Category Archives: Modern Visual Culture

August 10, 2011

DVD/BD Sales Figures Fun

By omo

There’s not much more you need to know beyond this 2ch write-up on how to interpret Japanese anime DVD/BD sales. I say this mainly because, well, there’s not much more you need to know, unless you have a knack for spreadsheets. Knowing beyond a casual, internet-warrior level of what those numbers means is like a 8yo genius trying to teach his working-class parents how to calculate the angular momentum of a rigid body in 3 dimensions. It’s unnecessary and is an exercise in futility. But it’s really amusing to see how a lot of people just don’t quite get it, when they saw this Crunchyroll post from  yesterday. I could farm twitter for even more lulz, but that’s not going to be worth the effort. I guess successful troll is successful. But in some ways it is also insightful, so I’m going to try to say a couple things.

The obvious thing  here is to realize that DVD/BD sales figures are kind of meaningless in terms of revenue. This is something you can explain away in different ways, but basically it is the best part of the troll. I mean, DVD/BD sales figures are obviously extremely meaningful in terms of calculating revenue and profit. That is not just common sense, but the cold hard facts. So what’s wrong with this picture? Clearly there are other factors that also impact revenue/profit/etc; or better put, what qualifies as success.

TL;DR, that “infographic” compares apples with oranges.

[Actually I can launch into this other tangent about how most infographics out there are evil and you probably shouldn’t pay them a lick of mind, according to my small amount of actual education on interpreting data in graphical form (elitism: they teach college level courses on this stuff for hard science majors, except people who do infographic on the intarwebs are typically too academically challenged to take those courses).]

I mean, how many people who commented on that infographic knows about how late night anime are financed? How it compares to Bleach? Or how a mix media franchise works? I don’t even know all about all of those topics, and while I am nobody, I am less of one than probably most people who bothered to comment on it. Because if you are somebody you wouldn’t even comment on it!

Let’s identify the fruits in that list. It’s not all apples, nor is it all oranges, so what are they?

  • Stuff that were never planning to make money via home video releases, eg., Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, etc. People need to remember before the DVD revolution and how everyone nowadays know youtube exists, people generally don’t buy TV shows on home video. Movies? Sure, because it cost a ton of money to take the family to the theater, and you can buy the tape (or DVD/BD today) for a fraction of price (in NYC it’s approaching 1 BD to 1 ticket…which is just sad and pathetic). Why would you buy Bleach? Because you have dirty clothes, that’s why. I mean you would probably even buy a Doreamon movie or your child’s favorite episodes of One Piece just so you can pacify the poor little dude/dudette when you’re busy cooking lunch or something. It’s suspiciously the metaphoric fruit that is missing in this chart; probably because Japanese edutainment programs are horrid and nobody but Japanese kids (and their caretakers) watch them.
  • Stuff that were paid up front, eg. WOWOW anime, etc. This is something most people wouldn’t know, because these shows are relatively rare. A lot of the time what these channels will do recently is air OAVs, but it’s like if enough people watch Game of Thrones, HBO has already achieved its goals. In other words, some anime are created as premium programming, available only to those who have paid subscriptions to those channels. Video sales to them are icing on the cake. It’s like pre-Chappelle’s Show.
  • Stuff that were paid up front #2, eg. movies, etc. I split this one out because it’s obvious to you. I mean if Transformer 3 does a bijillionquadrubple bucks in the box office, who gives a damn about video sales (besides that it will also sell bijillionquadrubple copies)? It can sell less than Kaiba and still be like, “yo I make more money than all your mamas.” But as I alluded earlier, this never is the case with movies. In fact, movies tend to sell the best (see: bijillionquadrubple copies of Transformer 3). Part of it has to do with the fact that unless you are a Kara no Kyoukai, you end after one film. Or at least, you give this unspoken assumption about this is it and sequels? What sequels? It lowers the barrier of entry of paying for a series versus just an one-shot. [But in reality, when you buy a very popular film, the odds that it will have a sequel is pretty close to 100%. So if you can’t stand owning just the first volume and not the second (even if the second, third, fourth, etc is horrible), you really don’t have any business buying popular movies in this day and age. Or rather, that is their business, eh?]
  • Stuff that were used to recoup from investment costs, eg., most late night anime, etc. To be specific, this is why moe anime is made. Because they can consistently bring in a steady, if anemic, stream of sales. At certain pricing, it is steady revenue. This is why Bakemonogatari (and its kins) sales numbers are such a big deal, because they are by-the-book late-night anime business. Their sales figures on home video is a large narrative for home video publishers, since it’s usually their slice of pie at stake here. So that kind of shows get made.
  • Stuff that were paid for during the TV run, eg., the rest. Evangelion has pushed a lot of units on home video. But it would have been considered a success on the TV viewership numbers alone, because it brought in eyeballs, and sold real ads. However the fact that it was so successful on video too gave it a second wind, so to speak. That’s the Chapelle’s Show’s model. I keep on referring to Chapelle’s Show because for the longest time, old TV shows just didn’t sell on home video (see Bleach, Naruto, etc) but somehow, Chapelle’s show has become the sign post of home video sales floating enough money to justify the continuation of the show because of its ludicrous sales figures (compared to prime-time television). Is this a sign that our society is becoming more  maniacal about our favorites? Maybe someone else can tell you about that, but these kind of anime are in a league of their own. I mean, I speak of home video sales, but the key here is that this type of show don’t solely rely on it; it’s kind of just a sign of how crazy some otaku are about kiddy TV shows. They are the AC Gundams and Pokemons of our times, where their sales figures on home video only told a part of the story. As an aside, this group also fields the majority of original anime titles out there. Because as long as the models are cool and the video games are hot properties, the anime has already served its purpose.

