Leave it to Facebook to get info on the state of the anime industry.  Apparently Bandai is throwing in the towel on it’s anime products.

My friend and colleague Voice Actor Steve Blum wrote in Facebook:

I’m going to address this once and move on. Sad that I even need to. Piracy does affect the business – in all areas of entertainment. Those of you who so vehemently dispute this fact are obviously breaking federal law and intending to continue this trend with no regard for the damage you cause real people – some who have sacrificed everything to produce the products you steal. I wish you the best of luck building a career based on entitlement. Please allow us to pay our respects to a company that was one of the primary building blocks for the anime industry in America. Thank you, Bandai, for one helluva ride. Bang.

Check out this article:

Bandai Entertainment Shutters Its Anime Operation, Scraps New Titles

By Max Eddy

http://www.geekosystem.com/bandai-entertainment-anime/

Bandai Entertainment has announced that it will no longer publish new manga, DVD, or Blu-ray titles as of February 2012. The company will be restructuring, taking its dedicated staff down from five to three, and will entirely change focus. Instead of new releases, the Bandai Entertainment will shift over solely to merchandising, broadcast licensing, and digital distribution.

The move is not too surprising considering that the company closed its online store in late December. Though they company will continue to distribute its existing titles, it’s unclear whether or not it will keep those existing titles in print. Given the company’s new focus, it doesn’t seem likely.

That said, this could be a smart move for the company.Platform Nation points out that Bandai Entertainment has struggled in the face of competition from Viz publications and FUNimation. These moves would place Bandai Entertainment in a position where they could still make money — arguably much more money than before — without the overhead involved with producing a physical product. Though perhaps that is looking for a silver lining in the midst of a shutdown.

The following titles have been canceled, according to the Anime News Network:

Anime DVD/Blu-Ray

• Gosick
• Nichijō
• Turn A Gundam

Manga

• Code Geass: Renya (Code Geass: Shikkoku no Renya)
• Gurren Lagann volume 7
• Kannagi volumes 4-6
• Lucky Star Boo Boo Kagaboo (spinoff by Eretto)
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00I
• Tales of the Abyss: Jade’s Secret Memories volumes 1 and 2

Here are the titles currently slated for 2012, according Toon Zone:

January 2012

• Star Driver Part 2 will be released on 1/17/12 on DVD ($39.98) and Blu-Ray ($49.98). Running time 300 minutes, with English subtitles
• Tales of the Abyss Part 2 will be released on 1/3/12 for $29.98 ($34.98 for the limited edition with volume 2 of Tales of the Abyss: Asch the blood). Running time 175 minutes, with with English subtitles
• The Girl Who Leapt Through Space Volume 4 will be released on 1/17/12 for $29.98. Running time 150 minutes, with English subtitles

February 2012

• The following titles are all currently solicited for 2/7/12:
• Akira on DVD for $19.98, running time 124 minutes
• Mobile Suit Gundam Complete Collection 2 for $49.98, running time 500 minutes
• Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn part 2 on DVD, running time 120 minutes
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Season 1 and 2 for $49.98 each, running time 625 minutes for both
• Tales of the Abyss part 3 and 4, both $29.98 each. Running time 150 minutes for both
• Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 Collection for $49.98, running time 625 minutes

(Anime News Network via Siliconera)

This affects Code Geass, which I have a major part in.  Bummer.  What do you think should be done about this?

Check this out:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

PMX2011-LadiesofTenchiMuyoPressRelease

“The Ladies of Tenchi Muyo” Reunite at Pacific Media Expo

LOS ANGELES, CA — Pacific Media Expo 2011 (PMX 2011) is proud to welcome the voice actresses from the classic anime series Tenchi Muyo. Voice actors Petrea Burchard (Ryoko), Rebecca Forstadt (Mihoshi), Ellen Gerstell (Mihoshi) and Sherry Lynn (Sasami, Tsunami) are scheduled to appear at Pacific Media Expo for “The Ladies of Tenchi Muyo” panel on Sunday, November 13, 2011 at the LAX Hilton.

