Izanagi009 said:
In addition, it would seem only hardcore people buy the dvds due to the lack of space for a collection. Now apprently, the few thousand hard core fans are the ones who help shows make profit.
That only applies to people who lives in the urban centers. Despite popular perception, Japan actually consists more than just the part of Tokyo where people are packed into closet-sized apartments. I would say the bigger reason is simply the exorbitant price of said DVD/Blurays. You're talking about $80~90+ each here. For those of us who are old enough to actually have built a home DVD/Bluray(or VHS, lol) movie library, that kind of price would've easily tripled the cost. How many of you would even consider buying a movie on DVD/Bluray at that kind of price?
So I was wrong about the merchandise, apparently the money comes more from DVD and Blu-rays than merchandise but this seems like a precarious situation having only a few thousand people supporting a show instead of having the large audience.
It's a broader issue with monetization in the industry as a whole. IIRC there's little to no advertisement revenue sharing between the network and studio, which means the studio have to find ways to fund and recoup cost themselves, hence the high price of discs.
Perhaps, I've been hyperbolic and I will concede that but ultimately, this focus on the hardcore and not the general audience will prove detrimental to both the artistic and economic side of anime. Artistic, I would think that they would not change their formulas or themes in order to keep hold of the hard core and economically, the market will die off at some point taking the whole thing with it.
Eh, no. There are shows for the "hardcore" and general audience, you just seems to be ignoring them. Seriously, when's the last time you watched an anime that's aimed more at the general audience? You can't watch the "niche" shows only and not the "for everyone" shows, and then complain that the industry is too focused on the niche market.
That's like someone buying nothing but Corvettes for years complaining that that company doesn't focus enough on big money makers like trucks and SUVs, while standing in front of a shiny Silverado.
Edit: the reason i despise self-insert fantasy is that it's just not good writing. We know the fantasy will not usually punish the participant and so most everything will go well. In addition, i'm 20 at this point, I have reality to deal with and trying to project into a self-insert can create unrealistic expectations of what you are going to be. Thematically, it does not allow people to grow towards being better people and instead it gives them a comfy lie to hide in.
And the same goes for the vast majority of entertainment flicks/TV shows these days, so what's your point? Did you think Superman was going to lose to Zod? Or that Batman wasn't going to beat Bain in the end? Was there any doubt that Katniss will live through yet another Hunger Game? Or that any of the 23784923758329 procedural shows on TV will solve their crime-of-the-week via laughable to anyone who's remotely informed about the field in 45(or 90 if it's a two episode arc!) minute?
If you're trying to find well-written/deep/meaningful story, popcorn-style movies/tv/anime is the wrong place to find it.
Personally, I watch shows and play games to be entertained, not to find the meaning of life or give me life lessons. IMO, if people are "projecting" themselves into characters to the point they're creating expectations of who they're going to be in life based on that, they had better be characters like Sponge Bob - because you have far bigger problems if you're still seriously self-projecting into fictional characters after kindergarten.