To continue, a good 25% of the anime on that list is original. I think that kind of reflects the top Oricon charts, by overshooting it. The bottom tier is probably full of original titles. Does Denno Coil count? I’m not sure. Even this apples-to-oranges analysis doesn’t tell the story behind the difficulty of original anime breaking through things at a glance. At least it tells you how special Madoka is. (And to note, Nanoha StrikerS isn’t too far behind it I think).

In the same vein, it makes you wonder why we continue to include shows like One Piece, Bleach and Naruto in the overarching anime discourse in America. I mean, sure, they are anime, but they’re as anime as Kaiba. And nobody talks about Kaiba! Joking aside, it’s as relevant as its low sales figure. Maybe it is kind of like how anime fans may yell buttscratcha memes at cons, since Family Guy is not anime either. At least that one makes more sense than Marco Polo. Maybe even more so than Bronies. In my mind, Naruto is almost a meme. A lot of people read the manga or watch the anime, but it’s kind of the noise in the background and it isn’t really relevant to anything beyond Viz and fans of the franchise.

That’s going to lead into my last observation here. I’m kind of surprised; speaking of cosplay icons at American cons, where’s Trigun? Its sales figure was pretty abysmal too! If America was different than Japan, I can’t think of a better example than that. So why is Trigun missing from the infographic? Maybe that’s too apples-and-oranges in that graphic? It breaks the trend/trap set up by the infographic? I don’t know. But you know, people in Japan actually bought Cowboy Bebop, too. So you’ve got to wonder.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Franchises, Modern Visual Culture

August 5, 2011

Loving Touch of Hardcore

By omo

This post is a nostalgia trip about 90s trance music.

It’s kind of sad, but when I read this the other day I was like, dayum, I know what that feels like exactly bro.

Truth is, the feeling is familiar because I’ve Sound is notable for not just Re-Subliminity; I first fell victim to their brand of trance way back when Verge was all the rage. What year was it? 2000? In Tribal Link-R, a similar replication of that familiar feeling happened via Velocity of Sound. I first listened to that all-too-familiar track on that same morning as the tweet. I guess I like right first then left? Looking back, it was included on Out Flow, which was a few years after that track was first released.

Actually, I probably started to listen to I’ve sound produced crap even before Verge. I mean before there was a Type-Moon, Key’s crap was all over the place. That’s when Megatokyo actually had real relevance with the scene. (I mean imagine some OEL thing back in ’05 that was about magic circles, reality marble countertops with genre blenders that fucked not just fruit, but actual people? It would be more like, say, Scott Pilgrim, I suppose.) That was when I actually thought Key’s character designs were okay! (Well, they still are. Just like how Takeuchi’s are. Heh.) And there was the other eroge out there, some more memorable than others, which fronted I’ve Girls on their covers, in a way.

