Viz Media Put's the Ki·bosh on Inubaka Crazy for Dogs (いぬばか) at Vol #17

Just FYI everyone. Viz Media has confirmed on that Yukiya Sakuragi's manga Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs is currently on hiatus in North America and that Vol #18 (which was set to release this month) has been canceled.

According to a statement from a Viz Media representative, no new volumes are currently on the company's release schedule. The manga ended in Japan last April, and the 22nd and final volume shipped there last May.

Man, only 5 volumes short of the end too. Screwed again! And how sad, I really loved this series! Damn.

Funimation Changes Date (Again) for Rosario / YuYu Hakusho BD

Ugggg, what can I say? Today we heard that Funi is moving Rosario out even further on the release schedule. Here are the date changes they announced today:

Rosario+Vampire Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-13) - Jul 19th to Aug 30th
Rosario+Vampire Capu2 (Season 2) Complete DVD Boxed Set (Eps #14-26) - Jul 19th to Aug 30th
Yu Yu Hakusho Season 1 Box (Eps #1-28) (BLURAY) (Classic Collection) - Apr 26th to May 30th

It seems like the release date for Rosario has become the ultimate moving target. In the last 45 days it has moved from Mar 29th to May 19th to Jul 19th and now to Aug 30th. Seriously folks, I hope this is the last change because if it moves out any further the light from it alone will take millions of years to reach us...

IDA Posts English Cat Shit One Trailer

IDA has finally posted the long promised English trailer for the Cat Shit One. The director of the war anime, Kazuya Sasahara, also announced on Saturday that the previously announced free English stream of the anime has been rescheduled for February 5.

In addition he said the planned DVD and Blu-ray Disc release has also been rescheduled for the same date on Amazon, but as of today Amazon still shows both as 'unavailable' for order.

~sigh~ This one had so much potential too. Those guys at IDA could F$#& up a cup of coffee. :-) Anyway, here's the trailer (comes after the ads):


I love Botasky's EBR... do want!

UPDATE: OK, just for fun, lets take a look at Packy & Botasky's kit:

Botasky has a pretty straight forward EBR setup, the enhanced 7.62x51 (.308) M14 build that Smith Enterprise (and Fulton Armory I think) puts together for the Military using their parts and a special stock designed by Sage International. The Smith Enterprise three point scope mount for the M14 is about the best you can get - I have one on my M1A. He also is setup with a suppressor and a laser designator (probably an AN/PEQ of some type) for night operations. His optics are probably a variable Leopold Mark 4 with a mil dot reticle, and he has a diffuser cover on the front lens to prevent reflected light from giving away his position. On top the scope he has an Aimpoint reflex site for close in work should it become necessary. Finally, he is using some sort of Harris style bi-pod, which is very common. I think his backup piece is a custom 1911 of some sort judging by the backstrap safety.

Packy's weapon is definately an AR style flat top, but it's not an M4. His rifle has a vertical grip with a pressure switch for a laser mounted under the quad rail hand guard. He has flip up sights and also an Aimpoint red dot or reflex sight (maybe an M68?), and also a Voltor style adjustable stock. These are all features you'd expect to see on a regular M4, but Packy's weapon is clearly chambered for 7.62x39 which is the cartridge the AK uses. While unusual, there are a lot of AR makers that produce versions chambered for this round. This is a good choice for Packy, because as they operate deep behind enemy lines cut off from re-supply, he would want his battle rifle to run the same ammunition and magazines the enemy uses. An interesting choice by the film producers that is a credit to their attention to detail. I believe Packy's backup gun is also a highly customized 1911. This also makes sense, as the two could easily exchange magazines.

Anyone have any other thoughts?

Update on the Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny Complete Collection

Yesterday we made a little mistake by prematurely announcing the new Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-12) had arrived and was now in stock. This was not quite correct.

You see, it did in fact arrive, but it is 'not' in stock.

I've been told by our rep at Allegro that the first shipment of the Dragon Destiny box was allocated to retailers because it was under ordered at replication. In other words, they had to ship everyone less than they ordered the first time around, so we got about half of our copies. We are using what we have to fill pre-orders, and I'm pretty sure we have just enough to get all of your pre-orders out for it today.

