Really good editorial on the state of anime

[foxpaws]

This is how things worked back in the days when the N. American anime market was effectively non-existent.

* Companies cut back on sponsorships of anime titles
* In response to the reduced sponsorship funds, studios cut budgets for shows
* The resulting anime title features lots of recycled animation, clip shows, episodes with virtually no animation (a lot of Ranma 1/2 episodes), etc.

This is how things are today, after Pokemon and Gundam Wing gave the Japanese industry the false impression that there is this 'huge' overseas market.*

* Companies cut back on sponsorships of anime titles
* In response to the reduced sponsorship funds, studios cut budgets for shows
* Here is where the path diverges from the above: instead of making do with the reduced budget, the animation studios said "isn't there this huge anime market overseas? Let's factor the overseas licensing revenue into our profit-and-loss projections, and borrow against that! That way we can improve the quality of our anime title!"

So anime studios in Japan rushed to license their titles overseas, more or less all of them: good, mediocre, and crappy. If mediocre and crappy titles were allowed to die out in Japan, with the domestic licensors licensing only the good titles, the domestic industry wouldn't be in the kind of mess it is in right now. Instead, the domestic companies were frequently forced by their parent companies to swallow the crappy titles. While this extracted the licensing payment necessary for the Japanese studios to balance their budget sheets, it left the domestic companies to figure out how to derive revenue from poor-quality titles that never should've seen the light of day overseas. After the past several years, I think we all know how well that went.

A lot of people are arguing that fansubs have had a huge detrimental impact on the domestic anime business. I won't argue the fact that it's left a mark, and I personally maintain that it's unethical and illegal, but I honestly wonder as to the extent of its damage. I personally think that the far bigger culprit is the change in profit-and-loss calculations made by Japanese anime studios - specifically, the borrowing against overseas licensing revenue, which necessitated the rush to shove crap down the throats of domestic companies, which in turn flooded the N. American market with far more titles (especially crappy titles) than what the market could actually sustain. I would go so far as to argue that it's not so much fansubs, but rather the sheer number of mediocre titles, that devalued anime through the chain of events listed above.

While things may eventually move to digital distribution in the long run, the single biggest thing that can be done in the meantime to improve the situation in N. America would be for the animation studios to stop borrowing against the overseas licensing revenue. If a show's budget is cut and the show is going to be crap, then let it be crap, and let it die in the Japanese market - don't drag that mess over here and make the domestic anime companies suffer. If people are going to buy the good-quality titles - and for A-list titles they actually do, in numbers that actually matter - and resort to fansubs for the mediocre and the crappy, then at least the domestic companies won't be left holding the bag with a lousy license that frequently winds up negating the profit these companies make from the A-list titles.

But given the short-sighted tendencies of these companies to narrowly focus on each quarter of the year instead of looking at the long haul - and their tendency to look out after themselves, their overseas divisions be damned - I suspect that the animation studios will continue their current accounting practices until they've managed to wipe out all of the domestic anime companies. Once they're left with nobody from whom they can extract overseas revenue, I suspect that anime production will revert back to how things used to be, for better or worse.

-- Keith

* I say 'false' because there isn't a big market for anime in N. America - there's only a big market for successful anime in N. America.

[Koshernova]

Interesting post, foxpaws. The only thing I have to add is that sometimes it's not about the quality of the show. Because a lot of the time, stuff just doesn't translate well, and I think stuff that could well be succesful and incredibly popular in Japan can bomb in the states. Case in point: Gundam. And that had a LOT of horsepower pushing it back in the day (admittedly not in the "right" way, but hey, when it was pushed right on TV and with figures in shops, people in the US were buying it, no?).

As I said before, I'd be interested to know what's the deal elsewhere. If we have any Europeans here with information on this, I'd love to hear it. Do anime companies do well in Europe?

[MrMarch]

Plenty of interesting responses so far. A good read all around.

Interesting article, MrMarch, thanks for posting it.

No problem. I knew this kind of article would really invite opinion and comment. It's an issue that really affects us all as anime fans.

[foxpaws]

Kosh is correct: some titles aren't turkeys per se, they just don't resonate with the N. American market. For such cases, one could partially forgive the licensers for thinking that the property in question would make big money overseas and hope for an accordingly big licensing payment. In hindsight, when it comes to Gundam, the biggest mistake Bandai made was that they didn't think "Gundam Wing is big," but that they thought "Gundam is big."

