Questioned By Fandom For The Week Of March 14th, 2015

It all comes down to money and the return on investment. While I do still think there’s something to be made from doing it, it needs to be done on something on at least the same viewership scale as Cartoon Network. I’m not sure if Chiller is even on my plan, to be honest.

At the moment, the focus really seems like it’s all about getting shows dubbed as quickly as possible and building up a solid portal, ala FUNimation, in order to drive content and people there for it. Which is pretty smart because you make yourself the destination. And once that sinks in more, “go to FUNimation.com” for dubs of shows that are streaming in Japan, it’ll build on itself.

It just takes time, money and marketing.

But I do want more out there on the networks. I just don’t think the various networks are receptive to it at all anymore.

The closest we got was with Disney doing it with Ghibli, and even there they didn’t find it worth their while overall.

It’s a longstanding fear among many, but it’s likely not to come to fruition. Warner Bros. has a lot of anime production information through its Japanese branch, but these are basically separate entities.

I just don’t see it happening at this point. If it didn’t happen in a distinct way during the big boom of the early 2000’s, it’s not going to happen at this point.

Haven’t seen it, glad to see it coming out in such a big and fun spread, but I’ll probably wait until a regular edition comes out. NIS used to send us review materials, but a change in staffing last year has them no longer doing that, so I don’t see their releases anymore.

I expect we’ll have a contraction of some sort, but I expect it more on the Japanese side this time around. As has been said recently, and reminded to me by others, is that with the way the seasons are working, there’s getting to be “complaints and concerns” on the Japanese fan side about the number of shows each season and that they’re cutting into each other a lot at a time when the consumer side is still small enough that it’s getting divided and causing losses.

I suspect the US side will handle things well, they’ve largely smartened up since the last boom and crash cycle, and there’s a lot of material to work with. But the Japanese side is making me look at it a little more sideways these days and wondering when we’ll see the contraction there.

The bigger the property, the better off they are in trying to reach the market with it if they’re looking at the trading card games similar to the Space Dandy one.

Sailor Moon is a given. Most big shonen shows as well such as DBZ should be in the mix. Space Dandy is an ideal start to work out the kinks of the project though, so I’m definitely glad to see it being the test run in a sense.

I’m not big on trading card games myself, so there’s not a lot of appeal or draw for me. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a Monster Musume game as well.

I’m leaning more towards Sentai on it, though each company goes after a variety of them. Sentai’s the one that I see them going to easier because they won’t feel forced to do a dub for it and make sub-only releases to get the show into fans hands.

I never played Pathfinder or Savage Worlds. My upbringing was the original red box Dungeons & Dragons in the early 80’s and all the original hardcover books before going off into pretty much every other TSR and Steve Jackson game at the time. And then getting into Warhammer 40K, which was wonderfully disastrous with the investment there.

You mean the debate that’s been going on for decades?

As Wesley Snipes says, I always bet on Bat.

If you mean boom in simuldubs, I do expect it to turn out fairly well overall since there’s a lot of interest and untapped potential in getting this out there. The double edged sword the producers run into is that some folks will stop watching simulcasts and wait for potential simuldubs. But I expect those numbers to be low.

I do worry about a glut, mostly because they lose the ability to really target and promote a particular show without it getting lost in the crowd.

The less anime they’re involved with, the better for everyone else. Especially if it’s a show you like.

They’re entering the market because they see money on the table, which is what Aniplex has been picking up. They also likely see the potential in expanding their works if they’re able to follow the same path and get some of their stuff on Toonami or other networks.

Crimson Star likely doesn’t mean a thing to them at this point. If Pony Canyon was coming in and releasing older unlicensed titles? I might think it has a touch to do with it. But since they’re focusing on new releases only at the moment, I doubt it has anything to do with it.

I really wish they were doing both past and present titles though. A focus just on the present misses out on some great opportunities with older titles, especially if there are lapsed licenses that they can breathe a new life into.

Not really. The problem with it is that it requires a commitment to actually dub the songs in order to really make it work. There are definitely talented singers among the voice actors so that does work and has worked in the past. Part of it is that some licenses won’t allow them to be dubbed, which is disconcerting when you listen to it.

They have a few added challenges compared to other dubs, but the bulk of each episode doesn’t actually involve singing, so it can be done for the most part. it really just comes down to whether fans want to hear the songs dubbed (I do!) and whether they can “deal” with it depending on which way it goes and their own tastes.

I don’t know about budget, but I’d guess it just doesn’t fit into their workflow at the moment.

But I’d rather not see every company suddenly rushing out to do simuldubs and over saturating things either. It’s simply not sustainable in general and you start losing out as it goes on and digging yourself another hole. Dubs took a bit hit with the overall economy several years back and I’d hate to see them take a hit again because of this.

Smart, targeted and market friendly dubs are what’s needed right now. Not everything under the sun.

No.

I think that boat has long sailed. While he still says he wants to when it gets asked of him in interviews, I doubt he’s going to be interested in doing anything again for quite a long time once he finishes the next two Avatar films. He’s not a prolific filmmaker overall, which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s easy to write this off unless he changes gears to have someone else direct it and just serve as a producer/writer.

Which sucks. Because I’d love to see the original OVA come back into print and I keep hoping we’ll see the manga adapted into TV form some day since there’s a ton of material.