Theory Musing: An Alternate Take on Anime Licensing... And Why It'd Never Actually Work

On December 11, 2021, Pluto TV started streaming The Gutsy Frog, TMS' 1972-1974 anime adaptation of Yasumi Yoshizawa's comedy manga classic (& one of Shonen Jump's earliest hit manga), an anime which had never seen official English release before, or at least in a fashion that was widely available like this. For example, it had previously had an English subbed broadcast in Hawaii back in the day, which did happen for some anime over the decades, due to Hawaii's notable Japanese population. Unfortunately, it was quickly found out that the subtitle translation for Pluto TV's streams were of "dubious" quality, leaving some to wonder if TMS had actually gone with a literal machine translation, while others wonder if TMS simply just used the same translation as that old Hawaiian broadcast; either way, the translation was absolute crap & made the show hard to enjoy properly. Unfortunately, this is something that has honestly started becoming slightly more common as more companies start offering Japanese media when they traditionally aren't experienced in it beforehand; just look at the translations for Mill Creek's releases of shows like The Ultraman or Gridman: The Hyper Agent. To be honest, I can't exactly fault these companies, as they are simply looking for content to put out, and if there's already an existing translation (no matter how unknown it was publicly in the past) then they'll use it.

However, incidents like these remind me of a concept I've continually had in my head for a number of years, one that would technically reduce the likelihood of subpar translations being used for titles (especially anime) that would otherwise almost never get traditionally licensed. Unfortunately, every time I think about this concept I come to same conclusion... IT'D NEVER WORK OUT. So allow me some time to ruminate my thoughts & feelings regarding this concept.

While the absolute ins & outs of anime licensing will forever remain a trade secret (& for good reason), there have been articles in the past decade that have helped explain the general idea of how it works. Things like how long a license generally lasts (5-7 years has been the usual standard ever since the mid-00s or so), what a "minimum guarantee/MG" is, certain terms of agreements when it comes to stuff like regions & restrictions, & even a rough idea of who to talk to to get things going are now general knowledge, or at least can be found out relatively easily. However, this also means that, for the most part, anime licensing follows a relatively rigid format, one that doesn't really allow for much experimentation to be done. Aside from finer details involving the differences between streaming & home video, licensing an anime usually comes down to the same path, which would be "Get the license for a set amount of time, upon which the licensee has to produce a release with hopes that it will do well enough to not just recoup the total costs of the MG & production of said release, but also continue selling so as to make a profit for the licensee, upon which the original licensor starts getting regular royalty payments for said license". This has been the standard for decades, and doesn't look to change in any way, for good reason.

So what exactly is the point of my concept?

Simply put, the primary focus would be to provide proper English subtitle translations for anime that would normally never get licensed the traditional way, and prevent the usage of subpar machine translations, or translations from people who aren't native English speakers, from becoming more prevalent in an effort to save money; of course, other languages would be great, but let's start simple here. As it is right now, the only way an anime can get an English translation comes from one of a handful of options: Fan translation, translation produced by licensee, or translation produced by licensor. The first used to be much more prevalent in the past but still exists to this day, though usually for older anime now. The second is the primary option we see, and doesn't really need any explanation. The third is the least common of them all but has always existed in some fashion, though they've generally only been used for promotional purposes, such as for finding potential licensees or film festival showings. It's only within the past decade or so, when streaming started becoming more prevalent, that we've seen the Japanese licensors start to produce their own translations more often, and while some have come out decent-to-great, it's usually the lackluster ones that become remembered.

