Obligatory blurb:
Animewatch is a column about Anime (A.K.A. Japanimation) originally written for the Fabulous Fiction Bookstore and Fabulous Fiction Comics & Games by Animemaster Jay Scott Raymond. The views herein are expressly my own and I make no concessions here to those who lack the wit to love Anime.
Hello out there in Fandomland! It has been quite a while since I last ranted at you. These newsletters/catalogs continue to come out at their regular irregular rate. In this edition of Animewatch I will review that fan fave Urusei Yatsura (pronounced: oo-roo-say yat-soo-rah), better known by the name of one of the lead characters: Lum. I will also review the first episode of the new Devilman OVA series that recently came out; but first , my rant.
What grist am I grinding in the old issue mill this time? I'll tell you; it is...Video Piracy (da da da dummmmm!). Hear me out before you think this is going to be a pious (and boring) condemnation of all video copying (it isn't).
Making tape copies of Japanese laserdiscs which typically cost around $90 for a 1 hour video is not what I'm ranting about. Personally I feel that anyone who charges such ridiculous prices is not only asking for piracy, but actually deserves it! No that isn't the type of video piracy that bothers me. Indeed, for many years it was the only way to get anime at anything resembling an affordable price. Now however there are several companies turning out legally licensed dubbed and subtitled anime at relatively affordable prices. These companies are doing we, the fans a tremendous service. They are providing high quality legally translated versions of anime at prices that may still seem a bit high (often $35-$40 each for tapes from about 1/2 an hour to an hour in length) but when compared to the original Japanese prices they are a real bargain. Beyond the quality and price of the product; they are also promoting anime to a larger audience. Thus anime fandom grows which makes economically viable the production of more translated anime. So far this all sounds great, so where does my rant come in?
The problem lies with fans who are too cheap to pay even the much more reasonable prices of the translated anime. I'm talking about the people who, when they see a translated anime they want, they don't buy it; they find a friend who has it and they make a copy of it. These people are actually hurting anime fandom in a number of ways. First, since most of the translating companies are either founded by, run by, or have a large contingent of anime fans in them who worked very hard and spent a lot of money to translate the anime, the video pirate is actually stabbing these fellow fans in the back. For these companies to continue to provide the tremendous service they have been providing they must make a profit and the video pirate and the person who loaned him the tape are robbing them of that profit. Further, if this practice become too common and the profits for the translators become too low then they will go out of business thus depriving us all of any more high quality translated anime. If you think that letting a friend or two copy your tapes isn't really going to hurt the translating companies then think again. A couple of these companies are in financial trouble right now and at least part of their monetary problems probably come from video piracy.
So next time someone asks you if he can make a copy of a legal anime from you, say no! If you say yes then you are doing yourself and all anime fans and yes, even the pirate/fan a tremendous disservice. Enough of my rant, now on to the reviews. (see Columns & Reviews page)
A special note to all those fans with laserdisc players. A lot of the translated anime is coming out on laserdisc as well as tape now! Bob doesn't stock these but he'll be happy to special order them for you! Pick up Advance Comics for info on upcoming releases!
That's all for now. Until the next column: Anime and giant battle robots forever!