Anime

So, it's 2001. The new millennium. A turning point for the all-important world of anime, right?!

Well, time will tell. What we can see is that the anime companies made a huge change in the year 2000, maybe in preparation for the new millennium, but more likely because the market is really shifting right now. VHS is on the way to its death, DVD is the wave of the future. Subtitled VHS tapes are virtually non-existent, with the majority of the people who care about having the series in their original language also wanting higher quality, soft subtitles, and all the other benefits DVD can offer. Every company is serious about DVD production now, with ADVision moving from virtually no DVD releases to many each month. Animeigo has switched to DVD-only from this point on, and many companies have tried different release formats and price points to see how the DVD market responds.

In the summer, Disney tried to release Princess Mononoke without a Japanese language track and subtitles because they figured it "wasn't worth the trouble." Thousands of fan petition signatures and a few meetings later, the DVD was delayed until Christmas to release a dual-language version. The Internet can be a powerful tool nowadays, and with such an active portion online, the anime community has shown that they can let their collective voice be heard. With such close relations between companies and fans through intermediary sites like AnimeonDVD.com, most major problems with DVDs have been ironed out. The huge controversy over the video quality of the first Evangelion disc released by ADVision resulted in a switching of DVD authoring houses for the series, and a huge delay in order to accommodate the wishes of fans. In a similar vein, after complaints about the use of overlays on DVDs, ADVision also dropped plans for overlays in any future discs. The fans have really been seen as a powerful force in the past year, and their online presence is not likely to fade soon.

Anime companies have also been paying attention to things such as popularity of new series via online fansubs, although it has yet to be seen what exactly they are deciding from these facts. Rumors abound that companies don't want new series such as Love Hina (shown on Japanese TV from Spring-Summer 2000) because of the vast saturation of digital fansubs. This case is one that many people are thinking about now, as digital fansubs become available as the TV series runs in Japan. Some people fear that many fans will stick with their digital files and not buy the DVDs if they are released. Others contend that digital fansubs help more and more people be exposed to new anime, make new fans, and make other fans anxious to buy the series when it is released domestically. The debate is much the same as the whole debate over whether MP3s help or hurt music sales. Digital fansubs are not as accessible to the average user right now, but their popularity and accessibility is growing, so the issue is rushing towards the same point MP3s were a couple of years ago. There really is little to no evidence either way, so since most of the series that have been affected this way are not even licensed yet, I'd say that the releases in the next year should bring a few new answers to the questions surrounding digital fansubs and their possible benefit or harm to the domestic anime industry.

One of the biggest changes for fans in the last year has been the introduction of many different pricing structures by companies for different series. Previously, pretty much any series was available on tape for $15-30 for 2-4 episodes. Now consumers can buy some complete series in one DVD set for $20-40 MSRP or in larger sets of 8-9 episodes for $30. Even newer series have been seeing a transition from a 3-4 episode per disc format to 4-5 episodes on each disc. This move has made many fans more interesting in buying more DVDs because they are so affordable. Hopefully this kind of pricing structure will stick around, as consumers come to expect such formats from companies.

All in all, it seems that 2000 was a huge year for anime, with the migration to DVD and all the changes that came with it. 2001 seems like it will be a continuation of 2000, with more anime titles coming out, more affordably, to try to capture an even larger market for anime in the future. VHS will be all but gone soon, and no new format seems to be on the horizon just yet, so the big question I see right now is how companies will be affected by digital fansubbing and more importantly, how they will perceive those effects. To the future of anime! Otanoshimi ni! (until next time)