Hunting the Elusive

The following is a post I made in a thread on Hongfire, where a simple statement of mine: The "original" might be better, but it ain't gonna be worth that extra dineiro was the cause for some extremely long and cogent posts about the cons of recasts (the process by which genuine anime figures are duplicated). I believe there are some unresolved issues here, and the following exposition aimed to explore my intuitions about this, resulting in a conclusion which was surprising even to me. (This post has been edited for clarification of certain points for this blog).

I have read and acknowledge the position against recasts. It is true -- recasting is piracy, and for us collecting fans, we will always try to get the original for reasons already stated.

However, first and foremost, I write as a consumer: one restricted by geographical and financial bounds. Whilst admitting that the anime obsession is a privilege rather than a right, the compulsion as a consumer to get what I want is a very persuasive driving force. We are located in a market removed from the primary (and sometimes the only) market that the Japanese creators are readily catering for. More often than not, we get our genuine items for around double (or more) the price that Japanese consumers get them for -- the commission services take their fees, the EMS people take theirs, and most of all, the scalpers on Yahoo take theirs.

It is the last point which in recent times has shaken my firm belief in "supporting the original". After all, the sales on YahooJP are sales already made. The original creator does not make more money from our buying from YahooJP (unless they are the ones selling on YJ, which is not very common). Following from that, due to the nature of the auction site, massive markups can be seen on certain items -- profits that go not to the artist, but to those scalpers. The recent PS3 phenomenon has opened my eyes to the darker side of such events -- where people (usually poor Chinamen) are hired merely to queue and to get items, reducing the chances of genuine fans to get their hands on the merchandise.

The upshot of all this is that for me (unfortunately, this is going to be a subjective argument, but it's the truth of the matter), there is no ethical difference between buying from scalpers and buying from recasters. If we are concerned about profits to the creator as a significant portion of this ethical dilemma, then there is nothing which distinguishes between buying from YJ and buying from e2046. In both cases, no profits go to the original artist. In both cases, the middle people make the profit.

It is the second case which is much more interesting. It could be argued that the middle man in the case of YJ makes profit only once, whilst sites like e2046 continue to make recasts and thus continue to profit. Could the amount of money made by the middle person all up affect our ethical considerations of this matter? Possibly, yes. But I would also think that e2046's guilt is somewhat diluted (at least in the case of this Gothic Devil figure) by the fact that they have spent some effort in addition to queuing up and getting the figure. Diving into the dark side of the figure business, recasting is not such a simple job, and in the case of e2046's Gathering section, creating such detailed paintjobs is not simple either. Yes, they are profiting from the original work, but most of what I'll be paying goes toward the labour put into it.

Much as we would like to look at the big picture, we are bound by our limits as private consumers -- our selfishness. Think about this: most of us might be utilitarians -- we think we should reduce pain and increase happiness in the greatest number of people. If so, why are we not spending the majority of our income on causes which would alleviate the pain and suffering in people of the third world countries, as opposed to spending it on hobbies? The reasoning behind this is the very same reasoning I would apply to this situation. There is a difference between ideals and what we actually do.

Collectively, we *might* bear the industry upon our shoulders (a point I would also contest later), but individually we are of not much value to the artists. Whilst we might THINK about issues of the industry, and we might desire that the industry flourish (for the sake of us being able to buy more stuff), the fact is that we have much less responsibility for its wellbeing, unlike people like HLJ, Jlist, e2046, etc. The result of this is this: If, as I have argued before, I see no ethical difference between buying from a scalper or buying from a recaster, the only factors which will matter to me are:
1) Cost
2) Quality
3) Genuine mojo

In this case, e2046's quality has been testified to be somewhat high (from previous threads), and the cost is much lower than the alternative. In addition, although the figure is nice, it does not fall (again, subjectively) into the category of "must get at any cost" (if it did I wouldn't mind shelling out 300 USD for a genuine). The cost-quality ratio overruled the Genuine mojo part of this assessment.

The overarching structure behind this argument is my status as a non-Japanese consumer. I am unable to queue up in person at the event at 4a.m. in the morning to ensure that I get what I want. The artist and retailers do not perceive of me as a primary consumer of their goods (not blaming anyone here, it's just a fact, and possibly a very justified fact, because the market outside Japan would be much more dispersed and be smaller for the effort involved in making those items available to). The scalpers, too, do not perceive of me as a primary consumer of their offerings (a hurdle we have had to jump over by using such services as SMJ). Being in such a unprivileged position is further emphasised by the fact that the items we want were released in limited quantities at limited events (which we can't get to). Yes, anime is a privilege, not a right. But I don't think that sort of argument can justify anyone suggesting that just because we like anime merchandise we should spend in excess of 1500 dollars on a plane ticket so we can get the real thing as a real primary (read: Japanese) consumer. The point, however: if we are not in the primary market, we have even less responsibility toward the industry than local consumers. Whether we buy genuine or not does not matter to the artists in any tangible way.

Then we have come a full circle. This debate is highly subjective. I still retain the feeling that genuine is better, but as I have explored in this post, this feeling is not based on any sort of high-flown ethical consideration, but instead, a desire for "genuine mojo" on the part of the consumer. This desire for genuine mojo can be stronger or weaker in some people: it can be the overriding factor, or it could exert only a moderate influence over other factors when deciding what to get.

Clarification: I have argued from this case of a limited quantity, limited selling location item. For more readily available items which can be gotten from retailers like Amazon JP, HLJ, Hobby Search, etc. -- shops which consider us as their primary market, I firmly support the stance of buying only genuine. My recent shift in position on buying recasts has indeed surprised even me. In the first post of The Bragging Thread, I specifically and actively promoted the purchase of genuine merchandise. This is something which I still adhere firmly to, but now I have recognised that in some very specific cases, this rule can be bypassed.