With this little piece of acknowledgment I think it really doesn’t surprise anyone that KOTOKO would now parted what used to be, so they say, “HYPE.” When KOTOKO launched her solo stuff with Geneon back in 2004 it was something of a “well about time” kind of thing. Seeing her actually perform Suppuration -core- and Re-sublimity at AX was like WOAH HOT DAMN. But it wasn’t even my first exposure, having already seen it on DVD a few times; I knew the trick she did on stage, but it was still awesome seeing it done right in my face (gogo front row seats). Luck would have it that I got to see it again in Toronto the next year (just sans the live band). But man, that is the defining moment for me for KOTOKO.

But not much has happened apart from it. She graces your usual OP/ED and what not, but I never really followed the scenes behind it. Fuctory Record’s half-assed attempts at oversea marketing didn’t go very far either. MELL and others who somewhat followed the same track didn’t get any further than KOTOKO. Eiko-neesan went on break to deal with her illness. Lia is doing her indie stuff. I guess people still care about Kawada, but anyone cared about Utatsuki? Less than LSP I guess. It’s not an easy time over at the I’ve brand. It’s gotten to the point that I sort of fell off the bandwagon at some point after Out Flow. The Short Circuit releases were neat, but it’s not really trance! I guess that didn’t matter for most, but it does somewhat for me. Their 2005 concert marks a certain turning point I think.

Stuff picked up a little more when I got a sniff of the Front Line Covers. That kept me going until now. Maybe it’s finally time to go back to Extract. Or in KOTOKO’s case, do something even more wonderful.

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

July 25, 2011

Summer 2011 Checklist

By omo

I better do this before Otakon washes me out. This being just a run-through on the interesting titles this season.

As usual, just because I couldn’t fit a show in here doesn’t mean it does not deserve it. I think it’s self-destructively amazing that I can still watch so much anime given my usual hours. And I’m writing about it. Probably just so I can then forget it and do something else. Anyways…

Are you ready? I’m ready. At least my body is ready, so they say.

Mawaru Penguindrum wins the visual award. I’m blogging it elsewhere, but hopefully it’ll make me want to write more about it here too.

Mood-wise, I am pretty partial to Kamisama no Memochu and Kamisama Dolls. The latter just makes me want to sing UNINSTALL for some reason. The former has that DRRR chic with match eccentric NEET-types. But I don’t know; both shows are wildcards in execution and plot departments.

A supposedly safer bet is Blood-C. In a lot of ways Blood+ was really flawed. Like a PS3 is flawed. Blood-C has potential to reboot the brand, while retaining what is attractive and boot what isn’t from its predecessors. But each reimagination sucks the life out of the original concept a little more than before. It’s also my Nico experiment target #1–something relatively high profile, good viewer numbers, and hopefully some slick comments will feature-add over the dumb comments.

Twin Angel is also a Nico experiment, except for the reverse of course. I now truly understand what people mean when they said they’ve watched really crappy anime on Nico that they would not have otherwise.

I thought the same for  R-15. The truth is, it’s the creative sort of crap anime that is sufficiently enticing that I would probably continue to watch it even without the Nico snipping. It may be a typical harem kind of show, but it’s sufficiently deviant from the norm to be amusing and thought-provoking (at least a little).

And that is way more praise than I can give for shows like Black Rabbit. I feel all Kuroneko about this anime, in the sense that it’s some pathetic chuunibyou attempt to cash in on some thing by using the most unoriginal source material. That is probably too harsh, but at least in Yumekui Merry there’s some kind of moe factor along with a sharp directional sense. We don’t get either in this. And why am I slamming Yumekui Merry? Obviously Index is the real true public enemy #1.

Dantalian at least looks passably okay. Nico comments do help it go a little farther, like Blood-C. But I’m not excited.

Nekogami Yaoyorozu is… Touhou animu. Too bad it’s not even funny.

The real dark horse this season is Ikoku Meiro no Croisée. I mean, it’ll be all culturally relevant and iyashikei with moe power over 9000. “A Jasc show” by all means. It’s got that huge advantage only because there is nobody pissing on it as everyone is too busy pissing on Usagi Drop. Grrrr.

Total aside, isn’t it ironic how a bit over a year ago Funimation has noitaminA on that partnership lockdown? Look at things now! Zero shows!

I think Number 6 will get its audience; the drama (in the noitaminA format) should be compelling as long as there’s some substance. It can’t be worse than Jyuohsei. And I watched Jyuohsei. Oh poor me.

