Highlights for
Ru's 6th Semi-Annual Rec.arts.anime.*
"What are we like?" Fan Survey
February 2000

Well, this 6th semi-annual survey closed late Wednesday night, and it concluded with the lowest response yet, 91. Previous returns, going back, were 97, 117, 151, 146, and 127.

Here are some highlights (which will be followed by the full set of statistics):

• no surprise on spoilers: 45% don't like to read spoilers, and 95% prefer advanced warning of them, with 70% wanting tags on subject lines.
• the number of folks who feel HTML encoded message in rec.arts.anime.* may have dropped, this survey showing 10% as opposed to 20% a few months ago. 65% don't think they are acceptable. So you newer folks, before you make your first posting, be sure to check your posting software's settings and turn off the HTML setting.
• I guess the last survey's downturn in number of folks who prefer to own sub versions was a bit of a fluke; it's up to 40% no.
• DVD is still following the strong trends indicated in the past year. Deck ownership went up another 10%, as predicted. But Ownership of anime DVDs is up 15% from 6 months ago, which is a bit steeper than expected. It's sitting at 50%. I checked some correlations, and that also corresponds to 50% of sub fans. Then looking at the current purchasing preferences, DVD took a 15% junk here too (also steeper than expected), to 45% compared to 40% of tape. What that means is that as far as anime fans are concerned, DVD is competing head-to-head with VHS. And according to the wish stats, VHS is going to lose, because DVD now sits at 85% (another 15% jump!). If this rate holds for another year, VHS for subs will be dead sooner than I expected. No matter anime companies are bailing out on sub VHS.
• notice to anime companies, leave the ending and opening credits alone on multi-episode media. 80% of us folks here want them that way. And don't touch the eyecatches either; 90% of us want them that way.
• another notice to anime companies, stick with 3 previews at a time. That's the average around here.
• some of you folks must be seriously taking Japanese language courses, because the fluency is up...a wee bit (stat fluctuation) :)

Ok, enough mucking about... Here are the results from my sixth semi-annual questionnaire. For each questions, I've tabulated the raw count and the percentage of total returns for each of the possible responses. I've added a "blank" entry to round out the totals. Some questions had multiple responses, so don't expect all tallies to come to 100%.

Enjoy. (Go to The Results.)

ru