Time to have a talk about trends in anime

[Legomaniac91_v1legacy]

If your looking for a break from your run of the mill anime, try giving Black Lagoon a try. Its an anime thats the most grounded in reality that I've seen. No magic, no aliens, no powerups that involve spiky golden hair, just a crew of pirates in southeast Asia. Its got guns, explosions, neo-nazis, guns, car chases, Russian gangsters, more guns,and some of the most terrifying women ever drawn. The show is basically a tribute to 80's American action movies and its a lot of fun.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Given my recent posts and my general views on the medium, I think it's time to have a bit of a talk

Maybe it's a case of 20/20 hindsight but I find that the recent crop of anime has been getting worse and worse on average, if slightly. Sure, we get possible classics like Psycho-Pass, Kill la Kill, and Captain Earth but it seems that for every one of these, there are two or more either mediocre slice-of-life or stupefying harem show that gives more cause to want to detach from the medium.

There is not a single medium of anything in existence that has more high-quality works put out than low- or medium-quality works. Thousands upon thousands of books come out each year, and only a small portion are in any way groundbreaking or considered worthy of further study. On the whole most of them are drivel. Hundreds of movies come out each year, but only a couple if any at all will be highly remembered and regarded 20 years from now. Again, on the whole, most are not of great quality. Millions of paintings and drawings and sculptures are made every year, but only a tiny fraction will make it into museums or exhibitions. And yet again, most drawings and paintings that will be made this year are nothing very remarkable.

Bearing that in mind, I think the fact that you can name not only one but several shows which may be possible classics is absolutely stupendous news. The quality of anime has drastically risen since the medium first began. Don't forget that anime started as essentially the Hanna-Barbara approach to making cartoons--designing things to require as little animation as possible, so that as many shows can be made with as little money and materials as possible. And also very simple yet highly marketable characters who will make children beg their parents to buy action figures and such. And while anime today is still very driven by marketing (as everything in the world is, honestly), there's a lot more creative freedom and a greater opportunity for artists to just run wild and tell awesome stories. Since the market as a whole as grown so much, so have the number of outliers who don't follow typical marketing models, or who follow the models but pull them off so creatively and memorably that they transcend the blandness of their own formulas (like Gurren Lagaan).

So please, stop bemoaning anime or ANYTHING for that matter just because the amount of crap outnumbers the amount of good. Everything is like this, everything has always been like this, and everything will always be like this. It's just how we as humans work--we're more likely to put out crappy or moderate or safe work than stupendous or daring work, especially when money is involved.

I will admit that I myself know of sturgeon's law. My issue is that the the crappy anime we get can really just drive one up the wall. Senren Kagura was stupid in it's underage fanservice, Blade and Soul only has the females as a draw, Recently, My Sister is Unusual makes me feel uncomfortable in the first episode along (the step sibling thing is not the cause, it was the yuri ghost that had sex with the girl against her will) and so many other examples I can just list off.

You are right that we are more likely that we put out crap so what if we were to find a way to provide "incentive" for good media

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I think I have a theory as to why there seems to be an increase in bad or stupid anime in recent years. there isn't actually an increase and the bad anime to good anime ratio has mostly stayed the same.

You see, 15 or so years ago you probably wouldn't have ever run into the kinds of anime you don't like, not because there weren't as many of them (though there may have been an increase in certain genres that you dislike) but because many of them weren't getting dubbed, or at least there dub's weren't getting much exposure. Dubbing company's were dubbing anime either for kids or a niche market, and so had to be picky about what they did dub, either choosing series that were doing well in japan or looked like they would do well over seas, or stuff that was low end and stupid, and they could probably get the distribution rights for fairly cheap. as such, the high end stuff got most exposure, while the low end stuff got little (though there are exceptions on both sides).

In the age of the internet however, we don't have to wait for dubbing company's to dub anime for us, we can go find it ourselves. but this means we have to look through all the crappy harems and otaku bait to find the next trigun or cowboy beebop, instead of dubbing company's doing it for us.

it's not that there are more bad anime then there used to be, it's just that we get exposed to it more than we used too.

