An Open Letter To The Industry About Anime Piracy (Part 2)

Greetings to each and every one of you and people in the anime industry.

I.. am piracy. Pleased to meet you, though I doubt you would ever feel the same.

Well, why would you be pleased anyway? I am the so hated pathogen which, no matter how much you deny it, is incurable.

Very proudly, I happen to be the issue that has made countless anime studios cringe in hopelessness. As they watch their craft get stolen and made available to everyone, for the price of literally nothing.

Did I mention.. I’m actually an international convenience (pause for a second) or a problem. Depends on you as for how you look at me.

marika kato pirate — Piracy-Sama at your service.

Why was I born, some people might wonder. After all, you had Crunchyroll, Funimation and such legal websites, YET, there are exponentially more viewers who choose to watch pirated anime.

Not bragging but even Crunchyroll and Funimation and every other legal website, all combined, can’t compete with stats of pirates and pirated sites.

And of course, I am the pain in the a** problematic issue which led to the creation of your “most preferred yet hated” websites. Yes, you heard it right, I’m the reason why KissAnime and GogoAnime and endless many more websites exist.

They are my offspring and there is literally NOTHING you can do to destroy them.

A huge round of applause to you, my dear anime industry, as you created me and my offspring websites, YET you refuse to take responsibility for your actions.

Why?

Because you simply do not have any f* solution for the problem you, yourself, have created.**

So when you had no other option, you decided to blame pirates for my birth. But you never tried to come out of your comfort zone.

Will you move your a** and actually do something about it, or are you too lazy and stupid and safe from the real trouble that you continue to play the blame game?

This is exactly why you continue to hate and chase the pirates instead of getting to real cause of the problem.

Ah ~ already hating me for slapping the harsh truth on your faces?

Well get ready to hate me more because I’m just getting started.

There are way more problems than you imagine, yet you do nothing but waste your time in hating me, the protagonist of this story, and my fellow warriors, the pirates.

Well, enough of this lazing around. I’m gonna cut the crap and get to the point. And mind you, I’m gonna be blunt and straightforward as I just can’t sugarcoat things.

1. Your service in the industry is utter bulls**

The thing is you don’t realize what caused me to be born in the first place. Piracy, aka me, is not a monetary issue as you guys have concluded from heavens-know-which-observations-and-theories.

News flash guys, Piracy aka pirarcy-sama (me) is a service problem. Even on legal websites, most of your content is region locked.

**What do most legal websites do?**

They release it everywhere MONTHS after the US release. Meanwhile, my fellow pirates make it available worldwide for everyone within a couple of hours.

Evaluate the two services yourself and tell me which one is more convenient. Truth be told, humans are impatient. They will not wait for half a year for an episode of Bunny Girl Senpai when the same episode, in the same quality, is immediately available on another website.

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So I have to adjust my crown as it keeps falling when I look down on you with pity, as you waste your energy in your so called, futile and useless “emergency measures” to stop me, by doing something silly like, I don’t know.. banning any of my websites?

Mark my words, banning my websites will not make a difference.

Your so called “emergency measures” cannot stop me. You have to be really really crazy to believe that blocking the piracy aka watashi desu, will solve everything.

If you are so thick-headed to not have understood it by now then let me rub it on your faces, people.

PIRACY EXISTS BECAUSE YOUR SCREWED UP SERVICE IS GARBAGE.

If you’re feeling offended by my words then let me tell you, I don’t give a damn. You are free to leave, but I will continue with what I have to say.

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(Deep sigh) So, basically here’s where you went wrong.

Blocking me and my sites is NOT a permanent solution. It cannot solve the issue of piracy in the long run. It just can’t.
My beloved pirates can make new websites and stream faster than Korosensei can zoom around the whole world. Please try to understand that you’re not doing any good to yourself by shutting down my sites.
In reference to my previous point, you don’t have a strong attack power to bring down my defenses and deal with my counterattacks. You are too busy “saving” whatever you can save that you don’t know how you should approach the problem of piracy.

The problem is that you don’t provide the legal services to countless regions and you hate the ones who actually try to provide the service in those regions.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is coming to Netflix in 2019. The founder of Funimation says that’s bad news for anime fans: https://t.co/0lFYi1PNGt pic.twitter.com/kppeo8WWPf

— Polygon (@Polygon) December 11, 2018

What the heck do you want, huh?

It’s like saying we don’t want fans from some particular region and we’ll hate everyone who tries to spread this medium there. Don’t we have a common goal? To spread anime across the world and make it a mainstream media?

Netflix is doing your job. You region blocked company.

You let a problem develop, you don’t want to innovate, you refuse to find a solution, you refuse to accept your fault and you keep playing the blame game.

Do you know who suffers from this bullsh**? The animators who dedicate their whole lives in creating everyone’s beloved anime. My heart aches as I watch their conditions and lives on a personal level.

Yes I feel empathy and compassion for the people who actually deserve it. But you know what? Empathy and compassion isn’t enough to solve any problem. What you actually need along with these two is strong dedication and a desire to change.

Please, think about it. It’s not impossible. You have to take it seriously no matter what or be prepared to face a future that will explode like a Voltorb, leaving you in an utter mess.

People are dubbing illegally And providing it to everyone because your services are garbage.

2. You’ve got your priorities wrong

Why anyone goes go to the pirated websites? To watch anime of course, not to lay eggs or something.

