29th
NOV
Singapore’s licensed animes sucks
Posted by tsubaki | Filed under Anime, Personal
While it seems to a lot of people that Singapore has access to a lot of anime goodies that can be easily bought off the shelves, we unfortunately have one big hole in that pile of anime goodies.
The range of licensed animes in Singapore is pathetic, and they mostly come in VCD packaging, which I absolute hate. The video quality is crap, and the boxart is ten times worth the the worst dvd packaging.
So who’s to blame if most of our people here resort to fansubs?
You pay SGD$29.90 for a vcd box of 13 episodes. You end up paying 60 bucks for a 24/26 episode anime. The quality is so shitty, it’s like watching a youtube video.
ODEX is responsible for all of this shitty stuff that we get shafted with. If they had brains to not fuck its consumer base, but rather improve its products, I’d buy them.
And the number of DVD releases can be counted by my fingers. After using my fingers to count, I still have another 2 fingers more to spare to dig my nose.
And they do not properly announce what will they be bringing in at all.
Their website is outdated. The most recent release would probably be Mai Otome, but it’s not stated on their website at all.
At the moment, I’ve only bought 1 licensed anime and that was many years back when I still a fool. I bought Full Metal Panic! one fine day, which I loaned it to a friend and it’s missing for good now.
I don’t feel the pain anyway since it the quality sucks. My dvd rips of FMP! is so much better. Better still, it’s FREE.
A while ago, I groaned at the fact that Mai HiME has been licensed here in Singapore and bitched about how mainstream it’s going to become. I take back all that was said.
Despite it’s entry into Singapore, I still don’t see people running around with their Childs, compared to Narutards with their headbands.
Right now in Singapore, the mainstream fad is DeathNote wannabes. They all wear that cheap DeathNote tie and carry this stupid notebook with the DeathNote logo on it.
I can’t wait for the 2nd DeathNote movie to come out. I bet I’ll see more of those prowling the theatres. I just hope they don’t write my name down.
Don’t want to die a virgin yet.
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November 29, 2006 -
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You shouldn’t criticise a company without prior knowledge of what goes on in the company.
The shitty cover and packaging might be due to constraints? I mean who doesn’t know the silver lining sucks? They themselves should know and would have changed it if possible.
The “shitty” VCD quality is actually surprisingly good when viewed on TV. Stop using your monitor to watch VCDs.
The fact that they got the licence for Haruhi(RIUVA rumour) is enough to label them “updated”, although I have no idea why they are marketing MAR instead. Maybe we have to accept that 90% of the anime viewers in Singapore are brats who love shitty tournament crap like Pokemon, Beyblade and MAR. The hardcore anime-viewers are like the minority.
ODEX is a company, not an otaku fanclub. They have to consider the best marketable product even though they themselves know it sucks. Maybe.
Anyway, regarding Mai HiME I didn’t catch it on TV but I guess it’s probably given time slots on Arts Central. Kids never touch that channel dude, they stick to Kids Central. Thus you won’t see kids drama-ing like Akane when they lose while playing catch nor think that their dogs have linkages to someone.
However, I’d be very amused to see Haruhi slotted in the afternoon time slot on Channel U or morning Kids Central. Maybe you’ll start seeing kids change their style of argumenting to “I’ve uber coded a program to delete the data of your balls” or something.
@LianYL So I have to understand the politics behind Mcdonalds to appreciate its food? Rubbish. As a consumer, we judge a company by its products. Why on earth do I need to care about what goes behind, when ultimately, the purchase I made is just another cent to the company?
If they knew about how bad it sucks, and they’ll can’t change, it’s their problem: Still bad. Not mine.
If I can’t watch a VCD on any playable platform I like, then it’s as shitty as a audio cd that cannot be played on a PC. And watched it on my living room’s TV for your information.
ODEX is a company, not an otaku fanclub. They have to consider the best marketable product even though they themselves know it sucks. Maybe.
Do you know how ironic this statement is? If they think it sucks, why on earth would it ever be marketable in the first place.
As for the Haruhi news, I shudder.
Yea i’ve nvr bought singapore’s licensed VCDs b4. $29.90 is simply too much for that limited amount of episodes u get in one package.
I agreed with Tsubaki that we judge a company by its products. People are not going to consider that whether the company is new, have constraint or other issues. When you watch a movie did you compare their production costs, no, either it’s an entertaining movie or not.
The fans have the say whether the packaging appeals to them or not. I wouldn’t buy it if it was me. VCD quality is bad, even if you view on TV. In fact why they would still want to release as VCDs nowadays? VCDs are cheap and have very low resolution.
Supplier has to cater for consumer demands otherwise they wouldnt make it far.
Well, if you don’t like their products you can stop buying. Like how I stopped after buying shittily subbed Kiddy Grade which had subtitles so huge it covered half the screen. But the video was okay on my TV. And all VCDs have standard encoding standards. MPEG something so if you don’t like VCDs, buy the DVDs! I’m planning on buying ODEX Haruhi DVDs. If they don’t suck. But probably it will. lol.
But I don’t criticise them, since they are the only company in Singapore that licenses anime. Whining how their products suck even though you’re probably not going to buy it is like people whining over the 7% GST but can’t do nothing about it other than whine.
BTW, you’re viewing it from a “madman watching too much fansubs” POV, have you considered how the majority of viewers think? They probably don’t give a damn or they think it’s good enough. That makes the product marketable enough. ODEX doesn’t have to cater to you. It caters to the n00b majority to make money.
So either you take over the company and show them how pro you are or don’t buy from them and order R2s.
And I thought some of the American releases were crappy. I realized that I need to be a bit more thankful that we at least get DVD quality anime.