.......of course I could just be talking out of my ass with this theory, but it seems plausible.

no, your theory has merit but i still think that the trend has happened even during the internet age. I just want the crap to end and some of the really good stuff to be subsidized

 

[Lilani]

I will admit that I myself know of sturgeon's law. My issue is that the the crappy anime we get can really just drive one up the wall. Senren Kagura was stupid in it's underage fanservice, Blade and Soul only has the females as a draw, Recently, My Sister is Unusual makes me feel uncomfortable in the first episode along (the step sibling thing is not the cause, it was the yuri ghost that had sex with the girl against her will) and so many other examples I can just list off.

You are right that we are more likely that we put out crap so what if we were to find a way to provide "incentive" for good media

I sympathize with you, but again this isn't anything unique to any creative medium. Everybody who values something doesn't like to see it fall short of their standards. I like animated films, so seeing a film like Epic have such great potential in its concept but fall so short on several marks is disappointing. And the way Blue Sky Studios has such great artists at their disposal and has proven themselves to be capable of making fun, unique films like Ice Age and Robots succumb to making endless sequels and cash-ins breaks my heart. But, I have no reason to see those failings as a decline in the medium as a whole. Because while those disappointments have happened, Dreamworks has managed to break their streak of marketing ploys and put out some genuinely good stuff, and with Tangled and Frozen Disney has thrown their hat back into the ring as well.

So when disappointing or frustrating stuff comes out, don't let it get you down. That's just how it all works. Don't get bogged down in the bad stuff, support and keep after the good stuff. There's way too much anime out there these days to be able to fixate on a few bad series' for too long.

 

[Christian Senne-king]

You should forget all the crappy anime and watch JoJo. JoJo is everything that is right in the world.

While I admit that JoJo's Bizzare Adventure is a good show with fluid animation, characters that are simple but memorable, and a lot of humor, I will only call it a classic like how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a classic: fun but not a very good story.

Clearly, someone's assuming that the first three parts are representative of the series as a whole. Go read steel ball run or stone ocean, then judge it

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

I'm going to invoke Sturgeon's Law here: 90% of everything is crap. There was crap before and there is crap now. Not every anime has to be a masterpiece. You kind of have to be careful with comparing recent series to old ones in retrospect; the old series that have lived on are the best ones, cherry-picked out of all of the other things that were around at the time. I do realize that that's kind of a dubious claim, considering I can't really provide any examples of shitty old anime, but in a way that only helps to reinforce the idea that all of the bad stuff faded into obscurity a long time ago.

As for the growing prevalence of harem and slice of life series, sometimes it's just plain fun to watch the stupid shit that goes on there. They don't have any sort of philosophical depth, but they're cute and fun and they let you turn off your brain to simply enjoy the spectacle. The best of these series are the self-aware ones that endearingly poke fun at the tropes they're made up of and the ones that exaggerate themselves to the point of self-parody. Some might consider them mediocre or forgettable, which is subjective but I can see where it comes from. However, I find that I tend to get just as attached to a series that I simply have a lot of fun watching as I do to a series that I find really engaging.

As someone who identifies somewhat with the otaku/NEET demographic, I can say that anime is a really effective medium for escapism, almost as much as video games. I suffer from significant social anxiety problems which make it hard for me to maintain friendships and relationships, so I understand the need to escape and acquire substitutes for various things a normal human being gets through social interaction. Rather than blaming the anime industry for trends ('cuz it's an industry, and it's as much about making money as it is about making art) we should look for the cause of these trends, and rather than immediately condemn them, we should consider and discuss them first before deciding that they're wrong. I can only speak for myself, of course, so I can only really speculate about what these causes are.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

You should forget all the crappy anime and watch JoJo. JoJo is everything that is right in the world.

While I admit that JoJo's Bizzare Adventure is a good show with fluid animation, characters that are simple but memorable, and a lot of humor, I will only call it a classic like how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a classic: fun but not a very good story.

Clearly, someone's assuming that the first three parts are representative of the series as a whole. Go read steel ball run or stone ocean, then judge it

Apologies, I suppose it was rude of me to assume that the first three parts were full representative of the whole series.

I would assume then by your statement that the Steel Ball Run and Stone Ocean arcs have a very fleshed out story?

 

[Christian Senne-king]

You should forget all the crappy anime and watch JoJo. JoJo is everything that is right in the world.