What I cannot forgive, however, is the forced licensing of properties that even the average layman can look at and think "there's just no freakin' way this title will sell in N. America." And yet the licensers, desperate for more production money, used political pressure to cram these titles down the domestic subsidiaries regardless. And they're shocked that the N. American anime industry is collapsing?

(Any dismay the Japanese companies are currently expressing over the N. American market isn't so much one of "wow, we really screwed things up overseas," but rather "damn, who are we going to squeeze to get more production money for our stuff in Japan?")

One of the tactics employed to get the domestic companies to swallow the crap was to bundle a crappy title with an A-list property. If the domestic company wanted the A-list show that stood to make a lot of money, they were forced to take the crap along with it - it'd frequently be a both or nothing deal. To me, this shows that the licensers knew that the crap was crap, and that they were forcing their overseas partner to take it regardless. To them, it didn't matter if their overseas partner took a loss on the crap property, as long as they were able to balance their budgets on their end.

The final insult in all of this is that the Japanese licensers would then frequently blame their American subsidiaries whenever the latter failed to generate revenue each quarter, despite the fact that they knowingly shoved crap into the lap of the latter. Would any of us blame someone for not being able to transmute a turd into a gold bar?

This is why I am thoroughly unconvinced that Justin's open letter will bring change in the Japanese animation industry. The aforementioned tactics of the Japanese companies to squeeze revenue out of the domestic subsidiaries smack either of willful malice or criminal ignorance - they showed themselves incapable of looking at the long haul, and they flat-out didn't care what happened to their overseas partners. One cannot realistically expect entities that employ such short-sighted tactics to 'do the right thing' and spearhead a long and painful transition to digital distribution. My personal prediction is that the Japanese companies won't embark on this road until long after they've managed to wipe out the domestic industry as we know it.

-- Keith

PS: if I had to offer a guess as to why IP enforcement has been so lax stateside, it'd be because the Japanese companies didn't view fansubs as a significant-enough threat to their Japanese business, which is where most of the money is made. (Even if fansubs, being illegal, make for a very convenient target for blame.) From my personal experience, the local companies received very little support from their parent companies to enforce the IP. If one wants to go beyond sending a cease and desist letter, one needs a significant increase of manpower in the legal department so that one can actually start filing lawsuits and show up at fansubbers' doorsteps with the police. As far as I can tell, the licensers didn't see fit to spend a lot of money to police a foreign market when things seemed fine in the Japanese market. And knowing how Japanese entertainment companies work, they most likely would've stuck their subsidiary with the legal bill: "this is your market, so it's coming out of your pocket." This in turn might have wiped out what meager profits the subsidiary was making and/or further aggravate the red ink, and would be a very good reason not to significantly beef up costly legal efforts.

[flamingtroll]

With regards to broadcasting beyond a nation's borders, the following factors come into play.

Anime studios stand to make money from selling licenses to overseas companies. The licensing fee may vary from title to title, but it is not insignificant, and in some cases can be outrageously high. In fact, many studios have factored overseas licensing payments into their overall profit-and-loss equation rather than to consider it as extra gravy. In many cases, without that licensing revenue, the title in question would generate an automatic loss.

If some form of internet TV service were to take the shows created in Japan and make it available to the world, the anime studios would have a tougher time extracting licensing revenue from overseas partners and subsidiaries. These studios would then have to make up for it by extracting said money from the Japanese entity broadcasting the shows worldwide. The Japanese service would then need to make up for the increased licensing costs somehow.

Advertising is pretty difficult; one can't hawk most Japanese products to an American audience, and setting up customized ad buys for specific regions would be a logistical nightmare. Not to mention, if these shows aren't dubbed to speed up the start of broadcast, it makes it much harder to attract potential advertisers overseas. On the flip side, if you do dub the shows, it increases the delay between the Japanese and American broadcast dates, as well as overall cost per episode.

Pay-per-view might be a hard sell too. The iTunes Store's $1.99 seems to be a reasonable number, but many Japanese companies have demonstrated that they are very unhappy with that figure. (Such as one animation studio's attempt to hike the iTunes pricing to $3.99 and up per episode.) If major studios in N. America couldn't get Apple to budge, then the Japanese entertainment companies didn't stand a chance.