The real guilty pleasure this season is obviously Ro-Kyu-Bu. And I’m doing it for the seiyuu marketing. Yeah. That’s it. But more seriously, if it can stay true for its three-episode-pilot about team building and your garden variety sports drama tropes, I can’t see how it’ll turn out badly. Unless you count the FBI breaking things up as a bad end.

Oh, speaking of those 3-ep-pilots, I thought R-15 ep2 was in every way superior than ep1. It’s like watching two different shows, the differences. Ro-Kyu-Bu also had a similar difference, but that’s more because the plot stuff didn’t kick in full gear until episode 2. What’s up with that?

Then again some shows are still playing true to formula. I’m not sure what I’m suppose to do with Sacred Seven. I probably will pass on it until I catch up on Blue Exorcist. Or something equally unlikely. It’s not bad, just not good enough.

But sometimes not good enough is fine, if you’re the only thing that airs on CR (so I can watch it on the road via 3G streaming) on Monday (man I miss Kaminomi). YuruYuri is just that.

Kind of wish that is true for Mayoi Chiki too. As is tho, it might not matter–if I can’t get to episode 2 by the time episode 4 airs, the odds are low that I will ever watch it.

Is this it? Probably not. I have a couple more shows that I want to try (ie., Manyuu!). I think I’m watching still a lot of shows left over from last season, which cuts into the new shows I can pick up. And then there’s stuff coming back like Bakatest. Oh well.

So the net total is pretty good; we’re talking about just two shows that I find even at all notable that isn’t getting a simulcast. Even Morita-san has it. Now we can argue about 1 hr or 24 hr or 72 hr or 144 hr or whatever, or if we can even call it simulcast (I don’t think we should), but in my book any of those is better than never.

10 comments | posted in Blood, Idolmaster, Mawaru Penguindrum, Modern Visual Culture, Usagi Drop

July 22, 2011

Stray Thoughts on Usagi Drop

By omo

On Daikichi’s recent sacrifices, you can read a survey here from E Minor, which summarizes the issues that appears in Usagi Drop 3. However I was under the assumption that most of us have already internalized it on the basis of what child rearing means in general. I’ll cover a few things that E Minor didn’t.

1. On time spent on Rin–in general, at least in America, when your kid is 6, you are actually well positioned to re-enter the workforce full time, if you took time off to take care of his or her formative years. It’s easier to find child care for kids in that age range than, say, 0-2, with the onset of elementary school. The kids themselves are easier to take care of (and thus freeing up the caretaker to do more things). In Daikichi’s case, this was not possible simply because he has a different take on Rin’s psychological burdens than an average foster parent. That perspective gap is what drives Usagi Drop’s drama later on, as I can see it from manga readers’ reactions. At the same time, Rin probably needs more time with some stable parent figure to cope with the unusual events that has so far transpired in her short life.

2. But even if we don’t care about any of that, if Daikichi works 12-16 hours a day (and by that I mean it in the usual Japanese salaryman sense), there is just no way he can take care of a child simply on the basis of government-provided childcare. There’s also the “Daikichi seems to be entirely clueless about administrative burdens of parenting” angle. If he was a savvy parent, he probably could try to juggle a more-than-fulltime career with parenting especially given his social network (ie., he has one). This is a conceit on the part of Bunny Drop, I think.

3. At the same time it is exactly in areas like this that Japan feels so antiquated, compared to the west. It isn’t that westerners don’t sacrifice for their kids; arguably the time spent is actually more in the latter case. The impact of that on one’s career is just somehow less as a matter of corporate culture. It isn’t that women (and some men) are indirectly disadvantaged due to adding new members into their respective families in the west, but that gap is socially accepted. I should rather say, taking time off to care for a newborn (again, it’s not the direct counterpart to Daikichi’s unique situation, but it seems to maps the best) is a luxury that companies use to entice prospective employees. At least with a straight face, anyway; culturally it is considered as a luxury as well. And the fact that it’s somewhat government-mandated makes it easier for companies to just man up and do it that way.

4. While we can phrase it as a “parent’s sacrifice,” it means different thing to different people. I think if you are choosing between two things you love dearly, after failing to have that cake and eat it too, the fact that you can be regret-free after having one and not the other is not a real problem. To me, the term has a large component of respect that some how happens that the person has aligned his or her choice with the well-being of his or her family via spending time there. It is a selfish decision as well as a selfless one. So it’s not a dimension that I particularly want to dwell on. But if human beings make large career choices such as these based on reason, that’s where social policy can affect real change in the direction of its population. That is, if social policy can be changed in a way that shifts the nature of the Japanese corporate culture, anyway.

