Mr March

While not directly on point, my post should answer your question: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=18869 And if that doesn't, try here: http://www.macrosstv.com/ Enjoy

I don't know how many of my fellow MW members frequent AnimeNation, but I try to stay current with their fantastic "Ask John" section. The section is basically an letter-to-the-editor style comment on anime-related subjects. One such article last month discussed a topic dealing with ADV and the new Macross. I hope many of you will find his comments worth reading. Taken from AnimeNation.net Question: Do you think that the American anime distributon companies are out of sync of what anime fans want to see come over Stateside? For example, ADV is spending money for a full re-release with a new English track for Macross. While I'm a Macross fan, I think it's a huge waste of money since vintage anime doesn't sell well in the States and it would've been better as a subtitled-only thinpack. Let's not get into the mass of subpar anime that they bring over here. However, there's plenty of great anime to choose from like Honey & Clover and Gakuen Alice that aren't even lincensed yet. And when they do, it'll be too "old" for anyone to care about buying it. What's your opinion? Answer: I do think that America's primary anime distributors, by which I mean companies that started primarily to import and translate anime, are aware of the tastes and preferences of America's core anime fan community. Licensors on the fringe of America's core anime industry such as 4Kids Entertainment, Sony, Dreamworks, and Disney operate on their own internal policies. 4Kids targets the mainstream audience to the exclusion of hardcore fans. Disney seeks to satisfy both mainstream and hardcore fans. Dreamworks seems to focus on faithful and respectful presentation of anime regardless of marketability. The primary American anime distribution industry typified by distributors including Bandai, Geneon, and FUNimation target their releases and marketing primarily at America's fan community, and, I think, are conscious and in tune with America's anime fan community. However, being aware of consumer demand doesn't always mean that a business will be able to respond to that demand. And what American fans perceive as demand may, in fact, be very skewed by a limited perspective. The core American anime distribution industry has to be cognizant of changes and trends in the fan community in order to stay competitive and profitable. No American distributor consistently licenses and releases titles that fail to sell. However, what gets licensed is influenced by more than just its American market potential. Yours is not the first criticism I've heard about AD Vision's decision to re-market the Macross television series. There's probably several reasons behind AD Vision's decision to license and dub the show. ADV may not have the funds necessary to license new, high profile titles. Macross may have been an easy and inexpensive license to acquire, and it may have been a title that ADV employees themselves wanted to work with. Adding a new English dub may seem like an excessive expenditure, but from a corporate perspective, a dub may have been a vital necessity. Considering that AD Vision's release was basically just a re-packaged version of AnimEigo's restored version of the show, an English dub was vitally necessary to add new attention-grabbing novelty to the title. Regarding AD Vision's "mass of sub par anime," the company's traditional policy seems to have been one of purposely trying to saturate the market in order to become the distributor with the biggest catalog and the most market penetration. However, that policy of spreading themselves wide but thin may have resulted in AD Vision oversaturating and diluting its own market, and expending its resources on bulk rather than quality, leaving the company now forced to resort to cheaper, older licenses. Contrary to common complaints from many American anime fans who like to make broad generalizations about anime, there are indeed many excellent shows available in Japan which have not been licensed for American release, such as Honey & Clover and Gakuen Alice. However, America's consumer market for anime isn't always directed by interest in quality. The fact that shows like Honey & Clover and Gakuen Alice haven't been licensed for American release may, in fact, prove that America's anime industry is very astutely aware of what American consumers want, and don't want. Hardcore American fans who seek out imported anime and voraciously devour outstanding new shows may not realize that they're actually only a very small minority of American consumers. No matter how devoted they are, a thousand or two thousand hardcore American Gakuen Alice fans aren't enough to make licensing and releasing the show in America profitable. Geneon has licensed the Hellsing OVA series, Ergo Proxy, and Fate/stay night series because everyone in America's anime industry knows that dark, mature, supernatural and cyberpunk anime is popular with American consumers. FUNimation has licensed the Negima, Tsubasa Chronicle, and xxxHOLiC anime knowing that Ken Akamatsu and CLAMP works are popular among Americans. Representatives of most of America's main anime distributors regularly attend fan conventions and meet fans. And many of the employees of America's anime industry are anime fans themselves. So I do think that America's primary anime industry is conscious and attuned to the preferences and desires of America's fan community, but professional distribution companies often have to make compromises between satisfying hardcore fans and doing what's necessary to achieve financial stability and profit.

