Welcome back to me!
Well, it was a two-week lull on my end, and I think it was a nice break from writing (and voicing, if you are listening to the podcast). The first week, well, I was supposed to do a blog, but a commitment came up days before and I could not say no to it, it was the WCS Philippines Video Championships, of which I am honored to be there hosting when Team Namikaze was chosen as our representatives (I will make a team preview of Namikaze a week before they compete in the WCS Finals, so do catch it out)
The second one, well, I was already writing a draft on it, it was supposed to be a review on Trese, but it has been what, at least three weeks since the show was already in Netflix and I felt that a review would be a bit late on my end. I really wanted to write a review, as a springboard launch of our “Review Mirror” series which I am moving over from my previous Medium blog, but it has been what, three weeks since I watched it, and the hype of Trese has already mellowed down a bit after that controversy regarding the dubs, maybe it was best for me to leave it at that at the meantime (and besides, I have already said my piece and I think its enough for me to drive the point home that Trese’s Filipino dub is a good start for Netflix to consider adding the language as one of its options).
So now, I am going to get back to the groove of discussing a weekly post again with this topic, which I know every Anime fan and movie buff, will understand.
When the Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic struck the country in March of 2020, one of the first establishments that were closed down were Cinemas, because the risk of getting the virus in a crowded cinema, with an enclosed space and inadequate ventilation, is extremely high.
So, the Cinemas were deserted, and moviegoers had no choice but to watch movies at home, and movie producers, who had some movies finished before the pandemic struck, also had no choice, so they had to put their wares on the next best platform.
You guessed it right! Streaming Services!
The streamers made it big in 2020, ostensibly because no cinema was operating and people want movies to kill time during the lockdowns. Movie producers had to showcase their product in a more alternative outlet because, it will be long before they will be able to put again a product in a Cinema because of the huge restrictions that was imposed.
And so came the birth of the Transactional or Premium Video-on-Demand service.
Well, not really a “birth” per se, because TVOD/PVOD (we will use the term PVOD for brevity) has been around for years already, even before the pandemic. It has even became a hot topic in Hollywood during the golden age of streaming (like in the past few years) because of the Hollywood studios’ insistence on a much more shorter theatrical “window” (i.e., the duration the movie shows in theaters) to allow their product to be shown on PVOD. Conversely, some movie producers wanted their movies to be available on PVOD and on theaters as well, much to the ire of movie exhibitors who does not want a significant cut of their theatrical revenue coming from box office movies.
But, the Covid-19 pandemic changed all that, the dynamics of movie watching shifted, and now, the studios have to find a way to showcase their product to the world.
In Hollywood, the major studios are doing their own steps to create a home for their outlets, hence, we saw the likes of HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+ and Peacock. Netflix, meanwhile, has expanded its slate by buying more movies in its arsenal, so does Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.
In the US, at the very least, movie consumers had streaming services as a way to view those upcoming films that were otherwise impossible to be released during the flare-up of a pandemic, though, the studios were quick to shuffle playdates to some of their biggest titles so that they can still be experienced in cinemas.
But how about here in the Philippines?
Well, the Philippine situation is no better. Because the government is still trying to reopen in a very cautious matter, it has only limited the reopening of cinemas last year to areas in Modified GCQ areas and not in Metro Manila, which has been under GCQ (General Community Quarantine) for the long time.
It was the reason I was able to watch Saekano Fine in SM Masinag in Antipolo City last November, because that time, Rizal was under modified GCQ and I was able to watch the movie there.
In fact, Metro Manila was already on the verge of opening cinemas earlier this year, due to the continuing decrease in the number of cases in January and February, which was heavily opposed by health experts (and city mayors) because they deemed it was “too early”.
And then came the Covid-19 variants, which necessitated the Metro Manila Council to delay the reopening of cinemas while cases in the metro were hammered by a monumental surge in cases, with hospitals getting full, patients looking for available beds, and some of them were not able to make it.
So, the situation in the country is still this: We can’t get cinemas open yet, at least for the foreseeable future. But there is an alternative, which some major movie producers are now exploiting to their fullest potential, the use of PVOD channels to showcase movies that are yet to be screened in theaters, and with varying successes.
We have now a plethora of outlets where movies can be screened, though it is still distributed through two options: either through Pay-per-view on Cable/Satellite or online PVOD, where you will buy a one-time ticket purchase to see a movie once.
Star Cinema introduced this concept late last year, utilizing its huge platforms such as event platform KTx.ph, streaming service iWantTFC, and the PPV service Cinexpress, which is available exclusively to SkyCable and Cignal TV. Regal Entertainment has Upstream.PH, which was used as the exclusive stream partner of the Metro Manila Film Festival when it went online last year. (I am not including Vivamax here as the Viva Entertainment streamer shows its films directly on the platform as part of what subscribers are paying).
So, what is in it for anime movies?
So, yes, in essence, Anime movies should be given an additional platform where they can be seen again by an audience who has been cooped up at home and have been relying on pirated streams to watch anime movies.
Well, at least one anime film distributor, ODEX Philippines, still hopes for an anime film screening here in the country. They were hopeful, at the very least, to have the Demon Slayer movie shown in Metro Manila, and they were able to show the movie in MGCQ areas, but Metro Manila Demon Slayer fans have lost the chance to watch the movie not just because of the cinema closures, but the restrictions on travel especially those below 18 year-olds who are dying to watch the movie.
So, en toto, the promised Metro Manila screening did not come, and instead, was relegated to PCCW’s VIU Philippines on VOD.
To be frank, Saekano Fine’s screening was just a lucky break, because in all honesty, I was not expecting the movie to be shown. Aniplus teased the movie’s showing around February last year in the country, back then when we were still a bit sure that we will be able to contain the spread of the virus like SARS 1.
But it took me a nine month-wait before I was able to finally witness it in a sparse cinema in Antipolo City.
So, yes, in essence, Anime movies should be given an additional platform where they can be seen again by an audience who has been cooped up at home and have been relying on pirated streams to watch anime movies.
I will give the case on why Anime movie licensors such as ODEX should consider PVOD streaming in my next post.
(Podcast version of the blog now up!)
/FSD