The first shipment was a pre-order, made during the previous RightStuf Bandai sale, for the Haruhi Limited Edition boxsets 2-4 and joins the first Haruhi LE boxset in my anime DVD collection now. The second batch was a panicked order, a few weeks later as GENEON USA announced that they were closing down, for the first season of Black Lagoon, the Kannazuki no Miko and Kamichu! boxsets (with ADV’s 801 TTS Airbats and Bandai’s Onegai Twins also in this shipment).

RightStuf had offered terrific deals via studio sales for both Bandai Entertainment and GENEON USA products. In the case of the former, there were biannual (March and August) sales of up to 40% off for DVDs. For the latter, RightStuf was offering 10 GENEON releases for USD 50 or 25 for USD 100 in June and then a 35% discount for DVDs in August.

Both offered excellent value for money. Yet I only took Bandai’s bait. The GENEON 10 for 25 offer just seemed too cumbersome, and I was mildly put off by the 5% differential with Bandai later. Somehow I imagined that they would, one day, match Bandai’s offer. And besides I was also waiting for Black Lagoon and Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage to be released as a thinpak boxset before consolidating a humungous order under a sale that never came. In the end, I ended up paying full price for the GENEON order, the blow softened by the grace of RightStuf’s GotAnime? membership discount. While Bandai got a lower profit margin from my purchase, they had succeeded in repeatedly overcoming my not inconsiderable powers of procrastination rather too easily for my wallet’s liking.

Of course, Bandai had an advantage because of how much I was caught up in the Haruhi craze. But, with a speedy release, they did not just manage to ride the craze in just a nick of time but also actively fanned it further. I absolutely loved the antics of the ASOS Brigade and the moment Patricia Lee, channelling the Divinity of Haruhi Herself, said: ‘I’m cool with fans who download the series but please buy the DVD when it comes out.’ Cute girl, with divine power, saying please oh so nicely oh melting cannot resist I obey my master! GENEON’s marketing did not quite manage to capture my attention in the same way. But at least they did send out a bunch of threatening but legally dubious letters tarring its most likely customers with U R T3H CRIMINALZ.

It’s strongly contested and still uncertain if downloaders are indeed an anime distributor’s most likely customers but, as others have pointed out, who spends extra cash to buy Limited Edition goods of series that they’ve never seen before? The LE is a necessary marketing tool for Japanese distributors since most Japanese anime makes its debut on TV or cable and can be easily recorded by its viewers. Fansubbers and BitTorrent reproduce this effect in markets outside Japan by effectively making anime ‘free to air’. The marketing question then becomes how to induce fans who have the AVIs (or increasingly MKVs) to buy The Real Thing.

LE stuff, with their special packaging and assorted undownloadable goodies like mini-pencilboards, iron-ons, physical chara song CDs, pillow cases etc., helps to reduce the substitution effect of fansubs by increasing the otaku utility of the DVD (and its assorted goodies) relative to the fansub. This is not to claim that LEs are a marketing silver bullet. In my case, I’ll probably sit out the Lucky Star LEs and wait for the thinpak boxset. Unless they are giving out the chara Nendriods with the animal ears. orz

The previous two paragraphs were predicated on the assumption that fansubs and DVDs are competing with each for market share. Generally this assumption leads to another one: that the zero marginal cost of fansubs represent a threat to the DVD market share and an existential threat to the anime DVD industry. Yet downloaders still buy DVDs. Anime distributors often dismiss this as an abnormality or aberration, arguing that their sales would be higher if they weren’t being cannibalized by fansubs. This is certainly logical, based on the assumptions above, and can be supported by empirical facts – I haven’t bought everything that I downloaded and there are fans who have never bought a single DVD at all. In the world of music, it’s been reported that only 38% of those who download Radiohead’s latest album were prepared to pay for it. But turning this argument on its head, it could be said that 38% of downloaders paid for it despite them being under absolutely no legal obligation to do so.

