End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

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JEFFPIATT
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

azrael wrote:
If that's the hope, then expect shows to be 20-40 minute commercials selling you everything from soap to cars for the entire show (As if some shows aren't 20-minute toy commercials already).
but the issue for the US distros is the fact that they usually are not selling the toys being advertized by the show whet it come here. What made gundam wing work was having the toy line also get imported by bandai and it doing well unfortunately the US toyline was mismanaged during the G gundam era to the point that toy stores avoided gundam toy like the plague after being swamped with scud and mandala gundam action figures that warmed pegs. some of the shows just can't make the same profits over here without there toy line profits to backfill the losses from production.
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HellCat
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

I've actually ended up giving the subbed Blu-rays a chance, mainly for AGE's sake. However, I've been dissapointed to find that they seem to just be porting over the YouTube subs and things like commentaries are unsupported. So I shot an e-mail off:
Dear Sir or Madam

I was very glad to hear of your company’s recent decision to offer English subtitles on your releases to encourage overseas fans to purchase. I have been purchasing the Gundam AGE and Gundam SEED Blu-rays which offer these subtitles but am dissapointed to find that whilst they are present on the actual episodes, there is no English subtitles for extras such as the audio commentaries. I would like to continue to purchase and support these releases but find the noted lack of English support to be a massive oversight. As such, I am writing to ask if future releases will offer English subtitles for audio commentaries and related extras?
Thank you for your time.

Yours Sincerley,
NAME REMOVED
Their reply?

Dear Mr. NAME REMOVED,

Thank you for usual purchasing our products and your inquiry.
This is Bandai Visual customer support center.

In terms of your inquiry, we are afraid that there is no schedule to put English subtitles on bonus materials such as audio commentaries as of today.

However, we have passed your helpful opinion to our section concerned for future reference.

Again, we thank you for choosing our products.

Best regards,

Bandai Visual customer support center
About what I expected. We know how stubborn BV can be about knowing the overseas market better than it knows itself but I felt better saying something.
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Deacon Blues
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

Well, duh. You're buying something that is intended for Japan so why would they sub supplementary material? Unless it gets released in Southeast Asian then it MAY have a chance, but I doubt it...

It's the same for Unicorn... a majority of the extras weren't translated.
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HellCat
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

From what we were told, the whole point of adding the subs and ensuring the Blu-rays had no region coding was to encourage folks in English speaking countries to import these releases. If said releases don't offer the same level of support on the extras, as a paying customer I have the right to at least suggest it. It's not like they're producing episode only discs with sub options, these are a half measure that show an odd lack of commitment to the wider audience they're trying to tempt. Even finding the 'Turn on English subs' menu option is tricky. If we can get subtitled Japanese commentary tracks on BEI releases, why not with these ones? It's a perfectly logical thing to query and would only be daft if I did it with releases that came before they started doing this.
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Deacon Blues
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

It's an option that's only available on the Blu-Ray though. The standard DVDs (lest I looked on Amazon Japan and didn't see anything) don't have that option. Nonetheless, as I said it's a product marketed solely for Japan. The "option" of someone outside of the country trying to watch it is a perfectly viable option and they can choose to do so, but rarely do Japanese DVDs ever have the same material that domestic ones do. They don't need the gimmick of background stuff or commentary to sell: we do.

That's the different between the releases. The BEI releases were catered to the English speaking market, ergo it will have something like that translated. Because the first and foremost option for this particular release is Japan with everyone else secondary, that's why it's tossed to the wayside.

It's really no different than PS3 games not having subs on them... the English subs, in my opinion, on the AGE release are an extra.

And yes, the 'turn on' subtitle option may be difficult for non-Japanese speakers. I didni't really give the Blu-Ray much thought when I watched it. The AGE menus were rather straightforward, but... alas like I said: intended for Japan, not the outsiders.
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HellCat
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

The thing is, this is a fairly unique case. Sunrise/BV closed their overseas branches in America and Europe and in the same month quietly drop the fact that they're going to start making region free Blu-rays with English subs. Really, it follows on from the whole thing of BEI doing generally well, BVUS trying to force an unworkable model on American fans and taking control of BEI when that obviously failed. It's the current state of them wanting to make money from both domestic and foreign fans, only rather then setup local branches to offer releases catered to that region they're putting English subs on the Japanese sets and leaving the logistics to fans. In such circumstances, I think it's at least worth a shot to polietly say to them "I appreciate what you're doing but here's something you need to address in my opinion".

Case in point, the SEED set has commentaries for basically every episode. Lovely that I, as someone with a bare smattering of Japanese knowledge, can watch the actual episodes as scripted but what fun stuff am I missing in the commentaries that would push these up from a 'Kind of cool' to a 'Must have'? If they can pay someone to translate the AGE scripts so they can be subbed for disc and YouTube, what's to stop them paying someone to do it with the extras? Some of them I'll happily accept as unworkable (would love to read those booklets but I appreciate dual language text would be clunky and obviously they can't do anything with the radio CDs in the AGE sets) but extras I think should qualify. If this was a case of me purchasing solely Japanese intended releases, I wouldn't even suggest it. In that case I should be expected to learn the language or go without. But when they start doing something like this, I think it's in their interests to see it through.
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AnimeMun
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

Well damn....just heard it on this one. Thats a whole load of suck, I own and still watch occasionally the MSG trilogy movies on VHS and also own a few choice series from Bandai on DVD. I can't help but wonder if I could find a Greg Ayres "I told you so" clip...or ask him to help me make one during the next con I see him at...