Petrea Burchard is best known to anime fans as the original English voice of Ryoko, the sexy space pirate, throughout the classic run of Tenchi Muyo! movies, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OAV 1&2, Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo, Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (OAV), and Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special. Her voice-over work includes countless commercials and several radio plays, one of which includes a role in “Repent, Harlequin,” Said the Ticktockman opposite Robin Williams on National Public Radio (to be found at Audible.com). She was once a radio traffic reporter and is currently the voice of Stater Bros. Markets in Southern California.

Rebecca Forstadt’s involvement in the Tenchi series includes providing the voice talent for Mihoshi throughout the run of Tenchi in Tokyo, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OAV 3 and Tenchi movies 2 & 3. Ms. Forstadt has been a well known voice over actor in the anime genre for over 30 years. She has also appeared as a critically acclaimed actress on stage in Hollywood, starred in 2 motion pictures, and various on-camera roles in television. She has appeared in Hey Arnold, My Little Pony, Dilbert, The Mr. Men Show, and even a large number of radio and TV Commercials for companies such as Mattel, Knott’s Berry Farm, Disneyland, Verizon. In addition to her voice over career she is a serial entrepreneur and avid blogger.

Ellen Gerstell is best known to anime fans as the original English voice of Mihoshi, the ditzy Galaxy Police officer throughout the classic run of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OAV 1&2, Tenchi Universe, Tenchi Muyo Movie 1: Tenchi in Love, and Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special.  She discovered doing voice overs when she was chosen to do the voice of Strawberry Shortcake on children’s albums which led to her signing with a voice over agent and doing radio and television commercials in New York City. She moved to Los Angeles in 1982, where she was quickly cast in her first cartoon series, “The Monchichi’s”. Since then, she has sung and provided voices on many different animation series and films. After 20 years of professional acting, in 1997, Gerstell began a new career in music and theatre education.

Sherry Lynn is best known to anime fans as the original English voices of both Sasami and Tsunami throughout the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OAVs, Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo, all of the Tenchi MuyoI movies & Magical Girl Pretty Sammy. Ms. Lynn’s first venture into the anime world was with the Tenchi Muyo! series. This was quickly followed by Kiki’s Delivery Service, Ah! My Goddess (Skuld), Bio Hunter (Sayaka), Cowboy Bebop (Young Faye Valentine), Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals (Linaly), Gatekeepers (Saemi Ukiya), Ghost in the Shell (Tachikoma), Psycho Diver Soul Siren (Yuki Kano), Rozen Maiden (Hinaichigo), Wolf’s Rain (Cheza) and Real Bout High School (Misao) to name a few. When Ms. Lynn is not recording, she is the co-artistic director and co-founder of Children’s Theatre Group of Southern California (CTGSC), now in its tenth year.

“We are so excited to have these wonderful actors from Tenchi Muyo for the first time at PMX! Those of us who grew up watching Toonami are in for a treat this year,” says Amanda Badillo,

Pacific Media Expo’s Industry Liaison, the person who spearheaded this panel.

In addition to the main panel, all four guests will participate in a press panel and an autograph session. See www.pacificmediaexpo.com for more info.

About Pacific Media Expo:

As America’s first major media trade show dedicated primarily to Asian-Pacific popular culture and entertainment, Pacific Media Expo (PMX) is a distinguished industry event sponsored by the Pacific Media Association. PMX 2011 strives to create an eclectic community where artists, industry, and fans can freely experience and express the very best of Asian-Pacific popular culture. For more information, see www.PacificMediaExpo.com.

For media inquiries contact:

Allison Thater, PMX Press Manager

408-634-2554

Press@PacificMediaExpo.com

I thought this was an interesting article on the future of anime in the Japan Times Online.  Kind of scary!

