Toon Zone Talkback - Bandai Announces New February Titles Including "Kurokami"

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lacoste3000

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Okay, this is just sad.

Kurokami, finally got a release date for both DVD and Blu-Ray. But if you pay close attention, you'll notice a few things(Source: mania/AnimeonDVD forums):

Kurokami: The Animation, Vol.1 (DVD) - 150 minutes - $29.98 - 2/9/10Kurokami: The Animation, Vol.1 (Blu-ray) - 100 minutes - $24.98 - 2/9/10 [ENGLISH LANGUAGE DIALOGUE ONLY]Not only does the BD release have less episodes, as far as we know at the moment there is no Japanese language track. Not only that but the Japanese version of the Blu-ray has Japanese, English AND Korean language tracks. (source: Animenewsnetwork.com)

The only reason that I could think of for this silliness is that Sunrise/Bandai is so hard up on cash that they are back to being afraid of reverse importation for such a high profile release in HD. Could also explain why we haven't gotten Blu-ray releases of Gundam 00 yet. I personally find this type of behavior backwarRAB and silly. I know they don't want consumers in Japan importing the US release but by doing this they are slighting the fans over here who would like to have the Japanese track.

Before discussions commence, I would like to warn people that this is NOT a dub vs Sub thread and any such posts that resort to that will be deleted. I am of the mind that whichever you prefer, whether English or Japanese that consumers at least have the choice of picking for themselves.

That being said, Discuss
 
I hope Funimation sticks to their guns and keeps releasing current titles on Blu-ray regardless of how much it "threatens" the market it in Japan. That entire industry neeRAB a serious kick in the teeth. If they can't adjust their business models to accommodate the risk of reverse importation even to survive, then they have no right to be doing business in this day and age as far as I'm concerned.
 
I'm really feeling sorry for Bandai-Ent at the moment. They once again delayed Gundam 00 and Code Geass volumes. Its pretty obvious they are in some dire straits and I have a hunch its partially because of Bandai proper in Japan pulling strings.
 
Hope you don't mind, Funk, but I changed this into a talkback for the news post I just whipped up.

That's strange that the Kurokami Blu-ray is being released in this manner. It's like a complete reverse of how we normally see it nowadays (with sub only being released instead of bilingual).

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm worried for Bandai's future with all these delays.
 
Bandai continues the *exact* two week delays for Gundam 00 dvRAB. While it's not a good sign, at this point I'm starting to wonder if it's just that the people in promotion just aren't getting updated memos.
 
The reverse importation excuse neeRAB to stop and stop now. It does nothing to help encourage sales in the west and never will. It's high time Bandai stop pointing fingers and focus on solving their own dilemmas within their borders. It's our money and we have a right to spend it on what we want and how we want.
 
What's weird is that they're supposedly going to try a worldwide release of Gundam Unicorn and then they do something like this. Does no one at that company talk to each other?
 
The problem with Blu-ray is, unlike DVD with North America in one region (Region 1) and Japan in another (Region 2), both North America and Japan are in the same region (Region A). The effectiveness of region coding is laughable anyways.

So Japanese companies are going to use the [evil]reverse importation[/evil] excuse more often to sucker North America out of feature loaded high definition releases.

Charging $70+ for 3 or 4 episodes on Blu-ray might fly in Japan, but not in North America.
If we got a dual language Blu-ray over here for half the price Japan is asking, of course people will buy the cheaper version.

So what's the solution?
1) Lower the price of the Blu-ray in Japan to match the North American price.
or
2) Raise the North American price to match Japan so reverse importation is no longer worth the effort.

Either way, nobody wants to budge from the status quo.
 
The problem is that they know that they can't sell stuff at the Japanese prices. If they took their Japanese releases and sold them at our usual prices, they think there is a high risk of Japanese consumers importing from us instead of buying their domestic releases. So, instead of dropping their domestic prices and probably stimulating sales, they give us a gimped release, sabotaging it so Japanese otaku will have no choice but to buy their country's version.

le sigh...
 
It's important to note that so far this is an exception to the rule, not a trend. AFAIK no FUNimation Blu-Ray release has run into these issues and the prices are reasonable. How this is accomplished in contrast to this situation I have no idea, but there it is.

In addition hopefully this is an isolated case, seeing as how there are also Bandai Blu-Ray releases that do have dual audio tracks (Ghost in the Shell and GiTS Innocence, Sword of the Stranger, the Eureka 7 movie, the Escaflowne movie). Unfortunately, even if we narrow this down to a Sunrise or Bandai Visual problem, there's still inconsistent treatment since the Escaflowne film was a Sunrise production. So basically, they're winging it. That's bad news. The good side to it is that if it's a case-by-case basis, other deals could work out differently.

So, time will tell what this portenRAB for other TV series. Frankly, if this is based out of fears about undermining Japanese releases, I would rather see a long delay that waits for major sales to run their course than a faster but gimped release. Of course, I'm assuming that the suits in Japan would use common sense to see that they have nothing to lose once domestic sales have clearly leveled off, but what I'm suggesting seems to make reasonable business sense.

From a practical standpoint for us consumers, Kurokami's Blu-Ray release is clearly a subpar deal. You know, under the right conditions I will buy sub only, and I could theoretically swallow English only if it weren't for the fact that this release is also shorter, which means that the lower price is really no compensation. Most of us shop smart and don't pay MSRP but at 6 volumes going for $25 each Kurokami Blu-Ray will cost $150 MSRP, which means it's going to top Samurai 7 as the most expensive TV anime series released in HD that I know of (its box is $100 MSRP). Except unlike it and all other series, it also has only one audio track.

If they're gonna do it, they should just wait and release it in a collection. At the least, release a series on Blu-Ray in half season sets. But this? This is just an uphill struggle all of the way.

The only way issues like this are overcome is if the series is good enough and/or gorgeous enough for HD to really shine. Freedom's very first release was very expensive, but at least it was a top-notch OVA. For a series? Gundam 00 is just about the only series I would pay a premium for, and even then I'd have to think about it under conditions like this.
 
So Bandai, my second favorite company, finally announces the release date for the only anime I was planning to buy from them, and it's been knocked down from half-season to single, and they actually discourage people from buying the Blu-ray by giving it even less episodes and making it dub-only? This doesn't affect me, since I don't have a Blu-ray player right now (hopefully I will by February), but it's pretty obvious how stupid this is. The entire dubbed series is streaming for free on Crunchyroll and Bandai's YouTube anyway. You blew it, Bandai. My anime purchases from here on out will most likely be all from FUNimation, since I know they will always release their series in half-season bilingual sets, with little to no delays.

EDIT: Damn, I didn't see the Eureka Seven movie there until just now. You get that $25 from me, Bandai.
 
Anime World Order (as in the podcast) tore into this and made a good point at ANN's forums that we've sadly seen this before, after a fashion...

An ominous point is then made asking what they'll do when it comes to a show that people might actually care about reverse importing (Kurokami is apparently not selling well in Japan). A worrying thought, though I still think it's not necessarily a forgone conclusion. If anything I'm more worried that something like Gundam never gets Blu-Ray here at all, considering how as recently as Anime Expo they were asked about Gundam Wing and Endless Waltz and evidently said "we wish." And we know who told them no.
 
Bandai can either get with the times and change their marketing strategy or risk becoming another casualty in the anime distribution market. Their choice.
 
The thing is, it's not Bandai Entertainment. The U.S. branch isn't the problem. Japan literally wouldn't license the Japanese audio track for the Blu-Ray release. It isn't dub only by choice.

That admittedly doesn't change the wisdom of a set vs. singles, though.
 
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