After Bandai Entertainment made the announcement at New York Anime Festival that K-On! will be coming out in 2011 as four individual volumes, it got me thinking. Why are some companies refusing to catch up with the way the industry is going? Is Bandai Entertainment that out of touch with the U.S. anime consumer, that they still release anime like it is the early to mid 2000s? K-On! is only a thirteen episode series, so do they really expect consumers to shell out hard earned money in our current economy on volumes that will have only three episodes each, and one having four.
They expect fans of K-On! to drop $29.95 per DVD and $34.95 per Blu-Ray for only 3 episodes each. That is approximately $10 or more an episode, and in the end will run the fans $120 – $140 if they pay actual MSRP. Companies like Sentai Filmworks and Funimation have set the standard for the anime industry in recent years, and you can easily get twelve or thirteen episodes for $40-$50 MSRP. Some companies like NISA who recently got into the industry have a higher MSRP, but they give you more for your money. NISA treats consumers to a high quality large artbox and an artbook with their products.
I know Bandai announced limited editions for the K-On! volumes for $10 each, but let us not forget the Lucky Star debacle of canceling the final volume’s limited edition. Can we have faith they will follow through on all four limited editions? Sorry Bandai, but your track record says you can not be trusted. Current rumors and speculations circulating believe the limited editions will include a CD. The only way Bandai could possibly get my money for these individual volumes, would to have limited editions on par with the first five Lucky Star volumes. You won’t see me shelling out $10 more, or any money at all, for just a CD.
Sadly Bandai Entertainment isn’t the only company that is still stuck in the past. Anime Works (Media Blasters) still releases individual volumes, with Queen’s Blade being their latest example of this practice. Aniplex is so out of touch, they announced the Read or Die (R.O.D) TV series and OVA on Blu-Ray for the outrageous price of $199.95. Aniplex is ready to give the suckers, I mean consumers a deal if they pre-order now, which is $40 off the Blu-Ray set. Now you can pay $160 for R.O.D. Blu-Ray set. Did you know you could get the entire series of Battlestar Galactica on Blu-Ray for less than the price of the R.O.D. Blu-Ray set?
Why is it that these companies refuse to release collections? I have heard that these are the deals they have struck with the Japanese company. Well that is not the consumer’s fault, that is the U.S. company’s fault. Why do we, the consumer, have to pay the price for the awful negotiation skills of these companies? I know in Japan the anime fans have it much worse, as they pay about $90 for two episodes on a Blu-Ray, but this isn’t Japan. We demand more for our money, and we should not settle for less. Until the fans wake up and realize they are being taken advantage of, some of these companies will continue this current business model. It is time to speak with our wallets and let the companies know we will not support this behavior.
I’ll just wait till they release the bundle set. It might still be four volumes, but at least the price will be reasonable.
The announcement of LEs sent alarms in my head, too, as it reminded me of the cancellation of the *last* LE volume of Lucky Star. That was upsetting, espically as I was being each set on release till then… but I’ll see what they have in store with K-On. Being a music guy I hope they gave a little more than a CD this time around, like a guitar strap or something
I don’t know what Bandai is thinking here. They are thinking that K-on will be big and thus support the single release but Haruhi was not nearly as big as they predicted and Lucky Star was a disappointment in terms of sales (with the added PR hit if pissing people off by canceling the last LE volume. K-on is from the same people and has the same market, there is no reason to thing this iteration will sell well enough to be worth the release. Some companies don’t realize the degree to which the bottom has fallen out of the high end market; I’m not sure if we even have a high end market anymore, just look at the Bandai Visual bomb. You can get a 26 ep series retail from Funi for the price of one dvd here.
I never buy any sets because they are so high priced. It’s unfortunate despite how badly I want them.
@Alan: Many sets now are very reasonably priced. You can easily get 12 episode for $15-30. Funimation S.A.V.E sets are extremely cheap for full series.
I don’t know what Bandai is thinking… Wouldn’t it be natural to assume that your prices are too high when you aren’t seeing as many sales? Bandai just doesn’t seem to get it.
If they set a “Buy now and save $40″ on something, or something similar, then you know that they are overpricing their goods and they are only attempting to make their deal look good so more people will buy it so they can milk money out of people.
I’m not big into Anime, and I had no idea that prices could be so high for the media.
For what amounts to a single-season box set, that you can purchase for $40 or less for most US TV shows, fans of K-On! have to pay $120?! That is absolutely ludicrous.