While I admit that JoJo's Bizzare Adventure is a good show with fluid animation, characters that are simple but memorable, and a lot of humor, I will only call it a classic like how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a classic: fun but not a very good story.

Clearly, someone's assuming that the first three parts are representative of the series as a whole. Go read steel ball run or stone ocean, then judge it

Apologies, I suppose it was rude of me to assume that the first three parts were full representative of the whole series.

I would assume then by your statement that the Steel Ball Run and Stone Ocean arcs have a very fleshed out story?

I'd say so, yes. Keep in mind, it's still a shounen fighting series, so the main draw are the fight scenes(which I consider the best of It's ilk,) but the stories told do become more engaging. Your mileage may vary, however.

 

[NiPah]

I see the pricing of blurays and media releases as detrimental and self-fulling. the companies are not trying to sell their product at competitive prices that are accessible to a large portion of people, they decided to set the high price and compensate the lack of sales numbers that way. This in turn grants more market influence towards otaku which steer anime towards fanservice and which pushes the ones that like smart anime away

The anime market is actually pretty fleshed out, you get your high budget Ghibli films that don't break the bank, your experimental shows like Bakemonogatari and The Tatami Galaxy, you get your fan service shows, slice of life shows, and even your thought provoking art house flicks like Death Billiards and Ping Pong. I hear a lot of doom and gloom about how all the industry is pumping out will be otaku centered crap but in reality this has never happened because while smaller there is still a market for the art house crap.

Lets look at what an average Japanese man does; he works long hours with some people telling me they work unpaid overtime just to be considered a good worker, Japan itself is still in a small economic decline, and the cost of living is relatively high. Compare that to the average otaku; the otaku does not need to pay for his own room or living costs since his parents are supporting him. This gives him surplus cash that the average consumer won't have and combined with the higher price point.

Anime is pretty taboo in Japan, the best way I can describe it is how LARPers are seen in the states. It doesn't really matter if you're watching Paranoia Agent, Gundam, or the worst bro-sis anime out there, you're still seen as an anime Otaku. You might say "hey this anime is really smart and thought provoking, it makes me a better person for watching it" but in reality unless it's Sazae-San or Evangelion just watching it makes you a "filthy Otaku".

Sure the Japanese anime industry could break out of the mold and start marketing anime towards those fine upstanding "normal" person but it would fail, its quite a different beast in Japan and always will be.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I see the pricing of blurays and media releases as detrimental and self-fulling. the companies are not trying to sell their product at competitive prices that are accessible to a large portion of people, they decided to set the high price and compensate the lack of sales numbers that way. This in turn grants more market influence towards otaku which steer anime towards fanservice and which pushes the ones that like smart anime away

The anime market is actually pretty fleshed out, you get your high budget Ghibli films that don't break the bank, your experimental shows like Bakemonogatari and The Tatami Galaxy, you get your fan service shows, slice of life shows, and even your thought provoking art house flicks like Death Billiards and Ping Pong. I hear a lot of doom and gloom about how all the industry is pumping out will be otaku centered crap but in reality this has never happened because while smaller there is still a market for the art house crap.

Lets look at what an average Japanese man does; he works long hours with some people telling me they work unpaid overtime just to be considered a good worker, Japan itself is still in a small economic decline, and the cost of living is relatively high. Compare that to the average otaku; the otaku does not need to pay for his own room or living costs since his parents are supporting him. This gives him surplus cash that the average consumer won't have and combined with the higher price point.

Anime is pretty taboo in Japan, the best way I can describe it is how LARPers are seen in the states. It doesn't really matter if you're watching Paranoia Agent, Gundam, or the worst bro-sis anime out there, you're still seen as an anime Otaku. You might say "hey this anime is really smart and thought provoking, it makes me a better person for watching it" but in reality unless it's Sazae-San or Evangelion just watching it makes you a "filthy Otaku".

Sure the Japanese anime industry could break out of the mold and start marketing anime towards those fine upstanding "normal" person but it would fail, its quite a different beast in Japan and always will be.

Yes, there is still arthouse shows being made but the amount being made feels insignificant and may not be enough to counter the fanservice crap. Again, I suppose that I am a bit too doom and gloom but I still really do not like the fact that there are so much of the fanservice stuff that is crappy as hell.

