correct that nasty habit.