The issue with distributors?

Being an old man and a lazy writer I'm going to go over this article item at a time, making some notes just to expand or correct the content. My comments will be in blue. The original was by Jesse from zannen.ca, go visit his site. Read my blog. Send me an e-mail. zenith27@telus.net and tell me how much you hate me. Here we go.

Like it or not, the anime market in North America has always been built on doing everything possible to get you to buy video releases.

The market is based on video sales as the main revenue stream is what I think what you mean.

Even today, companies will package the first volumes of many series with a high episode count, a box to hold the entire series, the most inane extras that you're not going to want anyway, and a price tag of $30-40 US just to entice customers into buying it blindly.

Well, most companies now offer trailers on the net, reviews are everywhere and you can always download the show and preview it that way. (No that I advocate this. =P) Of course, I love my Najica panties.

I mean, they've always had to work under the assumption that their audience hadn't already previewed this series through illegitimate means, right?

I can't speak for the companies but fan-subs have been around for years. How else did enough people see KOR to demand it be released legally?

That's why it's rather dissapointing how Canadians have always gotten short-changed in this particular area of the market, which is only now improving - at a very, very slow rate.

Bzzzt! WRONG! There used to be only 5-6 NA companies releasing stuff on VHS (AnimeEigo, Streamline Pictures, Pioneer, A.D.Vision, VIZ and U.S Manga) and the tapes were usually $50 for 1-2 episodes. Popularity rose sharply in about 1998 when MANY more shows started being released. The episode counts went up, and the number of companies grew. (AnimeVillage (Bandai), Rightstuf, Media Blasters) Sadly the prices stayed about the same but you got alot more bang for your buck. Most of these companies titles were available in comic book stores, through mail order and some at A&B Sound and Sam the Record Man.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, anime DVDs simply couldn't be found on Canadian shelves.

Virgin megastore and comic book stores. Don't forget mail order.

You may have been able to find a few at outrageous prices if you looked through some specialty stores, but even mainstream anime releases in the US were pretty much regarded as underground commodities up here.

It was the same in the US I'm afraid.

A few years later, Pioneer (now Geneon Entertainment) stepped in and finally began dribbling
their titles onto shelves at Future Shop, A&B Sound, HMV, and other major Canadian retailers.

This is NOT the fault of Pioneer or any other studio. This was a decision entierly up ton the stores themselves. Virgin had a very large selection and had no trouble getting in the newest releases the day they were scheduled to be released.

The only problem was that most of these releases were essentially "leftovers" from US retailers with completely erratic releases, and with no competition, Pioneer was free to charge whatever the hell they wanted, which was quite unreasonably high.

The prices for Pioneer have always been high. This was not a case of raising prices due to increased demand. Again, new releases were not common but not unheard of. (Note that ALL the prices were high, regardless of studio. It was better than a $100 LD imported from Japan)
Virgin used to get a shipment each Tuesday and I used to go down there and get the latest stuff. Ranma 1/2, ElHazard TV, Tenchi TV, and various others over time.

Why did this happen? Well, while anime DVDs sold reasonably well for quite a few years as it began transforming from an underground thing to a mainstream niche, the real "boom" didn't
occur until Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo made their big debuts on Cartoon Network in 1999.

The first boom really started with Sailor Moon in 1996. In Canada it was that and Escaflowne.

They were pretty much the first anime to air on mainstream television that hadn't been "repackaged", and they made quite an impact. Prices started coming down, and the number of titles being released shot right up.

The prices came down for one reason. DVD. Period. Cheaper to make, less costly to ship. Uses less shelf space.

Of course, not quite as many Canadians caught Gundam Wing when it aired on YTV at 11:30pm, so naturally there wasn't very much demand for that up north. Or any other anime DVDs, for that matter.

Au contraire, I would say more anime was sold than ever. Evangelion, Escaflowne, Tenchi, Ranma 1/2. Especially Evangelion. That show alone made anime fans out of alot of people. Not as much demand as the US, but still pretty good.

In terms of pricing, a lot of people claim that we should stop complaining because the discs will always be more expensive in Japan and every anime fan in North America is a spoiled brat, blah blah blah.

Damn right! My Sailor Moon Super S movie cost $100. But the box was SOOOOOO pink.

While it's pretty hard to convince these people otherwise, it's pretty much undeniable that that markets for anime are different on each side of the ocean. In most cases in Japan, there is generally some (legitimate) alternative way to view most shows, leaving only the hardcore fans to spend the big yen on those expensive video releases.

I totally agree.

Of course, with US fans almost entirely relying on video releases. The Canadian prices on some products are often compared to the Japanese releases, but you can't honestly use that as justification when the Canadian market for anime is pretty much exactly the same as the US market.

This is NOT true. An average anime DVD in Japan is about $50 US. Usually 2 TV eps. or 1 OVA. DVD's have NEVER been that much per episode here.

