Highlights for
Ru's 7th Annual Rec.arts.anime.*
"What are we like?" Fan Survey
- the Web Edition
August 2003

The 7th annual "What are we like?" survey closed late Wednesday night, with 533 returns. I'd like to start off with an apology to everyone for mismanaging this year's survey. I had to be out of town for a good part of it and thought I could deal with it. I couldn't, even with an extenstion to 1 October. Too darned much to do and not enough hours in the day (I'm still recovering from the burn-out stemming from 3 solid weeks of 18-20 hour days). So for those of you who missed this year's survey because I wasn't doing my usual weekly announcements, I'm sorry.

Thanks to everyone that participated, and thanks for the comments. There was one heroic individual that took time off of moving (apartments) just to do this survey; for those of you who did the survey, I'm sure you understand the significance of this. I'd especially like to thank Anime News Network and editor-in-chief Christopher Macdonald for putting up an announcement on their site. It looks like 3/4 of the respondents came from that.

I'm going to post the actual compiled results in rec.arts.anime.misc and rec.arts.anime.fandom separately after this message. Alternatively, it should be accessible through my survey web page (which also links to previous survey results):
http://www.oocities.org/ruigarashi/Surveys/fans/
or directly
http://www.oocities.org/ruigarashi/Surveys/fans/fan0308/results.html
I intend on doing my generic compilation, then follow with two compilations based on whether the responder heard about the survey from a newsgroup or web forum. That way we can see if there are any differences in readerships. I don't know how soon the latter will happen. I need to do a little recoding, but I don't think it should take more than a couple days.

As a result of the two types of forums this survey was exposed to, it's kind of difficult to make comparisons with past results. If I can believe my "where did you hear about this survey" question, about 100 of the responders were usenet readers, which is down from last year's 137. I know it was down regardless because the first week's response was significantly lower than last year's first week response.

As usual, some of the newer questions were flawed ("web forums" should have been "anime-related web forums"), and I still haven't added enough null options to some of the old ones (e.g. info about store inventories, local bands, TV). The education question STILL suffers from my lack of exposure to other education systems (sorry folks), though I'm getting a good idea of some possible improvements thanks to feedback. It also suffered from a wording problem, particularly missing an explicit "completed", though I think I'll use "part of, or completed", next time. I also have to update more references (e.g. tapes/LDs -> DVD). I gave to reword the "please don't put this questionnaire on another web site" to something that allows pointer but still not the questionnaire itself.

Thanks to the responders that left comments. Your comments were valuable, as always, to help improve the questionnaire for next time. Some of the suggestions were: anime relation to games, non-video games as intro to anime, domestication questions like the issue of honorifics and Japanese terms in subs or dubs, whether fans would be willing to pay to download anime, private vs company forums, interest in Japanese broadcast and release times, English versions of Japanese web sites, IRC channels. Thanks also to the many that gave me encouraging comments. I'm sorry I didn't respond to any of them, and I want you know that they were much appreciated.

Next year, I'm going to have to expand the "this survey is long" warning. The most common comment I got was about how long it was. Next year I'm going to add a time estimate for completing the survey to my warning about how long it is. If you think about it, even at 10 seconds a question, 160 questions adds up to nearly 30 minutes. Some folks reported taking the order of an hour to do it, which I'm not surprised (this isn't a time limited exam). I wasn't giving a big enough of a warning.

I'm also going to work in a "privacy" statement, to let folks know that none of their ID tags are going to be displayed or otherwise given away.

This is the second year I used a web form for survey forms, but the first year I had it announced in a web forum. The volume was certainly manageable. The main fly in the ointment is that some people simply couldn't submit their forms. I don't know what the problem was, still, and I again apologize for any disappointment and frustration this caused.

Anyways, here are some highlights. With the mix of forums, I'm going to hold off of comparisons with previous surveys, and just stick to immediate points of interest.

• most of us have been fans for more than 2 years. No surprise there. For the newer fans, you'll be at that point soon enough :)
• on average, we balance our viewing between anime and non-anime programming. Hence, I question the assertion that half of you folks are otaku. :)
• manga is a staple diet for the typical anime fan
• half of the musicians of us play anime music for fun. That begs the question, "Why doesn't the other half?". Hmmm?
• Gee, any surprise that nearly 70% of us carry anime music around with us? That's not all we listen to, judging by the wide range of percentages, though, so again, I question assertions of being otaku. :)
• Most of us like to at least occasionally sing along with OPs or EDs, and knowing what we are saying often doesn't matter. Music certainly is universal.
• in in sub vs dub front, the majority of ownership preference leans a lot towards subs. That's probably because a majority of the responders consider the audio to comprise either 25% or 50% (split half and half) of the relative artistry of a show.
• believe it or not, some folks still buy tapes, some probably have no alternative as indicated by the responses to the "choose"/"prefer" versus "wish" questions.
• Once again, here's what we wish for company policies
  • we don't want credits cut
  • we don't want "Next episode" trailers cut
  • we don't want eyecatches cut
  • we don't want credit translations replaced, overlaid or rolled over and viable options are to roll the translated credits later, roll them in available space, or for DVDs, use the alternate angle feature.
  • we would like as much of the production credits translated, but barring that, at least give us the voice actors and main creative talent.
  • we would like to know which DUB voice actors played with character (though, I'm sure most of us would be understanding if there was a union issue involved... hmm, forgot to put that on the survey).
  • some folks like seeing or watching previews of other titles before the main feature, but the majority prefer to watch them afterwards. The preferred number of previews is a bit fuzzy. Further analysis shows no indication of relationship between those that like watching previews before or after the main feature and how many. There's also no clear preference on the style. Whatever works, right?
  • many prefer translations of signs and similar graphics shown nearby the graphic (overlay is definitely not wanted), far dominating the next option, the use of alternate angles on DVDs
  • half of us want dub actor interview bonuses
  • we definitely want Japanese cast interview bonuses
  • we want creditless OP/ED bonuses, along with subtitled song translations and romaji subtitles
  • we want picture and sketch gallery bonuses
  • we want liner notes, and we want as much info as you can cram in, especially, translator's notes, song lyrics, and cultural notes.
  • release a series to the end. A majority of buyers base their purchasing decision whether they think a series will be completed.
  • don't lock out the menu button or the skip button for company logo sequences.
  • most of us like the idea of a special box release on the SECOND volume of a series, rather than the first.
• for non-Japanese broadcasters, most of the changes you do are not good, and often you are making too many changes.
• internet downloading of anime and video files on computer is definitely prevalent, though not necessarily predominant (say, versus DVD).
• 55% of us don't think bootlegs should be sold at cons, 20% don't care, 10% think bootlegs should be allowed. This is consistent with 50% of folks saying they generally avoid purchasing pirated or bootleg anime-related products, and 25% sometimes do.
• 1/3 of us think trading sound files is ok, and another third pretty much don't care. About 25% think there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. The anti-bootleg camp is not going to be pleased with this.
• for the longest time, the assumption has been that newsgroup readers tend to be either have higher than grade school education or are technophiles in order to explain the discrepancies between preferences in the newsgroups and the rest of the world. That's not an unreasonable assumption given what it (used to) requires to get access to newsgroups. So it came as no surprise in past surveys that most of usenet responders were university or equivalent educated and to a lesser extent consider ourselves technophiles. This year we sampled web readers, and now there is a big chunk of responders that have not completed or have yet to complete post-secondary education. Not surprising when a fair chunk of ages is under 19 years.

Enjoy. (Go to The Results.)

ru