[quote name='Chronis']I forgot where or when I heard this, but I'm pretty sure the point still stands. A show like K-On won't get licensed in America because it's already been overexposed to it's targetted audience. Considering the state of the anime industry, a majority of people who want to see it have already seen it. Out of that majority, another majority probably won't be willing to buy a show they've already seen. So while everything I've heard about the show seems to be positive, licensors are viewing this as too old to make the return they'd want on it.[/QUOTE]
No offense to you, but that analysis is bullshit. Not only do you fail to present any supporting evidence, but how are other popular shows exempt from this analysis. What about other titles from Sentai's catalog, such as
Maria Holic,
Gintama, or
Clannad? Or what about some of Funimation's titles, such as
Strike Witches,
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, or
Soul Eater. Are you basing this completely on popularity? How can you effectively measure the potential consumer base for a particular show? How do you know that most of
K-On's target audience has watched the show, and how is
K-On different from other shows in this regard? Basically, what aspects of
K-On merit it as a "bad license"? It's not too old either.
K-On originally aired in 2009. That's quite new, and there's still quite a bit of time for someone to license it before you could assuredly say it's exempt from being licensed; but even then there are exceptions: look at Sentai's license of
Living for the Day After Tomorrow. That show originally aired in 2006, and Sentai released it on DVD on April 13, 2010. Furthermore, I view myself as being a part of
K-On's targeted audience, but I was never interested in watching the fansubs, since I don't like how fansubs are generally translated, and I don't support illegal activities, however, when I heard about
K-On being dubbed in English by Animax, I was extremely intrigued. I thought it was fascinating that
K-On was being dubbed in English, regardless of its origin — I never thought
K-On would be dubbed in English, which is similar to how I thought
Clannad would never be dubbed in English. I merely wanted to briefly experience
K-On's English dub to satisfy my curiosity, but surprisingly enough, I quite enjoyed its English dub, as well as the show itself, and consequently I continued watching
K-On in English. To summarize, if
K-On was never dubbed in English by Animax, I would have either waited for it to be released in North America or I would have never watched it. Also, I would like to add that I fully intend to purchase
K-On if it gets released in North America.
Addendum: this is a recent discovery, but it helps my argument.
Right Stuf has a listing for the first K-On manga, which is being published by Yen Press. I think Yen Press's license of the
K-On manga is rather telling that
K-On as a brand is not poisoned, as you seemingly imply. Also, keep in mind that there is an exorbitant amount of manga piracy on the Internet; it's not exclusive to anime.
[quote name='the_punisher']Or you could use that word to describe any anime Key has made. Ever.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure you and some other people even understand what
moe means. From my perspective, it seems like you are using it to describe an art style, which is rather irksome — not only because it's inaccurate, but because it always seems like people are using it in a derogatory sense. Why aren't you describing Kanon as a comedy and a drama? What benefit do you gain from using the term
moe in describing Kanon? It's not even an English word, for Christ's sake.
Also, Key doesn't produce anime; Key produces visual novels. Maybe you meant to say Kyoto Animation; they produced the anime adaptions of some of Key's visual novels.
ing amazing.