In the mean time we've gone ahead and put the title back on pre-order status until the rest of our copies are delivered, and I'm told those should arrive before the street date. Sorry folks, we jumped the gun on this one a little yesterday - I had just figured UPS hadn't brought us all the boxes of it they owed us (they split shipments to us all the time), but after checking in with Allegro, I found out that was not the case.

Welcome to the Anime business... :-)

The Hypocrisy of Marketing

I've been working on preparing a post about our switch to the more 'eco-friendly' corn starch bio-degradable loose fill for order packaging. Having switched over to them over a month ago, I'm in no hurry though. I wanted enough of you to start getting orders packaged with them so that when I do post about it, you'll be able to give us some reliable feedback about their effectiveness. See, I'm mostly concerned with this material's usefulness as a package protection, with the environmental aspects being a necessary, but secondary perk.

Anyway, this got me to thinking. We do a lot of stuff to help protect the environment in the course of our business. We recycle all of our cardboard and chipboard waste (we have a special dumpster for it), we recycle our paper waste, we use a very efficient natural gas based HVAC system (we paid extra for the highest efficiency rating), we use recycled materials whenever possible in our order processing and packaging processes (and we try to use vendors that do the same) - hell, we even keep the thermostats set low in the winter and bundle up, and turn the light off in parts of the warehouse we are not using during certain parts of the day to save energy. Jamie and I commute back and forth to the office (most of our driving) in a fuel efficient little Kia Soul. The Bimmer mostly stays parked at home. Lots of other little things.

We do this stuff out of a simple common sense approach that any responsible company should take in their attitude toward environmental concerns. But it has never really occurred to me to make a big deal about it as some sort of 'marketing point' to promote our company - like printing that we do it on our boxes. Making folks aware of what you are doing is good, but making it a point of contention in your marketing propaganda, as if to say - "see, my company is better than yours because we recycle" - well, seems a bit adolescent to me. I really don't think smart people can be bought off by those sorts of concerns - I mean it's 2011 - people should EXPECT companies to do whatever is economically feasible to be environmentally friendly. Why wouldn't we. Anything else would just be irresponsible.

So it also occurs to me that in this digital age, when you already consume plenty of electricity to spin the hard drives that make your digital catalog/online store available 24/7, don't you think it's a little hypocritical to sell people on what a green company you are, but still mail out tens of thousands of tree killing paper product catalogs every quarter? Can you imagine the extra fossil fuel burned by the delivery trucks as they carry thousands of pounds of these paper catalogs? And the energy and resources consumed in making the paper for and printing those catalogs? Even if you use recycled materials, you know the endgame of these is to just become landfill fodder after their usefulness is over.

Frankly, while I think they are completely unnecessary for an online e-tailer, if you feel like having a printed catalog is an essential part of your online business, so be it. You gotta do what you gotta do. But if you do, don't turn around and start making a marketing pitch about how environmentally friendly your company is. If you don't mind, please sell stupid somewhere else.

Some Kitty Stuff Trickling In Again

After several months of backorders, Kitty stuff is finally starting to trickle in again. Remember that while Media blasters has turned over their Anime Works and Tokyo Shock stuff to the distributor Allegro, they have kept their adult line (and most profitable line I might add) Kitty in house.

Notable recent restocks of Kitty adult items that previously spent weeks on semi-permanent backorder include:

Body Transfer
Cleavage
Learning the Hard Way
Bible Black New Testament 3
Sexual Pursuit
Kite/Mezzo Double Pack

There are still plenty of Kitty stuff on backorder though. Titles that remain AWOL with no apparent ETA include Viper GTS, Booby Life, Discode, Hills Have Size, and Cantaloupe Collector. Our backorder log is full of these, and I'm hoping we will be able to ship them again soon.

Kitty has also started feeding us new release info again, and they have a few new things coming up in February and March, but we're not going to offer them for pre-order - we'll post them once they actually arrive. I'm tired of taking Kitty backorders and then making excuses for them when stuff doesn't ship on time. They are using poor Brand X for retailer fulfillment after all...

