Hey, Answerman!

Not Very Large and Not In Charge

So, just so everyone knows, I'm sort of a Legend of Zelda connoisseur. A Zeldasseur. So of course I got the fancy-pants Skyward Sword set with the golden Wii controller, which has heretofore been exempt from any extraneous usage as a self-pleasure device. Though not for lack of trying.

I'm almost finished with the game, and I've been love love loving it so far, because it wonderfully combines the whimsy and simplicity of Wind Waker with the challenge of the older Zelda games, like A Link To The Past. BUT! Without spoiling anything, I've spent the past two hours or so stuck in a big water level - and let's be honest, water levels have ALWAYS sucked in video games, I thought Sonic The Hedgehog on the Genesis confirmed this - doing one of the most frustrating and irritating collect-a-thons I've seen outside of Banjo Kazooie. Why? Was the rest of the game simply too good that Nintendo's crack team of developers decided it needed to suck a little bit, just to balance things out? It would be like, before the ending of Taxi Driver, Scorcese decided that Travis Bickle needed to do the hambone to a Ray Stevens song for about fifteen minutes. I DON'T GET IT.

The long and short of it is, though - the profit margin on just one copy of a soft-bound graphic novel, be it manga or otherwise, is incredibly small. Once you take out the upfront costs of that one book, from the licensing to the printing to whatever the retailer itself takes off of it, that profit needs to find its way back to the publisher AND the retailer and, God willing, the original artists themselves.

And of course, there's the tricky little problem of the print industry, I dunno, sort of dying at the moment. Hence why most publishers - Viz, et al - tend to be raising their prices instead of dropping them. Really, there's only so many retailers that still sell printed books these days, much less graphic novels. A DVD, even an anime DVD, cuts a much wider swath of the retail realm. Hence why there's such a price variation on them, as opposed TO Books.

To dumb it down a shade even further, here's a neat little visual cue you can use. Grab a book, any book, off of your shelf, and grab an adjacent DVD or Blu Ray or whathaveyou. On the book, you'll notice the MSRP of the book printed right there on the back cover, and with most recent books, the MSRP is actually printed right next to the ISBN barcode. Try that with the vast majority of DVD's and other packaged media out there - you won't see a price anywhere.

As much as I, as would anyone I think, like for there to be a little more lee-way on the pricing of most manga out there, the sad truth of it is that they're still technically books, and they're forever trapped in the seemingly unchanging machinations of the book publishing and retailing industries.

First, Guilty Crown is hardly the first crappy show to air on Noitamina. In fact, I'd argue that Moyashimon. And yet, even after all those titles that people either ignored or hated, they still came back with something as unique as Un-Go.

Inuyasha is still runnin' strong on Adult Swim some six or seven years since they ran out of episodes is quite simple: PEOPLE STILL WATCH IT. Yes, even at 5:30am or whatever on a Sunday morning, people still watch Inuyasha. Plus, just in case it bears repeating, Inuyasha is a MUCH longer series than either Death Note or Code Geass, which is enticing from a programming perspective because you're less likely to burn out your audience with an abundance of episodes, even reruns, than with something much smaller. The sad truth of the matter is, as I stated last week, you probably won't see too much of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or Durarara!! in a year or so. The upside is, Adult Swim is pretty good about finding decent series to replace them with. So look forward to that at least.

Moving along now to Hey, Answerfans!

However, being as it is the twelfth and final month of the year, I thought it would be unique to get some closing thoughts on 2011 over the coming weeks, starting with this question here:

Now you've got this week's question, and it's time to get answerin'.

For those of you new to Hey, Answerfans!, I'll explain the concept.

Believe it or not, I'm genuinely curious what you think.

That's right; as much as I love the sound of my own voice, I do love to listen to what other people have to say on a subject. I'm finding that over the last few years, the attitudes, reasoning and logic that today's anime fans use eludes, confuses or astounds me; I have so many questions for you, and I'm dying to hear what you have to say in response.

Welcome to Hey, Answerfans!

Basically, we're turning the tables. Each week I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to email me your answer. Be as honest as you can. I'm looking for good answers; not answers I agree with or approve of, but good, thoughtful answers. People feel ionately about these subjects and I'd like to see that in the responses I get. I'll post the best answers I get, and maybe some of the crappy ones. Sometimes there may only be one or two good ones; sometimes five or more. It all depends on what I get in my inbox! Got it? Pretty simple, right? Start writing those answers and email them to answerman [at] animenewsnetwork dot com.

We do have a few simple ground rules to start with.

Things To Do:

* Be coherent.
* Be thoughtful.
* Be ionate.
* Write as much or as little as you feel you need to to get your point across in the best possible way.

Things Not To Do:

* Respond when the question doesn't apply to you. For instance, if your email response starts with "Well, I don't do whatever you're asking about in the question... " then I'm going to stop reading right there and hit delete.

* Be unnecessarily rude or use a lot of foul language.
* Go off-topic.

Hope to see some really unique responses to your favorite manga of the year, so of course don't forget to write those down and send 'em to me over at answerman(at)animenewsnetwork.filmscomplets.org! Oh, and questions too. Don't forget to send me those as well. Adios!