I guarantee you this about what is going on with Kadokawa. I'd also be willing to bet money that the man on the top is supposed to be their president or CEO. This is definitely going to get worse before it gets better.
I guarantee you this about what is going on with Kadokawa. I'd also be willing to bet money that the man on the top is supposed to be their president or CEO. This is definitely going to get worse before it gets better.
What's going on now is much uglier, for the goose that lays golden eggs is now dead, and the internal blame game for what's to come is raging. To make matters worse, the entire corporate governance of Kadokawa had been under siege over losses at Nico Nico Douga since the Dwango acquisition of 2014, and Kemono Friends happened to be heralded as the savior of Nico Nico at that.
Kadokawa senior level execs had to quell shareholder anger in June 2015 when they publicly apologized for the mishandling of KanColle. This whole tragedy is now going to be used against the senior management who were mostly caught by total surprise. The senior management is said to be holding an emergency board of directors meeting.
panzerfan said: Kadokawa senior level execs had to quell shareholder anger in June 2015 when they publicly apologized for the mishandling of KanColle. This whole tragedy is now going to be used against the senior management who were mostly caught by total surprise. The senior management is said to be holding an emergency board of directors meeting.
Not sure why "it's making money so STFU and GTFO" is such a mindset prominent on both the "supposed professional" businessmen and plebian drones. It's exactly what allowed things like Bayformers, Twilight, and the millionth uninspired harem LNs to continue existing.
Yeah, they made profit for you and you don't understand the notion of "passion project", we get it. But have you ever considered the fact that it became so successful in the first place because it was outstanding from its competitors? Are you aware that by cutting said passion out, you're just cutting more potential profits YOU could've had?
Was it not obvious that if they want to make more money, they should support whatever that would result in better products? Why do industries insists on making their products bland, shallow, cheap, mass produced, when clearly that would result in less sales? It's not like writing a better story would cost more money anyway.
It's like saying "we only do this for money!" then take the most stupidest business decision conceivable while also making yourself looks like a total douche. Who benefits from this decision? Not the company, not the industry, not the creators, not the customers, no one.
Who benefits from this decision? Not the company, not the industry, not the creators, not the customers, no one.
From what I've heard, it's not really "the company" 's idea to sack the team,but some department that want to steal the credit for the project (that they themselve thought to be dead before it inexplicably become popular) and at first was just an attemp to bully Tatsuki into obedience. But Tatsuki and his team fought back.Hard.
So, it's probably some middle management in Kadokawa who thought they could get some easy credit and promotion that stupidly doom the company and themselve through an ill thought-out plan.
Not sure why "it's making money so STFU and GTFO" is such a mindset prominent on both the "supposed professional" businessmen and plebian drones. It's exactly what allowed things like Bayformers, Twilight, and the millionth uninspired harem LNs to continue existing.
Yeah, they made profit for you and you don't understand the notion of "passion project", we get it. But have you ever considered the fact that it became so successful in the first place because it was outstanding from its competitors? Are you aware that by cutting said passion out, you're just cutting more potential profits YOU could've had?
Was it not obvious that if they want to make more money, they should support whatever that would result in better products? Why do industries insists on making their products bland, shallow, cheap, mass produced, when clearly that would result in less sales? It's not like writing a better story would cost more money anyway.
It's like saying "we only do this for money!" then take the most stupidest business decision conceivable while also making yourself looks like a total douche. Who benefits from this decision? Not the company, not the industry, not the creators, not the customers, no one.
While I partly agree with the above it's the typical mindset of today's consumer with the short attention span of a fly. "Evil corporations, everything is money for them... Oh! a new release *buy, consume and forget* Give me more stupid corporations, there are lots of things I will spend my money if you don't want to".
Don't fool yourselves, everything is done with the sole purpose of making money, even the indie needs it to eat a pizza. The problem is when popularity grows and so the expectations for more products to consume, the competition that will ripoff, the size of the company to cover a demand, among other elements. The bigger it grows the greater money it needs to stay afloat and the quicker it needs to produce and remain relevant before another fashion replaces it. If you believe the staff and their families live from "passion", allow me to point out how wrong and out of reality within your parent's house you are.