So with regards to Kitty the light is at the end of the tunnel, we're just still in the tunnel. We really appreciate everyones patience who has been waiting for any of these.

We Never Get a Break Do We? [UPDATED]

Well, we were all set and caught up and ready to break for Christmas today, and then a truck showed up around 3pm with 3 pallets of new import figures. This shipment wasn't supposed to get here for another week, but I guess they expedited it out to us so they could get it off their books before year end - but dumping so much new stuff on us the day before Christmas Eve is really not cool. Yeah, they do it every year, but still...

Anyway, we're cutting off holiday shipping now since the UPS and FedEx trucks have now come and gone. We've done everything we could to get everyones stuff to them on time. We're all pretty tired, but still I think we'll probably work late into the night to try to get this shipment sorted out so we can take tomorrow off.

Now I better get some dinner ordered for everyone. Welcome to the Anime business! :-)

UPDATE (9 Hours Later): Post complete - I think it was worth it! That's it for us, Merry Christmas everyone, have a great holiday weekend and we'll see you on Monday!

Slight SNAFU With Postal Tracking for Holiday Shipments

I just want to make everyone aware of a problem with postal tracking that isn't really a problem, but has been a cause of concern for folks that are getting nervous about the shipping of their holiday orders.

The postal folks at our local sort center here in Winchester, VA are so busy (or so under staffed) this year that some of our parcels are coming off our truck and going right into local sort and loaded into outgoing trailers without getting scanned. Since the post office really only offers 'delivery confirmation' anyway instead of real tracking, it's OK for them to skip this step to save time when they have to, but it does mean that some of our tracking numbers for priority mail and standard mail shipments will come up as 'invalid' online even though we've shipped them out. I expect this to continue through next week, so don't be too concerned if you get a shipping confirmation from us and the postal tracker shows 'invalid' for a couple of days.

Don't worry, we really did ship it (every shipment here goes on the truck the day the tracking number is generated), it's on the way, and it will pop up in the Postal Service's tracking system the first time it gets scanned somewhere in route - or when it gets delivered, which ever comes first.

Cat Shit One - If RACS can't ship it, you should skip it!

Production company IDA Entertainment (another brilliantly run Japanese managed Anime firm) has announced that they intend to release Cat Shit One - at least the single episode that has actually been produced - on DVD and BD here in the US in December.

The big downer? It will only be available from Amazon. IDA says because they wanted to handle international distribution for this video on their own:

"that unfortunately means we are currently not interested in collaborating with other television, Internet distribution, DVD, or Blu-ray distribution related companies."

In other words, they're not really interested in market penetration, just turning a fast buck on the small amount of series content they've already produced.

Well IDA, for that (just like AniPlex) YOU CAN SUCK IT!

Actually, the problem with IDA's production of Cat Shit One seems to be a chronic lack of funding or investment interest in the project. It has taken them a year to produce one episode of the originally promised full TV series, and while they gave it away for free to Japanese audiences on YouTube, they initially blocked the video for viewing by North American fans - but will now be making it available (with the dub) in November. All hail IDA.

I suspect they are going through Amazon for distribution so they can utilize Amazon's 'press on demand' service, in which the DVD or BD is not actually produced until it's ordered. It's the ultimate poor mans video production service, but it would allow them to offer the existing episode on DVD without having to invest a lot of money in replication. If not, I bet the R1 version will be close the Japanese price, and if it is - well, epic fail.

IDA says they are still working towards a full 12-episode series, but considering their track record so far I'm not too hopeful they will be able to pull it off.

As for the 'Amazon only' DVD release? For this one, I recommend you catch it on YouTube and skip buying it on DVD until a complete series is produced. I think it's really time to stop rewarding companies for these stupid distribution decisions.

Hey, I just had a thought about what out new mantra should be:

If RACS can't ship it, you should skip it! :-)

HEH, I like that. Maybe we should start putting that in our advertising...

Funimation Recalls Birdy the Mighty: Decode Part 1

Funimation, due to the wrong content being on one of the disks, hit us with a letter this afternoon announcing that they are recalling the new Birdy the Mighty: Decode Part 1 DVD Box (Eps #1-13) (Part # FN-06720) - you know, the one that just arrived a couple days ago. Ugggg.