I was honestly looking forward to bolstering my Gundam collection and supporting the anime market as a whole when my wife and I are in better standing financially. This makes it just a little harder. It also doesn't help that American companies like Best Buy and my current pathetic employer (three guesses on that one guys, let me help, it ends with a Mart) want to phase anime out of the American eye and ram reality TV laden BS down our TH....that last one is throat holes by the way.

All I can make is this suggestion, not a demand or an order, but a suggestion. If you want the industry we all love and hold dear to survive. Then purchase RESPONSIBLY! Yes, our money does help keep the industry over here and like said in previous posts they are not entitled to our money as welfare, however if we wish to enjoy this wonderful and imaginative medium we have to pay for it like any other. I took at least 4 to 5 years of Japanese courses myself simply to have the capacity to, if I so wish. Buy a legitimate DVD of a show I was interested in from the source to watch it. Am I saying go to such lengths for your enjoyment? Bloody hell no! Although I support anyone who wishes to learn Japanese as I think its a wonderful and beautiful language and culture and feel that all should attempt to broaden their horizons, you are not OBLIGATED for any of this.

We, like video gamers (which some of us are), feel that everyone should be like us. I don't feel this way myself, I quite like my unusual individuality for not being a clone of every noob/wannabe out there. However this is why we are so outcast, because most of us can't take a silly thing like criticism with a grain of salt or perhaps even use it to improve our mindsets. I may be going on a different tangent here but bear with me please, I'm trying to be helpful. If we take anything from all of this it has to be with a deep breath and calm mind, and that fact is the worst factor and where the blame belongs is simply miscommunication. Miscommunication from us as an audience, from them as a storytelling group, and from any group that is quite the majority in any country that feels that our interests hold much less weight than their ridiculously farced dramas.

Funny, isn't that the whole moral of 00? That communication should be open and concise? Or are we still that immature?
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

HellCat wrote:these are a half measure that show an odd lack of commitment to the wider audience they're trying to tempt
I don't even find this odd anymore. It's pretty much what I expect, at least from Gundam. Remember when they said that Gundam Seed was supposedly intended specifically for international audiences, not just Japan, and then they went and portrayed the western world as a whole (and America specifically) as super villain-level evil psychopaths whose solution to every problem is genocide, with the only entirely sympathetic faction being an obviously idealized Japan (a Pacific archipelago nation with excellent technology but few resources, who is unjustly attacked by the big, evil Americans -- I mean, Atlantic Federation)? Yeah. That's their idea of appealing to international audiences.

Bandai pays lip service to the international market because doing so is free, but they never actually do anything, because that would cost money. Japanese culture is notoriously Japanese-centric, and Sunrise doesn't exactly buck the trend. In all fairness, the majority of their audience (and thus their money) does come from Japan -- but you can't change that if you don't make an effort to, which they're clearly not interested in doing. It's tempting to draw lines between this and their business failures on this side of the pond, but I'm not really knowledgeable enough on the subject to establish a cause-and-effect relationship of that sort of thing.
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HellCat
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

I don't fully disagree. The rather closed off, Japanese favouring subtext of the CE stories is still fairly annoying and we all know how many times Bandai/Sunrise have given the overseas fans the finger in various ways, running their mouth off and then not seeing it through. I remember them saying SD Sangokuden was going to have a massive global push and then it, of course, was only released in Asia to give one such example.

However, I do believe there has been minor progress and it's my mentality to at least try and cultivate something at the time rather then later think "I should have done something". I don't think one random e-mail is going to make them do a complete re-think, but for better or worse at least they have that tiny bit of feedback now. Going back to the series speaking for the franchise, I'd point out that SEED was succeeded by 00, a show that was nowhere near as snide about the world outside Japan. Of course, we also know that some of the old guard at Sunrise weren't the biggest fans of where that series went which suggests even now there are some within the respective companies who oppose the management style and wish for change. It probably won't come anytime soon but the hope is important.
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HellCat
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

Little tidbit from London Comic Con- apparently every Beez license EXCEPT for the Gundam titles is currently being renegotiated to other UK distributors. Sunrise/Bandai have intentionally kept hold of the Gundam license.

If that suggests some plan or just more 'You import or go without' *shrugs*
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schwarz ritter
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

Hmm....I sense a disturbance...As if Bandai suddenly cried out in terror, and was suddenly silenced...by the victory of piracy...
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Arbiter GUNDAM
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

Piracy is only a symptom, not the true cause. From everything I've heard, this one can be pinned solely on Bandai of Japan.
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schwarz ritter
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Re: End of the line for Bandai Entertainment

Arbiter GUNDAM wrote:Piracy is only a symptom, not the true cause. From everything I've heard, this one can be pinned solely on Bandai of Japan.
Yeah, I was just joking. I know piracy isn't the cause of this: I was just saying fantranslators will have a busy time with this whole Bandai issue going on. At least IMO.
Reinhard: "Of course, grades in school aren't a good indicator. They focus too much on memorization and imitation, and don't foster imagination."
Kircheis: "What you find important are imaginative and conceptual capabilities, right?"
Reinhard: "That's right."
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