Ledford blames fansubs for closing down ADV UK's operations

Are fansubs to blame for the decline of ADV UK?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • It's a complex issue

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
  • Poll closed .
Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
Apparently this was in Neo Magazine:

John Ledford said:
Perhaps if so many fans weren't getting their anime from illegal file sharing sites or unlicensed streaming sites, we might have expanded our UK catalogue more quickly. As it stands now, however, we have a better shot at growing our business with Lace than maintaining an overseas branch.
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Furthermore, here's an e-mail received (which was posted by Aion in the other thread) from ADV right before they closed down their London offices. It was sent to a fan complaining about not having received part of his order in the clearance sale.

ADV employee said:
Hello <name>

This order will be shipped out directly from the distribution centre at SonyDADC today, before the network closes down.

This is the last you will hear from the last three remaining employees here at ADV Films in the UK, since we are all unemployed from this Saturday. I do hope that the rest of your order finds its way to you, but since you paid less per disc than it cost to make them, even if you don't get the rest of the order, you still got the first half of your order for bargain prices. You were one of hundreds of fans who showed up to buy from us only when it was too late to save the company. If everyone had bought these discs at retail prices, we would still be open and have jobs.

If fans only want to pay one pound for a DVD, then the remaining anime companies in the UK will also close in the next two years, more of our colleagues will be unemployed, and fans will have to return to importing from the US, Australia and Japan.

Goodbye.

The London Office
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The crux of the issue is that not enough people appear to be buying ADV's anime DVDs in the UK. Are the UK anime fans being cheap-skates, refusing to buy anime at full prices, yet more than willing to turn up when a bargain sale is in the offing? If fansubs didn't exist, would anime fans be more likely to buy DVDs?

On the other hand, is the anime being released by ADV up to an acceptable standard? I don't know about you, but looking at their current schedule, the only one I'd consider buying is Kurau: Phantom Memory, and possibly Le Chevalier D'Eon, hence, is the UK industry flooding our high streets with mediocre/bad Japanese animation, meaning their customers have had to wise up and become more selective in what they choose to spend their money on?

Finally, there's the issue of time. Ledford's lamenting fansubs, but the simple fact of the matter is that they exist and are here to stay. Gurren Lagann was one of the most exciting, fan-driven, hyped series to air in Japan last year. It finished in October, but the fans still have no sign of a DVD release; every day they waste, hundreds of anime fans discover the series, find it doesn't have a DVD release and watch it by other means. The sheer fact that anime fans, most of whom are highly connected to communication networks like the internet, have to wait such a long time to see their favorite anime locally released is a massive contributing factor to this proliferation of illegal digital distribution. After all, the industry is supposed to serve the customers, and so, for all their complaints about their customers, are the anime publishers meeting our demands?
 
note to every anime fan in the uk it's time that we started to leave the fans subs and concertrated on either the uk or us scence. it's either that or we lose the western anime scence for good.
 
Tbh, I will still use fansubs... But I always buy them after that anyway. because if I don't like the show, I don't continue with them. Because either way, if I have to choose between watching fansubs or going down to carboot and buying pirate copy anime dvds. I choose fansubs...

But heh... if I can't afford it, what can I do. Watch that tosh called AC. No way =P
 
say what they want, i still insit most of it is because they take too long to release a series.

by the time they're done with the Utawarerumono release, it'll be a year since the R1 finished

so how bout ADV start giving UK people a reason to buy their DVD before they start sulking
 
Without the internet I would still be clueless with regards to what anime is. Without fansubs I wouldn't have watched any anime, nor would I have purchased what I do have.

ADV released too much crap and are blaming others for their own idiocy. Instead of limiting their releases to HQ series, they instead seemed to simply license everything they could. They only have themselves to blame for not being picky with what they released in a country with few anime fans.

Outside of the pricing, the main issue anime has is the lack of extras. People want to hear the directors thoughts, the thoughts of the voice actors... What people get with Hollywood DVD's. As it stands, extras like those the Noein DVD's included (a 45 minute extra with the director and voice actress of Haruka) are very rare, most releases only including basic clean OP/ED's as extras. Who wants to pay £5-£10 x6/7 for bare bones releases?

The UK anime market is looking pretty doomed. From what I understand, the BBFC charge a huge amount to rate the DVD's, forcing the distributors to raise their prices significantly, and we're always well behind America when it comes to release dates. With distributors like ADV happy to waste money licensing nothing shows, the problem is only going to get worse.

The only way forward I can see is for distributors to stop releasing individual volumes and simply release box sets - There's less for distributors to release and I'd imagine there's less of a loss involved if sales flop if only one item is released. It would be a move greeted with a joy - No-one likes collecting individual volumes for TV series and everyone would rather simply buy a box set.
 
Ryo Chan said:
so how bout ADV start giving UK people a reason to buy their DVD before they start sulking
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Agreed because what I hate more in the anime industry is whiners from company on "FANSUBZ IZ KILLIN OUR COMPANY D="

Come on, company find new way to tackle these kind of stuff. But ADV, like the rest of the anime company are moaning and groaning. Look at Viz, they don't complain and they try their hardest to tackle fansubs without complaining.

ADV, try and find new tatics instead of overusing the same excuse over and over again.
 
agreed, i won't deny, fansubs have an effect on the companies, but u can't say it's the reason a division died without trying other options
 
So your saying it cant be because the UK anime market is slow and expensive?

