Why Do Some Anime Never Get Licensed?
Ask any anime fan what one of their biggest pet peeves is about anime, and they're likely to tell you, "The fact that my favorite series never got licensed."
From the outside, the licensing of anime outside of Japan can be an opaque business. To the average viewer, and even to most fans, it's not clear how specific titles got chosen to be distributed while others continue to languish in limbo. The quality of the show often seems to have little to do with it: many great shows never make it outside of Japan, or only make it after a great many delays.
Why does this happen? Here's a few of the common reasons why.
1. The cost of licensing is prohibitive.
This is the most common reason why a given anime title hasn't shown up in English: it's just too expensive to license it. The licensor may be asking a fee far too dear for the perceived market, and may be unwilling to negotiate.
The costs for licensing a given anime title can vary wildly. A show that's believed to be extremely valuable will command a huge licensing fee (it can go as high as six to seven figures), while another slow with less perceived value can be much cheaper. A major franchise like Bleach or Naruto may cost even more after the licensing for all its auxiliary and ancillary material -- standalone movies, for instance -- is figured in.
Sometimes a given title may only be available as part of a "package" of titles offered by the copyright holder. The licensor can't just pick one title out of the package; he has to obtain the whole thing as one unit. If the cost for that whole package is too dear, then it's no sale.
One classic example of licensing costs being just plain prohibitive is the show Legend of the Galactic Heroes, a long-standing favorite among anime fans who have begged licensors for years to bring it out legitimately in English. The sheer size of the series (over a hundred episodes), the cost demanded for its licensing from its owners, and the perceived lack of a return on the investment, have so far kept that from happening.
2. There's no perceived market for the title.
Anime licensors are like any other company: they have to make money to stay in business. From their point of view, an anime title that doesn't sell enough copies to make back the investment required to license and distribute it is a waste of money.
If an anime title has a small but fierce cult of fans, that might be enough to eventually guarantee its release -- as long as the licensors can reliably count on that fanbase buying the title. A crowdfunding mechanism like Kickstarter might be able to make that happen. But for the most part, anime licensors count on titles which have a fairly good chance of appealing to the greater mass of casual fans.
One curious side effect of this is the disparity in popularity between titles in Japan and titles overseas. A title wildly popular in Japan may only be mildly successful here (Gintama); a title with solid success overseas might be wholly ignored at home (Samurai Champloo, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt).
3. The original copyright holder isn't offering that title for certain territories, or offering it at all.
This is an adjunct to #1 above. The "package deal problem" mentioned there can be part of this, but sometimes a licensor just isn't interested in offering a given title for distribution outside of Japan, period. The exact reasons for this are almost irrelevant, since it's their property and they can do as they wish with it -- but that doesn't make fans feel any better about what happens.
In some cases, the copyright holder may already have sold the distribution rights to another entity, who has other plans for it. A title might have been bought by a holding company, which acquired all the rights to the given title as part of another initiative. One common example of this is when a company wants to make a live-action version of an anime; they may buy all the rights associated with the anime to accomplish that larger goal. (Satoshi Kon's film Millennium Actress was apparently acquired by Go Fish, a subsidiary of DreamWorks SKG, as part of such an effort.)
4. It's unclear who owns the rights to the title.
In some rare cases, a title can slip through the cracks no thanks to bankruptcies or sales of assets, and it becomes difficult to determine who actually owns it in the first place. A little detective work can usually sort out the problem, but for obscure titles that don't have much of an audience to begin with, the effort is hardly worth it.
5. The original materials for the show have gone missing.
This is, sadly, not as rare an occurrence as we'd like to believe. With many titles from before the 1990s (and even well into that decade), the original elements -- the film or tape holding the master copy -- can't be located. It may be possible to reissue the show from another source, like a copy made for TV broadcast (Princess Knight) or even a tape or disc sold to consumers (Project A-Ko), depending on their condition. But it wasn't until relatively recently that there was much effort made to preserve these shows at all, and so many titles have simply gone missing.
* * *
Unlicensed titles find their way out of Japan through one of two channels: exports, and piracy. In the former case, fans buy DVDs or BDs directly from Japan, whether or not they have English audio or subtitles. (The overwhelming majority don't.) In the latter case, fans turn to the bootleg circuit and download fan-subtitled editions of a given title, or even buy "off-license" editions manufactured in Taiwan or mainland China. At least in the former case, money flows back to the original creators.
Japanese companies and overseas licensors are slowly learning how to work together that much more closely to allow the majority of anime to be licensed at least for simulcasts, if not physical media. But for now a great many titles, some hotly demanded by fans, continue to remain in limbo.
