Manga Entertainment is the leading distributor of anime in the UK. With titles such as AKIRA, Ghost In The Shell and Afro Samurai under its belt, it’s not hard to understand why either. But Manga hasn’t only done a great service in bringing anime to the masses; they’ve also released a range of Japanese cinema here in Britain – including Tokyo Gore School, Kitaro and Tajomaru: Avenging Blade.
We asked Manga representative Jerome Mazandari about what we can expect in 2011 (events such as the London MCM expo), and some of the difficulties distributors might face in releasing anime on DVD and Blu-ray…
Arguably one of the biggest titles under your belt at the moment is the Rebuild Of Evangelion series. Can we expect Evangelion 2.22 on Blu-ray and DVD this year?
Yes you can. We are releasing Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance on single disc Blu-ray and DVD on 30th May 2011. We are also hoping to launch a retailer exclusive DVD/Blu-ray collector’s edition with bonus booklet and slip cover packaging. Stay tuned for details on that.
What are some of Manga UK's personal favourite titles?
My personal favourite anime film of all time is AKIRA. I just hosted a screening of it again on Friday night at the SFX Weekender, and before I knew it I was sucked into the story again for what must be close to the fiftieth time. I also love Ghost In The Shell - the original - and the Stand Alone Complex series. It’s a high watermark for anime television. I have a very soft spot for Ghost In The Shell Innocence because it was my first big movie campaign for Manga UK and my first, and only big hit! I personally love Robotech, as it brings back a lot of good memories to me watching it as a child on Channel 9 Saturday morning slot in Perth, Western Australia. I also love other anime from the era, including Ulysses 31, The Mysterious Cities Of Gold, Astro Boy, Kimba The White Lion, Speed Racer and Battle Of The Planets (aka Gatchaman).
I think the best anime film since Spirited Away is The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Summer Wars is an excellent second film for Hosada-san and Redline simply blew me away. It is a celebration of animation, pure and simple - it just carves its own unique path.
Are there any titles that Manga have missed out on the license/distribution rights for and/or wish they had the rights to?
Obviously, I’m gutted the old Manga management turned down the Studio Ghibli catalogue. We would have loved to get the UK rights for Paprika and Tekkon Kikreet. I do believe we could have gained much bigger audiences for these films. The problem with studios is that the anime audience is too niche and too small for them to really push their anime releases unless they are game-based tie-ins like Resident Evil Degeneration, Advent Children or Halo Legends.
Following its cancellation on Blu-ray due to poor sales, is there any chance we could see the rest of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood released on this format in the future?
I am hoping we can cut costs by condensing the remaining episodes onto fewer Blu-ray discs for the eventual complete series box set. There are two solutions to the problem we experienced with FMA Brotherhood Part 1 and 2. We either start charging a lot more for the Blu-rays, or UK fans stop importing the US editions and maybe have a little more patience when it comes to the Japan to US to UK window.
The release date for the Eureka Seven movie (Goodnight, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers) has been pushed back several months now. Are there any problems with the release? Do you think it’s acceptable to push back the release of a DVD so many times?
I don’t think it’s acceptable, but its par for the course with anime. It is definitely coming out on DVD and Blu-ray on 18th April. The problem we had was that firstly the contract took ages to sign. Secondly, the Blu-ray authoring costs came in much higher than I anticipated, so we seeked out authoring partners to split the cost with. That caused more delays.
What do you think has attributed to the growth in popularity of anime over the last few years?
The internet, better distribution of manga books, and better distribution of our DVDs. The internet is both a blessing and a curse. As you know, none of our releases enjoy any kind of UK TV platform, so the way fans find out about new shows is predominantly via illegal streaming and downloading. But we must also give credit to YouTube and CrunchyRoll for flying the flag of the anime cause as well.
Fortunately for Manga, many of our customers seem to prefer enjoying their favourite shows and movies as they should be experienced, with excellent picture quality and audio, and better subtitles than some of the fansubbers provide. It’s also important to note that having a good English dub significantly increases the perceived value of our anime releases. The dub is very important, and a premium component of the overall finished packaged goods market.
How do you feel about the mark-up many high street stores have on anime DVDs? How badly has this affected sales in the past, and now with many online retailers selling volumes much cheaper?
Mark-ups are how specialist retailers make their living. A chain like Forbidden Planet or HMV have fixed, immoveable costs of running their business that they cannot escape. Think about it. Wages, rent, utilities, tax, etc. The consumer needs to have a reality check, and think about what it costs to bring them cheap goods and services. I suggest pre-ordering your anime purchases or buy them off shelf in the first month of release, so that you can enjoy the aggressively low price points retailers use to compete against each other. As a rule, a £24.99 SRP Naruto Shippuden DVD will retail under £17.99 on most sites and in-store, but sometimes even get below £14.99. For 12-13 episodes in dual language, that’s a little over £1 per episode. That is amazing value for money. My tip to fans is make sure you buy your new releases nice and early or pre-order them online. We often point the fans in the direction of the best online deal via our @MangaUK twitter account, so make sure you follow us.
On that subject, how badly do you think fan-subbing and downloading affects the market?
As with anything there are both advantages and disadvantages. I think the most important possible advantage to fan-subbing is that in a territory like the UK where we have no TV broadcasters willing to show anime apart from the big kid’s brands like Pokemon, our shows could be getting awareness that they otherwise would not enjoy. I can’t quantify it, but anecdotally, when fans speak to me at the Cons and MCM Expo, they usually say they heard about ‘show A’ by watching it online. However, I have two very good reasons why fan-subbing is a major problem for Manga and pretty much every other anime distributor, licensor, studio and broadcaster.