I seriously doubt that a service based in Japan, digitally distributing subtitled anime worldwide for $1.99 per episode, or using an advertising model, could manage to cover the costs of licensing for each title. If we want a global, $1.99/episode model, we also need to figure out a way to accomplish that while allowing the content providers to become rich, because the content providers will not settle for less. Asking the providers to be satisfied with significantly-reduced profit just so we can get what we want means that the content providers will refuse to budge until the bitter end even while their business continues to erode.

(And arguing that this would be in the interests of their long-term survival won't work either, given the extremely short-sighted nature of most entertainment companies. Wired recently featured an article on Universal Music Group's CEO Doug Morris that was particularly telling.)

-- Keith

I completely agree with your points, but then isn't the issue right now is that those said overseas companies are dwindling. If the anime studios do intend on keeping those market, they would have to find ways to distribute them that is more effective than the current model. I think online distribution would be at least more effective than what they have right now.

It seems to me that all the issues you raise seems to hinge on the fact that most anime studios doesn't really care about the overseas market. They seem to do well enough in Japan and they are also content with it. Naturally if anyone wants to buy their stuff from abroad, they will have to REALLY pay for it. If that is the case, then more fan-subbing might be good to send them a wake up call for the potential market that they are missing out on. Nothing will save the middleman overseas distributor if the manufacturers do not intend on doing much business here. They might as well turn to just selling figurines and model kits imported from Japan.

I am also curious about why a lot of the overseas animation networks didn't work out as they would have in a lot of Asian countries that also air dubbed anime series on their local TV network. This would be quite important for building a "market-base" for when you have to start showing kids "the stuff" at a very early age, like myself, who grew up watching them.

[Gadget]

I am also curious about why a lot of the overseas animation networks didn't work out as they would have in a lot of Asian countries that also air dubbed anime series on their local TV network. This would be quite important for building a "market-base" for when you have to start showing kids "the stuff" at a very early age, like myself, who grew up watching them.

It's not an overnight event. Let me relate our experience.

Japanese manga is usually translated into chinese. This has been around for...40+? years. I've did read Doramon when I was in pre school. Other reason is that it's eaier for asian to accept Japanese culture. And there is the geographic location.

Many countries were once under the Japanese control. And Japanese culture were forced onto the people during the Japanese occupation. In school, the students have to pledge allidgence to the emperor. Names of country were 'Japannzise'. Althought this creat resentment, but it did introduce Japanese culture to asia.

Than there were music. Japanese music is quite prominate in asia. And this happens way before the anime boom.

For anime to be popular in Western contries, I would suggest start off with the manga.

[azrael]

Japanese manga is usually translated into chinese. This has been around for...40+? years. I've did read Doramon when I was in pre school. Other reason is that it's eaier for asian to accept Japanese culture. And there is the geographic location.
*snip*
For anime to be popular in Western contries, I would suggest start off with the manga.

Manga is being release in the US and considering the many kids I see in bookstores hanging around the manga/comic aisles, I don't think this is that big of a problem. But book publishing is a different animal compared to animated media. Books are often translated into a variety of languages very often so I'm not sure what one can draw for that idea. The issue is with animated media not so much comics.

And compared to the Asian market, the NA market is a wee-bit different. What would work in Asia, might not necessarily work in N. America. Many Asian cultures share some similar aspects so they are a bit more easily accepted between one another.

[foxpaws]

...isn't the issue right now is that those said overseas companies are dwindling. If the anime studios do intend on keeping those market, they would have to find ways to distribute them that is more effective than the current model.

That's the 'if,' isn't it? The concern shared by the Japanese entertainment companies isn't "we need to find a way for our American subsidiaries to operate in a healthy manner," but rather "they need to get their act together so we can continue to squeeze production money out of them."

The gist is that the Japanese companies don't see themselves responsible for the current mess in America; to them, it's the American companies' fault for not getting their act together and being profitable in a 'huge' anime market. The Japanese companies can't seem to grasp that there's only a huge market for Naruto and Pokemon, and that there isn't a huge market for the rest.

