Let's Help Bring Kamen Rider SPIRITS to the States!

[Kalle]

Okay, SPIRITS is currently in second place to Jellyfish Princess. We're almost there, people! Let's go!

GOOD THING I LIKE BOTH AND VOTED FOR BOTH. :coolshades:
( also hell yes Cromartie High School, I was wondering when that would come back into print )

 

[icecreamhendrix]

YAY voting for things we like! If only elections were this exciting!

 

[Kamen Rider ZIX]

DAMN! SPIRITS is now in 1ST PLACE!!! :castle rock: :castlerock:
https://www.facebook.com/questions/10150869304094613/

 

[Allio]

DAMN! SPIRITS is now in 1ST PLACE!!! :castle rock: :castlerock:
https://www.facebook.com/questions/10150869304094613/

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Keith >

< me
[/hide]

I am utterly speechless

 

[usbcheater]

I knew posting that on every Toku oriented fangroup on Facebook would help lol

 

[Drazic]

He does kinda makes it sound like it would've been an option if you guys weren't more than a month late so maybe better luck next time (they've done a poll like this two times or so already).

I do think it's more of an interest check rather than a contest though. It's not possible for them to promise the winner to be automatically picked up especially seeing as how you can add entries yourself.

While I'd like to see the manga get released I do have to wonder how much of the voters would've actually bought it. I think even 10% of the voters would be very optimistic.

 

[SamuraiEchidna]

Oh well. We can only hope that they'll at least be considering our fan base now. And if a poll like this ever pops up again, we'll just have to be more vigilant.

Personally, if I owned a company like this, I would try to award at least the top 3 winners rather than just then #1 winner, just to try and make more people happy. Even if Spirits wasn't in the top 3 when Vertical Inc stopped caring about that poll, it would have at least increased our chances.

 

[Aoi Kurenai]

It's a shame that it already closed, I think some better publicity would have been great and given Spirits a stronger chance at actually placing decently while the thing was still open - the votes are definitely there, the timing is just all wrong.

Anyway, I think there's a market for this sort of thing in America. It's easy to be pessimistic and say people might not buy official products, but there's a sort of validation in owning a physical copy of something related to an interest a person happens to have. At the very least, the first volume would have sold decently I think. It's not like the DVD releases that tokusatsu has seen in America that are fairly expensive, a manga volume isn't often a wallet buster and spacing the releases out to once every three months or so seems to be the general practice and that works well enough for other series.

Though that 10% statistic doesn't sound too off from reality, my understanding is that companies always look at fan support online as only translating to, at the most, 10% of those fans actually buying the product. At the same time though, they wouldn't be the only audience out there. I've gotten into a lot of manga series by just having the cover art really captivate me and I think Spirits could do that.

Hopefully it does eventually find its way to the States, either from Vertical or someone else, but I definitely believe there's a market for an action series with a pretty strong story.

 

[Drazic]

Personally, if I owned a company like this, I would try to award at least the top 3 winners rather than just then #1 winner, just to try and make more people happy. Even if Spirits wasn't in the top 3 when Vertical Inc stopped caring about that poll, it would have at least increased our chances.

https://twitter.com/Vertical_Ed/status/223089132061204480

It's more like a suggestion box than a popularity contest. Like I said since people can enter entries themselves it'd be impossible to promise that the winner would get released as there's a lot of manga they just can't get for whatever reason. Voting won't hurt but just a lot of votes on facebook won't get a series released. Who knows if even 10% of the voters end up buying the manga anyway.

I asked @Vertical_Ed if Spirits would have even been an option if you guys were on time and he said "maybe" so yeah, try again next time. It'd be neat to see this released.

 

[RiderScoutJordan]

Well, that just makes me feel bitter. All that work, all the rallying cries, all basically for nothing. Fantastic.
Screw it. I'm not giving up. I'm starting a petition to bring Kamen Rider Spirits to the States! All I wanna know is which company would accept it (Vertical, VIZ or any other company.)