So….. If you were to focus on your services and break you region block thing, your much hated piracy sama won’t actually exist.

But what do you focus on? DVDs, Blu Rays, merch and other secondary stuff. When people don’t actually get to watch your thing, why the heck will they buy your “secondary” stuff?

Mind boggling amounts of money is burnt on DVDs, Blu Rays and other stuff, but you don’t spend a single penny on improving your services.

For the love of your waifus, please stop wasting money on something that no one cares about and utilize it on improving your services.

But nope, you guys can’t do that. You can keep rambling on how much money is wasted because of me but you don’t have any clue as of what causes that loss in your industry.

Added to that, you have no problem on spending on DVDs and merch while hoping to get returns from your investments, when deep within you know that your customers don’t want that right now.

First provide them the service.But at the end of the day, you continue playing the blame game and doing nothing to solve the damn problem.

KissAnime gets around 100M-130M viewers.. PER MONTH.

Just imagine if you have better services and all of those +100M viewers had access to legal content, your business could grow exponentially.

Even if a fraction of the total audience used your services properly, you could still have some huge profits by the end of the day. Seriously, do you not know these basic business tactics?

All you have to do is think out of the box and fix the problem of piracy.

I guarantee you, there is nothing that will stop you from becoming the number one business in the whole world. Realize what potential you have within yourselves… And also realize what is stopping yourself from unleashing that potential.

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I’m actually being nice here. You have seen how harsh the reality is.

It slaps you across the face as you are left wincing in pain while it recklessly continues to kick you in the a**.

You have to be strong enough to fight back, or else prepare to give up.

3. You don’t have a full library in your legal websites

Nowadays the anime fans have branched out so diversely into different categories depending their genre preferences.

So, when someone who loves something like idol anime visits your “legal” sources, they don’t find what they are looking for.

Targeting only the mainstream anime and shounen fans might seem like a good first step but they only make up a fraction of the audience you are responsible for.

That just accounts for a part of your library problems.

Which is another issue that pisses off most of your audience by a great deal, especially the tiny fraction that still chooses to go with your shitty services. Which feels like Sakura attacking madara for the f*** sake.

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Suppose one anime being available on site A and not on site B. But then you’ll have some other anime that’s available on site B but not on A. Do you actually expect any fan to subscribe and pay for both the sites?

None of the sites that are legal have a fully fledged library of all possible anime. Maybe an exception of one or two unknowns would be acceptable but at least give your audience a place where they can find 95% of the anime they are looking for.

This is pure business, folks.

To all the people who have subscribed to the legal services just because of the moral reason to support the studios, your money is not going into charity. It’s used up in business.

And all the legal streaming sites believe they’re good enough because they are “paying” the studios, simply out of the moral reason that they are, quote on quote, supporting the industry.

But their shitty exclusive availability has made the moral reason fade out.

And due to this issue of exclusive availability, piracy is a good option. At least the illegal websites provide ALL the possible anime out there. Ok maybe not all, but MOST of the possible anime.

Why wouldn’t anyone pirate when they’re just fed up with the bad business practices that has kept the legal sites from innovating further?

The exclusive availability is a f**** good reason for people to either switch over to some other site that has more anime, which rarely happens, OR just pirate because it’s freaking convenient and easy as F.

The anime industry has been here for too long to use the moral reason to try to convince people to not pirate. They’re pirating because your business practices are screwed up and your services are sh*** as hell.

So hear me out Crunchyroll, Funimation, and every other legal streaming website out there, it’s not that people don’t have the money to pay you. It’s that your services are not worth paying for and your region block will engulf you someday.

The day is not far away when other sites will take over you.

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Studio trigger has a patreon you can donate to, and support the real creators there.

Also you can learn to support the anime industry without getting involved in this business, by reading this well explained blog by anime motivation.

As Piracy sama, you can’t deny it but Piracy is the reason why the anime industry has developed to whatever level you guys are on today.

It goes back to the basics of business tactics.

Make someone addicted to something for free.. and then gently ask them to pay for it. Your consumers simply cannot refuse to pay if they want to continue with the service they’re addicted to.

Heck! All legal sites do that with one month free subscription period. Even if you provide a subscription, Whats the point of it. If things aren’t available in your region?

Legal services are like pure garbage for many counties you can’t deny that.

So yeah you can can blame me for all your losses but you can’t deny that I am the reason why the industry has developed so much.

You gotta give me credit for that.

But well enough of the problematic phase and losses for you legal websites. It’s time you eradicated Piracy, aka me – piracy-sama.

But you know you can’t kill me . So you will HAVE to fight me. The final battle has to be fought.

The final boss must be defeated. The final sacrifices have to be made. Otherwise you can freely continue to face the losses.

I don’t mind.

(Sigh)

Listen people, I don’t want to exist. My existence has caused a lot of problems.

I want to disappear for forever. If I continue to exist then animators continue to suffer and you would continue fighting these useless battles where you are totally overthrown by me (piracy). Yet you continue to struggle.

I can’t eradicate myself. Only you can do that, and you have to strengthen your bases first in order to stand up against me.

So dammit all, just put your heads together to end this problem and grant me a peaceful and happy departure from your world.

I want to see the anime industry flourish and grow across the world.

Consider it my last wish.

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By yours truly,

Piracy-Sama.