And those are the same people who got all mad that FUNimation quit the Case Closed dub. Exposure doesn't translate into sales and in the end that is the only thing that matters to the Japanese companies. No need to waste the studio's resources if it will end in a loss.

I usually watch a series first, and if I like it, I will buy it... and like half the stuff for it, usually hats though. I love collecting hats.
I do buy blind. But for me that is, I go to Rightstuf.com and I buy random blind boxes, I found a few series I like, usually in volumes, and I did get one complete box set. But that is how I usually support the industry.

Sorry guy, but disagree with you here - I have found there have been some great animes in different subgenres over the last few years - and yes, there has been crap, but there always has been crap. Some titles that I really enjoyed would include Princess Jellyfish, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Shiki, Sekirei, Queen's Blade, Baka and Test, Samurai Girls, Highschool of the Dead etc. Now, I jsut ant to talk about anime itself here.

What I've found is even the fanservice titles have gotten good in terms of character and story development, it used to be they could have fanservice and nothing much else going on, but, to connect the current state of anime with these titles, it's more crucial than ever to ensure they're "giving the whole package" so to speak, meaning, story and characters are key, in order for an anime to be good, it has to have that foundation built on this. So, in simple terms, fanservice attracts veiwers, a good story and characters keeps them and provides sustainability to make way for sequel series.

There are a few reasons - first, people want to watch a show with characters that are dynamic, charasmatic and fun - essential, relatable characters that people care about, and villians they just hate. Be it an anime like Shiki, or Queen's Blade, the rules are the same, in terms of the fanservice, it's just icing, superficial layering to attract people - to keep them, you need that story and characters. And the fact they offend people - it ironically helps the series in some weird way.

Second - the trend I've noticed in anime, as well as big budget movies is that they're all looking for sustainable franchises - an anim or movie series that will last for a few good years, something they can make sequels to. It makes sense, think about movies like Harry Potter, Hunger Games, or the new Spiderman series - the original material is there - and there's LOTS of it, so it provides plenty of raw story material to mine - all they need to do is adapt it over to a movie without any need to have to come up with an outright original story. The same goes for anime, I'm seeing more sequels - Queen's Blade, Ikki Tousen, Inuyasha - Fina Act, Sekirei (it's pretty much guaranteed there will be a season 3 and 4) reboots - Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Berserk, and now; Sailor Moon. So when you look at these trends, we see reboots, fanservice and of course, stories and characters that have enough weight to establish success and provide further sequel series.

Now, on the business end of things, I'm hearing it's not so good, people are illegally downloading anime left and right with absolutly no intention of buying them - this is the problem right here - and these are the people that say English dubs suck, the original Japanese tracks are way better even though they can't speak a single sentence in Japanese let along a single word - save for baka or kawaii - these people drive me nuts.

My favorite is when they say they "have" or "own" a certain title, meaning they donwloaded it(not on itunes where you pay - like me ) I've actually encountered people like this and I say "You don't have Queen's Blade, I, have Queen's Blade, see, I bought the blu rays, I paid money for them, same with Shiki, Heavens Lot Property etc. you have files on a hard drive that are fake, counterfit, phony, not genuine, and they're worth.................f&ck all." I actually take offense when they trash Mr. Mignogna's protrayal of Edward on FMA, yeah buddy, say that too his face, and while you're at it, tell Mr. Willingham how you feel about his Roy Mustang - and see how many teeth you end up losing(that guy's a big f&cker - more like Mr. Cankillmeinonepunch).

What bothers me about all this though is that companies like Funimation are bending over backwards to accomodate fans with their free streaming service, and other resources they provide fans. Their prices for their blu rays, itunes(cheap) shows and DVD's are fair, not cheap, but fair, better than what they used to be, and there's a lot more bang for your buck on these sets with the commentaries and some of the special features they give. And yet, people still hate on the englsih dubs, refuse to pay money for the products, I don't get it. As civilized human beings does it not make sense that when you like something, you buy it which entails paying a certain amount of money for said product?

And people just need to buy what they want, with Funimation's service - the streaming and their youtube channel, it's easier than ever to buy anime risk free, that's how I went about buying Cat Planet Cuties and Princess Jellyfish, some others I saw a few clips and knew I'd like it - Shiki for example.

I do hope Funimation, Viz and Section 23/Sentai are able to stick around, I'm a consistant customer, and I'd hate to see a group of bad apples ruin it for all of us. I plan to buy more in the future for the record - I want the Yamada's First time (saw a clip and youtube - looks dawm funny), Freezing (I thought this was an anime about my computer at first - jokes), The World God Only Knows, Summer Wars, and maybe Chaos Head in the immediate future. Later on, I KNOW I want Ikkitousen GG and XX(thank you for aquiring this), Blood - C, Maken - Ki! (a bit silly, but fun), Queen's Blade Rebellion, look, I'm not going to list every single one, I think you get the idea.

