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NEWS: Report: Anime Production Industry Reaches Record High Income With 200 Billion Yen


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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 4:34 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Teikoku Databank noted that four of the companies it studied filed for bankruptcy in 2017, two ceased operations, and two were dissolved. This total of six companies closing is the third highest in history, ...

? my math sense seems a bit rusty, can't get the numbers to match Confused ...
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S0crates



Joined: 06 Jul 2018
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Location: Banned - Noticed our poor ethics
PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:19 pm Reply with quote
I'm looking forward to the update to the yearly with analysis.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:54 pm Reply with quote
If this news of increased profits does not coincide with an uptick in the average remuneration of animators, some eyebrows beg to be justly raised...
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Distant Thunder



Joined: 18 Mar 2016
Posts: 30
PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:44 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
If this news of increased profits does not coincide with an uptick in the average remuneration of animators, some eyebrows beg to be justly raised...

Are you mad?
This is the time to be making cash reserves when things slow down again in the future. Plus, it'd look terrible on the quarterly if personnel costs increased.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:13 pm Reply with quote
Small companies + Loads and loads of anime = Poor animators

Can we halve the number of anime each season now. The current number of anime per season are bad for the animators and most likely other staff. I think those bad Isekai LN adaptations should get the ax first, we need to cut the fat a bit.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:40 pm Reply with quote
Hoppy800 wrote:
Small companies + Loads and loads of anime = Poor animators

Can we halve the number of anime each season now. The current number of anime per season are bad for the animators and most likely other staff. I think those bad Isekai LN adaptations should get the ax first, we need to cut the fat a bit.

It's true that 200 billion spread very thinly across the whole industry with lots of productions means less money for everyone. It probably explains some of the record high bankruptcy levels in a year.

But at the same time, if you severely cut the anime it'll also mean much higher the risk, and because people are putting their eggs into smaller baskets, and because of that increased risk, it will also result in less diversity of productions. It may not be the isekai titles that get cut you know, because if those overall, over time bring in proftis by way of merchandise and increasing LN sales, then those will be kept as others are cut.
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Chrono1000





PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:40 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
If this news of increased profits does not coincide with an uptick in the average remuneration of animators, some eyebrows beg to be justly raised...
The article mentions that the smaller production companies have more work and less income so the situation is still complicated. The small production company don't own any of the IP, there are a lot of them so they are easy to replace, and they have the lowest wages for animators. That situation is unlikely to change in the near future since there is a limited amount of work and a large number of animators in the labor pool.

Hoppy800 wrote:
Can we halve the number of anime each season now. The current number of anime per season are bad for the animators and most likely other staff. I think those bad Isekai LN adaptations should get the ax first, we need to cut the fat a bit.
Well besides the fact that you are talking about less jobs for animators you might want to consider that if less anime was made they would probably cut the shows that carry the highest risk of failure which would be original productions.
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Stevangelion



Joined: 08 Feb 2017
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 8:45 pm Reply with quote
This seems like a great thing yet every comment has been negative so far… hmmm.
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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 10:32 pm Reply with quote
I've posted and reposted these Answerman quotes to death on other sites, but they're highly relevant here:

"Japan's seemingly-inevitable tumble off the economic cliff in the next few decades is a constant concern for every Japanese business, especially one such as anime, which still depends heavily on the domestic market to make its money, and on domestic talent to get produced. The anime industry is trying to head this disaster off at the pass. Both the government and the major companies have invested a great amount of resources into expanding the international market, especially into China and into English speaking parts of the world. The last five years have seen an epoch-making shift in how much revenue comes in from places like Crunchyroll and Chinese streaming platforms, versus Japanese fans. I haven't seen recent numbers, but it's generally thought that overseas sales are now as important to a show's bottom line as domestic fans -- perhaps moreso." animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2016-10-17/.107730

"Business is booming in the anime industry right now. Streaming revenues from North America and China have more than offset declines in DVD/Blu-ray revenues. However, this rise in cashflow is not trickling down to the actual anime production companies, who have spent decades cutting their costs to the bone in order to stay competitive. Rather than pay more for production, the producers on the Production Committees are using the money to make more shows."
animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-05-26/.116584

I just posted this on MAL this evening: "I was myself expecting the industry to shrink or collapse due to falling profits, until I read those articles. (The idea of the industry collapsing didn't really bother me; I don't exactly need anime to keep being made.) Now, I'm concerned about other issues, like the workforce shortage, which is surely worsened by poor pay and conditions. And in the long term, if the balance continues to shift and the foreign market actually starts to dominate in importance, it seems inevitable that the very nature of anime will change."
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Jonny Mendes



Joined: 17 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 3:21 am Reply with quote
Hoppy800 wrote:
Small companies + Loads and loads of anime = Poor animators

Can we halve the number of anime each season now. The current number of anime per season are bad for the animators and most likely other staff. I think those bad Isekai LN adaptations should get the ax first, we need to cut the fat a bit.

Good idea. Lets tell publishers like Kadokawa that are poring loads of money in the anime industry, to stop doing that, because the studios don't need that money to stay afloat.