As drastic as this may sound, the only way the Japanese anime industry will learn their lesson is through the following chain of events:

* N. American anime industry collapses like a house of cards
* Japanese companies step in, saying "those American amateurs bungled the operation - we will do it ourselves and show how it's done, cuz we're the experts."
* Japanese companies bleed red ink for several years in the N. American market, and learn that they themselves can't do a better job of selling the crap that they've been dumping onto N. American companies.
* Japanese companies finally learn to leave the crap back home, and bring over only the titles that they think will actually sell well overseas.

And that's the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic one ends with the Japanese companies packing up and going home, shaking their heads and wondering why American audiences 'just don't get it' rather than to blame themselves.

Unfortunately, this process might take anywhere between 5 years to a decade. Japanese entertainment companies are notoriously stubborn and aren't exactly fast learners. Anybody think BVUSA is making a profit with their 'we'll do business it as it's done in Japan' methods? If not, doesn't make much sense for them to still hang around, does it? And yet they're still here. It'll probably take a few more years for the lesson to finally sink in.

-- Keith

[flamingtroll]

And compared to the Asian market, the NA market is a wee-bit different. What would work in Asia, might not necessarily work in N. America. Many Asian cultures share some similar aspects so they are a bit more easily accepted between one another.

That's the thing. It seems some of the stuff they put on the NA market did rather well. Pokemon and Sailor Moon was popular enough. Gundam Wing was the "initiation" of most of the Gundam fandom in NA. It just somehow dwindled off and they only kept on putting up more *whatever*mon show that are just crap, even for a kid's anime. I am pretty sure something like Gurren Lagann, which is intended for kids ultimately, would do very well here. I don't see the cultural differences as that much of a hurdle.

[Gadget]

[ Japanese entertainment companies are notoriously stubborn and aren't exactly fast learners. Anybody think BVUSA is making a profit with their 'we'll do business it as it's done in Japan' methods? If not, doesn't make much sense for them to still hang around, does it? And yet they're still here. It'll probably take a few more years for the lesson to finally sink in.

-- Keith

Sigh..... Global market, local marketing.

Anyone could sum up this thread? So far, any USEFUL sugestions?

[foxpaws]

This is a dilemma that even the mainstream entertainment companies haven't figured out - and they have an army of MBAs wringing their skulls trying to find an answer. What makes people think we fans will come up with a compelling business solution? If any of us could come up with a useful suggestion that allowed for cheap anime, available shortly after the Japanese broadcast, while making the licensors just as rich or richer than before, we sure as heck wouldn't be discussing it here, where others might act upon it - no, we'd keep that business idea a closely-guarded secret, join a company or start our own, and make a killing.

The biggest reason why a lot of so-called 'useful suggestions' from consumers don't work is because they have one fatal flaw: they require that the companies - anime, mainstream entertainment, or otherwise - be satisfied with less money. They frequently go: "The companies make so much money, why can't they just take a reduction in their earnings and do what's right for us?" Sorry, but that's not how the world works. Any silver bullet solution is going to have to be one that makes the company just as much, or more money, than previous efforts - not less. The former will motivate them to jump on it immediately, while the latter will make them resist until the very end when the previous method finally collapses. (Witness the struggle between DVD and digital distribution in N. America.)

Even then, any useful suggestion is going to have to be one that readily sinks into the skulls of the Japanese entertainment companies. If anybody has a useful suggestion as to how to accomplish that - Hostess bar? Louisville Slugger? - then we'd be onto something. Seriously though, any change in the Japanese animation business will need to come from the top - by someone of importance approaching the top-level execs with a brilliant marketing plan. It won't come from fans at the bottom rungs griping on a forum.

-- Keith

[lalahsghost]

That's the thing. It seems some of the stuff they put on the NA market did rather well.
Pokemon and Sailor Moon was popular enough. Gundam Wing was the "initiation" of most of the
Gundam fandom in NA. It just somehow dwindled off and they only kept on putting up more *whatever*
mon show that are just crap, even for a kid's anime. I am pretty sure something like Gurren Lagann,
which is intended for kids ultimately, would do very well here. I don't see the cultural differences as that
much of a hurdle.

