Hey, Answerman!

Get Off My Lawn

Well hello and hi! It's Brian the Answerman, signing in and sounding off on all the questions and answers you guys made sure to send my way over the past week.

Speaking of which, I have a civic duty of my own to attend to. Onward!

Greetings Answerman! I don't know if you've answered this question before, but here it is.

You see, I live in a rather small quiet town that does not have a shopping mall, video store, or a Best Buy. (Even the most well known bookstore in my town has only a few shelves of books and a lot of worthless junk. No manga to speak of.) If I want to buy my anime dvds then I have to go to another town. A half hour drive to the east of my town is a town that has all of the above mentioned places. And a half hour to the west of my town is another town that has all those places. I could go in either direction and find a store that has anime or manga freshly stocked. Which was very handy if I had an errand to run in either of the other towns as both had places to buy anime.

My concern began when the Best Buy to the west suddenly stopped selling anime. Thus my main reason for going to that one was gone. The west FYE soon began to decline in anime. It only seems to be holding onto a select bunch of out of print anime dvds and pretty much never stocks anything new.

At first it didn't bother me much as I simply went to the town to the east to get my anime fix, but then my favorite movie store Suncoast went out of business. That was my favorite place to buy anime. People there knew me and it even held some cosplay events during days when there was an anime sale. The same mall also has an FYE but it doesn't seem to sell anime (at least I couldn't find any there). The only place left that still sells anime that I know of is the east Best Buy, but I haven't been there in months so who knows if they still sell anime or not.

So my question is: Are sales of anime declining in America (or maybe in fact just where I live) to the point that stores will eventually stop stocking their shelves with it entirely? I would greatly dislike it if I end up buying all my anime dvds only online. When I shop for anime I like to look along the shelves and see all the different titles. Usually I will find what I'm looking for and maybe even find a new series to try. I like to hold the dvd cases in my hands read the descriptions on the case and check for rattling sounds indicating a loose disc (which means a 60% chance of a scratched disc). I like to pay with cash and before leaving the parking lot I check every disc for scratches or other visible problems on the surface so I can walk right back in and return any damaged items. And when I go home I have a great sense of satisfaction. Its a feeling I just don't get when I make purchases online (online purchases just feel empty and devoid of life to me so I only buy stuff online that I can't find in stores).

So is anime declining so much that in a couple of years I will end up buying anime solely online, is this something that I should be worried about, or am I just jumping to conclusions?

Your unfortunately dour instincts are correct - finding a brick-and-mortar store that sells anime is going to become increasingly difficult in the future, crawling ever-so-slowly towards obsolescence until the day when all video files are digitally streamed via satellite directly towards our brainstem.

But anyway. This isn't endemic to anime alone; this is happening to the entire entertainment industry as a whole. As much as you and I both love the act of physically going to a store and physically purchasing a DVD, we're slowly moving toward an all-digital future. That day hasn't come yet, and people buying DVDs at the Wal-Marts and Best Buys of the world are still a massive source of revenue for entertainment companies, but when it comes to anime (and foreign/independent/anything that isn't Iron Man 4: Tony Stark Smirks at the Camera for 83 Minutes) that future is coming along a bit faster. Fans of obscure or niche anything are less likely to find what they're looking for in a retail market that only wants the biggest and brightest, and so alternative distribution is the way we have to go.

I have been following the progress of the US cinema release of Mamoru Hosoda's "Summer Wars" with interest since its release at the end of December. I guess like a lot of fans, I'm hoping that it will appear in a few more screens and become the bona-fide hit it deserves to be (I'm still praying that it gets the nomination for best animated feature at the Academy Awards, although it looks like Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon and Tangled will get the nods). Whilst it got off to a good start in terms of screen ratios (Averaging about $7,000 per screen when it had only opened in 1 cinema), since it spread wider (and by wider, I mean to 11 screens), its per-screen average has reduced to about $700. My question is this - at what point does it stop being worth the cinema's while to show these films? Is there a monetary cut-off point at which the movie owners will withdraw the film come-Friday? I do fear that unless something miraculous happens, I can see this film not becoming the hit it deserves to (or at the very least, crossing the $100,000 takings threshold.)

Well, this is actually a very complicated question - theatrical releases, that is. It's a tangled web of rentals and contracts and other legal wrangling and logistics. But I'll do my best here. See, once upon a time, your humble Answerman worked in a crappy, last-run movie theater when he was between jobs, and was the head projectionist. That's sort of like being crowned King Idiot of the Stupid People, but still.