@LianYL Exactly because they are the only company here, they get full monopoly, thus they don’t give a fuckshit for the buyers. Notice the trend here in Singapore? And I’m not critizing them like I never bought anything. I did, and I hated it. Hands off.
My complain is the lack of dvd animes around here. Not about them. I want to buy them and keep them for my collection. Of course I can go get R2 Dvds, but I can’t understand them well yet.
And besides, why you are so defending them like a fucking employee? If ‘m just a madman who’s watching too much fansub, my point wouldn’t even be registered under their radar anyway.
Your comparision sucks big time. What the hell has the GST hike got to do with this. Unfortunately for you, I’ve never once complained about the hike.
I’m still waiting for ODEX’s Mai HiME DVDs if they ever plan to release them.
For those who are not adverse to Taiwanese licensed R3 anime DVDs, there’s a shop at Chinatown Point that sells them. Excellent quality/packaging. Of course quality comes with a price. The full AIR TV series comes in 2 boxsets, (8 DVDs) for about $210.
Yay, I’m defending because I’m mad troll. What’s a troll to do if he doesn’t take the opposition against the blogger? Muahahaha.Anyway I draw analogies out of my ass so you’re right in saying that.
BTW Singapore doesn’t have much anime DVDs because no one buys DVDs. We are still stuck in the age of VCDs. You might buy them, I might buy them. But the rest of the market are n00bs. Remember n00bs don’t need quality. They want best price.
From what I’ve read, it seems like in Singapore Anime is doing way better than in Italy. They’re showing One-Piece, Ojamajo, YuYuHakusho and stuff like those over and over again. The most up-to-date release is Naruto, which they have just started airing. Their VCDs shuck in quality and DVDs cost 14 Euros per 3 episode…
Furthermore, other than anime, mangas are waaay behind as well: why is Detective Conan on volume 20 while in Japan they’re at 56? Each crappy volume of manga (black%white, they take the color out from the supposed-to-be-colored pages) cost 5.5 E and they usually come out every 3 months.
And did I mention that in Italy there are more fans of Dragonball/YuYuHakusho than any other serie? It’s not because of their taste, it’s because those are about the best series they ever aired on TV! They are even re-airing DragonBall now. There are more modern fans, like CLAMP fans, but I’m pretty sure that they have never heard of Code Geass yet.
If I ask 1000 people whether they have heard of MaiHiME before, 999 of them would answer ‘no’. Lucky me that I go back and forth between Korea and Italy or I would have been left with almost no manga.(good that there are fansubs for anime)
Oh, a question here: are the Singaporean licenced anime’s OP/ED in Japanese? or do they translate it? In Italy they make OP/EDs from scratch and most of the time they shuck…
@qwqw Tell me about it. It’s high time they shifted their gears to DVDs.
@fisherman horizon And it’s not that DVDs are expensive. Prices of DVDs have already dropped by so much over the last few years, it’s pointless to put shows into VCDs. I still don’t understand why they still release VCD. Catering for the lower market? My ass. They just want higher profit margins.
@scottfrye You guys get the best releases outside Japan. There’s no argument there. =(
@Stipey Yeah I’ll get it if it ever comes out. I’ve seen Taiwanese R3 Bleach DVDs are the packaging is really impressive. But do they come with english subs?
BTW by starting a retarded argument on someone else’s blog is the best way to increase comment count.
(+1)
That’s what I’m saying, DVDs are cheap nowadays so why they still want to go for VCDS. So obviously they want more profit.
And for catering. I mean catering the wants of the fans, ie higher quality or better packaging. Who wants crap anime that are cheap. who want crap anime that looks crap
@fisherman&tsubaki Like I’ve said, n00bs do not know what is quality and they make up the majority of anime viewers here. But they do know what is best price. And how many people in Singapore do you think has DVD players at home? Or DVD-ROM drives? It’s just that we mix with people of our standards so much so that we think the entire Singapore is the same. You want DVDs, Tusbaki wants DVDs, I want DVDs but the majority prefers price to quality! Which one to cater to if you’re a company.
Analogy-out-of-ass(AOOA): It’s like me thinking that installing a fucking antivirus software is the basic thing to do for a PC but some girls come along and ask what’s an antivirus software. Win.
And which company does not want more profit margins? No one starts a company to do volunteer work, making low-to-zero profits. Not even NKF.
Simply put, the number of hardcore fans in Singapore is just not enough reason for them to adapt fully to producing DVDs with fancy packaging yet. Even if DVD prices are dropping, if they cannot sell it to the market, they won’t do it, otherwise they would just be killing themselves.
Singaporeans on a whole would rather have something cheaper than of good quality. Take a look at all those sales and bargain bins where there are so many kiasu people trying to snatch up all the so called “good deals”, no matter if they actually need them or not.
DVD technology is only beginning to really come into Singapore, as many families here would still use their VCD players at home rather than get a DVD player just to do the same thing.
And VCD DOES suck, VCD display resolution is 352 × 240 pixels, that says it all.
I remember reading that the reason why VCDs are used over here as the demand of it (VCDs) are higher. Same goes for the neighbouring countries.
It’s like the format the chinese fansubs use – RMVB. They prefer quantity as opposed to quality.
@windbell
VCDs never really made it into the US, Europe and Japan markets.
They basically jumped from VHS directly to DVD.
they are trying sooooo hard. they forget the main purpose of it. if you ask me, getting their stuffs, isnt really worth the money. I’m pretty sure they can do better, perhaps they think that all otakus are so dumb, they don’t care about what they spend.
bj0rn, their main customer base is most likely non-otakus. So they aren’t marketing to otakus(yay you’re not dumb). They are marketing to ignorant n00bs, that’s where the money lies.