As for the whole otaku thing, I've heard from people that "otaku" is starting to become less derogatory and returning the word to it's original roots as simply meaning fan instead of some sort of massive insult. As for appealing to "normal" people, it would help that the normal people would want to buy anime if the image of anime was not "hentai and loli bait" like we joke in America but can be regarded like we do with live actions shows: simply a style that can convey ideas without any of the stigma

 

[Briantb]

I do think anime is increasingly selling itself to a niche crowd of basement dwellers, which does not seem like a recipe for long term success or the production of works of artistic merit. The anime industry does have a couple of "auteurs" - people like Ikuhara, Urobuchi (who isn't a director but definitely counts) and Masaaki Yuasa, who mix it up a bit, which is good, but I think the industry as a whole needs to start aiming at broader audiences to survive.

Hey leave the basement dwellers alone. Just because we live underground is no reason to discriminate against us.

The industry overall has been aiming at a more broader audiences. 5 years ago I would of had to find a fan sub of the anime I wanted to watch or wait 6 months and maybe find an official sub. Now I can watch almost everything through a streaming service same day as the release in Japan. There like any industry your going to have good with the bad. The bigger it gets the more bad there is and the harder it becomes to find those great shows.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

Yes, there will always be cheap pandering crap on the market but it seems that some companies are only focusing on producing either feel-good crap, self-insert fantasies or waifu bait. I really do wish the industry tries to actually push the envelope and make stuff of artistic quality instead of pandering.

Gonna have to stop you right there, broseph. The thing about anime is that most of it is pandering, waifu-bait bullshit is because it SELLS. But many people life to refer to these pandering shows as being "Complete and utter shit", and I can't really disagree with them. Otaku bow to the people that make those shows because it supports their habits and gives them a reason to waste their money on useless stuff. Most of this stuff is made to sell to the stay-at-home recluses that will never touch a 3D girl in their friggin' lives. And I'm not saying that all the people that watch those shows are like that, like, I love a good-ol' slice of life show every now and again because they're hella cute, but I you won't see me buying any figures or anything.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who support waifu-bait pander shit is gonna be indicative of what we will get in the future. If people like it, then there will be more of it. A LOT more of it. And the focus on profits now is tearing away from what I think is most important to anime: the creativity aspect.

Anime is a lot like Call of Duty in that way. It's popular, so the Modern Military FPS is what people are gonna be making in order to make bank. And because people are only making CoD rip-offs, we're neglecting awesome and creative titles. As a semi-recent example, let's look at FUSE. That game showed so much more personality before it became a bog-standard brown TPS with a few crazy weapons and I have a feeling it changed simply because EA wanted a game that would cater more to the dude-bro market, or "broaden it's appeal." That's why I always growing faith in the indie market to make another "Bastion" or "One Finger Death Punch."

For me, Studio TRIGGER is the next best anime studio because my artistic idol, Hiroyuki Imaishi, left Gainax with a bunch of other employees from there in order to obtain more artistic freedom when it comes to anime production. I guess you could call them "the indie darling of anime". They've already proved themselves to be capable of creating high-quality content with a reasonable budget with Kill la Kill, and their blow-off show "Inferno Cop" is one of the most captivating and stupid things I have ever seen in my life. If we support these guys and their creative process, than I have a feeling things will get better for the industry. Or maybe that's just me being a cynic about the industry as a whole. Whatever. I think Miyazaki said it better.

Watch good anime. Buy good anime to show support of good anime. I don't care, just give me more Imaishi stuff.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Yes, there will always be cheap pandering crap on the market but it seems that some companies are only focusing on producing either feel-good crap, self-insert fantasies or waifu bait. I really do wish the industry tries to actually push the envelope and make stuff of artistic quality instead of pandering.

Gonna have to stop you right there, broseph. The thing about anime is that most of it is pandering, waifu-bait bullshit is because it SELLS. But many people life to refer to these pandering shows as being "Complete and utter shit", and I can't really disagree with them. Otaku bow to the people that make those shows because it supports their habits and gives them a reason to waste their money on useless stuff. Most of this stuff is made to sell to the stay-at-home recluses that will never touch a 3D girl in their friggin' lives. And I'm not saying that all the people that watch those shows are like that, like, I love a good-ol' slice of life show every now and again because they're hella cute, but I you won't see me buying any figures or anything.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who support waifu-bait pander shit is gonna be indicative of what we will get in the future. If people like it, then there will be more of it. A LOT more of it. And the focus on profits now is tearing away from what I think is most important to anime: the creativity aspect.