So no, there isn't a "cutoff" where the movie theaters themselves decide that the movie isn't performing and so they pull it of their own accord. That's up to the studios. And, let's face it, that $700 per-screen average isn't that great, so it's entirely possible that the studio will see it as a lost cause and pull it from exhibition. That's what happened with Tales of Earthsea. Summer Wars isn't a success in US theaters. Big deal. And it probably won't get an Oscar nomination. Sad, but it's not like Summer Wars is the only really great animated feature to be overlooked by the Academy. Funimation gambled on that and they knew what the stakes were. But! There's still that one thing where the movie can truly, undoubtedly become a huge hit: DVD and Blu Ray.

Hey Answerman. I've got a rant here. And a question, too.

I have nothing in common with today's so-called "fan." They're all obnoxious, loud, irritating brats running around and quoting what little Japanese they know and crowding convention halls with tired memes.

It's getting to the point where I actually feel completely embarrassed to even MENTION that I've even SEEN an anime to people, whether it's my family or my friends or my co-workers. I just don't want to be lumped into the same group. And I'm not the only person who feels this way either. I guess my question is, is there any other way to describe fans like myself? I like anime, but I just HATE having to be grouped together with the loudmouthed, annoying younger fans.

Ooh! This will be another one of those "Short Answer / Long Answer" type responses.

And second: don't throw out your love of anime with the bathwater, dude. Some fans upset or irritate you, sure. Okay. They are not you. As I said in a previous column, what you like does not define you. You like anime because you are a person with a complete and unique identity and some parts of anime have therefore tickled your fancy in a genuine way. You just don't show that love and appreciation for it in the same idiotic fashion as a bunch of bored kids with no self control. And if you can't explain that to your family or your friends or whoever... that's a problem. Work on that. I mean, seriously, if you call yourself an "anime fan," and you can't explain to somebody why an ordinary person like yourself would enjoy it, and instead you just kinda throw up your hands and say, "Yeah, psshh! I guess it is weird dumb stuff for stupid kids!" No offense meant, but that's a little bit crappy. Being an anime fan is but one aspect of your otherwise diverse and interesting persona. It is but one of the many jigsaw pieces of the enigmatic puzzle that is You. And other such illustrative falderal.

Remember when I said I wasn't going to take anymore questions about how to make anime and manga anymore?!?

Does animenewsnetwork take manga submissions?

sure yeah why not

That sound you hear, emanating eerily in the background? Why, that's just Answerfans.

Last week, I wanted your sordid tales of sinful lust:

As usual, you all did me proud. First up, Ahren laments Lady Luck's infidelity:

There is actually a whole lot of anime merchandise that I have wanted to get my hands on. Although no matter how hard I try I just can't narrow it down to one that I want most. Two items tie for most wanted merchandise for me.

The first is dvd volume 6 of Welcome to the NHK. I bought this series in its original box set when it was first released and was able to acquire all but the 6th dvd. Try as I might I can't find it to buy anywhere. Not at any stores, not in any used sections of video stores, not on any online stores, not on ebay, and not on Amazon. I desperately want to complete my box set as I still haven't seen the last episodes. I have been waiting until I have finished the box set. For me it just won't do to buy the space saving new release. Sure it can easily fit in the box set with the other dvds, but it just wouldn't feel the same. To this day I still haven't finished the series and I probably never will. I think my chances of getting a copy are completely finished. I guess I should have bought it when it was first released but back then it was the furthest thing from my mind as I had a huge backlog of anime that I hadn't watched ( I still haven't finished this backlog to this day ) and a couple of my collections also suffered the horror of a basement flood. I was too busy searching frantically for replacements and the only one I was unable to replace was the original Tenjho Tenge Box set. So I think its way too late for me to ever find volume 6 of Welcome to the NHK. I've put it off for way too long. I will still keep searching though and I just won't finish the series until I've acquired it.

The other item is Kara No Kyoukai the Garden of Sinners Blue Ray set. I desperately want this series, but providing the money is difficult. Also I don't have a credit card which makes buying this even more difficult since RightStuf.com no longer accepts Paypal payments. I had downloaded the entire series several months before it was released and since then I have only watched one of the movies. I would rather wait till I've acquired an official release before I watch anymore. On top of that since I've downloaded the series my honor is at risk. I must purchase this set or my loyalty to the industry will be disgraced.

I will still continue to try and obtain these 2 items. Maybe one day my luck will get better, but that seems unlikely for me as lady luck currently seems to be seeing someone else.