Heck, I don’t even have a VCD player anymore, most people in Italy have DVD players but most anime viewers there use VCD to record. I wonder why, ’cause they even occupy more space. And buying blank DVD’s cheaper too: they fit more eps in one, not to mention it can skip parts more easily.
+I don’t think that companies always go for the most profitable option: there are so many UMD movies in stock at the Duomo di Milano’s Ricordi store, even though almost no one possesses a PSP.
@ LianYL:”They are marketing to ignorant n00bs, that’s where the money lies.”
That reminds me, my sisters are n00bs that spend more than 10 Es to buy a YuGiOh VHD with 2 episode in it. Like, I was sooo desperate to stop them but they wouldn’t listen. How many Ghana Chocobars can you buy with 14Es?
BTW, in the previous comment I meant to say VHD not VCD. I mistakenly wrote it that way ’cause I had just read jlave’s comment XD
Whos’ this idot LianYL who’s making nonsense?? Rude and irritating, thinking that LianYL is only person right.
Tsubaki, sadly no english subs for the R3s which limits the no. of people I can pimp the series to. I own Da Capo R3s (4 boxes of 8 DVDs) They come nicely bundled with character intro booklets and specials in every DVD. (seiyuu image song MVs or credit-less OP/EDs etc). The translation is fantastic although I attribute it to the Chinese language being able to capture the essence of Japanese language better than English ever can. I willingly forked out 200 bucks for the whole set.
I think Odex needs to rethink their target consumer. Anime noobs? Are there enough of them? Maybe they should start listening to what the growing no. of supposed ‘hardcore’ anime fans have to say and try to earn their money instead. I know, Odex deems fansub watchers a lost cause but I believe this demography of anime watchers has a lot more marketing potential and sustainability then casual watchers who are likely to drop anime after watching craptastic VCD releases.
@ hidden: shut up, please XD, everyone has their own personality, eg. me being annoying and nagging. +he’s desperately trying to get more posts there, you know. Furthermore, I think saying ‘idiot’ to a person on the net is un-nettiquettish and ruder than what LianYL said :P.
By the way, what does R3s stand for? XD
I think there are more anime noobs than otakus.
That said, i’m sure there are alot of anime fans who are looking for DVDs. If we wanted VCDs, fansubs would do.
The market on the whole has to mature. Anybody here wants to set up a company!?!
My friend interned in an anime company in Singapore. (cough cough, un-named, but how many are there) Let’s just say from the way she did the fansubs and trailers.. you won’t see me buying from them.
Still looking for good quality DVDs with eng fansubs!
@ Shawn: R3 refers to DVD regions with R3 being region 3; Japan and Europe are R2, while the US is R1.
Reason for VCD use: Ability to charge consumers more for a single season of anime as opposed to a single DVD which can ultimately squeeze the whole season in. Similarly like what LianYL and a few others mentioned, VCD players are still more common in Singapore as opposed to DVD players. This represents the biggest profitable market so why not target this segment? Sure they can release DVD versions, but if I were in the company, I would rather release the VCD version and get 1,000,000 sales and hear Tsubaki bitch rather than get 100,000 sales and hear Tsubaki’s compliments. (Numbers made up, don’t quote me on that)
Reason for marketing animes such as MARS, Beyblade: These animes target the more susceptible, and cookie cutter “Pokemon-type” of animes which are generally very well received by the younger segment. You don’t see many kids go “Beyblade sucks ass.” But you sure do hear alot of teens complaining about “mainstream” animes such as Haruhi, Mai-Hime, etc. In short, the kids segment is more easily swayed and is more prone to deception. In the MacDonald’s example, you would be surprised to learn how much they earn from their Happy Meals.
As for Mai Hime/ Otome being mainstream, it would never happen.
One reason for animes being mainstream is not only its storyline, it’s that it has some form of peripherals that is worth marketing. Why is Naruto more accepted than Bleach? That’s because it is easier to spawn naruto headbands as opposed to big chunky blades. Death Note was helped by its movie as well as its main strength (its Notebook). Even if Otome were to release a movie version, you won’t see many ppl running around with figurines of their Childs (maybe Tsubaki would).
I get my dvds in the pure, straight from Japan R2 format :D Or from tosho.
Never bought ODEX. But got carried away while on holiday in Malaysia at the cheap $5 anime dvds they sell >.> the subbing was horrible.
@umehiko Yeah yeah, whatever. We all know you’re rich. XD
@hidden FUCK YOU WUSS. I’m a troll, does that answer satisfy you? lol Too bad I speak more truth than you. I’ll give you a angry-drm graph.
@Tsubaki Your comment box HTML screwed up on me. Now the links are wrong. Please edit it such that it’s more troll-friendly.
fuck it all singapore suck, i rather pay more for imported dvds than getting it from singapore. fuck singapore and the dub versions
@ LianYL: LOL that reminds me of Drmchrs0’s “Chart of Anger”, nahaha!
Still, I’d say that fansubs are always of better quality because they don’t aim for profit, different from commercial subs… Of course there are even rappy fansub groups as well, XD
@Shawn : Fansub rules!!! Rofl at the NC 16
It has been a belief of mine that monopolies kills creativity. I’ve got too many examples to put through my point, so I’ll make this quick.
When you’ve got a monopoly, the company don’t give a fuckshit about what people think. They’re forced to buy their products, and they have all the power to enforce it. Even if it means destroying one small portion of their consumer base.