5. From this point we can speculate the other tangential issues that may come into play with a single-foster-parent situation. I always thought anime is kind of a weird medium to try to affect social change. Or manga, in this case. It is a good incubator of such thoughts, perhaps, and hopefully Japan will wise up and allow its people to live in the 21st century.

Lastly, there’s one thought that bothered me this entire time with Usagi Drop–people who are whining about the manga in the anime discussion. I normally don’t really mind, but some people really crossed the line when it comes to this title: Basically everyone who’s read the manga extensively and pisses on the title due to their colored impressions as triggered by the anime. I mean, sure, some people put “spoiler warning” on their posts and…if it wasn’t a FIRST IMPRESSION piece that would be okay! And what’s more this typically happens with people who … well, have a certain disposition which tend to make them interesting “first impression” folks that I read. Except in this case their true natures rear their ugly heads and I just want to forget it has ever happened. In my book that’s worst than the worst spoiler that you could have given. It’s simply irresponsible.

Actually that kind of extends to a general complain about people who whine about the medium-specific aspects of the adopted work because they’re judging it from some presupposed perspective as a result of an prior experience of the work in a different medium. Or, as before, whine about some non-specific aspect of the adopted work because they’re judging from a post-hoc position in the knowledge transfer process of storytelling from a different rendition in a different medium, before the transfer process has even started in earnest. They, for what it’s worth, can all die in a fire.

With that said, I think I might actually like the manga and its post-time-jump conclusion! I guess after the anime is over I will give it shot. Six volumes and all.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture, Usagi Drop

July 14, 2011

The Melancholy of Azusa Miura

By omo

You’re such a meanie, Author:

In particular, I was reminded that Azusa had a backstory. Not a large or dramatic one, but nonetheless, she graduated from a junior college and found herself unneeded by the society. The only difference with millions of young women with liberal arts degrees that are our contemporaries on both sides of Pacific, she ended in employ of Namco Pro instead of Starbucks. Also, instead of developing a depression, becoming religious, or hooking up on drugs, she is dreaming about the destined person — but is not doing much about finding him.

There is no special message in any of it, I’m afraid, and actually Azusa was developed for original games, before the higher education bubble became this apparent in America. But if creators play their cards right, she may become more popular than ever. Many people might relate, even in Japan.

The immediate reaction is, well, such a person probably doesn’t exist in that particular format. The 30-sai version of Azusa is a much more likely candidate (she works in a library? Slightly a step up from Starbucks, but obviously a destination of liberal arts degree holders). But the truth remains; people unmatched remain unmatched unless something happens.

But I think the better angle is that Azusa isn’t someone we can identify ourselves with; she’s more like the leftover meal from this generation of herbivore males. Here is the alternative take. We can say, via simple supply versus demand, that the consequences of single folks working longer hours and deeper into their lives, with more people getting married later in life, is that there will be people who may want to get married at an earlier age, but couldn’t because the supply is lower. It is a weakly negatively reinforcing cycle. Weak in that people tend to want to get married, and just because it is more difficult it doesn’t usually stop them from continued pursuit. For those single folks seeking out there, the lesson is:  Don’t give up; Carpe diem and all.

I like this angle better because ultimately IM@S is about, well, admiring young ladies while they entertain us. In a sense that is not too unlike what you would do with your spouse. Or so I hope. At least at some point in your relationship (when applicable)? I don’t think IM@S’s narrative cares about self-identification as much as drawing affection (and in the real idol industry, in the mind space) from the audience. Granted in these kind of things, usually there’s some kind of back story in which identification helps to disarm the audience and buy into whatever story that is being sold. But the core of an idol identity is one that is still just a step different than just you or me. Even the girl-next-door types is not exactly the girl-next-door in the urban, isolated sense; more like the childhood friend that you really didn’t know is a knockout until she debuted in some gravure magazine.

For the record, I also agree with ani-nouto about the general idea behind the character; but I can also imagine Azusa projecting a pretty fierce AK-Field IRL.

Leave a comment | posted in 30-sai no Hoken Taiiku, Idolmaster, Modern Visual Culture