Not just that, but when companies that aren't known for licensing this kind of content dip their toes into the medium, that's usually where these licensor-produced translations start rearing their heads in all the worst ways. A company like Cinedigm or S'more Entertainment never made their own translations (& the latter even decried how expensive it would be, proving that they never even knew about the freelance world), and instead work off of what they're given by the licensors. Therefore, while Cinedigm's release of Mononoke was perfectly fine, as it reused the translation that Siren Visual produced for the prior Australian release, its release of the entire Sanctuary Chapter of Saint Seiya TV wasn't, as it obviously used a subpar translation that was likely produced in-house at Toei, possibly for an earlier streaming option that never happened. Not just that, but Cinedigm's release of Slam Dunk was dub-only (& didn't even cover everything that Toei had dubbed in the 00s!), likely because the streaming subs were hard-encoded, and Cinedigm likely didn't feel it was worth the money to create "soft subs" from them. Meanwhile, Mill Creek's recent releases of various Tsuburaya tokusatsu productions vary wildly in terms of translation quality, depending on where they came from. If it was a series that previously had an English translation for home video (Ultraman, Ultra Seven, etc.) then it usually came out fine, but if it had previously been seen over at TokuHD (The Ultraman, Gridman, etc.) then it wasn't anywhere near as good. In short, my theoretical concept would be focused around producing proper & professional English translations for anime that had never been licensed before. That way, when a licensor wants to offer a series via streaming then it'll have a good set of subtitles already ready to use, and should a potential licensee actually want to license it then there's already a good translation ready to be used, which in turn would reduce the overall costs of production on their end, even if only to an extent.

However, this would still be a business in the end, so there would need to be some sort of way for this concept to make some money back from the costs of producing a translation. Not just that, but some stuff will likely just never get licensed at all, from a general lack of interest. Therefore, my concept would also have a second half to the equation: A physical release. However, unlike a standard licensing deal, my concept would NOT be built around traditional 5 to 7-year exclusivity contracts. Instead, my concept would be based more around a different type of licensing deal, namely something more along the lines that we see in another industry. Specifically, I'm talking about a company like Limited Run Games. LRG, or the other companies like it, make deals with parties to produce (as the name says) a limited amount of a physical product. Unlike a traditional licensing deal, however, LRG looks to only have the rights to the titles it releases on the basis of "as long as we have stock", so once LRG runs out of stock of a title it's released, then it no longer has the rights to continue releasing it, and that includes producing more stock of it. Meanwhile, however, the original licensor that made the deal with LRG could make other deals, though this is admittedly only theoretical; for all I know, LRG likely has exclusivity rights for physical releases that do run a length of time.

So, to bring everything back into focus, my theoretical concept would break down to this:

1. Sign a short-term license for an anime, with the primary intent of producing a proper English subtitle translation.

2. Once said translation is finished, the original licensor receives it, allowing the licensor to now use it in other avenues ASAP, such as for a streaming option.

3. In return, a limited physical release would be produced for the anime that was translated.

4. Once the limited physical release comes out, the licensee would then no longer have any rights to the anime, outside of being allowed to continue selling said physical release, until it's been sold out. Meanwhile, the original licensor can immediately make new deals for the anime, now that it has a proper translation.

Having operated The Land of Obscusion for 11 years now, and having been a fan of anime for over 17, I have come across so many anime that I wish I could easily tell people "Watch this, it's really good/interesting/weird!", but sadly can't as they either have a subpar translation, a partial translation, or simply no translation whatsoever. I'm talking about titles like B.B. Burning Blood, the Fuma no Kojirou OVAs, Guilstein, Kochikame, Monkey Turn, Zaizen Jotaro, Pachislo Kizoku Gin, Platinumhugen Ordian, the Rokudenashi Blues movies, Shinken Legend Tight Road, the Xanadu OVA, & (yes) Ring ni Kakero 1; hell, even freaking Gundoh Musashi! While there has been the rare "Holy crap, this actually happened?!" license, like Sentai getting Hareluya II BØY or Discotek getting Acrobunch or God Mazinger, they also just make me realize that part of why they never get the chance normally, aside from their relative obscurity, is because the companies obviously feel that they aren't worth the costs of producing English translations for. This also applies to streaming services like RetroCrush, which has focused primarily on getting titles that had previously been licensed & given English translations for, while the attempts at offering someone that had never been translated before have had their... issues, though they are giving it another go more recently. Would having a proper translation from the get-go actually help, in any way? Obviously, it'd help in some way, but only so much.