My beef with ODEX is that they don’t care about the consumers at all. I don’t care about the shitty quality, lack of extras, or lousy packaging, but it’s because they don’t want to update their licenses on their website. I could care less about this, but if the discerning consumer does not know which series to avoid downloading, it’s an easy ticket to bankruptsville. I didn’t they had the license to Nanoha until it AIRED.
We have Cosfest and fucking EOY, two huge anime-related events where they could announce their acquired licenses, but no, they choose to hoard it and give the events the fucking finger. Hell, their attendance is a fucking no-show at both events.
Simply put, if they don’t care about a medium-sized portion of their consumer base/the community, why are they still doing it? They should just bail out before they make one hell of a mistake.
PS: Sponsorships mean absolutely nothing when it comes to supporting the community. It’s not my fault they refuse to play using ethical means, you know.
[...] Was reading Tsubaki rant about bad licensed anime in Singapore, which lead me to a post by DrmChsr0 ranting about rumours and ODEX. That got me very curious. So I went to search around to see if there’s anything to substantiate the rumour. *mindless rambling follows* [...]
Like 99% of the people who have left their comments here, I’m like “whoa hands off” when it comes to locally produced anime VCDs/DVDs. Bottomline is, I find it really hard to trust the quality of their translation.
I’m still secretly harbouring the fantasy/dream of either 1) joining ODEX at an attempt to inject some decency in standard or 2) setting up my own company to provide good quality series. Of course, all that has to happen after my bond ends in 4.75 years’ time.
=_=
Damn. Seriously. Fans should come together and set up a company and kick some ass.
i’m with you yallo
well I felt that their monopoly and lack of knowledge in the business leads to the watever shitty stuffs that they throw back at consumers … my friend worked as intern there b4 … they dun even have proper knowledge of the latest subbing methods …
Meh, its singapore, whaddya expect? Its a land of sibe ex merchandice thats made of crap. And with the new increase in GST, the gahmen is getting more money out of us helpless consumers. So lets just stick to torrents and lets wait and see what happens…
Quality over price. I don’t mind paying for a series that I like in DVDs if the quality can justify that price tag. And of course, English subtitles and Japanese dub.
And why do I say Japanese dub instead of dual audio? Well, can say that I’ve been in Chengdu for quite some time and I found out that all their anime series DVDs, be it legal or not, featured Japanese dub and that’s it. No Chinese dub at all even if the majority of the people here spoke in their local Sichuan slang or Chinese (they called it 普通话 [pu tong hua] lolz).
Regarding Death Note (anime), if Tsubaki has been reading the seiyuu list………………………………
@sky9nr I just noticed your comment. You’re wrong in saying that VCDs allows ODEX to sell more discs per season when they could easily squeeze the entire season on a DVD. In fact, each single DVD contains 3 or at most 4 episodes because the videos are of higher quality and encoded with a different MPEG standard. You will only see 5 or more episodes squeezed in a single DVD if the DVD is a bootleg. This atually means that the hardcore bunch of people are willing to fork out more a lot money per episode in exchange for quality. However, most n00bs like “best price” and a VCD box which has half the season squeezed in 13 CDs at half the price of a single DVD and because these n00bs are majority, ODEX prioritises them. And that is the logical thing to do for any profit-oriented company. Shit I’m spamming econs terms which I don’t even understand.
@yallo Start a competing company? You don’t know what you’re up against. It isn’t easy starting a distribution company. You need MONEY. LOTS of MONEY. But if you do start one, it’ll be cool. Until the profits set in.
@hidden He’s the resident troll who doesn’t get enough comments on his chinese blog, so he helps reply with his annoying attitude. It’s fun to smack him at times. Don’t worry, I know him in reality. When he crosses the line, it’s possible to smack him in reality.
@Stripey The irony of fansub watchers is that I know a lot who are willing to pay for a good quality DVD with good packaging. Like the numbers who are willing to fork out money for figures, DvDs are also something worth collecting. So what if it’s a minority? It’s still money. Fools.
@Shawn I would appreciate if you don’t tell another person to shut up. He has his own opinion after all. And it’s true the LianYL’s a fucking troll.
@TedFox And those don’t deserve to watch anime. Lol. I mean, man. I honestly don’t give a fuck for those who want to enter the anime scene. It’s an expensive hobby, from collecting manga to figures, if you want to save money, this is the wrong road for you.
@Sky9r I’ll like to point out that there are no DVDs that have the whole season in, due to the lower compression of the videos in it. Why do R2 DvDs only have 3-4 episodes in it? Because the video in it is fucking huge. Also, Bleach is more acceptable than Naruto here. Naruto had a headstart, but Bleach is more popular now. Just that you don’t see people running around in Shinigami clothing because it’s a little to large, compared to Naruto headbands.
@umehiko Because… you’re RICH! Hahahah, can’t believe you bought those pirated Dvds.
@LianYL It’s to restrict your Trollness. Anymore, and you can run a mini blog on my comments section.
@Chicken Careful, the government’s watching. Rofl.
@DrmChsr0 That’s a very very good point. Why aren’t they supporting the anime community? You know what? They deserve to get bankrupt for their stupidity. A company that only cares about its profit margin will fail one day, because if you don’t care about your customers, they’ll be the one that will be fucking you in the end.
@yallo You’ll need shitload of money to start. Because you need to buy distribution rights, and all that shit. Translation is easy, since we all know that Odex sometimes steal fansub translations. Lol.
@Alafista I agree. It’s ironic that the people who run gaming companies here don’t play games, the anime distributors themselves aren’t fans, and the mechanics don’t drive their cars. What the hell do they know about what they are trying to sell?
@elohir Oh come on. Don’t get me started on the GST. Continue with our torrenting and watch them serve fines at our doorsteps like what they are doing for those downloading mp3s.
