The Key 15th Anniversary Letter Project is now accepting messages, letters, and images (fan art, cosplay, etc.) at its Submission Wiki. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Letter Project is a fan-coordinated effort started by several groups to reach out to Key with an anthology of letters, art, and videos on its upcoming 15th anniversary as a way to show them their overseas fans’ appreciation.
The project will continue to accept submissions until January at its earliest. After which the fan submissions will be compiled into a yearbook and DVD, which will be printed and sent to Key and related publishers. As a huge fan of Key myself, I personally ask you to please take a moment to voice your appreciation to Key and its staff members, and help showing them the extent of its fan base outside of Japan.
Thursday 30th August 2012 
3:43 AM 
Yay!
I hope they (whoever’s compiling it) will make the completed yearbook/dvd available for download somewhere….I would love to check it out.
I’ll keep myself updated to this. I loved all of Key creations. They made me laugh, cry and realize what’s important in one’s life.
Tomoyo After fukin where
amazon.com
Would an anime-music-video be allowed? =) There are a lot of AMV-makers on YT who’d be interested, I think.
@Riri
I think that would depend on how Key are with AMVs, they may end up requesting Youtube to take it down for copyright vio. Or might not even watch the video at all.
A pretty picture or a heartfelt thanks, in Japanese would likely be more appreciated.
Hmm, yeah, I was worried about copyright issues. Thanks anyways~ ^.^
You could go for it. I just don’t think they’l view peoples videos. A picture however, some studios/places hang those on their walls. Unsure about Key though.
Um, they’re going to compile everything in a yearbook and DVD and send it to Key. So naturally an AMV would be put on the DVD. I don’t see why you would upload it onto youtube, which means there would be nothing to take down in the first place. So making an AMV should be a-ok.
“A pretty picture or a heartfelt thanks, in Japanese would likely be more appreciated.” Rawr, don’t discourage people like that. You don’t know that a picture would be more appreciated. That’s just speculation.
He/she mentioned about Youtube AMV makers being interested which kinda implys youtube would be involved.
I haven’t discouraged people to do anything, I just gave my opinion and nothing more.
Everyone loves pictures, infact this to an animation studio is a given.
Unsure why you made that reply, I don’t want to argue with you.
@Index
Actually quite a lot of people have had their AMVs removed from youtube due to copyright claims by animation studios. Naruto ones inparticular have been most affected.
But you’re right, I hadn’t read the main post before replying initially Rokudaime. As long as they don’t use Youtube I don’t see the problem.
“He/she mentioned about Youtube AMV makers being interested which kinda implys youtube would be involved.”
Ah, right, sorry, I missed the fact that he mentioned Youtube (I didn’t realize he was refering to it when he said YT).
“I haven’t discouraged people to do anything, I just gave my opinion and nothing more.”
Not necessarily true. You see, you said: “A pretty picture or a heartfelt thanks, in Japanese would likely be more appreciated.” The “LIKELY” part here being the significant one. It implies that Key are less likely to accept videos, which means someone making one of those might end up wasting their time. That in turn means that if the people intending to make the video reads your post, and are convinced upon reading it that they would waste their time as the video would not be viewed, have effectively been discouraged. Your intentions may be good, but your post is still discouraging. 🙂
“Unsure why you made that reply, I don’t want to argue with you.”
Arguing was not my intent, I’m sorry you took it that way. My intent was just to point out that your post might discourage people from submitting videos, and that that was not ideal. Of course, I also missed the part where he mentioned Youtube though, so yeah, that would probably indeed be a waste. ┐(￣ー￣)┌ So I feel the same as you really: “As long as they don’t use Youtube I don’t see the problem”. Agreed.
AMV is pretty legal in Japan, fyi. If not, Comiket is already banned in Japan as well
Actually, it isn’t a question of legality, but rather a question of what is allowed.
The Japanese proscrible to a principle they call “anmoku no ryoukai,” which translates into “permission of the dark.” In practice, those who own and/or write IP know when something illegal is going on, but unless it is of no perceived benefit to them at all, they almost never interfere, and in some cases, even promote such actions.
And before you ask, some who have published media documenting the relationship between Japan and anime (for me, I learned of this through Roland Kelts’ Japanamerica) do mention this specifically. I should know, considering I’ve written at least two reseaarch papers either focusing on or integrate Japanese anime and their fandom, both local and world-wide
@JbstormburstADV
Any chance you’d be willing to share one or both of those papers? If you’re not worried that someone might steal your woks and commit academic plagiarism that is. I just think they sound like they might be an interesting read is all. 🙂 I would read them, if they’re not overly long. How many pages are we talking here? <p
Well, I would be willing to share it, but the issue is that it’s not on my computer.