Emily is so hardcore, she wants something that DOESN'T EVEN EXIST:

The merchandise I so desperately desire (I'd sell my dominant hand for it) is so rare that it doesn't exist: I yearn for the ArmorPlus Yoroiden Samurai Trooper line's final five figures. Yoroiden Samurai Troopers is better known as Ronin Warriors in the US, and is intentionally ignored and purposefully purged from memory by most anime fans despite being a prominent program during the 90's US anime boom. The small cult of devoted fans clinging to its fading shadow caught a glimmer of hope for its resurrection when in June 2009 came photos of a figure prototype that actually paid attention to anatomy, proportion, and (gasp) source material. In October 2009, what seemed like an impossible dream became reality; the finished figure was released to the buying public. Promotional photographs revealed the shiny, meticulously detailed, anatomically accurate, exquisitely articulated figure of Rekka no Ryo posed heroically beneath a plastic display barrier. Five silhouetted cardboard cutout figures sat quietly behind him as promises of a bygone cult classic's revival. The drool puddle that formed on my desk and subsequently spilled onto the floor was deep enough to drown in.

Alas and alack for the crumbling economy and Japan-exclusive retail as many fair-weather fans, lured in for a peek by the shininess and bishounen-y glory, lamented the figure's stiff base price and exorbitant import costs and so shied away from the purchase. So the withering cult of diehard fans failed to fulfill the ArmorPlus line's profit margins, and thus the company has seemingly thrown Yoroiden Samurai Troopers figures to the hiatus hounds of hell. No word, whisper, or whimper to hint the continuation of the five remaining sentai armors has been heard since.

Rekka no Ryo, the solitary sentai senshi, sits solemnly on my desk with only his armor, mullets, and extra decapitated screaming battle face to keep him company. The lack of his heavy-metaled, color-categorized companions crowding around my desktop serves as a dismal reminder that the fandom is crawling ever closer to oblivion, and the passion and dollars of a scarce thousand squealing adult devotees are not enough to save it.

This is the official page for the figure: http://tamashii.jp/item/item.php?eid=01170&pref=700
And here are pictures from its debut: http://picasaweb.google.com/tercero.bootleg/SamuraiTroopers#

It would indeed be grand, Quinn. Grand, grand indeed:

What piece of anime swag do I covet, desire, and desperately want to get my hands on more than anything? First off, downright ANYTHING related to Damekko Doubutsu. I seriously love that show and all the reject animals living in the forest therein. I am particularly fond of Yunihiko the unicorn. I mean, a plush doll of this atypical unicorn sitting with squid and sake in hand (hoof) accompanied with a lustful look on his face would just thrill me. I'd even settle for a cellphone charm or keychain of the cute pervy guy. One things for sure, if I had any memorabilia of Yunihiko I'd proudly place him within my stereotypical unicorn figure collection and see just how many comments would be voiced about his rather unusual traits. It'd be so grand.

As President of the Dead-Cat Swingers Local 151 I wholeheartedly object to Ben's postscript:

I've been collecting anime and manga-related goods for over a decade. I've owned tons of DVDs, cels and gashapon. And yet, the one thing that eludes me is my ideal doujinshi.

Way back in 2001, I started collecting doujinshi (mostly Final Fantasy VII and KOF, with some Samurai Shodown and Tenchi Muyo thrown in for good measure). It didn't matter that I couldn't read Japanese; if the cover looked good, I had to have it (regardless of whether or not the content on the inside looked like it was drawn by a fourth-grader). From there, things spiraled out of control, with books based on Guilty Gear, DBZ, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Ghost In The Shell, Escaflowne and pretty much anything SNK-related added to the mix over the years, all in the quest to find that one doujinshi that best reflected my fan pairings (unlikely as it may be). By 2004, I had even included Rurouni Kenshin, The Legend of Zelda and series I had no interest in (like Final Fantasy VI, Puyo Puyo and Azumanga Daioh... before I even knew what Azumanga Daioh was). I kept my focus solely on normal doujinshi (because back then, you couldn't swing a dead cat around without hitting a hentai or yaoi doujinshi*), targeting my favorite pairings from the series mentioned above (such as Cloud x Tifa, Vincent x Yuffie, Galford x Nakoruru, Miroku x Sango, Sol x Baiken & Ky x Dizzy; even odd pairings like Kenshin x Megumi, Shingo x Kula, Miroku x Kikyo and Sol x Dizzy caught my eye). By the summer of that same year, I knew I had to stop (and not because of the over-200 doujinshi I had accumulated by that point in time). So, over the next two years, I gradually sold off my doujinshi. As of September 2006, I had sold off nearly all of my doujinshi and kicked my habit (or so I thought; I purchased a Benimaru x Kula book in March 2007 before finally calling it quits).