Anime is a lot like Call of Duty in that way. It's popular, so the Modern Military FPS is what people are gonna be making in order to make bank. And because people are only making CoD rip-offs, we're neglecting awesome and creative titles. As a semi-recent example, let's look at FUSE. That game showed so much more personality before it became a bog-standard brown TPS with a few crazy weapons and I have a feeling it changed simply because EA wanted a game that would cater more to the dude-bro market, or "broaden it's appeal." That's why I always growing faith in the indie market to make another "Bastion" or "One Finger Death Punch."

For me, Studio TRIGGER is the next best anime studio because my artistic idol, Hiroyuki Imaishi, left Gainax with a bunch of other employees from there in order to obtain more artistic freedom when it comes to anime production. I guess you could call them "the indie darling of anime". They've already proved themselves to be capable of creating high-quality content with a reasonable budget with Kill la Kill, and their blow-off show "Inferno Cop" is one of the most captivating and stupid things I have ever seen in my life. If we support these guys and their creative process, than I have a feeling things will get better for the industry. Or maybe that's just me being a cynic about the industry as a whole. Whatever. I think Miyazaki said it better.

Watch good anime. Buy good anime to show support of good anime. I don't care, just give me more Imaishi stuff.

I understand that we need to support good anime but I already made a post on the prices of dvds and the like. To buy the entire Persona 4 collection would cost 600 dollars and while that would support studios, if this is the normal price point, I think anime would be an expensive hobby indeed

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

No things are not worse you are just exposed to more than you were before and thus are seeing more crap shows. Go watch some of Anime Abandon with Bennett the Sage if you blast of shit from the past. As for stuff for Valvrave being bad due to coming from a certain studio regardless of the studios past I don't know what you were expecting after the first episode. The end of the first told me this will a train wreck that fixes the train wreck by throwing more train at it kind of show. It most certainly delivered on every front.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

I understand that we need to support good anime but I already made a post on the prices of dvds and the like. To buy the entire Persona 4 collection would cost 600 dollars and while that would support studios, if this is the normal price point, I think anime would be an expensive hobby indeed

WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA

$600 DOLLARS FOR THE PERSONA 4 ANIME?! Where are you buying your anime?!

And just so I'm sure, you ARE talking about the entire Persona 4 anime, right?

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I understand that we need to support good anime but I already made a post on the prices of dvds and the like. To buy the entire Persona 4 collection would cost 600 dollars and while that would support studios, if this is the normal price point, I think anime would be an expensive hobby indeed

WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA

$600 DOLLARS FOR THE PERSONA 4 ANIME?! Where are you buying your anime?!

And just so I'm sure, you ARE talking about the entire Persona 4 anime, right?

yes the entire anime, volumes cost around 60 dollars on some sites though it seems amazon sells them for around 35 dollars and there is a complete collection out for around 70 dollars.

Still expensive though perhaps the burden was on me to do better research

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

No things are not worse you are just exposed to more than you were before and thus are seeing more crap shows. Go watch some of Anime Abandon with Bennett the Sage if you blast of shit from the past. As for stuff for Valvrave being bad due to coming from a certain studio regardless of the studios past I don't know what you were expecting after the first episode. The end of the first told me this will a train wreck that fixes the train wreck by throwing more train at it kind of show. It most certainly delivered on every front.

A). the whole theory about exposure is possible but i still feel that the movement towards pandering could be seen in the last few years

B). I expected a fun trainwreck, not one that seems to requires a frikking rape and senseless charcter deaths

 

[neonsword13-ops]

I understand that we need to support good anime but I already made a post on the prices of dvds and the like. To buy the entire Persona 4 collection would cost 600 dollars and while that would support studios, if this is the normal price point, I think anime would be an expensive hobby indeed

WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA

$600 DOLLARS FOR THE PERSONA 4 ANIME?! Where are you buying your anime?!