Funi will be remaking a batch of new Birdy boxes, and they will ship them to us together with the 2nd half boxed set which is due to street on November 30th.

We have suspended all in process shipments of Birdy (they will automatically become pre-orders for the fixed box), and will be pulling our remaining inventory for return to Funi tomorrow. For you the folks that already have it, just e-mail us to request a replacement ticket. We will setup an automatic shipment to you for a fixed box once they arrive next month.

AniPlex USA Comments?

Based on the number of e-mails that came in over the weekend, it seems that a lot of RACS customers are expecting me to say something regarding the way AniplexUSA has decided to approach the R1 market with their releases (specifically Durarara and R.O.D.) and, as one customer put it:

" ...the utter contempt they are showing for US Anime fans based on both their pricing and distribution policy..."

(not my words folks)

I do in fact have some 'thoughts' on the subject, but I'm not ready to make them public. Maybe in a few days...

Until then, please enjoy this movie clip that is totally and completely unrelated to the subject of this post:

Media Blasters Changes Queens Blade Dates... Again...

Well, no sooner had Media Blasters sent out their revised December schedule and assured us that their new dates were now good, they have sent us another sheet of revisions, this time in regards to Queens Blade.

First, Queens Blade volume #2 has been moved again, this time from Oct 26 to Dec 14:

Queen's Blade: Wandering Warrior, Vol #2, The Beaten Path DVD (Eps #5-8) - Moved from Oct 26 to Dec 14

Vol #3, and the regular and BD boxed sets have all been moved off the schedule and will now street sometime during the 1st quarter of 2011, so we're probably looking at late February or March:

Queen's Blade: The Exiled Virgin, Vol #3, Journey's End DVD (Eps #9-12) - Moved to 1st Quarter 2011
Queen's Blade Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-12) - Moved to 1st Quarter 2011
Queen's Blade Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-12) (BLURAY) - Moved to 1st Quarter 2011

In addition to the date change on the BLURAY set, Media Blasters has also changed the item number from AWBD-1050 to AWBD-1051, and has increased the MSRP from $49.98 to $59.98. This means we've had to increase our pre-order price by $5, and all existing pre-orders will be modified to reflect the new price and SKU #.

Sorry folks, I'm just the messenger.

UPDATE: From the comments:

Real Driving

I know that some of you out there greatly admire the skills it takes to drive a car at 200mph in a circle...

... but for me, THIS IS REAL DRIVING:



It's Initial D for real.

I'm dreaming of that being me driving all over some Anime studios good intentions to help their retail partners in the living room with kitchy little incentive ideas while screwing us over royally just outside the front door by favoring some companies with better pricing, and giving competitors control over our inventory. It's easy to run great sales on products sitting in your warehouse you didn't ever have to pay for. The rest of us have to work for a living.

HEH.

Media Blasters Update

With all the date pushes and missed street dates recently,a lot of you have been writing in asking me about what's going on at Media Blasters. Well, the rumors floating around of their demise (like those of mine) are grossly exaggerated.

What is actually going on is that they have outsourced their warehouse operations, and moving their huge inventory plus ramping operations at the new facility is taking longer than they expected. Not only is this the reason for the recent date pushes, it's the reason for the late arrivals of several titles. Moves like this are supposed to be transparent to the customer base, but I can tell you (having done them) they NEVER work out that way.

I know this has been very frustrating for some of you, but I talked to the folks at MB in length yesterday and got a pretty good idea of where they are at with the move and what's going on with some of the titles you have been asking about. The two current late titles Genshiken DX and Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny, Vol #3 are both scheduled to start shipping late next week. Also, titles that haven't been available for awhile like the Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan Special Edition and the Ah My Buddha Complete Boxed Set are finally back in replication and should all be back in stock by the end of the month. Considering the difficulties they have experienced changing over their warehouse operations it's probably a good thing they did it mid-year so that everything will be back up and running before the holiday season kicks off next month (that's around mid-October for us).

So please continue to be patient a little longer while they get their schedule back on track.

I'm An Outta Box Kinda Guy...

