What is the reason for the Sub Only releases?

[MasterDias]

In the case of this year's Gurren Lagaan release, I suspect Bandai is trying something new with all of the problems and discussion surrounding fansubs recently, which is why they will release sub-only first and then release it bilingual next year.
Otherwise, yeah, generally when something is released sub-only, it is because it is too niche to justify a dub.

Here is a question,

Why does Bandai Visual USA sub only dvd's cost so much?

Because they all failed economics.

But, seriously though, looking over their titles, I don't see anything that could possibly cost an arm and leg to license(and justify Japanese pricing for sub-only dvds). Pretty much all of them are niche titles anyway. Super Robot Wars, Haruka, MS Igloo...

I suspect BVUSA reasons that anyone who's actually interested in buying their titles will buy them anyway regardless of the pricing, and probably won't care about a dub anyway...and then they hope the prices will partially offset the low sales.
They can charge a premium if they want to. Whether, it's a particularly good idea is something else.

[EricTheFred]

You said this

[color="Red"][fONT="Book Antiqua"]Col. Roy Mustang[/font][/color]

You are correct. I did say 'the cost'. You are talking about the price, not the cost, when discussing the licensing fees.

Licensing fees are the profit margin for someone in the chain. They are not part of the cost of production. You should not use them in the cost analysis. That is what I am trying to say.

Yes, for the US distributor, they are an expense, but since the size of the fee is based upon the price the product can fetch from the consumer, they are not properly taken as a 'cost' but as a profit. So when I am thinking about what the production chain (meaning both the distributor and the original license owner) could do with lower demand titles and still make a profit, I am not going to include the profit margin for one of them as a 'cost'. I am going to consider what real costs can be held down in order to provide a profit margin that will attract the distributors and license holders to the business. And frankly, the production team for a sub IS considerably less than the production team + cast for a dub. (Note also, that the typical distribution has teams for both dub and sub, so the dub is a pure addition on top of the sub.)

[Roy Mustang]

Sorry for the missunderstanding, but I wasn't replying to you on that matter, but someone else in the matter of Dubs bring the cost of the product up the most in which I don't agree with.

I just feel that the older obscure and niche titles are fine in sub only, but I'm not going to buy the sub only/dub only elitist views that all anime should be in one format only format. (Note: replying to anyone in this thread that they are, I just mean in general)

You should watch it the way you want it and be happy with it.

The only ones that I will not buy in the sub only format is the Bandai Visual USA sub only dvd's, due to their high prices for the sub only format.

As for now, I just see this thread going no where, we are not going to agree on some parts of this.







[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[TriezGamer]

On the topic of titles that should have had a sub-only release, I think that Lucky Star was a good candidate. They kinda' destroyed the in-joke of Minoru Shiraishi doing his own voice, as well as several others when they made the dub. >.<

One in-joke that isn't even necessary to enjoy the show is a good justification for removing the dub? That's kinda shallow, don't you think?

People who will enjoy Lucky Star are going to enjoy it regardless of getting the more subtle in-jokes. In-jokes are just that -- Lesser jokes for people who know what is going on. It doesn't take an anime insider to catch the majority of the humor.

For a concrete example: Many people enjoy Excel Saga even if they don't understand a lot of the parodies. It's not a necessary component for the series.