Forum - View topic

NEWS: Anime Video Market in Japan Sees 15.8% Decrease in 2016

As for decline of Anime in general, I could've sworn just a month ago, ANN had an article that said it was recovering. While we no longer have Saturday morning cartoons, I highly doubt we will truly ever see the end to animation.

And you're right. The total value of the industry has consistently gone up every year for more than the last half decade. This isn't doom and gloom. Just some people misunderstanding it. I had the same reaction to the thread, if you'll note my previous comment. I check these numbers regularly, and it's pretty universally positive stuff.

relyat08 wrote:

And you're right. The total value of the industry has consistently gone up every year for more than the last half decade. This isn't doom and gloom. Just some people misunderstanding it. I had the same reaction to the thread, if you'll note my previous comment. I check these numbers regularly, and it's pretty universally positive stuff.

Oo that link has a lot of cool stats. Thanks for the info!

Not sure why everyone is so "Doom'n'gloom" about the decline of DVD / BluRay sales. When it's very likely due to on-demand media and digital downloads becoming the new norm. Just like when VHS was phased out by the DVD in the late 90s.

SWAnimeFan wrote:

Not sure why everyone is so "Doom'n'gloom" about the decline of DVD / BluRay sales. When it's very likely due to on-demand media and digital downloads becoming the new norm. Just like when VHS was phased out by the DVD in the late 90s.

Now the fans of Blu-Ray know how the DVD fans felt when their media preference got kicked to the curb by a better viewing preference even after they thought their preference was the be-all, end-all in terms of media viewing. The karma is so delicious here.

Looks like the trend will be to appeal more and more to the collectors market.
Physical disks sales are something that are going down not only in Japan but in the rest of the world.
How many people are wiling to buy disks? In the near future probably only collectors.

It doesn't matter how cheap they are, people are buying less and less.
It hurts to say this but the only way to make a decent profit is selling them to collectors that are wiling to spend big money on them.

Luckily disk sales is only a part of the reason why most anime is made.
If the things most anime are promoting are selling well, anime will continue to be made as nowadays.

I love physical media so I think it's really sad this market is going down as much as it is. I get that digital is convenient and quick (and cheaper in a lot of cases), but owning something physically feels so much better to me... or I'm just old-fashioned, I dunno.

Now the fans of Blu-Ray know how the DVD fans felt when their media preference got kicked to the curb by a better viewing preference even after they thought their preference was the be-all, end-all in terms of media viewing. The karma is so delicious here.

Another thing to consider is that perhaps they are exaggerating some these figures, esp. with the issue of piracy/fan translations.

In 2015, the number of contracts quadrupled and revenues increased significantly in the category of Overseas. Indeed, “Japanese animation industry proactively started engaging in overseas markets last year” as specified in Overseas Trends in the report. The export values which remained hardly changed for past three years suddenly increased, jumping from 19.5 billion yen to 34.9 billion yen,and recorded the highest, exceeding 31.3 billion yen in 2005. The major factor of this increase is attributed to “shopping sprees” by China. Despite revenue increases in North America and Asia countries, the remarkable increase in Chinese market constitutes more than half of the increase. It seems the trend simmering beneath in the past few years burst to the surface in 2015, which was also seen in the answers by animation studios for open‐questions as described in “Market Outline” in the report. Of course, Japanese animation industry welcomes the situation; however, it is undeniable this trend could be another bubble. Especially in China, all the industries, including cultural industries, are subordinate to the politics and bombarded with social situation of the moment. Not to mention of the Cultural Revolution, there have been several events affecting the market so far, such as the demonstration against Senkaku Islands dispute and retaliation for Korean entertainment industry against THAAD deployment to Korea. Thus it is hard to consider the market shifts without any political intervention in China. If the 2006 law that prohibits the broadcast of foreign animation programs during the prime time is applied to the Internet distribution, the recent prosperity might well collapse. (Emphasis mine.)