--- Alan Zabaro <azabaro@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Afraid that's not the case. Funimation put out Fruits Basket with
> lots 
> of episodes per disc (and a higher per-disc price as a result) and
> got 
> burned from what I heard;

I think they better look at other reasons for the failure of Fruits
Baskets, since I bought all 4 discs, and loved the way it had come out
(and saved a lot of space, too). However, if I hadn't seen Fruits
Basket at a con, I would never have bought the series:
1. There was no marketing that I saw...  the only place I saw the discs
until recently, was on the listings of the pre-order pages of ULN.com.
2. The show doesn't have appeal like DBZ or Transformers, where you can
lock in 95% of the brainless young schoolboys who watch action
cartoons.  It's not that type of anime (THANK GHOD, or whatever deity).

> most fans just weren't willing to put down 
> that much money up front.

Then they are both NOT FANS, and idiots.  
$30 for 3 eps = $10 per ep. 
$30 for 4 eps = $7.50 per ep.
$40 for 6 eps = $6 per ep. 
$40 for 7 eps = $5.72 per ep.

This does not include the bonuses of less disc
manufacturing/mastering/promotion/material production and shipping.

Overall for a 26 and 24 episode series:
$9.23 ($10.00) for the 8 issuances
$6.15 ($6.67) for the 4 issuances

I don't know, but a 30% discount right off the top, with added bonuses
of less swapping discs, less storage space, etc., seems like a rather
obvious choice to anyone who has a brain.
The ONLY drawback is that you get less cover and insert are, but, face
it, we're in the US, where a single picture on a single sided sheet of
paper goes for liner notes (as opposed to Japan where you usually get a
booklet and if you pre-order, you almost, without exception, get nice
little freebies!).

Why do I (probably correctly) believe that because of the giveaway
aspect and the large number of non-purchasing age con goers, that a
large skew of these were kids that had to get their parents to buy the
discs?

By the way, are you aware that almost all anime DVDs out now are
dual-layer?  even though they only have 3 or 4 eps?  It apparently
doesn't cost significantly more to produce, and it does 2 things for
the producers...  It currently makes direct bit-copies of the DVDs
impossible (burners can currently only do 1 layer, and you need a
commercial syster to duplicate dual to dual -- though there are ways
around it), and companies like ADV and funimation can stick multiple
audio and overlay tracks (subtitle and notes) on the disc, with the
added bonus of at least 4 advertising promos, and with a very decent
bitrate.
Using the remaining empty 1/3 or so of empty space, would not lose
anybody anything.

I don't know about anybody else, but having 7-8 discs to release a 24
ep series, is actually a reason NOT to buy a series, and to stay with
the fansubs... if you've got'em.

Anybody remember Pioneers crappy video quality releases on Tenchi? 
Especially when the Japanese DVDs had perfect quality?  It's pretty
damn sad when you can fit 4 episodes of a series on a fansub CDR, that
exceed the quality of the professionally produced DVDs (and I count the
50% of bad dubs deliberately produced by ADV as a drop in quality -- if
it's gonna suck AND be stupid (to a point of insulting), why dub at
all, save the damn money, and do it like AnimEigo.

====
************************************************************
Complete address changes: Tenchi OVA 3 and Galaxy Police images!
http://projkutani.castledragmire.com/greg/MSC/PAN/Pans.html
BLOW your bookmarks, FRELL your favorites, use the new URL!
or visit the delapidated site ---> www.TenchiMuyo.150m.com
************************************************************