Every once in awhile I'll get a grumpy e-mail from someone who has a tiny problem with the BOX their new Anime figure came in. So let me get something off my chest...

My feeling, to be perfectly frank, is that the window box exists for no other purpose in life than to take the dings that would other wise visit the figure inside, and once that box serves it's sole purpose in life - to deliver the figure in perfect display condition to you - it has no other function except to give gracious employment to your local refuse services.

A small part of my personal collection - see, not a window box in sight...

Look folks, get over the occasional dinged corner or slightly scratched up plastic cover on the window box of a figure. It's trash anyway. You know, I had a guy want to return a figure once because the tissue paper wrapping around the box was slightly torn. Dude, WTF! I know there are a lot of 'collectors' out there, I'm one too and I have nothing but the utmost respect for you folks, but for crying out loud - take your figures out of the boxes! I have over Anime 800 figures in my personal collection and I don't have one single window box they came in. I really don't understand how anyone can fully enjoy their investment in a $100 or $200 Anime figure with it still in the original box.

So who cares about the box! Forget it! Your gal has ridden 10,000 miles in that box and wants to get out! Get rid of those stupid boxes and let your figures breath real fresh air! Play with them! Admire them! Show them off! Life is far too short to do otherwise.

And for the record, we won't stop picking and packing your figures so that the damn BOXES arrive in mint condition as well as the much more important figure inside - if it's important to you, it's important to us - I just had to vent a little. Flame me to your hearts content - I can take it! :-)

The Small Business Zombie Apocalypse

For any of you contemplating starting and running your own business in the current economy, here is a really good illustration of what it's like for us:

Hint: That's us at the top. Have a nice weekend! :-)

Update: You can also look forward to stupidity like this. I think if this and the new Internet sales tax goes through, and they actually allow the investment and capital gains tax rates to increase (for which even 20% is WAY too high), a lot of us are going to think about tapping out. Who is John Galt?

Japanese and US Publishers Declare War on 'Pirate Scum'

Finally waking up and smelling the impending doom, manga publishers both here and in Japan have suddenly realized that the proliferation of scanlations and illegal content posted online for free is a direct threat to the survival of the manga industry.

From the Anime economatrix this week:

"The 36 publishers in Japan's Digital Comic Association and several American publishers are forming a coalition to combat the "rampant and growing problem" of scanlations — illicit digital copies of manga either translated by fans or scanned directly from legitimate English releases.

The coalition asserts that "scanlation aggregator" sites "now host thousands of pirated titles, earning ad revenue and/or membership dues at creators' expense while simultaneously undermining foreign licensing opportunities and unlawfully cannibalizing legitimate sales." Google lists one site on its list of the 1,000 most-visited sites on the web. An unnamed spokesperson for the coalition also pointed to smartphone applications designed to read such sites as an escalation of the problem.

The coalition is reportedly threatening legal action against 30 scanlation sites, whose names were not revealed. The organization currently includes Square Enix, Viz Media, TOKYOPOP, Vertical, Inc., the Tuttle-Mori Agency, Yen Press, and the members of the Digital Comic Association: Akane Shinsha, Akita Shoten, ASCII Media Works, East Press, Ichijinsha, Enterbrain, Okura Shuppan, Ohzora Shuppan, Gakken, Kadokawa Shoten, Gentosha Comics, Kodansha, Jitsugyo No Nihonsha, Shueisha, Junet, Shogakukan, Shogakukan Shueisha Production, Shodensha, Shonen Gahosha, Shinshokan, Shinchosha, Take Shobo, Tatsumi Shuppan, Tokuma Shoten, Nihon Bungeisha, Hakusensha, Fujimi Shobo, Fusosha, Futabasha, France Shoin, Bunkasha, Houbunsha, Magazine House, Media Factory, Leed sha, and Libre Shuppan."