Today, only a couple doujinshi remain. And yet, after all this time, I could never forget the books I wished had existed. Where was the love for the fan who wanted to see Shingo Yabuki paired up with Kasumi Todoh? What about a more unlikely pairing, such as Trunks x Kiyone or Trunks x Sakuya Izayoi? Although my days of rampantly buying doujinshi are long gone, I'd still love to see those three books come into existence (non-hentai, of course). I mean, would it also be too much to request a coherent story in each of those doujin? (If that one Card Captor Sakura x Sakura Taisen crossover book I owned can do it, why not?) If I had the means, I would do it. There are just three minor bumps in the road stopping me from doing so:

1) Cost (I'm not sure how much it would cost to hire an amateur artist, but factor in having an interpreter and travel costs, and the price rapidly escalates into the thousands of dollars, though thanks to modern technology, I could probably not have to worry about flying to Japan to see the end product.)

2) Connection (Is this the right artist for the book? Will I need to hire more than one to get the job done?)

3) Commitment (Will my chosen artist(s) be able to endure long hours and ever-changing plans, only to face the reality that those books may not even sell 100 copies, let alone 10?)

Until such doujinshi become reality, I might as well settle for a combination of DeviantArt, Pixiv and wishful thinking.

*I do not endorse swinging any dead animals around any objects. Also, no animals were harmed in the writing of this e-mail.

You snooze you lose, Fred:

I would say the piece of anime and manga-related merchandise that I want more than anything would be Figma's Signum Knight Version (PVC Figure) from the massive anime franchise Magic Girl Lyrical Nanoha.

I like Signum (one of my top four favourites from the series) and find all the accessories the figure comes with to very cool, especially the Laevatein's Snake form. But mainly I want just because I found out about it a year after it sold out and it's so hard to find.

500 dollars? That's not quite crazy money yet. 5,000 dollars? Now we're talking insanity money, Eric:

Anyone that knows me knows what a huge nut I am for a little manga from Masakazu Katsura called I"s. In fact, just mentioning this, just about everyone has probably figured out who this is already. Anyway, looking around the net for more info on this little gem of a series, I eventually stumbled upon the mother-lode of a collection for it - the I"s Box.

Inside this apparently old and limited release premium box, is an I"s fan's dream come true - an artbook chock full of Katsura's beautifully crisp art, some of which you can't see anywhere else; a detailed figurine of one of the leads, Iori Yoshizuki; an admission ticket to enter a contest from way back to have your portrait drawn by Katsura in person (which is another piece of artwork I would love to stumble upon someday); pins of the logo and the main three heroines of the manga; silk covers for the first 11 volumes of the manga (which is all that was out then I guess); trading cards adorned with artwork and Katsura's signature; and it' all wrapped up in a beautiful (though apparently not too hardy) box also adorned with Katura's autograph. I barely kid when I say I drooled a bit when I first stumbled upon it.

Since then, I've looked long and hard for more info about why this box was even released since I always sort of assumed I"s was a smaller title even in Japan, even if Katsura seems to have good fame in France and Spain, but even more so, I've tried to find where I could eventually get my own copy of the box.

Unlike some entries that may come in for this question, I actually found my quarry - sort-of. A seller on E-bay that seems to have a good reputation and doesn't sell any bootlegs as far as I can see has had various parts of the box for sale before. I've seen the artbook (which is the main thing I'd want) for $100 before, the pins for around that, and also the figurine. I've inquired to him about it before, but I don't know how long he'll keep offering it even if it doesn't sell, seeing as the last time I saw it go up, he'd finally bundled it all together again in an attempt to get it to sell for a whopping $500. I might be a crazed fan especially for this title, but that's a bit pricey for my tastes. And yet, I want it so bad...and if it stays up there until I eventually have the kind of cash I can throw around like that (yeah, don't we all dream?), I'll probably get it. I'm THAT crazy for I"s...

Hopefully you're at least a little amused by my insanity. It helps the days go by in my case.

RPGothic has some circumstances about His and Her Circumstances:

Over the years I have managed to get most pieces of merchandise I've really wanted - even if it taken me years to find it (It took me ages to get a figure of my favourite character in all the Otaku Universe - Katsura Hinagiku from Hayate No Gotoku). But the only thing I am missing that would make my collection complete is... The dolls of Yukino Miyazawa and Soichiro Arima from Kare Kano - His and Her Circumstances. (I remember Yukino being covered in a Astro Toys Column). Kare Kano is my all time favourite Manga and Anime (I try to watch the anime at least once every year). The dolls look amazing and in the case of Yukiko, have her vain style and her common style (as she refers to it). If only I could track them down... sigh.