I can't think of a single anime series that I have wanted to buy since 2003/4. Anime is stagnant,
repetitive, copy of a copy of a copy pile of shit lately. I say we start subbing Czech cartoons
about robots. Czechime! Hell yeah! >.>;;

No, but really… Not only just the content that is licensed and brought to America, but stuff over in Japan
is creating deeper, stranger, nerdier, more perverted culture on top of itself, and making new titles
even more of a niche to outsiders (people who typically do not watch anime [ex=60% or more of
the US, and god knows how much for JP].) Ex: I've enjoyed fansubbed anime since 1997/1998....
But the stuff nowadays is so gaga ape-shit bonkers that it makes my brain bleed and force myself
to ask why I'm watching it. I think anime itself has run its course and need to ebb down for a
decade or so. Maybe we'll get a new generation of people who can actually think for once.

[Derringer]

I also wanted to add that it seems true that anime/manga is becoming extremely difficult to get into unless you've already been exposed to previous titles. Lucky Star runs on so many nerdy references, that the average joe watching it wouldn't be able to understand any of it.

Also, yes, the market has become saturated with clones of clones of certain stereotyped anime titles. How many animes out there are based on H- Games and have practically the same generic story arc? Exactly how is an American distributor supposed to pick and choose which of these to take?

[Gadget]

Ask for sponsers? Stuff like Gundam, Mask Rider and Power Rangers series were sponsered by the local Bandai agent. Like wise for Zoids. (Takara) And these are shown on the Sunday morning or weekdays evening time slot.

As for the 'arty' stuff, like Cowboy Bebop, D-Gray-Man, 12 Kingdoms, they were shown about midnight. (No sponsers)

[South Burning]

Wow! This has been a great discussion, and everybody has made good observations. I think that if you look back at the U.S. introduction to anime (Dragonball Z and Gundam Wing, bascially), 2 elements were different than today's anime environment. 1) There was a lot of exposure and promotion surrounding anime. It was on television every weekday and it was in the toy stores. And 2) it had more immediacy. You could buy VHS copies of the episodes within weeks of them showing on t.v. That gave the PERCEPTION of a huge market. But that is the sort of thing that makes anything sell in America; buzz about the product and availability. We want it NOW! If the Japanese studios did the dub tracks simultaneously with the original production (a technique which I know from experience in music studios makes the total production cost lower) and marketed the product in the States more quickly, the U.S. market would pick up. I think that has been the primary reason that, say, Gundam Seed Destiny has done so poorly in America. When we got it, it was OLD. Only the die-hard fans wanted it. When we saw Gundam Wing, our perception was that it was NEW and it was NOW!

[lalahsghost]

...And 2) it had more immediacy. You could buy VHS copies of the episodes within weeks of them showing on t.v.

Frieza saga originally came in a DBZ box set, and was actually not the entire frieza saga.... They split it
in two and the second part came out like... eight months afterwards.

Lets not forget that the anime titles you listed were not the starting point of anime in america. I know
that there was boat loads of stuff before Saturday Anime on Sci-Fi, back in 1995/96 (when I first
remember seeing it), but even DBZ was shown at 5:30AM (by saban?) in the 1996/7 era also.
That was a random addition of quasi-facts supplied by yours truly

[Gadget]

There was a lot of exposure and promotion surrounding anime. It was on television every weekday and it was in the toy stores. !

But most of these anime are either there is a strong fan base (Gundam, Evengelion, Patlabor, Bleach, Sakura Wars) or kiddish (Zoids, MRR Machine Robo Rescue and Japanese Transformers)

But there are lots more good anime (Or at least I enjoy them) but with little exposure (Monsters, Daimond Dust Drops, GetBackers)

So by having sponsers to advistise their machandis is not a total solution. It may carry on popular series (Gundam again), or really Kawai toys (Card Captor Sakura, Pretty Cure)

I not really sure which anime started the trend. But I do know that some of the earlier english dubbed anime are'Marine Boy' (Any one remember Oxy Gum?) and Astro Boy. But some people credit Starblazers or Space Battleship Yamato as starting the 'Golden Age of Anime'. But I cannot tell what happen in America.

[Albireo_818]

The anime industry in AUst is baaaad.

Piracy is on the rise, and DVDs are not being widely sold anymore.

Its dying out here...... javascript:emoticon('')
Crying or Very sad
[overusing emoticons....]

EDIT: Yeah, you are. Knock it off. We don't like emoticon-spamming.