Then there is the argument that downloading can have (but not always so) market creating effects, i.e. people becoming customers because they downloaded a product, as reported by this piece of research by the Canadian Intellectual Property Policy Directorate.

Leaving aside the moral economy of fandom (which I believe can be a powerful marketing tool if correctly tapped into), my top reasons for buying DVDs include (1) rewatching in higher quality, (2) backup against disastrous HDD failure, (3) improving my fair use defence for retaining fansubs on HDD. Certainly I can’t think of an anime DVD that I’ve bought where I haven’t seen the fansub first. It’s quite likely that if the noose grows too tight and I give up on downloading fansubs, my purchases of anime DVDs will stop too.

But one little animeblogger isn’t really much evidence of the market creation effects of fansubs (N=1 is waaay below any N-size confidence level). However if we can market ourselves to the anime distributors as well as Bandai has marketed to me, perhaps the relationship can become somewhat less confrontational and the discourse less shrill. I feel (and hope that) it will be helpful for fandom’s image if animebloggers like ourselves post more about our purchases, particularly of DVDs. I realize that some animebloggers see this as the swaggering of ‘epenis’, bragging, boasting etc. Certainly sometimes it is true, but posting about purchases is not intrinsically an obnoxious act – after all, tjhan claims that most animebloggers are docile grazers, generally a nice, genial lot.

Anime distributors may not like us much, but they will certainly like our spending dollars and evidence of our dollars being spent on their goodies. Lo and behold, the otaku yen has even induced the townsfolk of Washinomiya to, at least, hide their misgivings and roll out the welcome mat to the A(kihabara)-Boys.

One day, by the AWESOME power of the Church of Moyism, we will not have live in fear of yet another witch hunt. In the meantime, RightStuf is having a 30% sale until 2 Dec!

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

No surprises that the Haruhi ED, Hare hare yukai, has stormed to the top of the Amazon.co.jp charts (ANN). I’ve already expressed my heresy about the full-length version – too bloated. For the same reason, I was also quite disappointed with the full length version of Jyukai’s Fate/Stay Night ED. In contrast, I’ve been enjoying the Girl’s High ED, incl., very much. For the immediate feature, I am looking forward to the release of the Black Lagoon OP, red fraction, and the Higurashi OP and hope that full length versions will not disappoint.

This has also spurred a couple of random thoughts about how factors other than the singer’s voice and accompaniment style affect whether or I enjoy, or not, anime OP and ED singles – particularly the visuals of the OP or ED sequence in the anime.

I’m of the view that how a seiyuu looks in real life shouldn’t affect my appreciation of her or his voice work. And my mental image of the voice remains the character rather than the actor. However, for OPs and EDs, the visual sequence is quite important as I see them as a package, working together to transit the viewer in or out of the episode. The OP song for Girl’s High was energetic enough but was spoilt by the extremely boring visual sequence. I was already inclined to like the ED because of its drumwork and Meg Rock’s husky vocals but the little dances, slice of life scenes and the kicking of the nozoki-cam (strikingly similar to what Mangaminx enjoyed) really sealed it for me.

Higurashi’s OP succeeds in all these respects. The song itself is energetic yet chilling and disconcerting. Together with the creepy and mysterious visuals, they reinforced each other and reminds the viewer of the horror that underlies the peaceful village scenes and harem fun that follow in the episde proper.

A factor that doesn’t affect my enjoyment is Engrish. Despite not being able to understand much of MELL’s red fraction. Or Mako‘s insert song (Karerin’s concert song) in School Rumble Nigakki. I still like both. And a final thought: Is it just me or are singers (e.g. Mako, hitomi as Primula in SHUFFLE!) and actresses also getting into the seiyuu business?