I know you guys want to watch your favorite shows, but I hope you can boycott the pricing until you can find it on sale or used. Purchasing anything at inflated prices only encourages others to do the same.
I personally don’t care how much they charge for these, in fact I PREFER them being released in 3-4 volumes for a 12-13 episode series. I just hope the LE is really nice and comes in a nice box like the Lucky Star LE.
I think they should do an initial run of single volumes and then later release a “complete collection” for the masses.
@Akronon: Most anime come out in sets now for $50 or less for at least 12 episodes.
@Ludono: How could you prefer it it? It isn’t economical, and it makes no sense when you can easily get the same amount of episodes from a Funimation or Sentai Filmworks release for about $80 less. You don’t mind wasting the same amount of money on a single volume with 3 episodes, that you could get 12 episodes for?
The initial Bandai release for K-ON! better be beyond awesome
Look at the Toradora! release from NISA, now that’s how you release a anime series
Bandai won’t last another 2 years as a anime distributor, if it doesn’t change it’s game plan
@kyonkun: The only way I’m buying it as single releases, will be if they do epic Limited Editions. I highly doubt they will though.
I would buy more anime if they did package them as we do with TV series. If they had price them competitively as a season box set at $39.99 there will be no debate that anime will be in turmoil because of fans who do not “support” there shows. Once the distributors could get their own heads out there asses and change the formula which is currently failing them, then anime fan will be more supportive.
Yes they are behind the times and out of touch with the consumer. It the main reason I buy my anime used.
Well, I’m frugal so any single dvd over $10 is expensive to me, especially if there are only 3 episodes per disc. However, I don’t mind the dvds being released over several volumes as long as they come with some nice extras or a cool box to store it in. But I am definitely not paying $20-30 for one dvd!
I wish I hadn’t overslept and skipped the Bandai panel at NYAF this weekend so I could have booed them at their announcement to release these in volumes. While I am a sucker for limited editions of my most favorite shows, these better be freaking epic for me to want to buy them. And there’s no way I’m paying more than half of MSRP for them, either.
I’ve always hated how they do this with Anime. That’s why I only buy them if I really want it, otherwise I’ll wait till they hopefully come out as a collection. Hope K-On gets a collection eventually.
Unfortunately, certain fans don’t know any better and keep giving these greedy companies business. Didn’t know that the prices for anime is that much of a ripoff for only a few episodes. We should all just wait for price drops instead of throwing money into their faces.
I think it’s a mistake to release K-ON! in the same style as Haruhi season 1 and Lucky Star – I’ll be surprised if they do enough sales volume to justify it. It will be even worse if they limit the sales to their own online store.
But it’s silly to expect the pricing of any newly-released anime to be as low as a mainstream U.S. television show that has been out for several years. Anime is a niche hobby, and the U.S. distributors have to make all their money on the DVD sales. The U.S. tv show had a larger audience and already made some money when it aired. It made more with the DVD release and is probably close to being pure profit by the time it hits Bluray & complete series DVD releases.
There’s probably good reason to put them in singles, its a series that has sold extremely well in Japan and in turn, made the license cost outrageous to Haruhi and Lucky Star levels. They probably paid more for the song/music rights than the actual show itself.
I’d expect if/when Bakemonogatari gets licensed, it will probably get similar treatment if not any BD at all because Japan fears reverse importation.
These anime company need to stop selling the series in single dvd. Just release the entire series at a reasonable price and you will see increase in sales.
Those prices are simply outrageous, not to mention why bother selling the season in pieces. This would only work if it was like in Japan and they released the pieces shortly after they aired on TV.
This is now way too late and for those fees on single DVDs/Blu-Rays I’d be expecting them to be put in fancy boxes with loads of extra content the way Nippon Ichi is doing.
Definitely a good point. The US is always lagging behind and being culturally aware of the rest of the world. It’s a cryin shame but I’m not too sure it’s going to change anytime soon.
See? In Hawaii you don’t have as much of an issue if you know Japanese or a good subber. I wish I lived back there, actually. I always got new Pokemon stuff, etc., first before the rest of the US while living there!
Some of the anime prices are out of control – I wanted to get the Star Blazers sets for my nephew, but the cost is way out of line with standard TV series seasons. I just couldn’t afford them.
I miss Pioneer. (I still don’t like that other name.)
I liked Namdai back then. Now, I have a love-hate relationship w/ them. Some of their decisions puzzle me and the “K-On” one is now the latest one.
Still wondering how they’re up despite all of the heat.
Crap, guess I’m going to have to wait even longer to watch K-On. Thanks a lot Bandai. -_-