By ALEX MARTIN
Staff writer

After graduating from Tokyo Animator College, Yuko Matsui began working at a midscale animation production agency.

Two years later, she earns roughly ¥80,000 a month, averaging 10 hours a day doing the grunt work of filling out “in-between cels,” drawings on transparent sheets used between key scenes to help create the illusion of motion.
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Although she lives with her parents, she can’t save any money and has given up on paying her national pension fees. Still, the 22-year-old apprentice considers herself better off than some of her peers who say they have to endure frequent all-nighters with few days off.

“There were seven others I knew who graduated with me at the same time, but three of them have already given up and quit,” she said.

Matsui’s story is typical of what many aspiring animators must face in a trade where only the best survive in a shrinking job market. And it’s not just the employees who are hurting.

The deepening recession and rapid shift in the overall landscape surrounding the industry have caused many to fear for the future of one of the nation’s most prized cultural exports.

“The global fan base for Japanese ‘anime’ is increasing, but with the old business model crumbling it isn’t translating into profits,” said Yasuo Yamaguchi, executive director of the Association of Japanese Animations.

For the past decade, the industry has been hammering out average annual sales of ¥200 billion in what experts described as an “animation bubble.”

Yamaguchi predicted, however, that the industry’s proceeds for fiscal 2008 — which have yet to be calculated — would be lower than 2007, when total sales dropped almost ¥20 billion from 2006, a record high year, according to AJA statistics.

“The financial crisis is forcing sponsors to cut down on television advertisement fees, and this in turn is shrinking the budgets for animations, pressuring everyone involved in the production,” Yamaguchi said.

“I think we’ll see a major decrease in the number of anime programs broadcast. Agencies dependent on television as a primary financial source will need to search for alternatives.”

Besides the gloomy economy, the overwhelmingly adult content of recent television animation — many featuring violent or highly sexual material and broadcast during late-night hours — has played a part in limiting the audience and making both marketing and merchandising of anime-related products difficult.

Yoshihiko Noda, director of the media content division for ad agency Asatsu-DK, buys TV time slots for popular family programs such as “Doraemon” and “Crayon Shin-chan.” He said these trends were a relatively recent phenomenon.

“The demographics of anime fans began shifting seven to eight years ago. Those who grew up watching cartoons became older, and began craving more ‘otaku’ (geek) and adult content,” Noda said, noting such animation is mainly produced for DVD sales, with the late-night shows — usually consisting of only 13 episodes — used as bait to draw viewers into buying the full DVD set that comes with increased content and special features.

This lack of mainstream acceptability in anime content, combined with expensive title licenses and the exploding popularity of video-sharing sites, has helped erode the industry’s distribution market in the West.

“Anime-related profits in the United States, especially DVDs, are dwindling,” said Keisuke Iwata, director of animation channel AT-X.

“Thanks to megahits such as ‘Evangelion’ and ‘Pokemon,’ Japanese animation has fared well in the past. But it has already maxed out as an export industry,” Iwata explained, adding that besides the lack of big-name titles and a decrease in overseas airplay in recent years, the greatest obstacle lies in the illegal Internet sites that provide free content.

“These sites upload programs almost immediately after they are broadcast in Japan,” accompanied with “fan subs” — English subtitles translated by fans,” Iwata said. “This is causing a very big dent in sales.”

To counter the trend, TV Tokyo tied up with popular San Francisco-based animation-sharing site Crunchyroll in January, offering some of TV Tokyo’s popular titles in advertisement-free, high-quality format with subtitles for a monthly fee of $6.95.

Yukio Kawasaki, manager of TV Tokyo’s animation business department, said the move was an attempt to create a legitimate distribution channel between animation producers and overseas fans, as well as a way to send out a message.

