Anime Here And Not...

Well, Steve DenBeste has hit about the same problem that I've had with the difference between getting stuff bit-torrented vs. waiting for the legal, official download. To rehash the issue from my perspective...

1. There are some series that will probably never make to the US. Legend of the Galactic Heroes will probably never see a US release-it's nearly 25 years old (and the animation was good for the era-but, still, 25 years old), nobody could afford to handle the dubbing track for the series (it would probably run to about 60 hours worth of dialog), etc, etc, etc...
2. There are some series that nobody could afford to bring to the US. Macross Frontier probably has a license cost that runs in seven+ digits, you would probably have to provide a high-level dub track that would include redoing all the songs in English (okay, some of Sheryl Nome's songs done in Very Good English would be very cool), -even ignoring the whole "who exactly owns it for handling overseas release" (I've heard everything from Harmony Gold to Big West to nobody having a clue).
3. There is some stuff that is so...esoteric that the fan base is very, very small. No question about it, there are some very rare things...
4. Time is not on your side in some ways. Fans can get fansubs of a show (usually of good quality) in less than 48 hours. Assuming your show does get picked up by a US distributor, we're talking anywhere between a year to two years before you get four episodes on a DVD at a time.

So, how would I solve this? If I had a great deal of money, I'd go into the anime distribution business myself (as a labor of love, not for profit...), and one of the things I'd insist upon as a part of my contract with the anime studio that we would get HD masters of the show in enough time to produce, subtitle, and distribute in HD the show on iTunes within 48 hours of the episode being shown in Japan.

However, I don't think I could get away with it...the US market is still viewed as a niche one in Japan for anime, and I don't think there's any way to get away with it...