First, as the recent Funimation ‘Fractale’ fracas shows, fan-subbing removes control of the content by those entrusted with it (i.e. the licensee or distributor). When someone decides he’s going to score points with his pals online by being the first to illegally release a fan-sub file, he is doing irreparable damage to the licensor/licensee relationship in that territory. The Japanese licensor doesn’t know that the leak had nothing to do with Funimation! Digital distribution is worth maybe 5% of any anime company’s overall revenue at best currently. Maybe in North America this percentage is as high as 10-15%. Anime is fundamentally a TV broadcasting, finished packaged goods and character licensing business. The Japanese production committees of these shows are not fans of digital distribution, so those irresponsible ‘fans’ are really just killing the goose that lays the golden egg. In all seriousness, if you invested tens of thousands of dollars to produce the next 25 minutes episode of Naruto Shippuden (that’s a guestimate by the way), would you be pleased to see it given away free with no recourse for you to make your investment back?
Secondly, I feel fans have a very naïve view of what fan-subbing does to the anime industry as a whole. They think the people that create and distribute the fan-subs via streaming and downloads are generous and caring fans who want to share their passion with other like-minded people. In most cases, some fans are so passionate about anime and manga that they simply cannot wait for a legitimate localized licensed version to be released. We all know it can take months, if not years to get these shows out in the UK and North America. However, most of the portal sites I have visited are running paid advertising in the form of expandable leaderboards, skyscrapers, MPUs and even embedded pre-rolls! Someone, somewhere is making money by illegally distributing this content. That money is not going back to the distributor, it is not going back to the licensor, and it is not going back to the studios or creators. I am not saying fan-subbers profit from what they do, but surely they must be aware that their files are fuelling portal sites who generate cash flow via paid advertising. It kills any legitimate distribution business.
I simply don’t understand why someone out there decided to illegally distribute the latest Fractale episode in North America when they knew that Funimation was about to stream it legally only a few days later! This addresses the one major issue we all face in the industry with regards to digital distribution, which is that once you are used to getting something for free, you are very unlikely to start paying for it. We have CrunchyRoll UK offering subscription and free to view streaming. YouTube hosts the Manga and Funimation channels, to name a few, and these channels offer free ad supported streaming. I know that not enough fans are using either of these legitimate outlets for various reasons, including choice and video quality.
I would like to add that these are my personal views and not necessarily those of Manga or our license partners. However, I feel that it is a reasonable argument to pose to those consumers who vehemently argue against copyright protection on all media and across all platforms.
You're a key sponsor of both the London MCM expo and the Sci-Fi London anime all-nighter. How important do you think these events have been in bringing anime to wider audience?
These events have been extremely important in helping us build an audience for anime, cosplay and manga in the UK. The next MCM Expo is on 27th-29th May at ExCel, London and it will likely attract over 50,000 people. What’s amazing about MCM Expo, in particular, is that I attended my first Expo in May 2005 and we had 15,000 visitors! The amazing growth of the event has primarily been fuelled by anime and manga over the past several years, and now we are seeing videogames, comics and studio films start to build up the attendance figures even more. It’s very exciting, and I am extremely proud to be a part of it.
Why do I think Expos and Cons are essential to the growth of our market? Our research shows us that the key demographic for anime in the UK is 15-25 year olds. 55% are male and 45% are female. Over half of all UK anime purchases are made in and around London and the South East, but we also enjoy large pockets of consumer activity regionally especially in Wales, Scotland, the Midlands, Yorkshire and Northern England. 80% of all of Manga’s sales are to the 15-25-year-old category. This group is incredibly hard to reach via traditional media. The average British male aged 15-25 spends less than 30 minutes on any particular TV channel, but on average spends up to 70 minutes a day online. This means that they do they spend a lot of their social time online, using sites like Twitter and Facebook. The online community is where anime and manga fans in the UK congregate and communicate with one another, so it makes sense that events like the MCM Expos have become a physical manifestation of this amazing community. And that is why it is so important to Manga to really support these events.
Tell us about what releases Manga has planned for 2011…
Manga is pretty much responsible for all new release DVDs and Blu-rays in the UK market. I hope that we are delivering British fans the best, new, must-see TV programmes and movies. We have Eureka Seven The Movie out on DVD and BR on 18th April; 5 Centimetres Per Second on DVD on 14th March; Summer Wars on DVD, Blu-ray and the Girl Who Leapt Through Time Double Pack on 28th March; The Time Traveller - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time live-action sequel - out on DVD on 2nd May; Casshern Sins Part 1 on DVD 9th May; Eden of The East Movie #1: The King Of Eden on DVD and Blu-ray on 6th June; High School Of The Dead on two-disc DVD and Blu-ray on 29th August; Redline on DVD and Blu-ray for 18th July; The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzimiya Season 2 - plus the Haruhi-chan paradoy episodes – out in June; The Disappearance Of Haruhi Suzimiya movie on DVD and Blu-ray on 25th July; Fumihiko Sori’s To (aka 2001 Nights) on Blu-ray and DVD on 1st August; Production IG’s Musashi on 4th July on DVD and Blu-ray. We are also finally releasing AKIRA on Blu-ray and re-mastered DVD on 27th June. We are hoping to have a steel book and maybe a deluxe box set, too! We’ll also have Season 6 and 7 of Bleach out before the end of the year, starting on 11th April with Bleach Series 6 Part 1. The second Naruto Shippuden movie, too, and the third Bleach movie at some point. AJ
 |
| Eureka Seven: The Movie is finally on its way |
No comments:
Post a Comment