Forum - View topicNEWS: Report: Japan's Animation Industry Reached Record High in 2013
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Fedora-san
 Posts: 464 |
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It's just the way you see people doomsay the industry sometimes it's like they want the industry to fail, and go through the mental gymnastics to explain why. The first point is pretty much true, people always cite the same handful of shows in the past, though I'm really tired of people citing sturgeon's law as some kind cosmic force that keeps balance in the universe. I enjoy far more anime than I don't.
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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Isn't it mainly due to people's fondness on "the olden days of yore" and that habit to wrap most things under that "nostalgic feeling" blanket? If in the early 90's the ratio of bad:good anime was X:Y, if there are exponentially more anime shows, ideally that X:Y ratio would be kept (with just higher figures), but a lot of people like dismiss that. Additionally, the industry, people's tastes and the the overall themes are ever-changing. Anime style of the 70's won't fit in the 80's that won't fit the 90's that won't fit in the 00's that won't fit the 10's and so on. There are more "low-level" shows that are happy to stand-still, but there are other shows that try (for better or worst) new things and approaches. Last edited by Hameyadea on Thu Jan 01, 2015 6:19 am; edited 1 time in total |
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bigivel
 Posts: 536 |
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There exist two types of laws, the ones used in science and that try to be as exact as possible and laws that just represent things that are seen in a lot of places and so is worth taking in consideration. Sturgeon's law is just one of the later. It isn't to be taken as an absolute truth. Knowing the context of its first use also helps to understand its meaning. Sturgeon "made" that law when critics were constantly complaining and ridiculing the Science Fiction genre. Basically, majority of reviews in the genre would indicate the works as having low quality and when talking of the genre in general critics would bring a handful of bad titles to explain how the genre was bad at the time(Just like people say that anime needs to be saved). Sturgeon noticed that this phenomenon, if you call it that, is also seen in all other fields. Is also of notice that the Law isn't used to attack the industries, but was used to defend Science Fiction and say that is the natural occurrence in any entertainment industry. So as you can see the 90% is just a metaphor of "Majority" and low quality is not directly about one person liking less than 90% of a artform. It has more to do about the trends that every artform has. - You have a little number of titles that are really popular and considered high quality for the majority of people, than you have a ton of derivatives of those works. From the derivatives you have the good ones and the bad ones. Normally the majority of them are considered bad ones, and even if it isn't the majority at least a significant high quantity of them are. If you had the titles that are considered bad and aren't derivatives, you end up with a huge number of titles that you can consider bad. Now, 2014 had 171 new titles! Yep, 171. Certainly you didn't watch even half of them, 86(If in reality you did, congratulations, and my bad for doubting it). How much of the rest of the titles that you didn't watch do you think you would consider above average? If you think that what people, Japanese people in this case, thought as above average as the things they bought, we can have an idea of what is by the majority considered above average and what not. Here the source of the information I gonna use below: http://www.someanithing.com/1045 Sales:(In thousand of copies) +20 -> 4 titles +10 -> 6 +5 -> 10 +2.5-> 22 ---- Else -> 60 Note: A lot of titles still didn't released their DVDs and BDs so they don't appear in the list. Also Long Running and titles thought to be for kids don't appear in this list. Normally is seen as selling more than +10 as awesome, +5 as a good and +2.5 as average. Anything else is considered a flop. Just from this 102 set of titles we have 59% is considered flop. |
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bigivel
Posts: 536 |
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While there is the thing with the fondness and with the different styles of the ages and difference of tastes. But most important is the compression of time. When you say "olden days" how many years are we talking. Because comparing all the past with the present is super unfair, though people do that all the time. There is also the thing with the mapping of airing date of titles in the west, that farther increases that compression of the past. Titles that aired in Japan with intervals of 5, 10, maybe even 15 years were shown in a lot of places in the west at the same time. Or right after each other. And not only that, but only already popular titles in Japan would have any chance in the west, so basically people only seen the popular titles and watched them like they are all from the same time, when they in reality weren't. Basically without the accessibility we have right now, we had a "natural" filter and scheduler of series. So people remember of 5 to 10 amazing series in the past that have a lot of nostalgic value. And looking right now they have 1 or 2 amazing titles per year that doesn't have any nostalgic value in them, and are grouped with a dozen of mediocre and bad titles. Obviously a lot of people, at least emotionally, will think that the industry is a lot worse than it was before. But the thing is that they are looking at the industry in a different way now. Not only the industry increased in a exponential manner, but the accessibility of titles is a lot bigger. Right now from all the series that come during a season almost all can be seen in a way or another in the internet. In the past that was not the case at all. All those aspects have to be accounted when making a comparison with the past, but unfortunately they aren't. If they were, is easy to see, that even if in given times of the past the industry was better, right now is not that much worse. And certainly not in a situation where the industry is in need of saving. |
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Minami-Asakura
Posts: 104 |
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I love it when people twist like it. It has never been claimed that the SH*T taste of today's otaku is killing anime ECONOMICALLY! I leave it at that not to waste my time as its obvious I would be speaking and arguing with wall. |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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"Never" is a long time, my friend. I'm sure someone, somewhere has said that. I definitely remember some people citing the declining of series produced from 2006 to 2008 being a sign that the bubble burst and the market was rapidly shrinking and things needed to change or the medium would die off. Then things picked up in 2009 and 2010. Then when we saw another dip in 2011, I'm sure people repeated the sayings once again on internet forums somewhere. The whole issue being changes year to year do not make for a good look at an industry as industries shrink and grow from year to year. It happens all the time in video games. A company's revenue or stock decreases one year from the previous one and we get an assortment of Chicken Littles running around claiming the sky is falling. Sensationalism seems to often replace logic among the more fanatical of fans, or perhaps in those with a narrative they want to paint? -Stuart Smith |
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SquadmemberRitsu
 Posts: 1391 |
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'Moeshit is killing the anime industry!'