“Animation isn’t free. It’s the product of hard work and a lot of money, and we cannot continue producing quality content without the financial help from fans,” Kawasaki said, explaining that if the strategy succeeds, they could expand by selling DVDs and comic books on the site, “like Amazon.com,” and establish a valid business model.

Kawasaki said they have signed up more than 10,000 fee-paying members since the tieup began Jan. 8 and hope to reach 50,000 by the end of this year.

“We are seriously concerned that the industry will not survive if things go on like this,” he said, acknowledging that whether their new plan succeeds or not, the structural issue undermining the industry will still exist.

“You’ve got to really love animation to be in this trade,” said Takeo Ide, chief animator for the popular television series “One Piece.”

Ide recalled how he used to make ¥70,000 a month in his rookie years, sharing a cheap apartment to get by before being assigned to draw the more pricey key frames — drawings that define the starting and ending points of movements.

Ide’s is a success story in an occupation that, according to a study conducted by the Japan Council of Performers’ Organization, has an appalling turnover rate of 80 percent.

The study revealed that a single cel on average earns animators a meager ¥186.9. Considering how a grunt worker has to fill in 500 in-between cells per month for a television animation series, this means a monthly wage of ¥94,000 at best — for an average of 250 hours of work — until an artist gets to handle key frames or storyboards.

With an estimated 90 percent of in-betweens being outsourced overseas — a result of the industry trying to squeeze out more content than it can from domestic hands — there are also concerns that opportunities to nurture future generations of quality animators are being lost.

“Drawing in-between cels is hard work and it sure doesn’t pay much, but it’s still an important skill that every animator should learn,” said Masayuki Kawachi, president of the All-Toei Labor Union.

Kawachi, who handles special effects at Toei Animation Studio, said that in the current situation, most of such work is done in countries like China and the Philippines.

“And with the recession eating away at production fees and forcing agencies to downsize or go bankrupt, young and aspiring animators can’t find places to work,” Kawachi said.

Reflecting such times, animation studio Gonzo, a well-known name in the industry, recently confirmed it plans to pare the number of contracted creators from 130 to 30 over the next five years.

The Japan Fair Trade Commission on Jan. 23 released a report on the state of the animation industry, listing several major concerns.

One is the lack of copyrights attributed to production agencies — copyrights are divvied up among sponsors, a system widely criticized for robbing the actual creators of any secondary-use benefits, not to mention motivation.

Another is the popular practice of commissioning and recommissioning production work to smaller agencies that often leads to shady transactions.

Kawachi said such issues — not new to the industry — have largely been ignored in the past but will need to be dealt with one way or another if the industry hopes to remain the dominant force behind the global animation market.

In 2006, Kawachi’s union, joined by the Federation of Cinema and Theatrical Workers Union in Japan, presented the culture ministry with a proposal on restructuring the animation industry, outlining main issues and suggesting solutions. Kawachi said they received no response from the government.

Yamaguchi of AJA, who also lectures on animation literacy at Nihon University’s law school, predicts that in the end, quality, not quantity, will come to be emphasized.

“When we look at viewer ratings of animated television programs, we notice that the top slot is always dominated by ‘Sazae-san,’ the only program that is still produced using the traditional hand-drawn method,” he said, adding that this trend could also be seen in last year’s ¥15 billion-grossing hit “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea,” a hand-drawn movie produced by Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli.

“In this age of mass production, when most animation is digitized, we need to consider the implications of such data,” Yamaguchi said.

“I think we need to think, philosophically, about what our users really want.”

I know the voice actors in the US are getting a little worried.  How about you?

From the desk of the President of Bang Zoom! Entertainment, Eric P. Sherman:

You must have noticed by now that many of the publishers that brought anime to the West have been shut down or substantially down-sized. There are only a few places left still able to bring titles to our shores. This is a critical year for anime. There’s no other way to say it. And I realized this morning that it was time for me to sound an urgent alarm.

