So Gonzo’s owner, GDH International, has made some comments and even produced an open letter via its president, Arthur Smith.
And now the company has finally stepped up and announced that it will be offering legal P2P anime downloads in Japan of two series. First up, Speed Grapher– which must just be a great show to experiment with online, since it’s one of the titles FUNimation has made available everywhere possible –and they will also be making their new series Tower of Druaga available online, and a short series called Project PAPO.
It’s an experiment they’re launching this very day, but I’m not sure they’ve got a fantastic price setup here. Everything is download-to-own but DRM protected, and Speed Grapher eps run ¥1000 each– that’s $8.75 USD an episode. For all 24 eps, that’s over $200. The DVD box set is currently up on Amazon.co.jp for ¥17955– $157 USD. (That’s Amazon’s price; regular price is ¥29925, $262 USD). You can also get HD episodes for ¥1500 each (about $13.13 an ep).
Through January ‘08, however, they are having a slightly more reasonable deal: ¥500 an ep (~$4.38 USD) for regular definition, and ¥750 (~$6.57 USD) an ep for high-def. They don’t say what the resolution is on these episodes and I’m not entirely sure what the 1MB/3MB/8MB notes in their little chart. The trailer for Druaga is free. Each episode of Project PAPO is ¥150 (~$1.30 USD)– but they’re only 7 episodes that are 2.5 minutes long.
Now, I kind of expected it to be more expensive in Japan– maybe ¥500 an episode standard. But ¥1000? And I’d also bet that when Druaga actually comes out it will be more expensive than Speed Grapher since it’s new. Will the Japanese pay it? I don’t know; since the copies are digital I don’t think there’s as much of a collector’s urge to play off of. And since the Japanese have access to it on the TV (and most otaku would be up watching other anime anyway), I don’t know.
Original source: GDH
Secondary source: anime!anime!
Tags: gonzo, legal-anime-online, project-PAPO, speed-grapher, tower-of-druaga
December 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I can’t believe they think having such high prices will make this work. >_>
December 26th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Way to set it up to fail, GDH. Transparent fail is fail.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:13 am
I can see paying 500 yen for an episode. It seems pretty reasonable to me. 1000 yen…not so much. Unless they can convince NHK to stop harassing people to pay their mandatory state-run TV fee, which would save everyone a ton of money.