Nah, can't be, must be that everyone is illegally downloading it, and not importing or anything like that.
 
u know that i said something different at the start but i have read your comments and i agree with some of your points. talking of another avenue didn't they try and download the anime to get more tittles in this country? it is a shame that adv didn't try and use this more cause that way it wouldn't cost as much for the uk fans and it would cut out the stupid prices the BBFC input on dvds in this country. don't you guys agree?
 
Although i dont totally agree with fansubs i still use them *confused about which side to take <__<___> * I'm still buying series that originally got me into anime via fansubs so i think i'm repaying my wrongs, but i don't agree with some people way of using fansub [watch then don't buy any offical products].

I think the companies [like Beez have been doing] should get in with the anime communities and find out what the fans want. Only when then get hold of the decent series and decent releases can they look forward to the backing of the uk anime community.
 
like you i am in the middle now but i am surisped at how fast i was on adv side! i guess when you discuss it with follow fans you can change your views!
 
If I'd lost my job in a similar way, I'd be upset too. I'd also be looking around for an explanation...unfortunately the explanation in this case is more complicated than 'fansubs killed my company'.

Like Chrono Mizaki, I buy the DVD editions of fansubbed shows I download as and when they're available (the fact that Mushishi disc #3 arrived today proves my point) - other fans do the same thing, others don't. Basically, the demise of ADV UK could have happened for a number of reasons. The cost of licences, miscalculations in terms of the popularity of the said licences, fluctuations in the visual media market as a whole could all play a part in sad incidents such as this.

To the former staff of ADV UK: I feel for you guys, I really do. I probably wouldn't be the same fan if it weren't for your efforts and I wish you all well in future. Sadly, the old chestnut of pinning the blame on fansubs won't get your jobs back or solve the industry problems at large.
 
The email makes him seem very bitter, especially about the sale.

I've never dabbled in fansubs, always bought the real thing. And I'm not exactly rich.

Mind you, I only had 11 ADV DVDs before the sale. I suppose not many of their titles appealed to me.
 
there's also the possibilty that the genre has a whole isn't as popular as it used to be . also companies need to start listening to the fans more about what shows they should bring out instead of just bringing out any crap. but the nasty e-mail wasn't called for
 
The only fansub I have ever watched was Gurren Lagann but its one show I'm dying to buy on DVD or Blu-Ray if it ever gets released on that.

I buy quite a lot of anime compared to your average anime fan BUT even though I still buy DVDs and such there is still a few things that irk me.

  • Slow release times - One volume a month is acceptable to me but I'm getting 2 - 3 month gaps.

    DVD cases, I love metal cases and tin boxes. I hate plain plastic.

    I want more episodes per disc, Fruits Basket had 6 episodes per disc!! I'd be more inclined to purchase if that was the standard.

I'm out of time so I'll discuss more tomorrow.
 
It is a bit unfair to label fansubs as the main cause in their downfall, they may have contributed a little bit but there is several good reasons as to why they declined like the ones listed in the posts above.
 
Re: Ledford blames fansubs for closing down ADV UK's operati

Paul said:
On the other hand, is the anime being released by ADV up to an acceptable standard? I don't know about you, but looking at their current schedule, the only one I'd consider buying is Kurau: Phantom Memory, and possibly Le Chevalier D'Eon, hence, is the UK industry flooding our high streets with mediocre/bad Japanese animation, meaning their customers have had to wise up and become more selective in what they choose to spend their money on?
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I would say sort of but not always particually bad shows, just more unknown shows and that's even within anime fandom. The retail prices in stores and yes even online are not really going to encourage people to pick up a series that has had no exposure. It's a sad fact but yes they are expensive and for 4 or 5 episodes per disk most people are going to want to have a reasonable idea that they're going to enjoy it through recommendations and whatnot. People are going to look at the cheaper options on offer.

The finger pointing at fansubs seems to be a scapegoat for their own short sightedness or perhaps over ethusiastic approah to how successful anime in the UK could be. It is a complex issue and although I sympathize to some extent that they lost their jobs I can't help but think everything was moving too fast. I might post more on it some other time.
 
Hmm, it's a tricky one this I do believe fan subs are detrimental to industry but not as much as people think.

I'm looking at the video game industry here, after music the video gaming industry was high in the pirate trade just look how easily available games are on the internet but the industry has constant growth and now has surpassed music industry in the UK. How has this happened will I give credit to Sony and Microsoft for not dragging there feet over staggered launches and Sony must be commended for making the PS3 region free for gaming, this is the way forward. I think anime companies should maybe take a leaf out of Sony's book and follow suit, I think all companies should follow Sony's example we are in the "hi-def" age now and region locked content is anti-competitive and pointless now. Hopefully with the shift to Blu-ray staggered releases will be a thing of the past.

I also think that distributors should now be looking into on demand now, this could theoretically cut distribution times and almost narrow the release gap between Japan to UK to weeks who know's even days!
 
Release only highly rated anime series with pronounceable titles, release only box sets and price the box sets as competitively as possible. Problem solved.

The only issue then is the delay between R1 and R2 releases. The R2 release dates of Le Chevalier D'eon have proved that distributors can get anime to Europe fast, all they have to do is make the effort.
 
I use fansubs, but on a personal level my minds at ease. Looking at my shelf I can see a dozen or so ADV releases I bought in the past few months (and not at particularly cheap prices).

It's things on a larger scale that are a problem, there are too many people out there who watch the fansubs and don't even consider buying as an option. Fansubs aren't necessarily a problem, ultimately it's down to the fans themselves.
 
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