One must remember that HG is a company after all, one with a history of disingenuous dealings. They are not bound to act as they say they do. Public relations and actual policy implementation are two totally different things. Keep in mind the motives of HG whenever they interact publically. There's nothing more effective than a salesman who believes his own pitch. I'm sure many of the HG staff honestly believe they've done nothing wrong and feel they are only protecting their own legal interests. I doubt it's a stretch to assume they rely on this position as a disavowal, abdicating any responsibility for the damage their actions have upon small business, Macross consumers, and the impact their abuse of Macross has upon the earning potential of Macross products internationally. HG isn't going anywhere, but you can take some small solace in the fact that the company's activites/influence are marginalized. HG does have an impact on SDF Macross in NA, but they are a small player and ultimately ignorable for the majority of anime fans internationally. I suppose being a Macross fan is harder than being a fan of Trigun, NGE, Bebop, Miyazaki, etc.

I copied and pasted the characters directly from my Mac Plus CDs, so I'm not sure if they are unclear or it's just a difficult translation. Regardless, thank you both for your help. I'll use these characters for the artist/composer.

I need some help deciphering the artist/composer information from my Macross Plus CDs. What I need to know is whether or not the following text... è…野よã†å­ ...are the japanese characters for "Yoko Kanno." Your assistance is very much appreciated.

See my reply above for a little clarification. As for HG's reputation, it's a brutal truth that the majority of the anime community is blissfully ignorant of HG's history and Macross in general. Also keep in mind that HG like any other company has to maintain a unified front when it comes to marketting product. Every interview, every magazine article, every web advert, is an opportunity to reinforce the greatness of their product to the public. This is the heart of successful marketting...and even branding to a small extent. Having said that, one thing that HG loves to state incorrectly is the "success" of Robotech on DVD as some sort of massively popular trend. As I understand it, the sales of the DVDs never approached any of the top seller lists and subsequent releases have all seen fewer sales. By way of the HG PR machine, they would have you beleive RT is selling like NGE, Cowboy Bebop, Spirited Away, and most of the other anime top sellers. Granted, the RT DVD release was a modest success and was profitable, but that doesn't translate to much more than that.

They touched on that briefly in the interview. Apparently, HG has all but given up harrassing small shop owners and Yune says at one point that they don't really have a problem with "mom and pop" operations bringing in Macross merchandise. He "states" that they are concerned when a big company distributes Macross merchandise without consulting HG. Again, I'm not even sure what that entails. Does HG means SDF Macross merchandise or ALL Macross franchise merchandise? As always, it's never clear...and I suppose that's the point.

I assume that any company can purchase the license, however HG renewed just prior to expiry, meaning they keep a hold of it.

Well, I listened through the whole thing and there is very little worthwhile information about Macross that we haven't heard before. They do talk about the nature of the Macross liscense, the whole syndication thing, Tatsunoko, yadda, yadda, yadda. Some questions are asked about Macross Zero only to be answered like an official press release that tells you nothing. By now I expect HG reps have been lambasted with serious questions regarding Robotech, Macross, legal issues, imports and the whole thing so many times that they have a PR bible for any potential interview. These guys didn't deviate. Answers are standard fare, no real new comments or positions are explained, questions aren't really answered all that directly, blah, blah. Here's what I got out of it: HG aparently has some contract dating back to 1984 for the Macross rights, which it renewed in the mid 1990s just prior to expiration. HG is of the opinion that certain aspects of Macross brought to the U.S. is their baby and they want to discuss proper liscensing before any big company distributes "certain" Macross stuff. I'm going to assume this means SDF Macross "stuff" HG is open to helping bring Macross Zero to the U.S. market, but they have no control over it and say HG is currently not involved. HG is of the opinion that all the problems with Macross distribution is totally a japanese related issue. They state this several times and point to the Tatsunoko/Big West legal debacle as proof of this assumption, meaning Macross Zero won't see international official sales until this japanese issue has been resolved. As for the Robotech stuff, I admit I skipped over it. I did catch one brief segment where HG clearly states the Shadow Chronicles is completed. They also state the only thing holding up release is some partner for distribution.

Can you give a summary of the show? The important points.

I agree the mentality is bad for us fans desiring quality films, but many have made a career in film producing product for the 14 to 16 year-olds. Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckhiemer, and Joel Schumacher...the list is extensive, however unfortunate that may be

Ah, Kevin Smith, the otherside of my cursed coin. Smith, the second half of the Tarantino/Smith duo, two directors whose work I can't stand yet are so popular that nearly all my friends think highly of them. Hence the curse part, where I watch nearly everything they have done simply because I'm friends with their fans. I will say this, if I had to like a Kevin Smith film, it would be Clerks. Not high praise I know, but it's the best I can do

Thank god for Michael Mann

Checked out Amazon and the trailer on the Bandai website. Very nice. This thing is out tomorrow! I'm certainly going to pick this up.

