From: gavigan@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Ryan P. Gavigan)
Subject: Re: Perception of Japanimation
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 07:10:24 GMT

In article <n11fat@ofa123.fidonet.org> Kevin.Kline@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
> RPG> As long as there is a diversity of opinions, 
> RPG> viewership can't go down.  Take
> RPG> a look at the sales figures (well, you can't 
> RPG> really, but here they are, sort 
> RPG> of).  Every single anime titles out-sells (in 
> RPG> terms of initial orders) 
> RPG> previous titles and has done so for 3 years.  This 
> RPG> primarily doesn't have 
> RPG> much to do with "show quality", it largely depends 
> RPG> on the overall market for
> RPG> anime increasingly diversifying to video rental 
> RPG> outlets. (No we don't have
> RPG> Tower Video in IN unfortunately, no 49c a night 
> RPG> rentals here.)  Also, takes
> RPG> sales figures for say, Project A-ko (don't see 
> RPG> what's your problem with it,
> RPG> it's drop dead funny, as most farces are supposed 
> RPG> to be.) which now has
> RPG> reached sales in the five figures in terms of 
> RPG> units (10000+).  Compare
> RPG> that with say 14.2 million units of BatB sold.  I 
> RPG> would doubt seriously
> RPG> that some little 'ol MD Geist could hurt the animation industry.
> If it depends on incresingly # of outlets showing anime, yes that will get
>more people intitally into looking into it.  But you must also make sure
>quality doesn't go down the toilet can.  Again this can be similar to the
>video game industry in 1982 when many places that didn't sell video games sold 
>them and it ended up the industry OUTGROSSED the movie industry for 1982!!!!! 

One HUGE difference, we are not talking about non-video places selling the
videos, just video outlets that haven't had them before.  

Btw, the video game industry DIED in the early 80s because nobody came up 
with anything better to run the games, much like there wouldve been
another death in video games had companies not been working on successive
generations of hardware..  Atari foolishly went to try and develop home PC
style computers rather than focusing on their video game technology and that
"focus" showed on how terribly bad their future generation game systems
were.

>However, because the quality when down the toilet can things collapsed rather 
>quickly and by 1983 it wasn't pretty much dead until the Nintendo rivial in
>1986-1987.  

and had Nintendo now been working on the Super Famicom, had SEga not been
working on the Megadrive, and NEC on the PC-Engine (all those are the original
japanese machine names), the video game industry would be just as dead today
as it was then very faulty argument.

> Hmmm... Proejct A-Ko as sold 10000 to Beauty and the Beast 14.2 million??? I 
>guess I won't have to worry about "girls with guns" being a threat to quality 
>animation, at least not yet... :)  

exactly

> You bring up in intresting point though, I wonder if Project A-Ko was
>released by Disney (with it's marketing) and Beauty and the Beast (with the
>company that is releasing Project-Ako) released by them, with keeping both
>FEATURES the same as they are... I wonder if Project A-Ko could reach the 14.2 
>million or somewhere close if Disney was marketing it... Or if it would
>backfire because of the type of animation it is.

Remember this, NO TAPE sells 14.2 million units, barring the hugely promoted
Disney releases.  Most cassettes ship approx 600,000-1Million, and those
are the HUGE blockbuster titles like T2, Dances with wolves, etc.,etc.

Look at it this way, the Disney ADVERTISING budget for the 4th quarter of
1991 was $90 Million.  Just extrapolate that to what it is now, and with 
huge new releases being promoted.  I have no doubt that exposure would 
significantly increase sales for anime titles.  This is taken of 
course, with the fact that Project A-ko is subtitled and automatically
has smaller sales figures because of that fact.  We shall see in January
when the Dubbed version of Project A-ko is released.


Re: Kevin's I give my all commentary:

Kevin, might you want to at least look at Minna Agechau vefore you really
speak.  It truly was misrepresented by the press, and is truly a hilarious
film.  Not much worse than say an episode of Benny Hill, let me guess , you 
don't like that kind of "dumb" humor too.  Btw, only because of the press 
reports, Sony decided to buy the rights back from Central Park Media.

Ryan Gavigan
gavigan@gn.ecn.purdue.edu

>
>--- Maximus 2.00