The debates of “The Fansub War” had eventually spurned actual ideas on how to sustain and improve the anime industry and after the Death of Toonami, it seemed now was the best time to act.
There was real change taking place. Course you had to be watching it for yourself, but companies were changing gears for a better tomorrow or implementing steps to kick ass and take names. FUNimation and Bandai are the first 2 to come to mind.
And one of the more positive side-effects of the fansub debate was that everyone had seemingly become an expert on the anime industry, and thus were now well equipped to help ensure its survival with a plan of their own. See, before Geneon and the fansubs, the subject matter just kinda rolled around in a grey area. No, not the ethics of the issue, but more so the understanding of it. Some will read this and go, “If you understand the ethics, what’s left to understand about the problem?” Couldn’t tell you. But I do know tons of ppl came out of the debates with far more knowledge and focused opinions of the situation than they had going in. You saw a real push (or anxiousness depending on how you look at it) by fans to see something done, put in their 2 cents about why this and that failed, and all but demand things they knew for a fact could turn things around.
So basically you had a lot of ppl, with a lot of good ideas to get things on track. And while not everyone saw their ideas come to fruition, it was good to see/know/feel ppl were actually doing something to help change things. It was a real positive feel, and putting things in perspective, I was all for this win considering everything that happened beforehand and was happening in that time frame.
Here were my ideas to help save the industry:
How To Save The Anime Industry
1) Have the anime companies (or at least the major ones) band together to represent the anime market in America and negotiate more reasonable prices for show licenses.
2) Have an authorized panel of experts review anime, as opposed to just leaving it on the internet for people to view a la Youtube. Having free previews via digital media is smart (that’s how word-of-mouth spreads), but there’s also an untapped market for professional reviews by a group of experts, because not everyone has the time to sit and watch the shiny episode. Voice actors also score big as hosts for these types of projects. I take nothing away from the podcasts whom dedicate themselves to this practice now, but if we’re talking an overall financial relief, an anime celeb will get more attention than your average podcaster.
3) Freeze new releases for a year (or at least some short amount of time), for 2 reasons
>Will give companies a chance to showcase many titles that have been sorta lost in the air and never gotten a chance to premiere, be promoted, etc. There are plenty of titles from the last few years that can be cashed in on still and haven’t gotten the publicity they deserve. Trying to blast out super-new stuff before the anime that’s out even has a chance to simmer, only serves to saturate the market more.
>It will give creators a chance to work on really, really good anime, and not just more mediocre stuff that will eventually inundate the industry.
4) Release box sets first, simultaneously at the fist DVD’s launch, and/or at least more than 4 episodes at release.
5) Fans should contact anime companies w/complaints and suggestions. I’ve heard fans shoot this idea down, but I’ve also never seen it tried (on a large scale), and not contacting the companies has only served to slow down the process of any advancement in the industry. You see companies reaching out at cons, there’s no reason personal communique should not be as effective. Fans should stop waiting solely for the companies to do something that will turn the industry around and get involved as well to help the process along. The industry affects the fans and those who work in it just the same, so fans should take the initiative to get involved. Like it or not, we’re all in this together.
6) Have a channel devoted to anime. It’s no secret why everything that’s hit Cartoon Network has gone gold, have a channel that dedicates itself to anime, and just anime. But more than just that, promote in magazines, on other tv stations, wherever possible. Air the shows in order, do not rerun the series more than twice, don’t air more than one series in repeat, and have content that is both edited for younger viewers and uncut for mature viewers. Anime may be set in a cartoon premise, but it is not aimed solely at kids. And fans regardless of their age love continuity and not being bored by reruns.
7) Have a podcast that announces big announcements and releases made at anime conventions. Fans can’t always make it to cons, but the announcements made there are usually no less amazing. These podcast should be hosted by/should feature all the companies who make announcements at the con.
Twitter. It’s like the new Nike-just do it.
9) Release more dual-audio discs.
10) Give out more demo disc, or better yet, wireless digital downloads demos at cons. Discs probably costs a decent amount to produce, but a digital download can’t be that hard? Even if the download isn’t at the con per se, it could be off of the company’s website the weekend of the con. Either way, there needs to be more of this.
11) Stop giving out posters at cons (or at least, so many). A poster is not going to convince too many people to pick up that DVD, and after a while, they do tend to clutter. See number 10.
12) There should be a cap of how many cons are allowed per state (or something to this effect). Now I know this idea sounds crazy, but let’s test my reasoning. Parties on both sides (both fans and anime companies) claim to be broke, or losing money. Meanwhile tons of cons have popped up across the US and fans go to more and more cons, and spend more and more money. If there was a cap, or if some of these mass smaller cons would consolidate into new cons altogether, fans (presumably) would spend less money on cons, spend more on anime, and the anime companies would stop crying about sales.
13) Fans and companies, in my honest opinion, need to stop crying “end of the world” every time the anime industry is not where we would like to see it. Is the anime industry in trouble? I don’t think so, or at least not as much as some. Because when you raise an accusation like that, it tends to imply that the industry as a whole is down to its last legs, and it will take an act of God to save it. DVD sales are down, but the fanbase rises, so clearly there’s a driving force to keep this thing going. Is the industry in flux? I don’t like that term either, but I suppose it’s better suited. The industry’s had better days, it’s certainly taken a couple of hits, but here we are still. The anime industry is like any other, and if you still haven’t noticed, we’re all kinda suffering. You want to help the anime industry, support it, stay informed & don’t panic everytime the question, “is the anime industry in trouble?”, comes up. And by panic, I mean point fingers at the first reason sales may or may not be down.
14) Companies need to have employees cosplay as characters from the shows they are trying to promote. Cosplay is the biggest statement you can make in the anime community, and the most effective pievce of word-ofmouth. If companies had a cosplay initiative, it would certainly help sales. Companies can afford to show up and cons, do panels, and give out posters, then surely they can afford to hire a few good cosplayers. Hell, I’ll make the costumes and send them to them myself.
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