Its just so sad to see the industry being so niche that it cant flicker a candle compared to the anime industry back in the day when I did not know a thing about anime until somewhere in 2007. And that was when I was a leech until 2010 when I bought and watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, and tearing up when I found out ADV was gone when I was praising NGE and wanting to know more about them. That is how I came to like sentai filmworks due to all the talk about them being “Neo-ADV”.
I’m saying that my experience is like the plot in some stories when the hero is being followed by a victim whom was saved by the hero. I was the victim whom was saved by ADV and due to hearing that the hero is dead and finding out that there is sighting of the same hero somewhere. With shock of finding that out, the saved victim searches for the hero to see if its true.
Though its just rumors or loss of judgment due to nostalgia, I hear Greg Ayres gets ticked off when people talk about it.
Now. I love buying anime left an right because of value, and wanting to catch up with the fan-base. But I feel sad that the US anime industry was live-able during the time I did not know about anime nor the anime industry.
Big tragedy indeed, funny that majority of fans still watch fan subbed or illegal download/torrent. I was one of them until NGE. Hell. People at my anime club raise an eyebrow when I donate some anime I bought(ex:Clannad dvd complete collection), and when I ask questions of which anime do people buy. And when I question why not, they come with stuff that there ridiculously poor or say there is no way to earn money.
I really hate digital for its feeling of limitation. Sitting with a computer neck crooked watching school days or other anime then having to shrink video to select another episode is a pain in the ass, and with so much limited tech in my house with a “in the past” family who still don’t have anything modern except for tv’s/game consoles XD. Plus what will happen if internet or device is broken or has an error, “Well No Anime for You!!!” XD. I just feel better popping in a disc to a Blu-Ray player and sitting in a comfy couch with a simple remote watching anime in the highest quality, one example is watching Clannad on Blu-Ray.
As long as digital industries are limited with licensing or tech restrictions. Which is what physical distribution has problems with too but has a lot of more conveniences that I “prefer”, digital will never surpass physical IMO.