If people don’t resist the urge to get their fix illegally, the entire industry is about to fizzle out. It won’t be a big dramatic change at this point. Last year we saw Bandai fire 90% of their staff on one Monday in January, and two years ago we saw Geneon (neé Pioneer) shut their doors and auction off their wares to the highest bidder. CPM died a slow, painful death. And ADV fell hard and fast, the way mighty giants will. But from here on, it won’t be so exciting. Japan is already suffering and struggling to bring out quality titles. They can’t rely on everything being picked up by US distributors anymore. And little by little, it just won’t be here anymore.

You can’t find much anime at Best Buy now. In fact, where can you find it for sale? Think about that.  There are fewer new titles coming out, and less and less stuff will be in English, because it’s just not worth the cost of dubbing it. It’s true that entertainment distribution models are going to be changing dramatically. DVD may be on the way out forever, and online TV is becoming a reality very quickly. But so far, there are no successful ways to monetize online entertainment. Not so that creators can afford to produce and distribute quality content.

Anime is going to die.

Unless YOU change. Right now. Stop stealing. If you have committed theft, robbery, shop-lifting, or just “downloading some stuff through torrent reactor,”  then just stop doing it — now.  You probably wouldn’t go into a supermarket and put a package of swiss cheese under your shirt and walk out without paying. Nor would you walk into Best Buy and try to walk out with Guitar Hero, bypassing the cash register. Why? Is it because you might get caught? Or are there other issues, such as standards of morality, that dictate how you live your life.

The net, for all it’s charms, is also a dark and dangerous place. When you’re navigating it, you need to ask yourself this question:  Is this right, just because it is so easy? You need to understand that quality entertainment costs a lot to create. And if there is no one paying for this content, it just won’t be made anymore. If no one bought tickets to a Lady Ga Ga show, she would not do the tour. That’s just how it works. For some reason, people don’t mind stealing their anime. I’m here to tell you flat out: This is wrong. You are doing something bad. And you need to stop it.

I’m sure that some of you reading this will laugh, close this window, and go download some more torrents. Why not? Who’s going to know? Who’s going to catch you?

I think this bears repetition, so I’ll say it again: Not getting caught does not make what you are doing right. And I am pretty sure it doesn’t make you feel good about yourself.  What you are doing is not only illegal, it is actually hurting many people. From the artists and creators, to the voice actors in the studios — all working to put food on their tables for their families. You can’t see them, and you can’t see the immediate results of your actions. But believe me, you are hurting people.

If what I’m saying resonates with you, then consider this a wake up call. A call to immediate and profound action. It’s very easy to do.  You should support anime if you love it, by paying for it. Do the right thing. Plain and simple. Because if you don’t, I can guarantee you that this time next year, Bang Zoom won’t be bringing you anymore English language versions of it.

To all of those who support anime: a heartfelt thank you from all of us at the studio.

Eric P. Sherman, President & CEO, Bang Zoom! Entertainment / April 24, 2010

I’m still getting over the shock of hearing about Carl Macek's untimely death. He was the original producer/writer of Robotech. I recently saw him at a party and he looked wonderfully healthy.  Carl, gave me the opportunity to have my 15 minutes, no make that 25 years of fame, when he produced a series that no one had any idea would change the face of anime forever.  Before Robotech, we were just cranking out this strange sort of stuff, we never had any idea of where it was going.  Suddenly, the Robotech phenomenon took over and hasn’t stopped to this day.
Carl was a lovely and very generous soul.  I remember spending the day with him in Philadelphia at one of the first of a series of Robotech conventions.  We went to a delicious restaurant on South Street.  He truly loved to enjoy the good things in life. He’s had the blessing of a love filled marriage with Svea for many years, which is not always possible in our industry.
Because of Carl, I was able to meet so many incredible people including Ulpio Minocci, who was one of the kindest and most talented individuals I have ever met.
I will miss him so much.  He was someone who was so filled with interesting stories and was a true gentleman.