Now, you might wonder if there's even anything remotely similar to this concept that would lend even the slightest credence towards it being plausible. Well, there is... sort of. Founded back in 1981, JN Productions, Inc. is a Hawaii-based company that handles things like translation, subtitling, DVD & video production, graphic design, & even voice over/narration. JN has been hired to translate various anime, & even some manga, in the past for the likes of ADV Films, Viz Media, FUNimation, & Sentai Filmworks, but has also dipped its feet into licensing stuff for itself. Namely, JN handles the operation of Generation Kikaida, which has released classic Toei tokusatsu series onto DVD in the past, namely 1973's Kikaida, 1974's Kikaida 01, 2014's Kikaida Reboot, 1973's Inazuman, & even 1973's Kamen Rider V3. The trick, though, is that these releases (aside from Kikaida Reboot) are VERY EXPENSIVE & have always been so ever since they first came out, which might have actually been close to 20 years ago by this point! While I have no idea what JN Production's exact licensing status is when it comes to the 70s tokusatsu shows today, I would have to imagine that those DVD releases are at least somewhat similar to my concept, i.e. a smaller print run that JN has slowly sold over a long period of time, and the high price points are essentially to help offset what must have been massive licensing costs; again, they licensed Kamen Rider V3 long, long, LONG before TokuSHOUTsu was even a thought in someone's head.

Because charts are what you wanted from this piece, right?

But let's get to brass tacks & get real: This entire concept can only ever remain theoretical, because in execution it would never work out. Most importantly, even though I have no real knowledge (or interest) in running a business, it's easy to see that such a concept is fiscally irresponsible & unsustainable. In essence, the concept reverses the flow of money from the licensor hiring a translation studio to translate an anime to a translation studio paying a licensor to be allowed to translate an anime, only not in the exact way it's normally done. Even taking aside the fact that people who work to produce translations for anime & manga are honestly a bit underpaid (& I mean "not just the translators themselves"), it costs money to do this kind of thing, especially if you want it done well, which is the entire point of this concept. This entire concept would be like a fan translation group trying to get the rights to officially translate a title from the original Japanese licensor, instead of the licensor hiring the fan translation group to do it. The costs would just add up, and it wouldn't be long until something has to give, which would likely just be the company, in general.

But isn't that the whole point of the limited physical release part of the concept? Yes, it is, but that in & of itself has its own problems. First, there's the cost of producing the release, and aside from the costs of labor there's also the costs of the literal production of the physical product. You see, there's two ways to go with this concept, which is to either go in a "limited edition" direction or to just make it "limited" but simple. However, there's also a limit as to just how "limited" a production run can be, because if you make it too small a run then you actually could wind up paying more than it would cost to instead make a slightly larger print run. For example, it'd be cheaper to print 2,000 DVDs (though by this point it'd be BD or even SD-BD) & throw out 1,500 of them than it would be to only print 500 from the start, because of the economies of scale, i.e. production becomes cheaper per product the more of it you make. Unfortunately, the next question is how much should the product cost, which in turn scales to how much of it you make. Ideally, this concept wouldn't want to price this kind of release too high, because it already has a limited appeal to start with, but at the same time you have to make your money back, which brings us back to the previous paragraph, & JN Productions' situation before even that. However, not everything is really worth making a super-special "limited edition" release for, especially if it's too niche a product. A great example of all of this is LRG's Shiren the Wanderer 5 PC LE, which only had a pre-order amount of ~80, which resulted in those people getting a Steam code, instead of the DRM-free physical disc that they were advertised, because it just didn't make sense financially to only print that few PC discs.

But even before we can get to any of what I just wrote in the previous two paragraphs, there's an even bigger hurdle: Would any licensors even agree to such a concept, in the first place? If you've paid attention to the anime industry for any real amount of time, it's easy to find out that Japanese anime licensors are some of the most hesitant to trying something "non-traditional" out. While Crunchyroll went legit & started simulcasting back in 2009, it still took a few years for some of the biggest names to fully embrace the concept; Toei infamously didn't join in until late 2011! This also explains why most licensing-related anime Kickstarter campaigns are usually reserved for either re-releases of previously licensed titles or for producing English dubs, as these are the least risky options. In fact, the closest to a "crowdfund an anime release from scratch" Kickstarter was for Skip Beat! by Pied Piper, but even that had previously been simulcasted back when it first debuted, one of Crunchyroll's earliest, in fact; it's also amazing that the Japanese licensors even agreed to a second chance, after IndieGoGo failed.