And just so I'm sure, you ARE talking about the entire Persona 4 anime, right?

yes the entire anime, volumes cost around 60 dollars on some sites though it seems amazon sells them for around 35 dollars and there is a complete collection out for around 70 dollars.

Still expensive though perhaps the burden was on me to do better research

Uh... you could just go to Amazon and buy the complete series for around $45. That's what I did on it's release day. The trick is to buy new anime from retailers selling through Amazon, not from Amazon themselves. Buying from retailers selling through Amazon is always cheaper. I do it with all the anime I buy that isn't being sold by Aniplex. Just find a store with a good rating and place the order. It hasn't failed me yet.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I'm going to invoke Sturgeon's Law here: 90% of everything is crap. There was crap before and there is crap now. Not every anime has to be a masterpiece. You kind of have to be careful with comparing recent series to old ones in retrospect; the old series that have lived on are the best ones, cherry-picked out of all of the other things that were around at the time. I do realize that that's kind of a dubious claim, considering I can't really provide any examples of shitty old anime, but in a way that only helps to reinforce the idea that all of the bad stuff faded into obscurity a long time ago.

As for the growing prevalence of harem and slice of life series, sometimes it's just plain fun to watch the stupid shit that goes on there. They don't have any sort of philosophical depth, but they're cute and fun and they let you turn off your brain to simply enjoy the spectacle. The best of these series are the self-aware ones that endearingly poke fun at the tropes they're made up of and the ones that exaggerate themselves to the point of self-parody. Some might consider them mediocre or forgettable, which is subjective but I can see where it comes from. However, I find that I tend to get just as attached to a series that I simply have a lot of fun watching as I do to a series that I find really engaging.

As someone who identifies somewhat with the otaku/NEET demographic, I can say that anime is a really effective medium for escapism, almost as much as video games. I suffer from significant social anxiety problems which make it hard for me to maintain friendships and relationships, so I understand the need to escape and acquire substitutes for various things a normal human being gets through social interaction. Rather than blaming the anime industry for trends ('cuz it's an industry, and it's as much about making money as it is about making art) we should look for the cause of these trends, and rather than immediately condemn them, we should consider and discuss them first before deciding that they're wrong. I can only speak for myself, of course, so I can only really speculate about what these causes are.

Oh, this discussion; yeah, I could make theories about how highly traditional family structures, high expectations and pressures placed on the youth, a degree of institution bullying and a lack of real mental therapy for some could lead to the otaku or how the first otaku could have been autistics that withdrew due to cracking under pressure.

At this moment though, I think the site would just collapse into a massive argument if we started talking about it

Also, while there are a few harmless shows (noucome is one I can somewhat consider harmless), the fact that useless shit like Super Sonico or offensive shit like Recently, My Sister is Unusual are being made makes me smack my head

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I understand that we need to support good anime but I already made a post on the prices of dvds and the like. To buy the entire Persona 4 collection would cost 600 dollars and while that would support studios, if this is the normal price point, I think anime would be an expensive hobby indeed

WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA

$600 DOLLARS FOR THE PERSONA 4 ANIME?! Where are you buying your anime?!

And just so I'm sure, you ARE talking about the entire Persona 4 anime, right?

yes the entire anime, volumes cost around 60 dollars on some sites though it seems amazon sells them for around 35 dollars and there is a complete collection out for around 70 dollars.

Still expensive though perhaps the burden was on me to do better research

Uh... you could just go to Amazon and buy the complete series for around $45. That's what I did on it's release day. The trick is to buy new anime from retailers selling through Amazon, not from Amazon themselves. Buying from retailers selling through Amazon is always cheaper. I do it with all the anime I buy that isn't being sold by Aniplex. Just find a store with a good rating and place the order. It hasn't failed me yet.

I see, thanks for the tip. I suppose I order through Amazon itself since I have an insurance of the product being in good condition

I still think it is bullshit though that companies charge 60 dollars for 1-4 episodes. That would be like if each episode of "The Wolf Among Us" cost 60 dollars instead of the 16.74 that episode 4 is selling for on steam and the normal price point of 25 dollars for the other episodes. Instead of trying to making the prices so that they attract people outside the otaku community, they only focus on the community and charge high prices since they know that otaku will buy anyway