Shark Puppet

Something interesting happened while I was watching the last few episodes of Kill la Kill: I found myself cheering on the villains.  As Satsuki and the Elite Four launched their assault on the neighboring schools, I was eager to see them bring down the proverbial hammer on their opponents.  At first glance, this shouldn’t make any sense.  Having spent a dozen episodes watching our charismatic heroine Ryuko take on this oppressive student council, how in the world did I end up wanting to see them win a battle?

Like them… OR ELSE.

I suspect that this odd turn of events was due in part to Ryuko’s conspicuous absence from the action in the aftermath of episode 13.  With the show’s lone heroine busy recovering from her recent defeats and gathering the scattered pieces of her uniform, Kill la Kill left its audience in a fascinating predicament.  As the Elite Four squared off against the schools from Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka, we were forced to choose between the villains we knew and their comically over-the-top opponents.  The antagonists briefly became the heroes by default.  Once Ryuko was back in the fight, things returned to their usual state.

Still, the protagonist’s absence alone shouldn’t cause the audience to cheer on her enemies.  The roots of this temporary insanity go far back into Kill la Kill’s earlier episodes.  Each time Ryuko has fought with Satsuki or one of her lieutenants, the show has taken the time to fill in a bit of the student council’s backstory.  Over the course of the first dozen episodes, we’ve come to understand why each member of the Elite Four is loyal to Satsuki.  We’ve also been given hints that Satsuki herself isn’t on good terms with her powerful family.  Compared to what the series has revealed about the Kiryuin business empire, the members of the Honnouji student council seem downright honorable.

Kill la Kill has also gone out of its way to humanize the Elite Four.  We’ve seen it with Sanageyama’s loss to Ryuko in episode 6, where he was forced to confront and rise above his shortcomings.  It happened again during the King of the Hill battle, as each defeated member of the Elite Four sat down on the sidelines as if they were regular students.  Seeing a character suffer defeat only to come back stronger will almost always make the audience like that person more, regardless of his or her role in the overall story.  They may have started out as an inscrutable group of bad guys, but the members of the student council have slowly established a grudging mutual respect with Ryuko.  In doing so, they’ve also managed to change the way we as the audience view them.  We still want to see Ryuko beat them in a suitably epic fashion, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find them entertaining, charismatic, or even likable.

I bought exactly four anime series on DVD or Blu-Ray in 2013.  If you went back to 2008 and presented my past self with that number, he’d probably assume that I’d either gone broke or simply stopped watching so much anime.  I haven’t gone broke (though I’m working on it), and I watch more anime now than ever before.  So, what’s changed since my years of rabidly snapping up thinpacks and box sets at the first hint of a sale?

Spoiler Alert: this company is involved.

Well, a lot of it has to do with the state of technology in general, and the Internet in particular.  We’ve reached the point in the US where being able to stream HD videos is like having running water.  We don’t just have it; we expect it and pitch a fit when it goes away.  Our Internet connections can reliably give us higher-quality video than a DVD, provided we can be home between 7:00 AM and 5:30 PM for the cable guy to set it all up.

Couple this with streaming anime services that can send video to our TVs through just about any game console or Blu-Ray player, and suddenly the entire market changes.  For a few bucks a month, I can access a staggering number of catalog titles and simulcasts, all without having to get up off the couch and switch between discs.

For the average consumer of anime, it’s hard to justify paying $25 for a physical copy of one series when that same money could go to several months of a paid streaming subscription.  The undeniable momentum of those numbers has paid off for services like Crunchyroll, which has gone from a tiny website with a few quirky old titles to a titan of the international simulcast business.  Big hitters from the days of physical media have caught on, with Funimation and Sentai Filmworks both offering streaming subscriptions.  For better or for worse, the landscape has changed dramatically.

I filtered Funimation’s streaming catalog to only show titles starting with “s.” This is the FIRST HALF of the results.

While it’s gotten more difficult to sell physical media on a “more for your money” strategy, there is another option that’s been proving successful.  Smaller companies that lack the resources to compete in the streaming market can always count on one thing: anime fans are collectors at heart.  We want to do more than just watch our favorite shows.  We want stuff.  We want figures, posters, soundtracks, artbooks, and suggestively shaped mouspads, and we’re enthusiastic or gullible enough to pay for them.