For instance, in Australia and the UK anime is normally sublicensed to companies like Madman or MVM who normally release pretty much the same product, only retuned for their specific region. However, the distribution rights for anime normally aren't different for the United States and Canada, so whatever company holds the rights to distribute a product in the US should also distribute the product in Canada.

That's right. Most DVDs state for US and Canada on the packaging.

<>You may have heard from various sources that Canada has some of the lowest DVD prices in the entire world. Thanks to some kind of weird distribution process that I'll never understand, this is true; the prices of DVDs and CDs are marked down considerably by the companies that re-distribute them to Canadian retailers, but for some reason it doesn't seem to work this way with anime. Since most other companies in North America don't seem to have a hard time distributing their DVDs up here, I don't see why anime has to be the sole exception.


This is because the market for new movies is MUCH larger than for anime so the stores buy enough to get lower prices. Old movies and TV series have already made their money, so DVD sales are gravy. Prices can be lower. Anime producers are trying to recoup their investments using their only revenue stream. As for prices being cheaper for DVDs here I have never heard of that. CDs are cheaper due to the cutthroat competition here. A&B Sound, HMV, Music World, Future Shop and Virgin (until it closes), Sam the Record Man (I think it's replacing Virgin)

To address this problem, most companies either create small branches in Canada, or outsource distribution to a third party company. While neither tactic is necessarily "bad", these companies and branches can very often be held responsible for not educating retailers about their products. And with the oversaturation that the US market is currently facing, controlling the "spill-over" into the Canadian market is becoming increasingly difficult for these middlemen.

I'm not sure what you mean by "spill-over". I do agree with the rest though.

But, it's not like we're cut off completely. Many Canadian online stores such as The C&L and DVD Soon provide a lot of relief and offer extremely competitive low prices. (And I highly recommend trying them both.)

It's www.thecnl.com

Of course, that doesn't really mean anything because we don't live in some kind of fantasy world where everyone shops online thereby eliminating the need for brick and mortar stores, leaving the freed up space to build parks and cancer clinics - no, in this world, the vast majority of people buy their DVDs in regular retail outlets. That includes me, in case you were curious.

You KNOW anime fans are not in the vast majority. But I do agree of course.

Presenting the product in front of people's faces can only increase the number of avid anime buyers out there, and the more the fanbase grows, the more efficient the anime industry in Canada is likely to become.

Go to the CNL warehouse. It's awesome. All your anime needs. Ever. I still agree here.

I still think the ideal market for all three territories would be trying to get televised broadcasts for as many twenty-six episode shows as possible and then selling each in complete digi-pack boxsets.

Those boxsets are the big trend nowadays.

<>But while it may work that way in France, I don't think that logic is going to spread anywhere else anytime soon. The Canadian market can only really work if it follows the same model as the US market, so I think it's important to analyse each of the major anime distributors in the US individually. For argument's sake, I've listed them below from "best" to "worst" in terms of pricing and availability in Canada:

What I've traditionally done at this site is rank the various distributors based on their ability to deliver products in Canada because, of course, my opinion on the matter is completely accurate and infallible without question.

I'll hold you to that.

However, virtually every company in the industry is in the middle of a transition of some sort, so it may be better to simply analyse where each company currently stands, and what the future may bring for each one.

The companies have actually been very stable for about the last year in terms of who is doing the distribution. The prices have dropped lately from Bandai and Geneon though.

I'll edit the table. I didn't edit the distributors. One final note of interest. A couple of the major chains in the lower mainland (Future Shop, London Drugs) get their DVDs from C&L. I can count on two hands the number of titles they don't currently have in stock. It's not availability. It's apathy.

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Company	Canadian distributor	Status
ADV Films	ADV Films	In the past 3 years ADV has missed less then 10 release dates. Best prices over the years.
Anime Crash	Sony Music Entertainment	No comment
AnimEigo	KOCH	UY OVAs and movies came out on schedule. The TV series is always out on time as well.
Bandai Entertainment	Bandai Canada?	Bandai got their act together about a year ago and their prices are now on par with ADV. Few missed release dates, mostly around their distribution switch.
Central Park Media	Some company	Slashing prices. Not many new releases. No missed release dates though.
FUNimation Entertainment	kaBoom Entertainment	No problems. Only delayed title was Kiddy Grade box. I never saw any delay in releases. Cheapest anime there is!
Geneon Entertainment	Vid Canada	Finally the prices went down! Glory Glory!!
Manga Entertainment	Anchor Bay Entertainment	Not much in the way of releases. Cheap prices though.
Media Blasters	SJS?	Not many missed release dates. Average prices. Better and better shows lately. AMG late this year!
Viz Media	SJS	Low episode counts but lower prices than once upon a time. I love Maison Ikkoku, STOP THE EXCLUSIVE DEAL WITH THE RIGHTSTUF!!!

There are a couple others. TokyoPop is good but mostly manga, and Sync-Point is a bit of a joke.