Taking for example Konami, if they were to return back to their glory days, they would need to return to an era where competition was low, user base a niche and with enough time to create or improve something not seen before. That will never happen again. So the next time you point fingers to the greedy evil corporations, maybe you should consider looking yourself at the mirror too and question who is at fault.
What's going on now is much uglier, for the goose that lays golden eggs is now dead, and the internal blame game for what's to come is raging. To make matters worse, the entire corporate governance of Kadokawa had been under siege over losses at Nico Nico Douga since the Dwango acquisition of 2014, and Kemono Friends happened to be heralded as the savior of Nico Nico at that.
Kadokawa senior level execs had to quell shareholder anger in June 2015 when they publicly apologized for the mishandling of KanColle. This whole tragedy is now going to be used against the senior management who were mostly caught by total surprise. The senior management is said to be holding an emergency board of directors meeting.
Couldn't they just rehire Tatsuki and his team and end this?
Couldn't they just rehire Tatsuki and his team and end this?
That would cause even more backlash to themselves as that would be admiting they didn't just make 1 mistake, but made multiple mistakes back to back to back. And no Higher ups want to accept the resposibility for it as it would be akin to "Apologizing" to everything they believe themselves to be in the right for.
That would cause even more backlash to themselves as that would be admiting they didn't just make 1 mistake, but made multiple mistakes back to back to back. And no Higher ups want to accept the resposibility for it as it would be akin to "Apologizing" to everything they believe themselves to be in the right for.
The way I see it, from what I understand they could just blame the marketing team, throw them under the bus so hard they bounce, and shift all the blame to them while rehiring Tatsuki. Keeps their hands clean, makes it look like the underlings tried to undercut them and the company (and thus justifies their supposed lack of knowledge), and most importantly of all, revives the goose that lays golden eggs. Win/Win/Win. Except for the people over in their marketing branch.
And even if they "Win" this PR war (highly unlikely, momentum is heavily against them), their stock is going to take a major hit. How many more will trust Kadokawa if they get yet another mark on their record showing they cannot manage their properties well? Best to just swallow pride and salvage what you can, which rehiring Tatsuki would do. Hell, they may want to do dogeza for good measure. Whether to Yaoyorozu or the community, not sure.
The way I see it, from what I understand they could just blame the marketing team, throw them under the bus so hard they bounce, and shift all the blame to them while rehiring Tatsuki. Keeps their hands clean, makes it look like the underlings tried to undercut them and the company (and thus justifies their supposed lack of knowledge), and most importantly of all, revives the goose that lays golden eggs. Win/Win/Win. Except for the people over in their marketing branch.
And even if they "Win" this PR war (highly unlikely, momentum is heavily against them), their stock is going to take a major hit. How many more will trust Kadokawa if they get yet another mark on their record showing they cannot manage their properties well? Best to just swallow pride and salvage what you can, which rehiring Tatsuki would do. Hell, they may want to do dogeza for good measure. Whether to Yaoyorozu or the community, not sure.
Someone would have to explain this to me better for me to get why people are so upset. It's not exactly uncommon for animation or game studios to lay off a large portion of their directing and design staff once a work is close to being finished. This is entirely the nature of the work they chose.
Is there something else to this other than a guy getting fired from a popular work? 'Cause all I see from here is smoke.
Someone would have to explain this to me better for me to get why people are so upset. It's not exactly uncommon for animation or game studios to lay off a large portion of their directing and design staff once a work is close to being finished. This is entirely the nature of the work they chose.
Is there something else to this other than a guy getting fired from a popular work? 'Cause all I see from here is smoke.
Think of it as Kojima VS Konami all over again. Dude and a handful of people got paid 20$ an hour to salvage what's left from an IP so bad it doesn't even reach public radar, made it WORLD-FAMOUS in time span of three weeks, and now the main company sacked him in order to grasp the rein of the newly revived golden goose by cutting off the head. Mind you, this happened ONE DAY before the dude's birthday. It is bad enough that the whole Far East (China, Korea and Japan, all opposing nation) condemns the act and even with twitter involved by filtering the comments, it still reached trending minutes after it's announced.