@AeroFlare Chinese subbers go for speed. They release usually within the next day, everyone leeches and disappears. In a week, hardly anyone is seeding it. The fastest, but they ignore quality. What about Death Note anime? Hirano Aya? Of course I know. Who do you think I am? LOL.
@LianYL personally I didn’t purchase any animes DVDs yet, so I understand if my comments were off mark, but it still doesn’t hide the fact that the main reason why VCDs are still preferred is because more Singaporeans own VCD players as opposed to DVD players. Sure this will all change in a few years time, but in the meantime, be prepared to see VCDs for the short term run.
Though I did notice a number of anime DVD versions here in Melbourne, just that those are the Mandarin subs.
And another point that I feel alot of people miss out on is physical quantity. Uninformed masses will rather fork out $25 for a VCD box set of x amount of discs as opposed to the same $25 for a DVD which comes with what? 2 DVDs?. Still no matter what, the VCD is already at a late maturity stage and it won’t be long before DVDs will take over. The only problem I foresee will be the future format war between Blue-Ray and HD-DVD. This could prove to be a problem in deciding to adapt DVD or to wait for the dust to settle between the war of the 2 formats.
@sky9r The people who are buying VCDs are the aunties who are madly in love with those Korean Dramas. My mom’s one of them. Her Korean Drama VCD collection is 3 cupboards full. But who watch animes? Not those aunties. Kids do. And the younger generation all grew up knowing that VCD quality is shitty, no thanks to all the pirated vcds around. So when this kids grow up to teens, do you think they’ll buy a VCD or a DVD?
Totally unrelated rant
HLJ’s NORMAL PRE-ORDER for haruhi figurine disappeared faster than i can reload the page. WTF!?!
@Tsubaki EDUCATE THE MASSES! Or we could start a protest against ODEX. Indoors.
And I believe ‘anime’ is a plural/singular term. No ’s’ required.
@TedFox n00b I pity you, You ain’t fast enough. MF is fucking around with us, treating Haruhi figurines like PS3s(AOOA). Be assured that everyone will get a piece of that figurine, just that you might have to wait months longer.
@Tsubaki I could be your columnist if this goes on. And I brought about dorama! Treat me to Victor’s Kitchen next time.
@LianYL Well if you stop terrorising my new readers I can educate them before they disappear for good. I’m quite tempted to remove your name from the comment ranking. The name LianYL annoys me. It’s like a tj han copy.
As for the anime thing, I know I know. 1 anime, 10 anime. But I’m already so used to putting an ’s’ behind it. Since when was oxford required for blog writing?
@Lian YL In hell will I ever make you part of ADD. Go troll back in your own chinese blog. I can never understand why a english speaking person like you writes chinese.
i had a crazy idea of obtaining the licence to japanese anime before odex does then buying subs off fansub groups and releasing them as dvd. of course hopefully with some extras to sweeten the deal.
i firmly believe that fans are willing to buy dvds even if they have quality fansubs as long as the dvds are worth it. besides pressed dvds last longer than most burnt dvds. not to mention a shelf of dvd cases sure looks better than a stack of disks in a cakebox.
@Tsubaki I’ve been Chinese-speaking all my life. I’m forced by circumstances to lower my IQ levels to talk to… Oops. I annoy you like tjhan? I thought he was your buddy buddy? Don’t have to be embarrassed about it. Come on make me a columnist.
oh yah forgot to add. i remember reading an article in lian he about anime in singapore. it did mention licensing stuff and what not. but that was months ago.
i distinctively remember they used samurai 7 and naruto pictures.
@tsubaki Yeah sure thing that those kids will convert to DVDs in the future, but now? Their income still comes from the VCD watching Aunties that you mentioned. So go figure which format will win in the short run.
You want your wish of getting DVD animes produced en-mass, sure you can. Just that you have to wait a couple more years.
I’ve actually got some Odex DVDs from way back when they first attempted to release stuff on DVD (Hmmm, I’m thinking Pretear and Boys Be…), and I’d probably buy their release of Monster if I could find somewhere to buy it. Then again, I have DVDs from most regions of the world these days.
Regarding Taiwanese DVDs, a lot of the releases are exactly the same as the R2J’s, only cheaper and some chinese subtitles plonked on there. When I say exactly the same, I mean they normally use exactly the same video encodes (probably just demux’d from the R2s), so AIR still looked f**king awful (compression noise all over the place), but most stuff looks awesome.
You underestimate how shitty that R1 My-HiME box is, though. I’d have bought a couple extra to house my R2J’s if it had actually been half decent, but now I’m looking forward to burning it after the new box is released.
@ tsubaki: “I can never understand why a english speaking person like you writes chinese.”
What’s that supposed to mean? I’m mother-tongue Korean but I comment in English, write my blog in Italian and watch TV in Japanese O_O. It’s so that I don’t forget these languages I took so much time learning. I am, afterall, going for speaking 10 languages, nahaha. It would be bad if LianYl forgot Chinese: it’s a cool speech. (BTW, which Chinese do you speak, LianYL? I’m not able to differentiate them by looking your blog ’cause I can’t read it XD)
@Shawn I speak Mandarin. I can’t speak my dialect, which is sad. I see you’re well-learned in several languages.
*Wonders about the 11pm – 12 midnite art central anime slot*
@shawn you’re frigging 1337 man…be my sensei!!!1111oneone
@Lss That’s what I thought as well. Obtain license, and hire fansubbers to sub it, with those nicer subtitles as compared to those ugly yellow/white subtitles used and package it nicely and sell it.
@sky9r Wrong again. Those kids don’t buy the animes that are on the shelves. Look carefully at what’s avaliable. It’s mostly to teens who have the spending power, nevermind where they got it from.
