Before I went to Japan, I had a spectacular DVD collection. Actually, it wasn’t that spectacular, compared with some of the collections I saw in the “Post A Picture of your DVD Collection” thread on the Madboards. But it was probably around 100 discs, 80% of which was anime. 95% of the anime discs were from Madman Entertainment. I easily spent a few thousand dollars on Madman DVDs between 2002 and 2005. I guess it was the closest thing I ever had to ‘brand loyalty’.
And I did like Madman. They often had extras in their boxsets, they tried to do things differently from the American anime distributors occasionally, I never had any errors on the discs that I bought (although I’d heard lots of stories about quality control breakdowns) and most importantly, they had their own forums, the Madboards - where staff themselves posted, socialised, answered queries and took recommendations. I don’t think I know of any other company that were so in touch with their customers.
Sadly, I sold just about all my DVDs before I went to Japan to raise funds. I figured I wouldn’t buy any more DVDs until the next generation format *cough*Blu-Ray*cough* ones were released.
There was one other factor that affected my decision to sell too - the OFLC’s decision to change the way that movies, books, music and games are classified. Apparently too many kids have been getting their hands on stuff not suitable for them, so instead of increasing fines for shops who sell them illegally to minors and telling parents to be responsible for what their kids watch, they decided to plaster big ugly markings all over DVDs and the like. This pisses off child-free adults like myself no end.
Fucking parents. Why does everyone else but you have to be responsible for what happens to your brats? I will never have children.
Madman (and the fans) were very unhappy about it from the beginning. They have a team of designers who love the shows they’re designing covers for and spend great amounts of time and energy to complete these beautiful DVD covers and boxsets - then the OFLC puts these lurid colour labels on them to make sure you know what the rating is, while completely ruining the look. I don’t care what the rating is. Anyone who does care about what the rating is would look to find it. And they would have found it easily with the old markings. These new markings are pointless, ugly and I suspect only done so that the OFLC looked like they were actually doing something with taxpayer’s money.
Anyway.
After the OFLC went ahead with these markings, Madman pledged all sorts of things. Reversible covers on DVDs! Bellybands on boxsets! You can hide these markings and enjoy the untainted artwork!
Then a couple of items turned up that weren’t free from the ratings. Boxsets had the ratings printed on them. Some DVDs had no reversible covers, or they only had artwork that kinda looked like the cover, but not really. Then came the Complete Collections - series that already been rated by the old system but were appearing now with the new markings on them. In one case, the boxset artwork was changed completely in the Complete Collection version, apparently to accommodate the new markings. Neon Genesis Evangelion, for crying out loud - perhaps the must-have series for every anime collector, was released in a super-dooper-premium-silver-shiny-collection….and then had the markings printed on them.
I fumed, I ranted, I raved. There was Madman saying how they feel our pain, they were going to make sure that we didn’t have our collections ruined by the new markings, then they went back on their word. On some occasions they pointed out that there were words like “most” and “generally” and “often” in their statements, if you went back and read and re-read the small print. On other occasions they said nothing at all about their broken promises.
The bellybands debarcle was one that probably could’ve have been avoided if someone sat down and thought for a bit. Eventually they came up with the bellybands that didn’t circle all the way round, but rather folded round the edge and were sticky-taped into place where necessary. This kept customers and shop owners happy. But in the meantime, there were several months worth of boxsets released with the new markings printed on them. And they’ll raise their ugly heads again later when they’re re-released as complete collections, since Madman seem to do their printing all in one go.
It made me so mad. The new markings weren’t Madman’s fault, of course. I had a lot of rage reserved for those conservative, over-bearing cretins in the OFLC. But removable stickers would’ve solved the problem simply and easily. Madman complained about the high cost of stickers, but I wonder if a) that was true, given that they are also a printing company, and b) if it wasn’t worth it anyway, given how many people stated that they would no longer buy Australian DVDs with these markings and would import instead. There would be a lot of lost potential sales because of those markings. For one, it made me determined not to buy any more anime until the Blu-Ray format came out. And then I would consider importing it from the U.S. given that they would be released there earlier anyway.
Madman seemed more concerned with saving the profit margin than what the fans wanted, an opinion that was compounded when it was announced that Madman had been bought out by Funimation. Perhaps it was a company started by fans, run by fans, for the fans. But now it’s dictated by shareholders. And they don’t care if you don’t like ugly ratings. Telling them that you won’t buy a DVD doesn’t hurt them as much as telling them that a sticker will cost an extra 25 cents per disc.
I also hate the stock exchange. But that’s another rant.
Recently Madman introduced fatpack packaging for Complete Collections. Instead of having a huge box that held individual cases, there would be one case, about the thickness of two individual cases, that would hold all the series’ discs inside. This concept didn’t appeal to me at first but after I thought about it, I liked the idea.
Firstly, these fatpacks would only be released after the big boxsets had sold out and gone out of print. Secondly, they have guaranteed reversible covers to get rid of OFLC markings. Thirdly, they’ll be cheaper than the boxset version of the Complete Collection. Plus I know, from a vendor point of view, that these fatpacks would be a relief for shops like JBHiFi that are already struggling with shelf space for the huge and growing anime catalogue. Up to ten discs in the space of two? Definitely a shelf saver.
I also thought back to when I had all those boxsets lined up on my shelf. I remember wishing that I had more single DVD cases in my collection to break up the line of boxes, but I didn’t have that many single anime movies, and all the series had boxsets. The fatpacks would break up the line of boxsets nicely.
Because all of the fatpacks were guaranteed to have reversible covers, this meant that all of those boxset collections that had the markings printed on them would one day be available as a reversible fatpack. I just have to wait the 3-5 odd years for them to kick in, heh. But I wasn’t meant to be buying any anime DVDs anyway, was I?
Well…
I’ve bought a few since I came home. Cowboy Bebop Remix, because it’s Cowboy Bebop and I can’t live without my own copy. Then I bought FLCL because along with Bebop, it’s one of my must-owns (hey, it was how I learnt of the pillows, it’s a legit claim!). Then there’s the Fullmetal Alchemist tin #3, because my “No More DVDs” rule doesn’t apply to limited editions, and I already owned Tins #1 and #2…
…then this week I bought Volume 1 + Boxset of Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! because I still had the original Full Metal Panic boxset and this was the sequel so I may as well have continuity going…
….I’m going to end up spending 50% of my income on DVDs again, aren’t I?
Bloody hell. Like a boyfriend I always end up forgiving no matter how much he’s hurt me, I seem to go back to Madman. Admittedly, by fixing the bellyband problem and guaranteeing reversibles on fatpacks, Madman’s done the equivalent of a bunch of roses and great make-up sex. Besides, this November 4th is the 10th anniversary of Madman releasing Bubblegum Crisis 2040 - their first ever title. And to celebrate they’re selling their entire catalogue of DVDs for $10 per disc. Now’s a time to celebrate and be happy instead of bitching and forum flaming.
Happy Birthday, Madman. There’s been ups and downs but I love you dearly, really. The party tonight was awesome and the cake was delicious. I hope you’re around for another ten years, and ten again after that.