Think of it as Kojima VS Konami all over again. Dude and a handful of people got paid 20$ an hour to salvage what's left from an IP so bad it doesn't even reach public radar, made it WORLD-FAMOUS in time span of three weeks, and now the main company sacked him in order to grasp the rein of the newly revived golden goose by cutting off the head. Mind you, this happened ONE DAY before the dude's birthday. It is bad enough that the whole Far East (China, Korea and Japan, all opposing nation) condemns the act and even with twitter involved by filtering the comments, it still reached trending minutes after it's announced.
Are you saying that Kodawa has done what centuries of wars and natural disasters could not do in less than a week
A quick read about it online sounds like it is indeed a textbook case of artist versus publisher, rather than inconvenient business practices. I read a few articles stating Kadokawa is blaming the animation studio for mishandling information property and using Kemono Friends without their permission, and they fired them to protect their corporate interests.
If that is true, Kadokawa was in their rights, even if it is self-destructive in practice. To me it sounds more like, as has been said, they killed the golden goose over a minor indiscretion, and now they have to stick to their guns and say it was a dragon.
A quick read about it online sounds like it is indeed a textbook case or artist versus publisher, rather than inconvenient business practices. I read a few articles stating Kadokawa is blaming the animation studio for mishandling information property and using Kemono Friends without their permission, and they fired them to protect their corporate interests.
Problem is every animation released so far that we can account for was sanctioned by Kadokawa/KFP. Which means that seems to be a white lie by the company. What actually appears to have happened is KDKW marketing tried to forcibly wrest control of the franchise after having given it up for dead and palming it off to an outside studio.
Have no idea how legit this is, but it looks like there is an outlet for all this anger:
Hi all, I'm a fun of Kemono-friends, from 2ch. In the thread of Kemono-friends, it came out that we want you all, kemono-friends funs in , to help Tatsuki.
"Cool Japan", it is being pushed on by Agency For Cultural Affairs Government of Japan. However, the actions by Kadokawa must disgrace the project by ACA. Moreover, creators in Japan are oppressed, you know. The project by ACA must be collapsed if affairs that Tatsuki removed be left, because it is a structural defect in Japan.
That's why we decided to report the affairs to ACA. Since there is English pages and accept English comments in ACA, please help Tatsuki with us.
映画以外のメディア芸術の振興に関すること[マンガ,アニメーション,ゲーム,メディアアート等](About Promoting the Media Arts other than Films) It would be good that your messages include about Tatsuki, Kemon-Friends, Cool Japan, Internatioal, etc. And please spread this to other SNS.
Gleaned it from the R/Anime and R/Kemono Friends reddits.
No wonder Konosuba was so good. They were already even lower scum than Kazuma could ever hope to be.
Edit: Nice point made in the thread on reddit:
"If someone was smart, they post in Japanese how a large company is affecting Japanese culture abroad to the Japanese ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (@meti_NIPPON), in Japanese of course.
Tweet as much as you want until you turn blue in the face about "Tanoshi" or "Tatsuki", but they don't care about foreign voices. Shame the company by the government publicly and force them to react instead of deflect -- the Japanese government is trying to push its culture through the "Cool Japan" initiative and Kadokawa is working against that."
Konami fired Kojima, David Hayter went on camera and apologized for that. Imagine how hard that will make you laugh, then know this: Konami didn't do this, Kadogawa however, did.
What I'm saying isn't "boohoo evil companies killing art", I know everyone wants money, even the most passionate of artists needs money to keep a roof over their heads.
What I'm saying is the desire to make money and passion are not exclusive, if someone makes art for the sake of wanting to make something spectacular, then yes he deserves the money that piece of art will give him. And yes, from the company's viewpoint, that should also make said artist a valuable business asset.
"Better products make more money", that is something that should be goddamn so obvious even a 3 years old would understand, but companies, run by "professionals", mind you, would rather turn their products into bland, copypasted, uninspired, mass produced heaps of shit rather than allow creativity and uniqueness in their products.
And this is even after said creativity and uniqueness had already proved to be massively profitable to the company itself, so the talk of "risks" is just ludicrous.
What I'm saying is the desire to make money and passion are not exclusive, if someone makes art for the sake of wanting to make something spectacular, then yes he deserves the money that piece of art will give him. And yes, from the company's viewpoint, that should also make said artist a valuable business asset.
They are exclusive when the company grows so much the artist consumes more money than the artist itself could produce to the company (and that was Kojima's case). It's not only the artist who has to be paid but the whole corporate organization chart. You get to understand that only when you manage people and lots of families (not only the staff) depend from it.