Well, I've done it again, wrote an essay, but whatever, now it's time to eat and play bass - finished my school work already for the day.

As a fan of many of these type of anime (among many others) I have seen some fanservice animes as you describe here; they're boring, and servce only as a vehicle for boob, panty and swimsuit shots. THey bring nothing innovative or fun to the table, and like I said, aside from the naughty scenery, they have absolutely nothing going for them.

However, when I look at the ones that have a solid following, either sequel series keep getting made(Ikki Tousen, Queen's Blade), or people wish for more(Cat Palnet Cuties) these are animes where you can tell the people that made them realized, they aren't going to be able to get away with throwing a little ecchi to the veiwers to get them to bite.

We all know it helps, but, when you look at these particular shows (among a few others of the same genre) you see developed characters, a good story, something actually worth watching. However, because of other factors, they are not for everyone, which is perfectly okay - I think what bothers me is when people trash talk some of these titles and say the story and characters are as exciting as a cardboard box.

And no, Queen's Blade and Ikki Tousen are not as intricate as Fullmetal Alchemist or FMAB or Shiki on story and character development, but you must remember, those are some hard animes to top, even good animes that have no fanservice aren't much of a match for the calibur these titles fit into. For example Deathnote, good, but, I have to give both FMA series props over it.

What this has to do with the state of anime is that first, there isn't much of an increase in these fanservice titles if any - they have aways been there, however, they are now getting marketed more agressively. Second, because anime isn't on as strong a position as it once was, producers are understanding (as mentioned before) you can't just parade around a few underwear girls, or ripped males and expect your product to do well of possess any sort of sustainability they need good characters and good overall story consisting of relevant subplots.

So, in the fanservice genre, titles that are doing good, or have a large following are like this:

Ones I've seen - Queen's Blade, Ikki Tousen, Cat Planet Cuties, Girls Bravo, Samurai Girls, Heaven's Lost Property. Sekirei, Highschool Of the Dead, DearS, and others I have seen some of - Highschool DxD, Maken Ki!(this one isn't as good as others, but fun, they suckered some of us with this one), Freezing.

Others that people have mentioned, but I never got into would be Sekon No Qwasar, not really for me, but lots of fans of this genre love it.

When I think about fanservice animes that are not very good, or just plain boring, it's actualy more of the older series, as illustrated above, these titles give the audience the whole package, and they're more recent, and no, not for everyone. Older series that just didn't quite do it would include - Eiken, Nadjica, Agent Aika, Master of Martial Hearts(little newer). But do you notice how most of them last for only two or three episodes? There's not even enough substance there to carry a complete series, and most people, even the fans, dislike these shows.

I will say one thing that I do like about the state of anime now, at one time, every second release was a bloody mecha anime, and yes, there are some good ones, Neon Genesis wasn't too bad(little overrated in myopinion), but I'm not a big mecha person. Personally, I like comedies, fanservice, action/adventure, drama, period, suspense and even horror, stuff that's very character and/or story driven.

Another thig I have seen is more of a range of animes coming in, with many American companies disappearing or changing (Geneon, Bandai, Media Blasters? ADV -> Section 23) It seems as though the epicenter for anime in USA is in Texas, Funimation and Section 23 are there, I hear about VA's doing work for animes from both places (Brittney Karbowski, Monica Rial) so the point is this - these two major companies are going to be pretty busy with everything - marketing, dubbing, distributing simply because they're now picking up the slack for companies that no longer exist.

I remember when I thought of Funimation all that came to mind was Dragonball(don't care), Fullmetal Alchemist, Fruits Basket, One Piece, I never thought they would be working on animes like Sekirei, or getting Ikki Tousen, or even Shiki for that matter. So I think it's fair to say the business has changed considerably, and personally, I like it, so far Funimation and Section 23 have proven to be reliable in meeting their relese dates, notifying fans about titles, and making quality dubs.

I do hope that the industry globally (North America - Canada, USA, and Japan) does get a little more steam, but with that I only hope it brings about a wider range of titles that appea to everyone - as I mentoned, now that any of the distributors have gone the way of the dinosaur, Funimation, Section 23 and even Viz have a responsibility to the fans to make available for sale as many of the titles in as many subgenres as possible. And I do hope that the fanservice animes continue with this trend of actual character development and story telling.

PS - if there are any missellings it because my keyboard has been somewhat unresponsive and it "drops" letters - I practically have to hammer it with my fingers.