@DigiKerot I need a better picture of it. As in a photo of that box. jp’s picture is a little misleading since it’s just the art and not the box itself.
@Shawn I’m chinese, but i hate the language to the maximum. And it goes the same for a large number of Singaporeans here. So don’t be suprised. You’re one of those few people who are effectively trilingual (and more), so can’t compare yourself to the norm.
Yea!! i hate chinese too even though i am chinese.
@tsubaki well, unless you like to think of Singaporean kids like American teens where they move out and stay on their own, most of us are still stuck living under the same roof as our parents till prolly our late 20s/ early 30s. No matter what, the staple media player in any typical Singaporean home is STILL a VCD player.
Sure you can argue that most teens are educated enough to know the difference between a VCD and DVD and own a DVD player somewhere (desktop, PS2, Xbox, etc), but the bottomline is, there is still a bigger market in VCDs as opposed to DVDs. Of course I don’t have any hard proof to back up my claim, but Odex and any other video suppliers around ain’t stupid. If they are still releasing shows/animes on VCD format, it shows that there is enough profitability to be earned, and even more so as compared to DVDs.
Therefore, I still stand by my view that VCDs are here for the short run (maybe even for the long run) due to the fact that more Singaporeans own VCD players. Period.
“It’s mostly to teens who have the spending power, nevermind where they got it from”
How many teens actually do have spending power that they achieved themselves? Similarly, I don’t have statistics to support my statement, but it is still to my believe that unlike American youths, Singaporean youths do have have adequate spending power THAT THEY ACHIEVE THEMSELVES (aka working) until probably after National Service. It is also my believe thus, that many Singaporean youths get their majority of their spending power from their parents.
Not everyone is like you who is independent and would hold frequent jobs to support yourself. Our youths just aren’t trained to be financially independent from a young age.
@tsubaki well, unless you like to think of Singaporean kids like American teens where they move out and stay on their own, most of us are still stuck living under the same roof as our parents till prolly our late 20s/ early 30s. No matter what, the staple media player in any typical Singaporean home is STILL a VCD player.
Sure you can argue that most teens are educated enough to know the difference between a VCD and DVD and own a DVD player somewhere (desktop, PS2, Xbox, etc), but the bottomline is, there is still a bigger market in VCDs as opposed to DVDs. Of course I don’t have any hard proof to back up my claim, but Odex and any other video suppliers around ain’t stupid. If they are still releasing shows/animes on VCD format, it shows that there is enough profitability to be earned, and even more so as compared to DVDs.
Therefore, I still stand by my view that VCDs are here for the short run (maybe even for the long run) due to the fact that more Singaporeans own VCD players. Period.
“It’s mostly to teens who have the spending power, nevermind where they got it from”
How many teens actually do have spending power that they achieved themselves? Similarly, I don’t have statistics to support my statement, but it is still to my believe that unlike American youths, Singaporean youths do have have adequate spending power THAT THEY ACHIEVE THEMSELVES (aka working) until probably after National Service. It is also my believe thus, that many Singaporean youths get their majority of their spending power from their parents.
Not everyone is like you who is independent and would hold frequent jobs to support yourself. Our youths just aren’t trained to be financially independent from a young age.
Note: 2nd post as the 1st didn’t come out. Don’t know if it will become a double-post.
@qwqw Me 2 :D
well i was thinking more of look at the product first then approach them to buy their subs. and not hire them to sub for me.
somehow when your working for money funny things happen.
@Tsubaki “I’m chinese, but i hate the language to the maximum. And it goes the same for a large number of Singaporeans here.”
This is one of the many reasons why I do my blog in Chinese intentionally.
@tsubaki
不可以这样说…华语始终是我们的母语和文化…
You can dislike it but dont hate it ma…
いいですか？
@LianYL If thats one of the reasons den wont u get less readers?
@qwqw I didn’t start a blog for readership. I started it self-satisfaction and self-improvement on Chinese. I’m using English all the time with friends and at work. I’m now learning Japanese and have an exam this weekend. The only way I can maintain my Chinese standard is to start a Chinese blog.
@abao It’s normal, he’s not the only one. It’s a preference of language afterall. I have a few languages that I hate too. Muahaha.
@Lss That’s quite true as well. Hmm. Pay them after they finish subbing…
@abao If you’ve been failing Chinese since Primary 3, you would hate it too.
@LianYL Stop blog jacking man! Go back to your cheena blog.
@Tsubaki I’m your unofficial columnist in charge of replying.
@LianYL 10:37pm
ok ^_^
@Tsubaki
sorry about that
seriously, we can just blame the singapore government and their great censorship about this, even though they say they have opened up. With such a censorship board, irregardless of what odex wants to import for us in dvds, they would definately get censored, resulting them in losing alot of revenue… so they would feel what for import dvds for us, why no do the cheap way and cater to the noobers and gain great revenue. Look at it, otome NC16???? that’s a little too harsh..
Like what one of my trusty friend said all the time, “If you cant get what you want, and you do not feel like joining them, Get it from E-Bay.”
@jinyamato NC16 for Otome is okay I think, considering it’s a highly fanservice-oriented anime. Mai HiME was one of my favourites but after watching Otome my subconscious mind has pushed HiME to the depths of shitpile. That’s how bad Otome was as an influence. Plus, there are tentacles and mysterious bulges.
I’m pretty sure ODEX’s marketing department could use a major sacking and revamp. They should take a leaf out of Chuangyi, the only other major anime/manga firm here. At least CY is in touch with its consumers.
@tjhan I thought you should be sleeping after a screwed up trip.
