Renzu blog

In the past decade, with the emergence of digitally distributed, fan-translated "digisubs" (now just "fansubs") and dual-language DVDs, the anime fandom in the US experienced rapid expansion. Distributors like (most famously) ADV / A.D. Vision also experienced growth, but then a sudden leveling off and eventual contraction, despite the continuing rise of interest in Japanese animation. ADV’s troubles are representitive of the declining state of anime distribution industry in the US– something that "Ask" John often recaps in his blog (most recently)

Part of the problem was they banked on anime becoming the "next big thing", able to stand side by side with Hollywood blockbusters and prime time television shows, as opposed to a niche market for hipsters and nerds. Obviously, this turned out not to be the case. To their peril, they secured distribution rights to anything and everything they could get their hands on regardless of demographic appeal or quality, and went as far as launching their own cable television network. After the bust, they were left with diminishing sales and a mountain of licenses for yesteryear’s anime already long forgotten by the fandom.

Some said the DVD releases came too slow, missing the wave of hype that followed each series. Fan-translated, pirated copies were the lone option for the non-Japanese fan who wanted to keep up with current anime. However Crunchyroll and Funimation’s efforts now compete for that demographic with web streaming, simultaneous releases.

Others have said the video quality was bested by fan-translated HDTV rips. Blu ray now offers a solution on the physical home video front.

And finally many people still say the products themselves are simply not desirable– tasteless, unappealing physical packages, half-assed voiceovers and a general sense that the people who put together the package couldn’t care less about the anime itself or the audience it aims for. Here’s the fundamental problem that underscores the peril of ADV’s gamble. In their push to capture a market that turned out not to expand beyond its niche borders, they made themselves too generic and their catalogue & product too unappealing. The ADV label came to stand for nothing but mediocrity. Why would a fan bother with their lame physical product over a torrent?

Distributors must give up the dream of "dominating" the industry, and face the reality of Japanese animation forever being a niche market in the western world. Therefore, distributors of physical media need to become like niche labels, offering interesting, premium products in categories of taste and style. There have been a few stabs, deliberate or accidental, at this idea.

Manga Entertainment, in its efforts to replicate the successes of their early hits Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Ninja Scroll have continued to pursue and license dark fantasy and apocalyptic sci-fi anime like Karas and Noein. Despite their demographic/taste emphasis, their releases are known for their occasional mastering/authoring errors, lame box art & unappealing packaging, poor-quality English dubs (by anime dub standards!) and overall undesirability.

AnimEigo made a name for itself by releasing classic and obscure anime, but the distributor never really took off. Urusei Yatsura box sets might be a little too niche.

Funimation made a slight name for itself with its sometimes desirable, high quality packages (e.g. Mushishi non-thinpack). However when you’re putting out Ouran Host Club next to Mushishi and Dragon Ball Z, you’re not making the label very distinctive otherwise.

The most interesting attempt has been Bandai’s failed sublabel, Bandai Visual USA, which at first aimed to become the Criterion Collection of anime. It wanted to put out niche OAVs, films and series in expensive but desirable packages. Its target audience was collectors and connoisseurs with real money to spend who would be unphased by "Japanese" pricing. Among its first releases were the classic Mamoru Oshii Patlabor films, complete with a full printed storyboard book in a $70+ package, mirroring similar box sets that were available in Japan at the time.

While the idea of the sublabel was nice, along with its initial offerings, it overloaded its prospective catalogue with low-quality anime that carried no appeal whatsoever in thoroughly boring, overpriced packages. Galaxy Angel Rune was the most bewildering of all of its announced licenses, a show that was completely ignored by the anime fandom during its run on Japanese television (and the fansub scene). As fans expressed their bewilderment and hostility to what they saw as nothing more than a price hike of mundane anime DVDs, Bandai quickly dissolved the sublabel.

Anime distribution in the US should take a look at niche music labels. Labels exist for the purpose of filtering the vast quantity of garbage into the few gems worth paying for. Labels often target a style or a category of taste, and entice their demographic with releases tailored to their sensibilities. This gives buyers a reason to examine the other releases in a label’s catalogue and become an active follower of that label

Physical anime distributors are in a similar position, since their (supposed) purpose is to filter the vast output of the Japanese animation industry into the few gems that international fans would pay for. Distributors can also split themselves into sublabels that target demographics and taste.

For example, one sublabel can license high quality shoujo/josei works like Honey & Clover and Ouran Host Club as well as classics like Maison Ikkoku and Hana Yori Dango.

Another can target offbeat, artistic works like Casshern Sins, Kaiba and Mushishi, along with feature films like Satoshi Kon’s and Mamoru Hosoda’s, and rare artistic classics like The Tale of Genji (1987).

Yet another can devote itself to "moe" / otaku works like Kannagi, Clannad and Ef: A Tale of Memories / Melodies and so on.