Yep, that's just about everyone of consequence in the manga industry. But this story has been brewing in Japan for awhile. The staff of the Japanese edition of Shonen Jump published this editorial a few weeks ago:

"To our readers,
The Internet is now overflowing with illegal copies of manga. All of these illegal copies run counter to the wishes of mangaka. They also ignore the wishes of the creator as to how the manga should be read. It may be done without much thought, but in reality it hurts the mangaka who pour their creative talents into these works, and it is also against the law. When we discover such illegal copies, we discuss possible measures with the mangaka concerned and try to tackle the problem, but there are so many heartless people around that it is just impossible for us to tackle them all. This is a plea to our readers. Illicit copies of manga harm manga culture, infringe the rights of mangaka, and most importantly of all they deeply wound the souls of mangaka. Please also understand that it is illegal. From now on Shueisha will, in collaboration with mangaka, deal more harshly with any illegal copies circulating on the Internet. We hope we can count on the unchanging support of all our readers in this endeavour".

I could make my usual day late and a dollar short argument, but not this time because the stakes are too high now. I can tell you that the last thing these companies want to do is piss off fans, but they are all guilty of ignoring scanlations and bootleg content in the past when they were deemed to be helpful to the industry's overall exposure in creating new interest in the medium. That was a big mistake. The US manga publishers, in particular, have always been benign to pirates and slow to take action even when circumstances were blatantly biting them on the ass. From what I hear on the street this new move is no gesture to intimidate bootleggers, and that they will soon begin prosecuting all available legal actions against these sites.

And it's just as much the fault of the folks that use these sites to get their manga fix, because if these 'entitlement fans' were not so damned greedy for free content that they have stopped purchasing licensed product all together, this phenomenon would have stayed in the background and been happily ignored by the industry. The publishers would not be taking this action if these bootleg sites were not an existential threat to their existence. Bootleg sites like MangaOne get an unbelievable amount of traffic and need to be shut down.

And it's about time they were.

Navarre Can No Longer Afford Funimation's Great Results...

If CMX's announced exit from the Manga market last week was equivalent to a hand grenade, this is a tactical nuke from orbit. From the Economatrix earlier today:

"Navarre Corporation has announced on Thursday that it has hired the investment bank Houlihan Lokey "to assist it in structuring and negotiating a potential transaction for the sale" of its Funimation anime arm. The plans may not result in an actual sale.

Navarre emphasized that "Funimation's recent results have generally met expectations," but CEO Cary L. Deacon said that Navarre will be focusing its strategy on its distribution and software publishing businesses. According to Navarre, Funimation plans to grow its business through "co-productions of original anime content, social networks and digital broadcasting," and those plans are best executed with another owner that has assets or expertise in those areas.

If the sale goes through, Navarre plans to present Funimation as a "discontinued operation" — a financial term for a segment of a company that has been separated from the rest of the company, or has been approved for separation — starting in the first quarter of the 2011 fiscal year. The first quarter runs until the end of June. Navarre will discuss its strategy in more detail during its June 4 year-end conference call for the 2010 fiscal year."

[Robert Bangs Head on Table]

On the upside, this could be interpreted as a 'Navarre Problem'. Funi is probably one of the few detachable divisions that Navarre could sell off to raise cash, so on the surface this move does not have to be about any sort of fundamental appraisal of the future of the R1 business.

But of course, it is.

I wish they had not said the thing about 'considering the directions Funi is going, it would be better off in someone else's hands'. That thought seems like pure spin. If digital content is the future, that should be exactly where they would want to be. So what if it doesn't jive with their other business units? Top management's job at any company is to look into the crystal ball and decide what they think the best allocation of available capital will be in the current business environment to maximize future returns.

So I think this is all about Navarre management's view of the future prospects of the R1 Anime industry (in any capacity - media, digital, etc.) against the deployment potential of that capital elsewhere - for them. And they will surely be selling Funi at a fraction of the $125 Milllion in cash and stock they paid Genji for it back in 2005.

Currently in the R1 industry, Funimation is the 800lb gorilla in the room. They own maybe 55-60% of the total R1 Anime market, with all the other players together carving up the scrapes. Plus, this move will put fully half the current available Anime catalog 'in play'.

Can they even complete a transaction in this market?
What will they do if they fail to sell it?
Will Genji stay once it's sold?
Will the business focus of a new owner be different?

I've got a headache this evening the size of Kansas.