Is money from those "Isekai LN adaptations" that help studios make new great anime originals.
You may don't like them, but if not from publishers like Kadokawa putting up Production Committees for anime promoting those LN isekai,adaptations, and others like school harems, power fantasy, fanservice, rom/com, the anime industry would not be what is today. You would have a few big studios making the usual mainstream battle shone for teen kids and kodomo anime for children and that's it.

You would have less studios, less animators, less anime and a industry dependent a small number of anime. When the kids grow up and stop watching that shonen anime, the audiences would drop.

If you halve the number of anime each season, what you would have is half of today animators and staff doing the same kind of work as today. Noting else would change for them.

Of course that can be substitute those anime by animation made in Japan for foreign companies and markets, but that would make anime having only very few genres that appeal for those markets,loosing most of the fan base anime have in Japan and becoming dependent of those markets and mainstrean TV anime to survive.

You can imagine what would happen when the Chinese start making animation in China and when American companies lost interest in animation made in Japan.
And don't forget Japanese TV channel are loosing interest in anime with less time slots for anime.

What really need to change is the work mentality, but that is cultural and more difficult to change.
Like one Japanese friend of mine told me "Westerns work to live, but Asians live to work and that what they want do to." Friends from there told me that was strange that westerns have so many day off and that they don't want to be that much time without working or studding.
nDroae wrote:

I just posted this on MAL this evening: "I was myself expecting the industry to shrink or collapse due to falling profits, until I read those articles. (The idea of the industry collapsing didn't really bother me; I don't exactly need anime to keep being made.) Now, I'm concerned about other issues, like the workforce shortage, which is surely worsened by poor pay and conditions. And in the long term, if the balance continues to shift and the foreign market actually starts to dominate in importance, it seems inevitable that the very nature of anime will change."


From what i see today, what i would expect to happen is the quantity of anime increasing and if workforce are not enough, looking for more workforce in studios outside Japan, even more than today.

What probably happen is continuing increasing of new anime for Japanese market using the money that foreign companies like Chinese or American are paying for Japanese talent and studios making animations for those foreign markets.

If that will be sustainable in the long term, I don't know.
Probably the Chinese will be the firsts to bail out, making their own animation in China.
American companies are more difficult to know, because animation made in Japan is cheaper than if made in America, so companies like Netflix will be paying for more animation made in Japan for some time.
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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
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Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 5:13 am Reply with quote
Stevangelion wrote:
This seems like a great thing yet every comment has been negative so far… hmmm.


Industry wide is great. But the per studio income especially the imbalance of income against the smaller studios is not great. Smaller studios get more work but earn way too little.
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teferi



Joined: 16 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:51 am Reply with quote
Quote:
What really need to change is the work mentality, but that is cultural and more difficult to change.
Like one Japanese friend of mine told me "Westerns work to live, but Asians live to work and that what they want do to." Friends from there told me that was strange that westerns have so many day off and that they don't want to be that much time without working or studding.


The US is at least as bad as Japan as far as paid vacation and in some cases worse.
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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
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Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:56 am Reply with quote
teferi wrote:
Quote:
What really need to change is the work mentality, but that is cultural and more difficult to change.
Like one Japanese friend of mine told me "Westerns work to live, but Asians live to work and that what they want do to." Friends from there told me that was strange that westerns have so many day off and that they don't want to be that much time without working or studding.


The US is at least as bad as Japan as far as paid vacation and in some cases worse.


I dont think you can make that generalization as it depends on your employer.

And for jobs in the creative arts I dont know how say a 4 weeks paid vacation would work when productions are made on a schedule, would a director, scriptwriter, or even an animator just take off their time when a production is at threat of falling behind or not making deadlines. And since some of these people arent working for all 12 months of a year, it seems even more complicating.
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Distant Thunder



Joined: 18 Mar 2016
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 11:51 am Reply with quote
Яeverse wrote:
teferi wrote:
Quote:
What really need to change is the work mentality, but that is cultural and more difficult to change.
Like one Japanese friend of mine told me "Westerns work to live, but Asians live to work and that what they want do to." Friends from there told me that was strange that westerns have so many day off and that they don't want to be that much time without working or studding.


The US is at least as bad as Japan as far as paid vacation and in some cases worse.


I dont think you can make that generalization as it depends on your employer.

And for jobs in the creative arts I dont know how say a 4 weeks paid vacation would work when productions are made on a schedule, would a director, scriptwriter, or even an animator just take off their time when a production is at threat of falling behind or not making deadlines. And since some of these people arent working for all 12 months of a year, it seems even more complicating.


I don't see why it shouldn't be possible. If not, I'd wager It's just a symptom of bad organization and counter-productive HR cuts: The answer is, that single person shouldn't be so essential to the show that they can't rest for a month or else everything goes under. If they can't hire/train a backup then it gets back to the original funding/revenue distribution problem we discuss here.

When that person has an accident or really any kind of urgent business that prevents them from working for an extended period of time, what happens? The company just shuts down?
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 2:17 pm Reply with quote
Hoppy800 wrote:
Small companies + Loads and loads of anime = Poor animators

Can we halve the number of anime each season now. The current number of anime per season are bad for the animators and most likely other staff. I think those bad Isekai LN adaptations should get the ax first, we need to cut the fat a bit.
There are studios out there who barely make any Anime per season and still have under paid animators.
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