I don't want to kick ADV when it's down, but sometimes, as with Amuro Ray, people need to be hit very hard in order to set them on the right path. This is one of those times. Do you guys remember the Anime Network? Widely regarded as the downfall of ADV Films, once the biggest US anime company, it was a wildly expensive and unsuccessful attempt at an all-anime cable channel. Very few people actually got the cable channel, which is why ADV had a plea to call your cable company, demanding the Anime Network, on everything they released for years. Here in New York City, it has existed for a few years as an on-demand channel with ADV's stuff in constant rotation: it's how I watched the beginning of Clannad (and how, as a result, my eyes rolled back into my skull, never to return).
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, TV as we know it is drawing less and less viewers, and the eyes are going to online video, where the internet anime fandom has been since 2000 or so. ADV bet on the wrong horse, and as Crunchyroll (fuck Crunchyroll), Funimation, Hulu and so on take over in this field, ADV has decided to move in with its properties. And of course, it's the Anime Network. And compared to its competitors, it is, frankly, kinda pathetic.
Right out of the gate, there's a big problem that ADV has been pretty stubborn about from the start: all the Anime Network content is English-dubbed only. Now I know that ADV is very proud of their dubs, and they're alright dubs, from what I've heard of them. But I don't want to be forced to watch them, either. ADV's always sort of denied that anybody'd ever want to watch a Japanese anime in its original tongue with subtitles over one of their dubs. But then, US distributors will often claim that the easy, free availability of subtitled versions of their product, long before they could go to market, had a serious negative impact on their business. And, well, it did. So did a lot of other things, but let's have that discussion another day. But isn't part of the lesson here that people don't mind subtitles one bit, and that in fact, many people prefer them? Does it really hurt anybody that much-- aside from ADV's corporate pride-- to just allow people the choice?
On top of that, the selection is pretty limited: I don't mean just that it's limited to ADV's own titles, which it obviously is, but that one's access to these shows is limited. The quality of the streaming video is quite low, definitely worse than Youtube and at a glance about half the resolution of the video on Funimation's site: ironically, an ad that loads up before your episodes makes fun of downloaded anime that's "the size of a postage stamp". Access to the episodes is based on what level member you are. Guests can only view one episode, tops, of any show, registered users only a few more, and monthly ($7) subscribers get to watch everything on the site. Certain-- and seemingly random-- shows can't be watched at all unless you're a subscriber. I'm sorry, but this does not fly in a world where I can go next door to Funi's site and watch Fist of the North Star in its 152-episode entirety without even thinking about a user account. Even Crunchyroll (fuck Crunchyroll) offers higher-quality video in exchange for subscriptions. This site isn't even trying to compete!
So ADV, you gotta do better than this if you want to remain relevant. Good job with getting MD Geist, though. Don't bother trying to top that dub.
Some readers may remember the previous Anime Network-branded streaming site from several years back. It was actually vaguely progressive at the time, offering a couple of entire shows as well as various sample episodes. (Of course, companies like CPM and Manga Entertainment were experimenting with Internet streams for their back catalog a decade ago - that's how I first saw Gunbuster and Giant Robo - but let's not hurt ADV's feelings too much here.)
The site's moment in the sun came when they posted the first three episodes of their new license, Gurren Lagann, subtitled on the site ahead of the impending DVD release and just a few months after the show had aired in Japan.
Then ADV rather ingloriously lost the license, marking the beginning of their ongoing tailspin.
Posted by: BotageL | May 20, 2009 at 01:43 AM