Look at the titles then go get the torrents XD.
LianYL equals Tsubaki’s yaoi rival for tjhan’s non-yaoi affections.
Is it me or are all those topics where its either bashing some stupid government policy or some rant on a retarded s’pore company or a rant on how ugly singaporeans can be, they always get a crap load of posts. D:
Lets just live with it people, no matter how much ranting we do here, nothings going to happen, even if one odex board member was to read this, they prolly won’t do much (maybe sue a couple of us). If we want something done, lets go post this entire post into the papers and see what happens…i’ll go get my lawyer.
I doubt posting such things in the papers will help the situation much.
If the key guys in ODEX aren’t in touch with the fan base and can’t understand what fans actually want, it probably signals their inherent lack of interest in anime itself (which makes one wonder why in the first place they are in this business, maybe just purely for profit?). Blowing the matter up won’t change things, what has got to change is their mindset.
Hence, the only alternative choices are to either join them & hope to change the company from within, or set up another company to fight them. Rawrrr!
Easier said than done though. =|
Anyway, employing fansubbers to do the job is kinda like going against the rule-of-thumb of free distribution that fansubbers abide by. Not exactly keen on that idea.
dvd with english and chinese subs and multi channel sound would be good. im not buying no vcds.
they did say they are willing to try releasing dvds again right but lets see the quality first. and if its up to fansub quality and has extras i will buy it if its a good series like last exile, monster or gits.
@yano
You’re not hiring fansubbers to release fansubs. You’re hiring them to translate for you so you could release DVDs. It’s like how the companies hire subbers, just happens that the people you hire fansub other anime as well.
Only way is to wait patiently for a new company to enter the market
@ yallo: “If the key guys in ODEX aren’t in touch with the fan base and can’t understand what fans actually want, it probably signals their inherent lack of interest in anime itself”
Well, if they DID get in touch with the fanbase and be interested in anime, they’d be unevitably drawn into darkside of it and end up with no time to work. XD
Agains anime, “resistace is bakaish”, nahaha. I’m sure that most of you guys are aware of how much time anime/manga/figurine-hunting eats, isn’t that right?
Sorry, I kid
wow… you guys are still at it. well done! *83rd post*
Let’s make it touch a hundred. It’s “Screwing a hundred brains” campaign. Do your part today.
i was thinking more of wait for the fansubbers to release their stuff. compare the various subs and pick the best before approaching the group to purchase the rights to their subs.
win win situation. sub groups get moolah for website and bots while viewers get top notch quality video and subs.
too bad the quality for fandubs and output is too low.
i dont go out much but spend a ton of time in front of my computer looking for more stuff to watch or read so i guess your right. resistance is baka lol. but dont they hire people to do real work while the others just look for anime? it cant be the same person right. like how game testers dont sell/promote games.
@Lss It doesn’t work that way. If they wanted to, they could just use the subs directly without asking. The fansubbers can only suck thumb and do nothing since subbing and releasing the episodes are a breach of the Berne Convention in the first place so they can’t complain if some guys steal their work. Problem is, even with quality subbing used, they can’t typeset for nuts.
You could always hire Dattebayo to do it. I think they do a reasonable job.
Besides, it’s hard to say whose translation is the best. I’m sure if you pay, and choose a reputable group, you’ll get reasonable translations, as long as you’re not asking for speedsubs.
Anything is better than what ODex provides anyway.
Odex can be more in touch by communication and feedback! And support the anime community. Cosfest and EOY comes to mind.
Problem is, they don’t have to PAY for fan-made subtitles! Peter of ODEX did appear on a rather screwed-up local forum before to gather feedback. Which he did take into account when releasing the DVDs. But after that he never did appear again. And apparently the subtitle problems and design problems were never solved.
only 1 thing can be said integrity. the translators that i respect all retire from the scene liao sadly. either that or they changed their nicks.
guess thats a pt typeset not up to par. but if your talking dvd soft subs would it matter as much?
90th post! I don’t think this’ll reach 100 though XD
By the way, I notice some very old anime on the shelf, nahaha
And I notice only now thatquite few of them are 50% discounted O_O
5 more posts from you and 4 more from me dude. We’ll make history.
You guys are mad.
WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THERE’S A MANGA SALE? DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE #$%^#^$%SSID^$%^$%^$%^MAC$%^$^$#^$#CSC^$%^$^%$EVA#%@#%#%$#
Well, sales on manga are less worthy than other sales right? I mean, it’s on percentage. Sorry if I’m wrong XD. And yes, we’re mad! 94!
What? Well ya but there are some old manga series I want to complete. And I haven’t been buying figurines for quite some time. Saving up for December’s goods I guess.
(+1)
Manga series.. that reminds me, I WAS trying to complete HikaGo in Italian but the Panini publishing company has made the serie trimestrial and it costs 5.5 Euros each volume, so I gave up on it XD
Ah. I can’t afford to buy anything this December. I first have to put away PS3 savings before buying anything XD. Still on 400~500Euros hopefully it will cost less than 500 by summer 2008 XD
I’ll take this to 97th post and beyond!!! Lets spam to the finish!!
@tsubaki maybe we are.
Hey, SPAM stands for Spiked Pork And Meat?(random guess) anyways, this is the 98th post! 2 more to go. Let’s drink beer after reaching 100! (actually I can’t ’cause I’m underage XD, so make it fruit juice).
Oh, is there a reward for each month’s top commentor? I hope not or I’ll have to compete XD
I actually have this blog turned on 10+ hours a day, altough 4+ hours are AFK time XD
I cheat
and i get the 100th comment!
*throws confetti*
Hey! That’s cheap! You… fox! XD sorry for the world-destroying pun.