Uh, what? Damn, I've got to look into this! I adore the Patlabor films one and two.

Ain't it cool news? You must be joking...or currently receiving an enema. Rest assured, I paid nothing to watch AVP in the theatre (except my sanity). I can also further assure you that I will not be seeing the sequel unless neither myself or anyone I like has to pay for it. As for the script and the fate of the AVP "franchise", it is no longer worth any attention or debate. However, it is good to know that I'm not missing anything

So long have I successfully ignored the Trek franchise. But now...now I find news of cancelled Trek shows, Trek film bombs and pathetic Trek revival concepts strangely enthralling. I watch this dying, struggling beast of a franchise as the wounds fester and the bloody mess slowly turns brown and crusty with a certain abhorrent interest. The gasps come in phlegmy gurgles with such grotesque miscarriage I should be driven mad at the sight of it, yet I find myself unable to avert my gaze...the death throes shrieking so loud my hands cannot prevent the sound from shaking my mind! OH THE HUMANITY!

Many, many years ago when I gamed on pen and paper, I found the Palladium games quite enjoyable. Never was a huge fan, but the rules system was fun and I liked the creativity that went into many of their products. As a writer, some of the books were worth reading simply based on the concept of the fantasy/science fiction setting.

Let's be honest, if you weren't trying to influence people with your grievances, you wouldn't be posting at all. Regardless, I understand your explanation of the above post and I'm happy it wasn't really meant to be as hateful as it sounded. I haven't wondered why we've never spoken. Forums are like that and there are several longtime members here on MW that I never cross topics with. It happens. But it is nice that you think so highly of me. I do believe there may be a problem with topics on MW, but like JsARCLIGHT has stated, I'm not sure much can be done about it. As I stated above, a lot of MW rules just come down to a vague sense of decorum. The boards are run fairly fast and loose, a style that I personally enjoy and support. The staff simply use common sense to manage the boards and thus avoid most of the "rule quoting" that occurs at more structured/defined message boards. But it leaves a lot of room to wiggle, which often times leads the staff to step on a few toes. Overall, I think it works out for the best, even at the expense of a forum that might be a little stagnant from time to time.

Have to say, you're not winning any points here. I can't recall even having a conversation with you, let alone any arguement. All this does is insult members en masse.

The value in debate is the debate itself. There is much to be learned about oneself and others when engaged in debate, regardless of any tangible outcome. When I debated in college groups and on the old dialup BBS before the internet came around, it was an experience that helped me grow immeasurably during my late teens to early twenties. It's been my experience that the most important knowledge is that which is learned through debate. Defiantly proclaiming no one has any proof of anything is helping no one, especially yourself. What matters is what you are willing to examine when someone has you and your beliefs up against a wall. You don't win any points for shooting down atheists in church groups or belittling fundamentalists with your pals at a secular society meeting. I know most people are taught to play nice, don't swear, and avoid fighting. It's a nice, warm fuzzy thought, but it's also unrealistic and naive. Conflict and debate are part of life and the absence of such is an intellectual deadend. Rest assured that debates, civil or uncivil, have worth and one is better off for the experience.

The IMDB posted a news item about this a couple of weeks back. This kinda thing scares me...so much effort for such a useless work of pop culture trivia.

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-04-20/ 392733[/snapback] This is what concerns me. I think most consumers will be unable to tell the difference between HD and regular DVD due to lack of high end audio/video equipment in the average home. As a result, they may skip the HD and Blue Ray formats altogether, in which case those of use waiting for a good high end format will be forced to wait until the market is ready . THis could be many years down the road.

We're not that bad, are we?

I'd just like to pop in for a moment and defend debates of politics/religion from some unwarranted demonization. There is nothing wrong with political/religious debates and the fact that these debates are so heated means they are among the most important issues worthy of discussion. Like abortion, homosexuality, environmentalism, ideology, etc, the only way people learn is through debate. Maybe political/religious discussions aren't appropriate for YOUR website, but many message boards function just fine with the debates and they allow discourse over subjects more important than Macross. Having said that, I don't believe MacrossWorld should become such a forum. Number one, the website owners don't want their anime fansite to become a discussion destination for politics/religion and rightly so! Number two, the decorum for MacrossWorld has long been set and should remain the way it is, a hobby website for discussing hobbies. Number three, the staff don't know how to moderate political/religious discussions and the members don't know how to properly conduct themselves in the debates. So for all these reasons, I think it's wise to steer clear. Plus, I do enjoy visiting MacrossWorld for a more calm, relaxing atmosphere