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

Happy new year! Finale, review and conclusion of this retro-blogathon! *Phew!* Chikane stops a grieving Himeko from killing herself. The truth is revealed as ancient memories are unsealed. The girls reveal their feelings to each other but are soon separated with Chikane’s death, the defeat of the Orochi and the revival of the world – minus Chikane who has been sacrificed to that end and whose past existence has been completely erased though Himeko feels that absence. After the end credits, an older Himeko meets a Chikane-like figure (whose face is not shown) who is wearing the other half of the kaiawase pendant. Himeko rushes to embrace her and the series end with Himeko and Chikane saying “We fall in love again” in unison.

So Chikane has planned this all along. She realized that even if the Orochi was defeated and the world saved, it would mean sacrificing the shrine maiden of the sun so she takes Himeko’s place (signified by wearing the red robes) and ties herself to the defeat of the Orochi to her self-sacrifice.

Chikane thinks that she’s tied everything up nicely – saving Himeko and then allowing her to live her happily ever life with Souma but she never considered that it was important for Himeko to know if Chikane really did love her and never expected in her wildest dreams that Himeko would really choose her over Souma. As such, her plans and her despair were based on some rather flawed assumptions and I argued to Stripey that this whole mess was really due to Chikane’s failure to communicate. However his counter-argument, which I accept, is that this whole process was needed for Himeko to understand Chikane and prepare the ground for accepting and returning those feelings.

It was also quite astounding to see the role reversal in the end with Chikane sobbing in Himeko’s arms instead of the other way round which we had grown accustomed to. The “Happy birthday, Chikane-chan” from Himeko marked how Chikane finally realized that joy of joys that Himeko really did love her and opened her emotional floodgates.

Why oh why? This big robot part was just so unnecessary. Well, at least Souma is, once again, shown to be supportive of whatever floats Himeko’s boat.

Two things about these scenes just made me think of Kaorin in Azumanga. First, the field of yellow flowers (菜の花?) recalls Kaorin’s happiness when she gets Sakaki as a dance partner after the first sports festival and then as a three-legged race partner in the second sports festival. Second, when taking a photograph with Sakaki, Kaorin clings to Sakaki’s arm and leans her head against her.

Back in the now restored but Chikane-less world, Himeko refuses Souma leading to much teasing by Mako. Himeko’s “Don’t kiss me!” (キスはだめだよ!) to Mako was actually quite adorable.

The happily ever ending was a sort of cop-out reset but I guess it’s better than the manga ending (where they’re reborn as twincest).

Kannazuki no Miko has gotten quite a varied response from anime fandom – I’d say that KarmaBurn has got the most balanced review. It seems that some animebloggers who picked it up from the start dropped it before the middle and only returned to writing about it towards the end (if they hadn’t dropped watching it altogether). Big minuses included the initially highly cheesy setting and annoying characters (particularly Himeko and Souma), the atrocious mecha and not least a big point of controversy – the sexual violence. Even those who don’t really like the show and feel that it should not represent the Be all, End all and certainly not the pinnacle of yuri anime have acknowledged that KannaMiko has played an important role in opening up the eyes of fanboys to the possibilities of anime that has yuri as THE main theme rather than a tiny side show (e.g. Maya Ibuki in Evangelion) or one-dimensional recurring joke (e.g. Kaorin in Azumanga).

What rescued the show for me was the dramatic hook “How are Himeko and Chikane going to pair up?” and the surprising twists (Chikane going Orochi and Himeko killing Chikane). For all my complaining about the plot holes and confusions, I do feel that credit is due to the scriptwriters for the surprises. Even more surprising, the series bore rewatching quite well and with hindsight, it became clear that the story was quite tightly structured. The first arc (roughly three episodes each) introducing the main characters and plot elements, the second arc with Chikane angst, the third arc with Chikane putting her plan into action and the final arc leading to resolution. Also all the characters became a lot more sympathetic in the end – I’d posit that it’s really only possible to like this series and stick with from start to finish only if you like Chikane Himemiya and sympathise with her dilemma.

I wouldn’t recommend this series for everyone and I certainly wouldn’t say that KannaMiko is a good representation of yuri anime as a whole – instead it is a fairly prominent marker for one end of the range of the genre, probably with MariMite on the other end of the scale.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.