The artist also depended a lot from the money of the company to bring their ideas big and wide, so I find a bit unfair consumers crusade a company that made possible a product to be developed and reach them. And we all know how this will end, as much as you all complain you will consume the product anyway with or without him, if not many others will fill the gap. It's not the first time it ever happened anywhere else. If it fails they will create a new one... or fill a bankrupt.
If you want quality keep it small enough to have plenty of time but big enough to be financed. There's a reason outsourcing is a thing in corporations and some indies could offer better products.
My problem with that line of reasoning is that isn't the case that happened here, rather the opposite from all accounts. Kemono friends was made with next to no resources, and returned far more than the sum of its parts.
Its not like they haven't taken other projects on a loss, either. Kancolle, at least a couple of years ago, didn't make money off the game itself but instead the merchandising. There are ways to offset losses, especially if a particular brand is popular and exploitable.
Forget settling down, these fucktards-shit-for-brains used radioactive sludge to put out the napalm fire.
Yeah, and Kadogawa holds the copyright of Keroro Gunso, guess what may happen should Yoshizaki decide to fight back. There is a long quote from AVGN accurately describes this situation.
Konami fired Kojima, David Hayter went on camera and apologized for that. Imagine how hard that will make you laugh, then know this: Konami didn't do this, Kadogawa however, did.
Konami : Surely nobody would try surpass our stupidity... Right?
Yeah, and Kadogawa holds the copyright of Keroro Gunso, guess what may happen should Yoshizaki decide to fight back. There is a long quote from AVGN accurately describes this situation.
Seriously, is Konami way the only way?
When high level management fucks things up? Yes. The Konami way is the only way.
Seriously, this is the nature of hyper-diverse-corporations. Konami got away with firing Kojima because Konami waved pachinko and sports club money in front of stockholders... and then stockholders instantly stopped giving a damn about the video games division and that Ko-some guy.
As said "better products makes more money", it's such an obvious thing, yet companies like Konami and Kadokawa are going out of their way to decrease their own product's quality for petty reasons, only to play victim when their ex-employees and the customer base turned against them.
And again, making things "better" doesn't always require money. Writing better stories doesn't require more money, hell look at Kemono Friends anime itself.
Its CG is literally the cheapest in anime history, its advertisement budget nonexistent, its OP and ED sequences sung by its own seiyuu cast of newbies, and its game cancelled even before the anime aired. By any logic, Kemono Friends would have been the biggest laughingstock of the whole industry.
Yet by having a unique and sincere story, a story that, mind you, is as complex as a kid's show, it became massively successful.
It is exactly because it came out in this era of mass-produced generic harem, moe, isekai and fujobait that cares absolutely nothing for trying to carve out it's own identity that Kemono Friends the anime stood out and shined through.
It is exactly why Kemono Friends the anime succeeded where the game failed. The game was simply another generic gacha waifu fighters in the sea of other generic gacha waifu fighter games, that's why it couldn't compete and died. So now you're saying it's a smart business decision to go back to being generic?
All I'm saying is better products require time, time you don't have when your company grows big enough and you still have to pay salaries from everyone there each month for as long as the project is frozen by "passion". Special mention to the investors that keep the company alive and want their money back. I wouldn't call those reasons petty. Thanks to them you got your "successful" anime aired, because any author alone don't have the resources to make it possible by themselves.
To me Kemono Friends is just like KanColle and Minecraft, a product successful by lucky timing. It reached the right people at the right time and became popular in the same way any Internet meme does. You said it yourself it wasn't the best anime either but low budgeted, generic and mass produced. Who was responsible to reach the right people? Kadokawa. Were anything other shadow yet another generic moe exploiting a permanent fetish (cute characters with animal parts), you all wouldn't be talking about Kemono Friends by now.
There are alternatives to the Konami route, just look at ZUN. He is the epitome of outsourcing and he has plenty of time to plan his next product too.
cijantung said:
fuck off this is why i fucking hates wageslaves
Try to say that the next time someone is stalling the production or the company won't have enough money to pay you or keep you into the staff. Either as an employer or a patron. I hope you like freelancing because the hobo path is the only other route available for you.