Equally as important as targetting a category of taste, is selecting only high quality productions (or things perceived to be worth watching in the international fandom), and packaging them in unique, thoughtful sets with physical extras like miniature artbooks, printed storyboards, weird trinkets and novelties. What this will do is counter the effect of undesirability that crushed ADV and the anime distribution industry in the US.

Anime is not an if-you-slap-it-on-a-disc-they-will-buy thing like a Hollywood blockbuster is. It’s a weird, niche genre from a foreign country. Casual fans need themed labels they can trust to help navigate the terrifyingly dizzying output of the anime industry. Hardcore fans need a reason to buy a physical product over archiving their old torrented fansubs. If the catalogue is without vision and the product undesirable, the label ceases to mean anything to fans. In an industry that survives on merchandising, distributors have done the exact opposite of what they should’ve by peddling undesirable releases of arbitrary anime.

In other news, I sure upload some retarded shit on youtube:

A selection of his work:

• Bothersome (Mother Mix) 1999 single
• Hiatus 1999 music video by Calodox
• 13/10/99 music video by Saffron/Sunflower
• Singularity 1999 music video by Satori
• Container 2000 CD
• One-Offs EP 2001
• Wrapping 2002 CD
• You Are On My Mind 2003
• Repulsine 2007 CD
• Proof of Concept 2009

I’m not looking to establish myself as a music critic or prominent music blogger, so why bother writing about this one artist? I first fell in love with his sound during high school. This was when I was deep my angst phase, listening to bands like Skinny Puppy, ohGr, Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack and so on. Lackluster offered a striking contrast to that convoluted, high-production-value, cutting edge sound. Lackluster’s was stripped down, nostalgic and videogamey. By stripped down I don’t mean mille plateaux/raster-noton stripped down, because Lackluster’s music often builds up to something thick and layered (track 2) — not what people tend to describe as "minimal".

It’s a different kind of stripped down. His electronic sounds, at their individual basis, are stripped down. Any other producer (take me for instance) would bust out a multi-gigabyte sample library, a synthesizer patch of terrifying complexity, an audio/movie/music sample from somewhere or a bit of live instrumentation I recorded in an effort to make my music production seem like more than what it is– to make it less decipherable, more mysterious, more elaborate and high-tech. We want everything to be as rich, lush, and textured as possible; something beyond the reach of newbs.

Lackluster rarely engages in that. The sounds he uses are often small, simplistic analog patches, and his effects chains simple and easy to deconstruct. His compositions are often easy melodic loops and chord stabs in a linear, layered structure that predictably builds up and breaks down. As you can hear between his 2001 and 2009 EPs, he hasn’t really advanced his core sound much, suggesting that the kind of sound he’s aiming for has more or less reached its maturity. If you gave him NI Komplete and a bunch of East West sample libraries, he might not use it for anything that would change his stripped-down sound.

That’s part of what makes him such an interesting producer. He embraces that "I just warezed Ableton/Reason last week and put my first track up on MySpace, check it out!" sound that the rest of us struggle to move away from. Instead he builds an interesting aesthetic from that– a whispy whirlwind of frail sounds and small melodies singing and echoing in harmony, or a sputtering music box/machine churning out a lost melody from a forgotten age. You can’t even say that he’s "maximizing" a simple sound by intricately and expertly controlling it through several degrees of expression, like a violinist would on his violin. He keeps the sound and the sequencing that drives it simple. And, somehow, he is able to maximize its emotional effect by adding and subtracting layers that constantly recontextualize the music. There’s a deliberate feeling of innocence and emotional purity that shines through the best of his work.

He was up to this long before netlabels were saturated with "melodic IDM" MP3s from newbie artists. In an earlier age of desktop computer music, we had module trackers and VGM-derived subgenres like chiptunes. While other chiptune artists were inventing ways to subvert the "chip" (simple waveform oscillator) sound and whip up intricate impressions of pop music, Lackluster carved a niche by embracing the raw chippy sound, building a lovable, lush aesthetic from that. In a sense it’s coincidental that he happens to sound similar to dismissible softsynth newbie music. But while the rest of us are running in one direction towards high-tech production complexity and intricacy typified by artists like (say) Autechre and Flying Lotus, Lackluster is running in the other, summoning grand emotions with small, melodic sounds. This is why I felt compelled to "highlight" him.

And some of his songs totally sound like themes for cute abstract critters. It should also be mentioned that he has made attempts here and there to modernize or de-analog-ify parts of his music, but like updating a charmingly old videogame with 3D graphics and motion-captured cutscenes, the context of low-tech artificiality is lost and suddenly the work has to be evaluated by contemporary standards. The peril of the sound he’s developed is it’s difficult to nudge it in a direction without spoiling it. One progression he has made however (which can be heard in Proof of Concept) is laying off the quantization for a looser, more organic sound, changing the imagery of animation from a music box machine to something fluttering and frail– as if you could bat your hands in the air and dissipate the melodies swirling around your head.

lackluster.org… poor dude needs to discover Drupal or WordPress or something.