Plugging In: Subs and the State of the Anime Industry
In recent months, domestic anime licensors have been announcing more and more of their acquisitions that would be released subtitled-only. Nozomi Entertainment has doing this with a few of their titles — Emma, Maria-sama ga Miteru, and Aria in particular — and Bandai Entertainment has a couple too — namely Toward the Terra, Panda-Z, and Gurren Lagann (though an English-dubbed version will come out some time after the series airs on Sci-Fi). The number of shows coming out in this format are still small, but becoming significant.
There’re the obvious reasons for the change: Saving on ADR costs and eliminating studio time, not having to hire voice actors, and reducing production expenses. Eliminating an audio track also allows for a little more content to be squeezed into each disc, and an entire series can be released in as little as two volumes. That’s good news for the consumer too — more show for less money.
Whether this is one of the new trends that we will be seeing more of as the anime industry struggles to keep afloat remains to be seen. Many of the movers and shakers of the industry, both in the US and in Japan, have already addressed the issues of digital content accessed through Internet downloads and p2p communities, though only a handful of new release models, such as streaming content through partnered sites, have been introduced. Subtitled-only releases, a throwback to the industry’s infancy, could represent another such initiative, but is this really such a good idea?
A lot of the shows named above are niche titles (with the arguable exception of Gurren Lagann, though its later dub release makes the point moot), so it can be said that keeping production costs down helps to justify expected lower sales volumes. However, what can these subtitled versions offer that people cannot grab online? The typical commercial anime’s target demographic is still sitting firmly with the school-aged crowd: people who are most likely not working, do not have readily disposable income of their own, and, perhaps most damaging, have grown up in the Internet era. If they really want digital content, they know where to find it.
Most of the shows named above are mostly targeted towards more mature audiences, so perhaps there’s some expectation that people who want the series will purchase them as they come out. However, there is the risk of assumption, and I’m not sure anyone really knows how well this is going to turn out. Having special exclusive content makes ownership of official copies more appealing, but the likelihood this will increase the retail price is also high, which defeats the purpose of making this a more affordable alternative.
Combating content piracy and adapting to modern socioeconomic trends is a tricky proposition for such a small industry (despite reports that FUNimation earns the bulk of profits for Navarre, the industry is still tiny compared to other entertainment outlets). Subtitles might be a good alternative for a very small subset of licensed titles, but I don’t think it will work as a general sales model.
For the industry to survive, consumers have to be willing to buy the product. How they’re convinced to do so is the problem that we will continue to face for a number of years to come.
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