Updated: 12:52 PM PM 01/05/2012
I’ve just heard the awful announcement from Bandai Entertainment. The company has said that they will no longer localize and distribute anime and manga titles in North America.
Japanator reported today: “They will continue to sell and even re-order the titles they currently distribute until the respective licenses expire, but planned titles they have yet to release have been subsequently cancelled. This includes:
Anime:
- Gosick
- Nichijou
- Turn A Gundam
Manga:
- Code Geass: Renya
- Kannagi volume 4, 5 and 6
- Lucky Star: Boo Boo Kagaboo
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00I
- Nichijou
- Tales of the Abyss: Jade’s Secret Memories
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann volume 7
Novels:
- Code Geass R2″
This news is absolutely devastating for the anime and manga community, and apparently this decision was made several months ago in Japan. It seems as though Bandai has suffered some serious management problems over the years with U.S. distribution. Furthermore, it’s now being said in many articles around the web (and in a comment at the bottom of this one) that Bandai simply wasn’t making all the right decisions when it came to localization of their titles. Anime News Network published a fairly informative article in which Bandai representative Ken Iyadomi discusses some of the problems between licensing and distribution.
“…the broader reasons are quite clear from the outside. The physical anime business in North America has shrunk substantially over the last five years, and shows no sign of returning to its former glory. “A couple of times we were hit with huge returns, and the financial result was pretty bad,” Iyadomi admits. Still, he believes the division might have been able to keep going for a few more years, had the SBU allowed it.”
Iyadomi also went on to say, “The pricing range for our products kept dropping in Western countries, and people tended only to buy sets with very reasonable prices, which we understand is what fans want, but it lead us to a different strategy than what Japanese licensors wanted,” he remarked. “So we always had a problem [with licensors wanting something different than what consumers wanted].”
Kotaku writer Charlie Maib also makes an excellent point that speaks to another possible reason that may have greatly influenced Bandai’s decision (and it’s one I believe is affecting the anime industry as a whole, so I want to discuss it in depth). Piracy of anime in North America is simply out of control. Let’s be honest here – we all know people who regularly pirate anime and who probably haven’t bought a single title in years – and therein lies the problem… Nobody (very few of us, lets face it) is supporting the industry.
Maib writes: “Bandai Entertainment isn’t going out of business. They’re a pretty big company and have a market far beyond that of the United States; but their actions do serve as a red flag as to what’s on the horizon unless the fan community stops it’s selfish and destructive behavior. If we examine the actions of the last 20 years, and put our own selfish desires to the side we can see that the only thing fan translated anime, manga, and games serve to advance is our own desire of want. It does not help the industry, it does not call positive attention to our hobbies, and while it may attract a small number of new consumers, more often than not these new faces will continue to feed on free pirated content because that’s how they were turned on to it in the first place.”
Personally, I’m pretty sad about the news. Bandai has brought us some fantastic anime and manga over the years like the various Gundam series and Haruhi Suzumiya – but perhaps they have been too expensive compared to the other distributors out there. I remember paying somewhere around $130 for a Gundam Wing Complete DVD Collection back in 2005 (in retrospect, this was a bit pricey), and I had spent all semester saving up for it (while living on my own and paying for college by myself – but video games and anime were the purchases I occasionally splurged for. Everybody needs something, right?). Honestly, I like having an anime collection (it includes lots of VHS since I began collecting in the 90’s, but I’ve also added quite a few DVDs and Blu-rays over the years). Whenever it came up in conversation that someone had just downloaded a really rad series – I would try to get it through a legal streaming site or purchase it if I could (This is sometimes impossible, I know, but we can try at least.). Now that I really think about it, though, Bandai really was quite a bit more expensive than most of the other suppliers. It doesn’t give us the right to steal their work, but it’s also too bad they didn’t start seeking out cheaper ways to distribute materials in the US or focus on streaming content for some series like Funimation and Viz Media did.
When I spent my first semester living in Japan in 2006, it became apparent to me that very few people I met were pirating anime. For one, it was on broadcast television so I suppose you really didn’t need to, but also, it just seemed to be only the American students I knew who were going about pirating anime. Most of my Japanese friends seemed to gladly pay for anime the day it came out and were really excited to add something new to their collection. To be fair, I know there are plenty of people in countries other than America pirating anime, but this still forces me to ask the question, “Is piracy a cultural phenomenon that’s gone completely out of control in America?”
I certainly hope this isn’t a sign of things to come…if more Japanese companies choose to make these decisions, (and believe me, they definitely can) or continue to fall by the wayside like ADV Films, Geneon, etc., it will just continue to hurt all the hard work that’s been done to bring anime and manga to America over the past thirty years. Seriously, give Maib’s article a read and look at just how much effort it took to bring us to where we are today! And you know what? As much as I love watching anime in Japanese, I often love watching it in the English dub, too! There are tons of awesome voice actors here in America, along with tons of employees at Funimation and Viz Media who could just disappear from the anime scene if we let the import industry crash and burn here. (And there were employees at Bandai America who I assume are losing their jobs, too. Not cool!)
I’ll miss you Bandai. Hopefully I’ll be seeing you around next time I’m in Japan, or maybe, (if we’re lucky) you’ll come back to stream your product on sites like Crunchyroll or Hulu?