I could make a PDF, but I’m not sure if it’ll be decent quality. As for length, I believe one is at seven pages, and the other is at seventeen, both including title pages, table of contents, and bibliography.
I don’t mind a PDF, if you have the opportunity, and are willing to make one. : )
Good luck with your Key efforts Kuzu, hope they acknowledge this effort being made by people. Even a nod in the general direction of overseas fans, even if they aren’t mentioned by name would be enough imp.
Here is my letter to them:
Dear Key,
Thanks for all the anime and Visual Novels you have released during the years, please release more so I can pirate them.
Your fan
Icelander.
ps. Do not send cops on me, I’ve got a mecha, and I’m not afraid to use it.
LOL
They would reply this to you: http://i.imgur.com/WAzAh.png
Lol. XD
Tomoyo After English translation release when?
“Ixlone
August 30, 2012 at 3:38 PM · Reply
amazon.com”
What Ixlone said, seriously, just fucking wait.
Goddamn it
Lol, i’m not rly a letter guy… if i were to write one it would probably look exactly like what Irie wrote up there xD
Anyway.. i’m joining cheering squad 😀
I’m sure this has already been brought up before but I want to say what’s on my mind. From what I can remember seeing from other people on the matter: “Key hates foreigners”, a group that I am part of. Correct me if I’m wrong and this is completely unfounded.
It doesn’t matter if I’m huge a fan of their games and would buy every one of them localized, they will always lump me together with the pirates stealing their games and the fuckers who complain about Illusion’s RapeLay to US Congress or the US Supreme Court, maybe even the fuckers who claim US victory in a soccer match is ‘revenge’ for Perl Harbor, an event having nothing to do with these stupid shits and their families.
Key won’t ever give a reasonable price for licensing their games, not even their older releases which might possibly make more money overseas. I don’t know what their situation is, but it sounds to me like they are doing it completely out of spite.
Sure we can show Key how dedicated their fans overseas are, but I will be very disappointed if sending these fan letters fails to change anything in their foreign relations.
It’s going to achive nothing.
We all know it.
I believe this to be the case as well, unfortunately…
Pointless task is pointless.
Why u’re so pessimist, bro?
Um… he’s Ixlone. That should be enough! XP
I’m pessimistic by nature as well. ┐(￣ー￣)┌
In my honest opinion I think the only way you’d see Key games translated and released in English would be if Key signed a partnership deal with a company like Nippon Ichi Software USA, or Atlus(Persona people), a company niche like that. Unlikely to happen but am aware that there are quite a few Visual novel/anime type console games that have never made it out of Japan. Only needs one company to take a chance.
Shintaro Ishihara, minori and Key all have at least one thing in common and that one thing is that they all hate foreigners with a passion.
“Unlikely to happen but am aware that there are quite a few Visual novel/anime type console games that have never made it out of Japan.”
If by “quite a few” you mean “99.5%” then yeah “quite a few” (99.5%) visual novels/anime types console games have never made it out of Japan.
Just a quick comment on the idea of ‘Key hating foreigners’…
It is very easy for rumors to resonate through the internet, especially when people who know little about business structure and strategy are miffed that one of their favorite games/anime has not been re-released in their region of the world. There is a risk/reward relationship with every business decision, and a historical look at international VN sales shows minimal interest from consumers. Key, through Visual Art’s, has shown a willingness to grant licenses to distributors who wish to take a risk in distributing their media in regions outside of Japan. With historical trends not working in VNs’ favor, with Key being controlled by a parent company, and with there being a limited number of companies willing to take a major risk on VN software distribution (not to mention what I can assume are high piracy rates from international ‘fans’), how can one make a blanket assumption that Key hates foreigners?
With a lack of international marketing experience and investment capital, one can hardly blame Key for not making more of a push to distribute internationally.
“Key hates Foreigners…”
3 times saying these words makes me thinking.
At least, the project will become a dramatic situation between fail or succeed.
One more I must know, any reason again about Visual Art’s/ Key doesn’t want to license their VN’s?
This rumors at text above must be cleared.
I believe I covered those reasons in the post above yours, Dary16. There are major risks involved, including, but not limited to, a parent-subordinate company structure, lacking international marketing experience, lacking investment capital, piracy / security concerns, localization / translation / dub desires, and of course mass market international reception. I have no reason to believe Key hates foreigners; I do have reason to believe that they don’t feel globalization is an appropriate position to pursue from a business standpoint. There are arguments for and against this viewpoint, but ultimately the decision lies with the powers that be at Visual Art’s. It doesn’t matter how good Key feels their product is if Visual Art’s doesn’t think it will make them a sufficient return on investment.