Now, sure, my theoretical concept is honestly a bit too lenient for the licensor, since it involves that side essentially getting both money & a translation at little to no risk on their end, but at the same time it is a restrictive deal by its very nature. Due to its short-term existence, the licensor would only get that initial licensing money, effectively an MG, but aside from getting a translation (which is usually a standard part of most licensing deals today) it gets literally nothing else, since the short-term & limited physical release aspects of the license mean that royalty payments are not just implausible, but actually impossible. Even though the focus of this concept is specifically for titles that the licensor would otherwise likely never get any sort of international licensing money from, it's not hard to see that a licensor would still balk at the idea of a licensing deal that gives them little money upfront, with only the potential of more money in the future because of the newly-produced translation, money that would require the licensor itself to have to work at to even make.

Within six months, the PS Classic
went from $100 to just $20. Wow.

However, the biggest problem of all is also the simplest one to consider: Would anyone even care? To compare to a recent traditional license that I brought up earlier, in November of 2021 Sentai Filmworks licensed Hareluya II BØY, a 1997 anime that next-to-no-one has heard of & had never been licensed for English release before. To go with that, it was announced that Hidive would start streaming the show, with a new episode being added every week, almost like a sort of "retro simulcast", meaning that the show wouldn't be fully available to watch until late May 2022. However, aside from that initial announcement, neither Hidive nor Sentai have actually bothered to promote the show, not even something as simple as putting out a "Episode __ of Hareluya II BØY has just gone live!" tweet over on either of their Twitter accounts. Shockingly enough, the same looks to be true for Lupin the 3rd Part I, which has received a brand new English dub & is getting added exclusively to Hidive in four-episode batches every week, yet aside from the initial announcement received no promotion when those first four episodes went up. To be fair, it's hard to make people care about older anime, especially when there's just so much new stuff coming out at all times, but to not even attempt the bare minimum is admittedly sad.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, such as with Discotek Media, which does try to promote its releases, including its bizarre & obscure gets. But even that doesn't equate to getting enough people to support it at all times, as seen with Discotek's three separate attempts at releasing Saint Seiya (the 80s movies on DVD, the Lost Canvas OVA boxset, & later the 80s movies on BD) all failing to be considered "successful". With all of that, what chance would the anime that my theoretical concept would focus on have to "succeed"? I mean, these are the anime that not even Discotek Media has seemingly cared or simply thought about to license (we're not even going to take into consideration the idea of IF something was even currently licensable), so would there even be any interest at all? Even with the careful consideration of limiting the physical release so as to prevent having too much backstock, how long would it take to actually sell out of any given release? Hell, would any of them even sell out at all? Also, on the flip side, what happens if a title actually wound up selling out comparatively quickly? The terms of the license means that a second print run couldn't be made, but at the same time it's now proven that there was in fact interest in that specific title. Does this company go against its initial concept & do a more standard licensing agreement, or would it get picked up by a different company, possibly resulting in a better release than before & annoying those initial supporters? These are all perfectly valid & understandable things to consider, and is likely why no one has actually tried to do something like this before.

I mean, I would hope that I'm not the first person to think of a concept like this, because it's not exactly rocket science.

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And with that, we come to the end of the 10th ever Theory Musing. This was initially just a silly little name I came up with for a (kind-of-sort-of) contemplative piece I made back on Halloween of 2012, only for it to accidentally become a yearly segment here on The Land of Obscusion. Sometimes the subject of one year's TM was honestly rather silly, but other times they were kind of topical & (daresay) even slightly relevant when they first went up. I almost didn't even do one this year, but I'm glad I did, and I certainly hope people find this year's TM subject to be one of those more interesting ones, despite the likely impossibility of it.

Happy Boxing Day, Happy New Year, & see you all again in 2022!