Fwd: I'm Back!


to ranma@usagi.jrd.dec.com
from DDecker157@aol.com
subject Fwd: I'm Back!
date Tue, 1 Aug 1995 10:08:54 -0400
I wrote the following to Kevin Lew yesterday, and later
realized that there might be something of general interest
here for the list as a whole. So here t'is (if the forwarding
function works, that is...

--Dwight Decker
---------------------
Forwarded message:
From:	deckerd@agcs.com
To:	kasumi@eden.com
CC:	ddecker157@aol.com
Date: 95-07-31 13:23:40 EDT

Hey, Kev!

I just got back from the San Diego Comics Convention! The anime companies
were out in force. One day, the Pioneer people even had a professional
model walking around in a Moldiver (female) costume, which was very well
made and looked just like the anime, but only served to show how silly
the thing really is.

I was talking to a dealer who had a stock of anime CDs, more than a
few of which were SM products. She said that she was well aware that
SM Records were controversial, but she was in a tight squeeze. If she's
at a con where she has $40+ Pony Canyon imports and some other dealer
has the same titles in SM versions for $20, her expensive stock just
sits there. Given the choice, fans buy the SM Records CDs because
they're so much cheaper, and they either aren't aware of or don't
care about the problems. So to compete, the dealers have to sell
the things.

A dealer called San Francisco Laser Disc was there. The operation
seemed to be an Asian family, I think Chinese. They had a zillion
SM Records CDs, as well as a bunch of LDs. Many of the LDs seemed
to be rental stock they were trying to get rid of; I was interested
in a Hong Kong movie called The Heroic Trio until saw how scuffed
and scratched the discs were from a few too many rentals. They were
also selling Ranma and other posters, most if not all pirate copies.
Some of the posters were obviously shot directly from the pages of
the 1995 Ranma calendar, with the month and copyright noticed blocked
off, often a little off center or even a little blurry. Yet people
were buying them. I mentioned this to Toshi Yoshida at Viz, and he
just gnashed his teeth and said they were well aware of the pirates,
but when he had gone over to complain, the SF Laserdisc people 
produced all kinds of legal-looking shipping invoices, basically
claiming they had acquired the goods honestly and in good faith,
and if there was a problem with the copyrights, take it up with the
people in Hong Kong. I guess pursuing the matter would be more
trouble than it's worth, so Viz was grimly tolerating them until
some favorable opportunity for action presented itself.

Trish Ledoux and I spoke at some length about anime fans and their
demands. She said dubs are outselling subs six to one at this point
and the only reason Viz is doing Ranma subs is to make them available
to those who want them. I don't think Viz is losing money on the subs,
exactly, but the time and effort expended on them could probably be
more profitably expended on other projects. She said that fan theories
of some conspiracy by Viz to sabotage Ranma subs to kill the sub market
are so much hooey, and really annoyed her because she's had to work on
the subs pretty much on her own time: after hours and weekends. There
wouldn't be any subs at all if a few people at Viz didn't want to do
them so much that they put in a lot of extra effort. I bought a tape
of One Pound Gospel and the second paperback collection of Maison
Ikkoku manga episodes (only to get home and discover I already had it).

I spoke to the AnimEigo people and told them I'd like to see the Urusei
Yatsura OAVs on disc. The guy at the table (not Woodhead-san) just said
they'd do them if I could guarantee a minimum sale of 500 discs. 500
copies aren't all that much, and there are some real Lum fanatics out
there (hey, I bought a Japanese import LD that's nothing but UYTV 
coming attraction announcements). You'd think nothing would be simpler
or easier to unload on the panting fans.

I also chatted with the people at Mangle Video. I'd just bought the
Patlabor movie right before the con and had some opinions. Calling the
heroine "Noah" in the subtitles sorta bothered me, since I knew her as
"Noa" from the Japanese original. Even though they're pronounced the
same, spelling it with an "h" seemed to make it masculine to me (it
didn't help that a hood named Noah Thomas made me sit in a mud puddle
when I was in 8th grade), not to mention the guy with the ark. There
apparently aren't any plans to do the Patlabor TV series, even though
that leaves the movie kind of stuck out there in the middle of 
discontinuous continuity (no introduction to the characters, no explanation
of what's going on...).

I bought a bunch of CDs. One was a sort of Ranma calendar disc, though
not dated. That is, there are 12 songs seemingly tied to the months.
The 11th is called (in English) "November Rain," while the second song
has the katakana for "Valentine" in the title and the 12th has something
to do with Christmas (in fact it ends with the entire Ranma voice cast
saying "Merry Christmas" one by one). Then there was a "Goddess Family
Club" disc that even has photographs of the singers themselves -- Inoue
certainly is a cute little thing.

Several dealers were pushing Sailor Moon goods. I'm not sure I'd want
a lifesize poster of Sailor Mercury with a caption in fractured English,
but the dealers seemed to think somebody must. In a couple of months,
we'll see if the show will go over here like the media moguls are
hoping it will...

All for now!

--Dwight


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