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14795 |
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So back to pre-Great Recession levels. The Great Recession really did a number on many industries, resulting in them going conservative and less risks. ikillchicken posted this a couple years ago: 
In 2011, there's a huge jump in anime production; yet the market sharply contracted after been growing 3 straight years. So 2011 was considered a dark year. And as ya can see during the boom years, they were able to achieve such high market numbers with fewer productions. (But in the olden years, only the better anime tend to make it past these shores, so most dreck people aren't aware of.) It'd be interesting in 2014, Frozen itself would account for $200+ million box office plus $100+ million disc sales plus god knows how much music (Japan Billboard Weekly Top 20 regularly had 3-4 Frozen songs for weeks) and merch licenses. Last edited by enurtsol on Thu Jan 01, 2015 7:51 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ushio
Posts: 630 |
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2013 - Japanese animation market $2 billion 2014 - Frozen Japanese box office gross $250 million plus $81 million in Bluray/DVD sales. So yes Frozen will be a very big chunk of Japan's 2014 animation market. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5367 |
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What does it mean when the industry is dying anyway, a lot of it sounds like wishful thinking, "Anime is not Anime unless it is exactly how I picture it to be so therefore it is dying".
Attack on Titan made a lot of money and Production I.G were able to put some of that into expensive products like Giovanni's Island and Psycho-Pass. The Under the Dog Kickstatrer worked and now they can use that OVA as a pitch to make 3 high profile Movies. Gainax are able to make Uru in Blue, something that they were unable to make in 94 since no one was willing to fund it. MAAPA and Ufotable are able to but out shows with high production values. Toei make huge amounts of money from One Piece which they can put into projects like Asura and Kyousougiga. After the bump the industry had around the late 00s things have really picked in the last few years. |
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Stealth00
Posts: 65 |
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It's not really fair to look at what I assume is a revenue chart and say, "this number over here is bigger than this other one" and have that be the crux of your analysis. 2011 was 36% higher than 1995, but ~3x the number of titles were produced to get there. But this says nothing about changes in profitability, only revenue. And what about other issues the industry has such as less creative freedom, or the infamous brain drain? With this limited data, we're far from being able to say that anime is "way better off." |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2439 Location: Germany |
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That recession was a bad one but while i am 100% on the side that creativity is back the japanese market as of 2014 the market itself is only doing good enough in my book.
171 new shows are not sustainable. Many studios are still struggling and bigivel has good disc points. Still we are doing better then animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-09 back here. I did not watch 50% of the new shows(maybe tried 10+%) but i have tried nearly every manga of the new shows as always because most are very direct adaptations but just worse'  ' so in a way i am way over 50%. This is the reason why my past list is now going on 1800 animes seen but should be higher.
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13567 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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If we had more retailer partnerships with stores like Barnes & Noble here like we had years back, then the amount of units sold for phys. releases could grow.
A factor that helps the industry is when you have the select few shows that are appealing enough that they help give back some money to the industry. For example, while I have seen the AoT anime and enjoyed it, I am wondering what it is about that show that has such a widespread audience that has helped it become so successful here, For those wondering on the anime that has been doing well here sales wise, I will refer you to the Funimation article called "Top 10 Fan Favorite FUNimation Home Video Releases of 2014" had Titan at #1 while The Devil is a Part-Timer! and High School DxD New were a respective 2nd and 3rd. With this list, One Piece wasn't on the list but I think it's obvious DBZ (Battle of Gods movie) would be. |
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residentgrigo
Posts: 2439 Location: Germany |
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@Kadmos1 I hate kotaku and him but he has a point:
http://kotaku.com/attack-on-titan-is-good-damn-good-but-not-perfect-1432110574 No fanservice and so on can help in todays shonen wasteland. The manga(8/10) is a bit better(no half cooked censorship and filler ova´s for one) and i love the Before the Fall manga prequel. Titans is the savior KlK is sadly not. So i can get behind it 100%. It should run for about 30 Vol. i have read. The current story-arc on torture(Levi is just the best) is very good. edit: @Kruszer I agree 100%. Last edited by residentgrigo on Thu Jan 01, 2015 12:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7986 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Ironic, considering 2013 was actually one of my worst years for anime watching. I didn't watch very many shows each season and what I did watch was mostly in the Very Good or Good range or below with only a few titles I really liked a lot that were Excellents or Masterpieces. 2013 ended up making 2014 a light year for DVD collecting. Then again I'm not Japanese, so different strokes I guess.
Last edited by Kruszer on Thu Jan 01, 2015 12:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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