From the outside, the licensing of anime outside of Japan can be an opaque business. To the average viewer, and even to most fans, it's not clear how specific titles got chosen to be distributed while others continue to languish in limbo. The quality of the show often seems to have little to do with it: many great shows never make it outside of Japan, or only make it after a great many delays.
Why does this happen? Here's a few of the common reasons why.
1. The cost of licensing is prohibitive.
This is the most common reason why a given anime title hasn't shown up in English: it's just too expensive to license it. The licensor may be asking a fee far too dear for the perceived market, and may be unwilling to negotiate.
The costs for licensing a given anime title can vary wildly. A show that's believed to be extremely valuable will command a huge licensing fee (it can go as high as six to seven figures), while another slow with less perceived value can be much cheaper. A major franchise like Bleach or Naruto may cost even more after the licensing for all its auxiliary and ancillary material -- standalone movies, for instance -- is figured in.
Sometimes a given title may only be available as part of a "package" of titles offered by the copyright holder. The licensor can't just pick one title out of the package; he has to obtain the whole thing as one unit. If the cost for that whole package is too dear, then it's no sale.
One classic example of licensing costs being just plain prohibitive is the show Legend of the Galactic Heroes, a long-standing favorite among anime fans who have begged licensors for years to bring it out legitimately in English. The sheer size of the series (over a hundred episodes), the cost demanded for its licensing from its owners, and the perceived lack of a return on the investment, have so far kept that from happening.
2. There's no perceived market for the title.
Anime licensors are like any other company: they have to make money to stay in business. From their point of view, an anime title that doesn't sell enough copies to make back the investment required to license and distribute it is a waste of money.
If an anime title has a small but fierce cult of fans, that might be enough to eventually guarantee its release -- as long as the licensors can reliably count on that fanbase buying the title. A crowdfunding mechanism like Kickstarter might be able to make that happen. But for the most part, anime licensors count on titles which have a fairly good chance of appealing to the greater mass of casual fans.
One curious side effect of this is the disparity in popularity between titles in Japan and titles overseas. A title wildly popular in Japan may only be mildly successful here (Gintama); a title with solid success overseas might be wholly ignored at home (Samurai Champloo, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt).
3. The original copyright holder isn't offering that title for certain territories, or offering it at all.
This is an adjunct to #1 above. The "package deal problem" mentioned there can be part of this, but sometimes a licensor just isn't interested in offering a given title for distribution outside of Japan, period. The exact reasons for this are almost irrelevant, since it's their property and they can do as they wish with it -- but that doesn't make fans feel any better about what happens.
In some cases, the copyright holder may already have sold the distribution rights to another entity, who has other plans for it. A title might have been bought by a holding company, which acquired all the rights to the given title as part of another initiative. One common example of this is when a company wants to make a live-action version of an anime; they may buy all the rights associated with the anime to accomplish that larger goal. (Satoshi Kon's film Millennium Actress was apparently acquired by Go Fish, a subsidiary of DreamWorks SKG, as part of such an effort.)
4. It's unclear who owns the rights to the title.
In some rare cases, a title can slip through the cracks no thanks to bankruptcies or sales of assets, and it becomes difficult to determine who actually owns it in the first place. A little detective work can usually sort out the problem, but for obscure titles that don't have much of an audience to begin with, the effort is hardly worth it.
5. The original materials for the show have gone missing.
This is, sadly, not as rare an occurrence as we'd like to believe. With many titles from before the 1990s (and even well into that decade), the original elements -- the film or tape holding the master copy -- can't be located. It may be possible to reissue the show from another source, like a copy made for TV broadcast (Princess Knight) or even a tape or disc sold to consumers (Project A-Ko), depending on their condition. But it wasn't until relatively recently that there was much effort made to preserve these shows at all, and so many titles have simply gone missing.
* * *
Unlicensed titles find their way out of Japan through one of two channels: exports, and piracy. In the former case, fans buy DVDs or BDs directly from Japan, whether or not they have English audio or subtitles. (The overwhelming majority don't.) In the latter case, fans turn to the bootleg circuit and download fan-subtitled editions of a given title, or even buy "off-license" editions manufactured in Taiwan or mainland China. At least in the former case, money flows back to the original creators.
Japanese companies and overseas licensors are slowly learning how to work together that much more closely to allow the majority of anime to be licensed at least for simulcasts, if not physical media. But for now a great many titles, some hotly demanded by fans, continue to remain in limbo.
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