Yotaru Vegeta Can (Not) Advance:

I will NEVER buy this, only because its price is prohibitively expensive. I present to you the Evangelion Phone:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fql9OOqZzuQ/SilGJRg-3bI/AAAAAAAABS0/ehPEUQ29kVE/s400/40328__468x_sh-06_nerv_evangelion_phone-2.jpg

ANN covered these phones, which recently were sold when the EVA remake movies came out in '09.

You know the horror of dropping your phone and cracking it, right? Now imagine if your phone had a price tag of about $9000. That's a hardcore way to show your love for a single show. Hell, that's a hardcore way to show your love for 2 dozen shows.

I would hope that in 2 decades the price may go down. My Rss feed searches ebay for sellers day and night...

I'll bet if you get Susan drunk enough she'll be able to explain her reasons:

Sailor Moon was the first anime I was REALLY into, and the three cats were my favorite characters, so I set out on a mission to collect every piece of merchandise ever created for them. This turned out to be a bit harder then I'd anticipated since on the hierarchy of characters they don't rank very high. Anything outside of the Irwin released American plushies and figures were kind of obscure. I have very nearly succeeded, all I'm missing is two UFO catchers from the anime and the plushies from the live action show. I LOATHE the live action show and yet for reasons even I can't much explain I desperately want the plushies. The problem is that on ebay the things I'm missing range from a minimum of 50 dollars to sometimes over 100 and I can't bring myself to justify getting them.

And now, the final response belongs to Yves, who has the most obscure response, and therefore is the Winner, if this were a contest of hipness (it is not):

I saw this question and immediately knew my answer. That one piece of merchandise that has been eluding me, the one I check for on eBay and Yahoo auctions daily. It was produced for the live action version of the series, but it has had numerous manga adaptations and an anime so I feel it still counts for this question.

The 1970s saw, for reasons I don't quite understand, a boom in figures of toys on bicycles and tricycles. Even things that would not logically not be riding one. Like say, giant robots or the mushroom men of the horror movie Matango. But apparently it was selling well because companies continued to turn them out. One company, Aoshin, the manufacturer of my "holy grail' was in on this market as well, producing trike riding figures of Great Mazinger and Dai Apolon. So when they licensed Kamen Rider Amazon, the masked monster hero whose name comes from his motorcycle riding hero evil fighting ways, it should be an easy job for them, no?

Apparently it was because they instead chose to mold my favourite manga monster into the seat of a 1963 Ford Galaxie lowrider convertible, his name painted across the side, his likeness across the trunk. This bizarre marketing decision just makes me want it so badly. Though with the prices I've seen for some of the other collectibles from this time period, and the difficulty in finding a 35 year old foreign children's toy. I am thinking perhaps buying a Ford Galaxie might be cheaper...

Kamen Rider lowrider convertible. Say that out loud and think about it real hard. Kamen Rider lowrider convertible. Congratulations, you have now broken your brain.

Alright, so! Next week, I have something to ask of you that should hopefully restore your sanity:

Now you've got this week's question, and it's time to get answerin'.

For those of you new to Hey, Answerfans!, I'll explain the concept.

Believe it or not, I'm genuinely curious what you think.

That's right; as much as I love the sound of my own voice, I do love to listen to what other people have to say on a subject. I'm finding that over the last few years, the attitudes, reasoning and logic that today's anime fans use eludes, confuses or astounds me; I have so many questions for you, and I'm dying to hear what you have to say in response.

Welcome to Hey, Answerfans!

Basically, we're turning the tables. Each week I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to email me your answer. Be as honest as you can. I'm looking for good answers; not answers I agree with or approve of, but good, thoughtful answers. People feel passionately about these subjects and I'd like to see that in the responses I get. I'll post the best answers I get, and maybe some of the crappy ones. Sometimes there may only be one or two good ones; sometimes five or more. It all depends on what I get in my inbox! Got it? Pretty simple, right? Start writing those answers and email them to answerman [at] animenewsnetwork dot com.

We do have a few simple ground rules to start with.

Things To Do:

* Be coherent.
* Be thoughtful.
* Be passionate.
* Write as much or as little as you feel you need to to get your point across in the best possible way.

Things Not To Do:

* Respond when the question doesn't apply to you. For instance, if your email response starts with "Well, I don't do whatever you're asking about in the question... " then I'm going to stop reading right there and hit delete.

* Be unnecessarily rude or use a lot of foul language.
* Go off-topic.

Nothing more to report, so I am out! Don't forget to open up your email-box and fill out a question or a response or a cutting remark and toss it through the internet so that it lands on ANSWERMAN (AT!!) ANIMENEWSNETWORK.COM! I just wanted to use my Caps Lock key at least once today. Have a helluva week!