That “I cheat” was actually funny XD
Hmm. This is something I’ve been wondering for quite some time… Why is “I” as in ‘myself’ written in capital letter?
Is this the most commented page? I mean, 100+ posts! It mustn’t be overlooked! XD
Thanks to you and everyone else spamming. Good job tsubaki! Your blog is now REALLY popular!
@LianYL I’m tempted to install this AntiTroll plugin which blocks your comment counts.
@Shawn The prize for being top commentor is larger e-penis.
@TedFox That’s fucking hilarious. LOL.
@elohir Nah, it’s far from being popular. I don’t even have 100k hits. I just have a lot of regular commentors and trolls (point finger to LianCB)
It takes time my friend…be patient, your E-p0n0s will get larger in due time..
[...] Tsubaki, drm, tedfox. [...]
I merely went to sleep for a few hours and it’s already passed 100? Great job everyone. May the rubbish continue. Tsubaki should post something on this historical event.
tsubaki: “The prize for being top commentor is larger e-penis.”
Wow, what’s it’s use? XD I’m kidding, don’t quote me on this.
LianYL: “Tsubaki should post something on this historical event.”
I really doubt it’s worth the effort of writing something on it XD
while you guys are talking over Mai Otome , Mai Otome Zwei is out , but you just can’t buy it in SG , you can get it from the fan sub.
ODEX really too slow…..
@DI Duh obviously.
so where can I get good animes in singapore ?
really tempted to get from amazon, but the dual shipping (amazon to vpost, vpost to singapore) really sucks.
Yeah it really sucks hate those craps,when i found it feel like wanna step on it hardly,at least some youtube’s videos are better
Oh well I a secondary school kid had to waste 40-100 dollars on Chrono cursade and Peacemaker Just because I got tired of finding a DDL site as the torrents take forever well thats for Chrono Cursade but as for peacemaker I did not know what fansubs were till I really got hooked to KGEN and hellsing which eventually brought me to the big wide world of anime and fansubs but entier way I’ll be waiting for the Chrono Crusade DVD vol 2 just for the sake of letting ODEX make some money and in hopes of getting better quality instead of the white subs which are unreadable and the crappy quality oh and to complete my chrono crusade collection… I think even a.f.k. subs are better for Haruhi if ODEX realsese a Haruhi DVD… yeah regreats for deleting KAA’s Chrono…
i’m sure if word starts going around that SINGAPORE IS TECHNOLOGICALLY BACKWARD, then these kiasu people will start buying DVDs.
It true that ODex is going to be working with ipos for he catch, not that they have the choice… and good news, odex will no longer be producing VCDs and is actually getting rid of their vcd stock, thats why you get a box set at $5.
And you noe wat? the people running odex is alot more hardcore otaku then you think. But they know that singapore is not like taiwan, not that theres not hardcore fan, but not enough. Making it very hard to give specials. And for the DVD features, the japanese studios just don’t wanna give it to them.
For those looking forward to buy haruhi, look forward to a new packaging and DVD9 quality.
You noe wat if you can offer your help to them, on their email, even better.
oh poly and uni students might get special prices for odex products too. And just to make you people feel better, odex is changing, they are now consulting school clubs and such. A thinktank is also setuped.
wtf
HenderSon are you leaking information from ODEX (And working in there or something) or you read it some where… Oh well even if the Haruhi DVDs are still crap I’ll still buy it… Still wanna complete Chrono crusade legally with All Jap audio (No torrents and stuff *Spoilt Anime watcher*) XD…
Good site!!!
@crbgb Good site!!!
Yeah, totally agree!
yeah.odex is just crap dey are paying isp to catch those downloading illegal anime, it just came out in the newspapers a while ago, most school kids are caught.. but who could blame them? getting pocket money of about 30-50 dollars a week how could they even afford them..it’ll take them ages to save.andd…a 9 year old kid is caught..=.= dats dumb..
paying isp to catch illegal dlers..dey are really hopeless i guess..
Odex is the one to blame giving us crap at such prices.I bet their thinking lets make money of of idiots in singapore. ODEX NEWS FLASH U PRODUCE LOUSY ANIME AND U EXPECT TO PAY FOR S$30 FOR 13 PATHETIC EPISODES?!
30 bucks for 13 episodes is actually good. Unfortunately the quality doesn’t justify the price so… oh well.
@LianYL i totally agree with Tsubaki with what he said. Personally I wonder how much do you understand about the anime fan community in Singapore for you to judge them. What makes you think we dun buy DVDs??? I have collections of anime in DVDs like One Piece, Blood+,Getbackers, YuYuHakusho, Orange Rd and the list goes on, of course none of my purchase is from ODEX and never will. For the price ODEX is charging with the quality they have, it’s no wonder they are sueing thousands of fans for downloading cos i really doubt they could ever have the kind of figures in sales as in their sueing.
@Henderson After all the stuff (shit for the anime fans; profits for ODEX) that ODEX stirs up, why would any anime fan in his/her right mind wants to support them??? The anime fans will NOT die because there’s lack of anime but the company WILL DIE without the fans, and that’s a fact!
Is there anyway we can acquire latest episodes of anime beside dling? I think maybe we can have a channel on cabletv which broadcast all the latest episodes anime, probably a timing which is close to when animes debut are being broadcast in Japan. The subscription cost should be ard the cost of like other channels on scv.
[...] Entries: AVPAS acts upon copyright infringement of anime downloading Open Letter to Odex Singapore’s licensed animes sucks Choice Quotes by Odex I Talked to [...]
tell me please where u get cheap anime vcds?? im broke from buying original stuff cost me over $300…tell me!!!