That's actually what I'm doing. And don't get me wrong, the way corporations work sicken me too. As everything in life anything can't be just black or white. People lie, yes even the author as culprit could play the victim role too (not saying this is the case). Decisions won't make everyone happy. Someone will complain it doesn't matter the result. And specially someone will take the worst decisions in order to get safe as many as possible (including themselves).
I couldn't care less for Kemono Friends but I do for Konami. You all will be saying "f*ck Konami" from now on, yet I will say "thank you for financing someone like Hideo Kojima for as long as you could support him and bringing us so many great games". And it wasn't just Kojima, we have people like Koji Igarashi, Akari Uchida, Akira Yamaoka among others that maybe couldn't made better without Konami's aid. Yet everything can't last forever and at some point they followed different paths.
Playing devil's advocate only goes so far before it becomes outright ignorance, or worse, lying.
No one thanks Konami for anything because Kojima was the Executive Vice President of the Konami's video game division after DECADES of working there. The anime equivalent would be anime fans thanking Studio Ghibli for suddenly firing Hayao Miyazaki and retroactively stripped his name out of the credits of every movie he worked on.
Problem is, as I said, many good products(passion projects or not) can be done regardless of time or money.
Animes, in particular are not games or movies. The difference in budget and time constraint between an indie game/movie to a AAA/Blockbuster can differ in literal thousands of times.
Animes, on the other hand, are hand drawn. Any animes, regardless of genres or stories, will need about the same amount of frames, and even the other parts like music, voicing, editing, doesn't cost all that different either. So by most case even if separating "extreme cases" like Kemono Friends or Fate series, most animes will have the same level of budget regardless of genre.
Yet despite that, you can see animes like Kill la Kill or One Punch Man that were produced on an average budget but still managed to blow up in both popularity and profits. So again, it doesn't necessarily cost more time or money to make a show that stands out.
So then, I ask you, why are the majority of anime studios still stick with mass-produced, uninspired harem, moe, fanservice, fujobait shows? Shows that they know very well won't top any sales list, shows that won't become anyone's favorite, shows that, by all chances, will be forgotten in 3 months exactly because by the time it finishes airing, there's already another mass-produced show ready to replace it next season as the forgettable, shallow harem, moe show.
The issue isn't that it cannot be done. The issue is that the industry are actively NOT TRYING to solve its own damn problem then pushes the blame on creators or consumers when their mass-produced garbages doesn't sell. It IS incompetent and petty.
As for the Konami case, I don't know the specifics of why they fired Kojima, so I won't sin them on that. But it is still extremely petty and unprofessional of them to play victim and act like a crybaby when neither Kojima nor the customer base agreed with their decision to make Metal Gear Survive.
Of course not, that's like saying it takes the exact same time and money to produce a hand drawn with 3DCG anime and a stick figure animation going through the same process. Quality AND detail requires time. The only reason you consider Kill la Kill or One Punch Man better is because you are nitpicking the best from the average on everything (also tastes are relative about what is better). Kemono Friends is not different. You already know One Punch Man was outsourced (yet another manga to anime adaptation), no wonder the story isn't made with the same mold. The only reason the majority of anime studios mass-produce is because they are covering a demand, a demand the consumer asks not mattering the quality. A demand that, if they don't cover it, someone else will and translates to loses to them. Guess who is at fault too?
You are all probably living at your parents home, still studying or living comfortably from a periodical paycheck with no involving in resource management. Its understandable you won't get what I am saying and even be looked like a capitalist pig. But if you by chance get there you will realize a decision won't appeal everyone and maybe you will commit mistakes, yet everything is for the sake of keeping the boat afloat. No one is conspiring inside to kill the golden egg goose and if they do they are fired.
If you consider to stop consuming Kadokawa products, I hope you also consider not consuming products like the "I'll own it all" Disney or the "I'll dirty control everything after 1983 crash" Nintendo. After all you don't like evil greedy corporations. But we all know people have not memory and sometimes (just sometimes) the same angry vocals forget everything once the product turned better than expected without its original producer.
Damn that rom guy is self-righteous... Anyway, this was a very interesting history lesson for such an tragedy.
This isn't tanoshii!!True love lies here?
Thank you Tatsuki?
First part is from the lyrics of the OPWhat a load of shit!
We're talking money here! Money is everything!No no no no no!