FBI Shuts Down Comic Scan Site

From ICv2:

"The FBI has shut down comic scan site htmlcomics.com and seized its servers in a raid supported by a consortium of comic publishers, according to an announcement by Katten Muchen Rosenman, the law firm representing the publishers consortium. Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Bongo, Archie, Conan Properties, Mirage, and United Media were involved. Htmlcomics.com was the largest site offering scanned American comics, according to the announcement, with an average of 1.6 million visits a day and over 6.6 million pages of comics from 5,700 series. The site was “…producing rampant copyright infringement on a daily basis and depriving artists and publishers of hard-earned and much-needed revenue", according to the publishers’ attorneys. The FBI investigation was conducted by its Tampa Field Office, which led to the search warrant served in the raid."

Can you believe that a bootleg site was getting that kind of traffic? 1.6 Million hits a day is crazy traffic, probably puts it in the top 1% on the web.

Of course these were mostly US comics, and the raid was instigated by a group of US publishers on a US bootleg site. Huge companies like Marvel and DC have the resources to go after these folks. Most bootleg Anime download and scanlation sites are overseas anyway, and thus are not touchable by US law enforcement.

Still, does the kind of traffic that site got tell anyone how huge the bootleg problem really is?

Bang Zoom Draws a Line in the Sand

Eric Sherman, the CEO of Bang Zoom studios (who I've have many excellent dealings with personally) has issued a subtle ultimatum to the fan community regarding the state of the Anime market and what will happen if folks continue to illegally download rather than buying shows on DVD:

From ANN:

"Eric P. Sherman, President and CEO of the anime dubbing company Bang Zoom! Entertainment, has posted an editorial on the AnimeTV blog on Saturday, urging fans to buy anime instead of watching it via fan-subbed videos. In the "Anime - R.I.P." editorial, Sherman wrote that if fans do not support anime by buying it legally, "I can guarantee you that this time next year, Bang Zoom won't be bringing you anymore English language versions of it."

Sherman added in his editorial, "If people don't resist the urge to get their fix illegally, the entire industry is about to fizzle out." Sherman cited the demises of Geneon Entertainment USA, Central Park Media, and ADV Films, as well as the January 2009 layoffs at Bandai Entertainment, as past examples. In a boldfaced statement in the editorial, Sherman wrote that "anime is going to die."

Sherman also wrote about the rise of streaming content online, but added that "so far, there are no successful ways to monetize online entertainment. Not so that creators can afford to produce and distribute quality content."

Eric is absolutely right. The whole theory that Anime could eventually be monetized online in any meaningful way has been dead on arrival from day one. It's just not possible. We've all been able to scrape by until now living alongside the downloaders, the fansubbers, the free streams, the bootleggers, etc. - but the market has deteriorated so far so fast over the past 18 months that the issue is finally coming to a head this year. The R1 industry is at the breaking point and the fan base, as a whole, by their actions, is very soon going to decide it's fate forever.

PS: Of course, anyone in the industry who speaks up even a peep against fansubs and torrents is going to immediately draw the ire of the ignorant. I've been reading over some of the rather humorous thread comments posted after Eric's article. People are saying things like:

"Heh, let the US anime industry die."

"Anime = Not gonna die. R1 Anime = gonna die. get it right"

"It's not the piracy, it’s the overpriced crap."

"Too bad you’re losing your job. But it’s better for the fans who will find other means to satisfy their needs..."

"ITT the bourgiousie trying to wrest back control of the means of production from the workers. One capitalist oppressor down!" (if only he could spell 'Bourgeoisie')

"Just like they say the fans "feel entitled to their entertainment" it seems that the middlemen feel entitled to their businesses"

"No, Mr. Sherman, Anime is dieing because people like YOU won’t change. Guess what existed before your company? Fansubbers. Guess what will exist after your company? Fansubbers."

Man, as a rule I stay out of those threads, but what a bunch of hypocritical nihilistic jackasses. That one guy clearly thinks he entitled to something, but I never have. And I don't even want to know what the other guy is doing late at night to 'satisfy his needs'. Uggg. Those folks are not even fit for the soylent vats... I'm just sayin...