Thus, we have the “Collector’s Edition.”  Epitomized by the super-expensive box sets from Aniplex of America, this strategy places an anime series into some nice packaging, along with a cornucopia of impressive (and frequently exclusive) merchandise.  It’s been working for Aniplex, along with other small-scale studios like NIS America and Right Stuf’s Nozomi Entertainment label.  These two occupy a middle ground between the low-cost products from the big hitters and the conspicuous consumption of the Aniplex products.  This approach has proven effective enough that Funimation is offering a collector’s edition release of Psycho-Pass, showing a deliberate break from their usual value-oriented physical releases.

If you listen closely, you can hear your wallet sobbing at night.

This split between value and extravagance isn’t entirely new, of course.  Back before the days of complete collections, volume one of a series was usually offered in standard and “Big Box To Hold All The DVDs” editions.  What’s new is the increasing divide between the two approaches.  Instead of paying a ten-dollar premium for the nice version, we’re paying fifty, one hundred, or more.  Instead of choosing between two packages for our physical media, we’re choosing between buying discs and paying for streaming access.  Oh, brave new world that has such anime in it!

At the end of the day, though, I think a lot of this is good for the industry.  The subscription model has been the salvation of quirky niche titles that would never have been licensed in the old days.  It’s now much easier for big hits like One Piece or Attack on Titan to make up for the limited audience of less popular shows, since the subscription fees pay for everything.  Paying for access also encourages people to try out shows they wouldn’t have watched otherwise in an effort to get more for their money.

Move out, Survey Corps! We’ve got subscriptions to sell!

Under the right circumstances, the expensive collector’s edition can fit in quite nicely with the streaming market.  Fans will always have favorite shows, and will want some tangible connection to those titles.  We can watch lots of anime on the cheap with subscription services, and occasionally pay extra to own a quality release of the stuff we really enjoy.  Of course, this ideal is entirely dependent upon all expensive releases being simultaneously available through a streaming service, but it’s worked out well with titles like Madoka Magica and Fate Zero.

So yes, the times are changing, and yes, I think the market for “regular” physical releases will get smaller.  I seriously doubt, however, that it will go away entirely.  There will always be folks who prefer to own everything they watch, and a physical copy makes a better gift than a streaming recommendation.  But you’d have to be a fool to think that the business of adapting and localizing anime doesn’t require the ability to, well, adapt.

Space Dandy has been grabbing a lot of attention this season, and it’s not difficult to see why.  It shares some major creative staff with Cowboy Bebop, and offers a similar sense of sci-fi stylishness.  On top of that, it’s airing in English on American TV in sync with the Japanese broadcast.  But is it any good?  With all the hype surrounding its premiere, I should hope so.

It’s a dandy show… in space.

In terms of sheer style, Space Dandy is certainly delivering so far.  It eschews the laid-back “cool” of Bebop in favor of a brighter, louder, more colorful presentation.  Between the visual style and the impressive animation, I’m reminded of the recent film Redline.  The first two episodes of Dandy have been something of a sensory overload, a reminder of what happens when a series combines big names and a big budget.

Once you get past the impressive sound and fury, things get a bit more uncertain.  It’s natural to compare Dandy himself to Spike from Cowboy Bebop, but the result isn’t entirely promising.  Spike quickly came across as a charismatic rogue with plenty of secrets, but the high-energy comedy of the new show has left Dandy feeling a bit more cartoonish.  He’s more Johnny Bravo than Clint Eastwood.  The supporting cast presents plenty of question marks, with their development left by the wayside in favor of establishing the show’s pace and tone.  There’s still plenty of potential, but it hasn’t been realized just yet.

Nothing but high art here, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, indeed.

As far as plot goes, there have been hints of a big picture, but little else.  Of course, much of Bebop followed an episodic format as well, so there’s hardly cause for concern here.  What worries me is that a show built around jumping the proverbial shark can only top its own antics so many times.  Dandy will have to give viewers something of substance soon if it wants to be more than a comedy in space.

Setting aside my gripes about the series, Space Dandy is impressive in terms of what it represents.  To my knowledge, American audiences have never gotten both an English dub (on Cartoon Network) and the original subtitled audio (through Funimation’s website) as a show airs in Japan.  That’s a pretty massive feat of logistics, and it speaks volumes that the producers would even consider attempting it.  As an American anime fan, it feels like we’re being acknowledged as a significant part of Space Dandy’s audience.  A bit of an ego trip, perhaps, but it’s a nice feeling nonetheless.

Did I mention how good this show looks? Well, I’m mentioning it again.

I have very high hopes for Space Dandy based on its pedigree, and it hasn’t quite convinced me that it’s going to scale that mountain of expectation.  Still, there’s quite a lot to like about it, and I suspect that finding out where this show’s going will be one heck of a ride.