by Ryan Mathews

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July 1999

I recently got an update from Jei on this column's readership. I was surprised and delighted when I saw the numbers. Around 1500 of you read my column every month! That number is derived by counting the hits on the second page of the column. I figure anyone who visits this page and clicks through to page 2 is actually reading it.

About 75% of my readers then go on to read the letters column (page 3). That number was higher than I expected, and it makes me wonder why I don't get more letters than I do. Hmm. Perhaps I need to inspire some letters?

Let's try a good old-fashioned rant.

In recent weeks, I've been posting to Usenet more regularly than I have in over a year. The reason is that I've become involved in something of a anime company advocacy war. At the heart of this war of words is a little fact about fandom that all of us know, but few of us like to admit: we really hate having to pay for this stuff.

There are two companies being alternately bashed and praised. I think you'll quickly figure out to whom I'm referring, but to put Jei the Turnpike Editor at ease, I shall refer to them as Company A and Company Z.

Company A was huge in the early years of the decade. Fans loved Company A. They did things the Fan Way. Translations were as literal as possible, with the nuances of the Japanese explained in smaller subtitles or on liner notes. They released everything on laserdisc. The head of Company A was clearly One Of Us.

Company Z showed up later. They released cheesecake. They released porn. They sold lots of tapes, and made lots of money. They used that money to procure the rights to many more anime titles, including huge fan-popular hits. But Company Z didn't do things the Fan Way. Their subtitled translations were accurate, but nowhere near as literal, and where were the liner notes? There were almost no laserdiscs. They aggressively marketed and advertised their product to non-fan markets. The head of Company Z was obviously (shudder) a Businessman.

Cut to the present. Company A barely registers a blip on the anime radar. They can no longer afford the rights to anything they'd like to release. They have not acquired a title in well over a year. Meanwhile Company Z floods the shelves with exciting anime titles every month, announcing new acquisitions several times a year.

So who do the fans love?

Company A, of course! It doesn't matter that they almost never release anything. In fact, I almost think that helps their standing with the fans. Since they never do anything, there's never anything to complain about. They've become a legend, an ideal, a mythical hero we just know will someday return to take us back to the glory days of 1992. (As a somewhat weak proof of this, I offer the fact that the shine began to wear off Company A recently when they did release a few items and, wouldn't you know it, those items weren't perfect. Lo and behold, fans began complaining about them.)

Fans bitch about Company Z almost non-stop. The most popular gripe is that their tapes are overpriced. Since the complainers like to hold up Company A as the example of what an anime company should be, I like to point out that Company A's tapes cost even more, at which point the complainers unfailingly whip out their calculators to show me that the "per episode" cost for Company A's tapes is less, since they put more episodes on a tape. As if this matters to the average guy buying a tape at Suncoast. As if people priced videos they way they price pork chops.

No, it's my sincere hunch that the real reason for the resentment surrounding Company Z is that they make you pay for anime. Of course, so did Company A. But then Company A offered the liner notes, the educational subtitles, and the laserdiscs. The fans thought "I hate paying, but at least I'm getting all this cool stuff!" Company Z just offers... well... anime. Nothing more than the fansubs.

Uh-oh. I said the f-word.

Some months ago, I got into a mildly heated argument with some of my best friends regarding Company Z versus, not Company A, but the fansubbers. The fansubbers are more reliable than Company Z, they said. They get titles out faster after announcing their intentions to subtitle them. Their translations are better. Some release, in my friends' opinion, higher quality tapes. The fact that the fansubs are unofficial pirate versions that see no money go back to the original creators was absolutely beside the point. The fact that comparing a profit-making business to a group of fans with a laserdisc player, a PC, and a few VCRs is comparing apples to oranges was also beside the point. The fansubbers produce product equal, and in some cases superior, to Company Z's product, and sell it for a great deal less. This puts the fansubbers on top.

And that, my friends, is why no company who releases anime on VHS tape with no bonus materials will ever be the darling of the fans, no matter how exciting a lineup of titles they offer. They simply cannot compete in a popularity contest with organizations releasing, not the same titles, but similar material, for next to nothing.

(I expect my letter column to be full next month!) :-)

On to the topic!