~ShadowCell

[MrMarch]

Some more relevant news for this discussion, courtesy of ANN:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convent ... whitepaper

The first annual ICv2 Conference on Anime and Manga began with Milton Griepp, the president of the ICv2 retailer information website, presenting a white paper on the current state of the Japanese popular culture industry in the United States. Over the last several years, his company has been collecting statistics about trends affecting anime and manga in America, and has published some of the figures in the Guides to Anime and Manga for retailers, which it annually publishes. This is the first time, however, that these figures have been released to a general audience.

Before introducing the statistical portion of the paper, Griep went over the history of Japanese comics and animation in North America — from the first anime of the 1960s, through such turning points as the proliferation of VHS releases of anime in the late 1990s, Tokyopop's 2002 introduction of "authentic manga," the increase in the number of manga publishers, and finally, the expansion of anime-related games, action figures, apparel, and collectibles.

According to ICv2 research, the market for manga in the United States stood at US$200 million last year, up from US$175 million in 2005 and US$135 million in 2004. In 2002, when ICv2 first began to assemble these figures, the same market was estimated at US$60 million, which jumped to US$100 million the next year.

For the same period, sales of anime DVDs (not box office takes of anime shown in theaters or any revenue from the broadcast of anime on television) actually decreased from US$550 million in 2003 to US$400 million for last year. Sell-through numbers for other years were US$450 million in 2005 and US$500 million in 2004 and 2002.

The trend for the number of anime DVDs released in America per year has followed a similar pattern. This figure rose from 439 in 2001 to 562 (2002), 727 (2003), and 733 (2004), before it crested at 756 in 2005. The next year, it dropped to 617, and for 2007, is estimated at somewhat over five hundred. The effect of Geneon withdrawing from the market was a factor in the decrease, but only one, along with overall consolidation in the industry and reduction of output.

Griepp noted, though, that sales figures for home versions of anime released in theaters have not been following the dynamics of the rest of the anime market, and are actually quite healthy. Similarly, for anime on television, there were five channels that aired a total of 18 anime series in 2002, compared to 11 channels and 38 separate titles this year.

On the manga side of the industry, the pattern has been radically different. ICv2 projects that 1,468 individual volumes of manga will be released by the close of this year, and American manga companies are expecting to publish 1,731 manga volumes in 2008. This number has grown from 1,088 in 2005 and 1,208 last year. Of the manga or manga-style comics published in English, in the first 11 months of the year, 1,086 (82%) originated in Japan, 146 (11%) in Korea, and 88 (7%) in the US or elsewhere in the world. At the same time, the amount of shelf space available for manga at retailers has began to slow down. Potentially, in ICV2's estimation, this will contribute to a situation where some manga will only be distributed via direct sale, bypassing bookstores entirely.

As both the industry and fans look to 2008, Griepp offered some of his thoughts on the immediate future of Japanese popular culture products in America. In his words, anime is now facing a "best and worst of times" kind of situation. Market penetration is excellent, and there are more licensed products being sold for different properties than ever before, but the market for DVD sales is steadily declining. This decline is driven by a contradiction, as fans demand the kind of season-set pricing that is now commonplace for American television series, but the inherent costs of licensing, producing, and dubbing anime make this difficult. How to compete with online downloads of fansubs remains a major question for the industry, and declining sales across the home entertainment market mean that American anime companies often cannot afford to engage in experiments that may not be successful. Griepp also criticized Japanese anime production companies for continuing to insist on pricing many licenses without taking into account the actual potential of these series in the current U.S. environment.

The biggest question that Griepp thinks is currently facing the industry has to do with whether the core of American anime fans will disappear. He does not think so, at least not in the short run, but nonetheless, the current business model of selling anime is being challenged, and will have to change.

The manga market is still expanding. The biggest issue that will have to dealt with is whether manga published in the United States can continue to attract readers in different demographics. He particularly noted the efforts that some of the publishers are now launching to attract adult customers.

At this point, Griepp introduced the next panel, which turned into a spirited discussion between such industry hard-hitters as 4Kids president Al Kahn, FUNimation Entertainment CEO Gen Fukunaga, and ANN's own Chris Macdonald, on how toy, game, videogame, and anime companies can best work to attract the "otaku generation."

[Kishiria]

" Let's factor the overseas licensing revenue into our profit-and-loss projections, and borrow against that! That way we can improve the quality of our anime title!" "

I'm laughing because in business this is known as "mark to market" and it's what brought down Enron. Not making a prophecy based on this, just sayin'.