Forum - View topicINTEREST: ANiUTa President Comments on Decline of Anime & Anime Music Industries
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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Now, Sasaki-san, can you convince the various powers that be in the Anime industry in Japan that they really need to pay attention to this? I'm hoping that you can, Sir. Mark Gosdin |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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Because the price for those products usually is ridiculously high for the Japanese consumer, "light users" would rather spend the same money on say a Nendoroid, a nice shirt, a whole cosplay outfit, or whatever than to pay a small fortune for 3-4 episodes of a 2 cour series. I am not surprised fans would reverse import Blu Rays when clearly there home nation distributers hasn't the concept that they could sell more product (and consequently gain more profit) to "light users" by figuring out a way to cut the price point. |
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omoikane
Posts: 494 |
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This is untrue... People who buy cosplays want a cosplay outfit, not because they want to buy some blu-rays? They're not interchangable items at all. Not to mention light users won't be cosplaying... People who want to spend $10 or $100 on turning their bags into itabags won't be buying blu-rays either. Or for that matter people who spend 600y/mo on Aniuta are likely just happy to get AnisonSpotify. It's meant for a generic audience much like Spotify is, but it's also true that things are going this way just because the time are a-changing. If you're going Don Quixote on this at least pick the right windmill. |
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Heibi
 Posts: 50 |
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Also, not alienating all other countries by "Japan Only" sales policy might help a little. The market in Japan is finite, the market outside Japan is growing. Not all companies do that policy, just a few. But I can't help but think that the ones doing Japan Only policies on sales are only hurting their bottom line.
Nendroids range in price from 30-40 dollars US if you convert the Yen price. That's about half the cost of their Blu-rays and DVDs. But not something the average kid can just go in and buy. Shirts and clothing are also expensive in Japan, ranging from 25-70 dollars US when converted from Yen. Clothes almost rival the cost of Blu-ray and DVD. CD prices range from 15-30 dollars usually. The one thing I can say, having bought Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs, and LDs from Japan is that the product and extras sometimes included are far better the US release. The art on the packaging and little extras are incredible. Would be nice if more was on the video formats but I prefer the quality I get from Japan. I'd love it if they did more direct to subtitle releases. |
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5527 |
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It really doesn't help that people can't afford this stuff. Even in Japan costs are going up with average pay not moving at all. People can't afford to spend 300+ dollars (Worth of yen) on a single cour anime. Japan does get really nice bonuses with their anime but drop that stuff and make it cheaper for the average consumer and maybe more people would buy it. As for this streaming service....Lossless or not worth it. |
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Hopefully he means producing anime shows that have potential to appeal to more mainstream viewers, but are still made with the Japanese fans primarily in mind... |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13555 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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While some Japanese companies may be open to less region-locks, Japanese copyright laws on such are another story. No wonder many copyright laws have to be reformed.
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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1. Stop the volume by volume releases of BD/DVD or lower the costs per volume down by 50-60% even if it means losing the feelies. Also, embrace the boxset sooner rather than later, boxsets in Japan come out 1 to even 20+ years after the anime has been available for a home video release, some older stuff should've been on BD years ago in Japan and we're now just getting BDs of early 2000's anime in Japan.
2. Move on to a merchandise model, as stated most casuals just buy goods and go to events. Focus on events and merchandise for the domestic market and merchandise for the international side. Also, be aware that it's older people who buy the merch (18+ these days), so have some for them in certain series such as Aikatsu or Pripara where there's a significant adult fanbase, 3. Embrace streaming more. Mobile streaming is happening more but there's a lot to be done for one, offer up major titles (Gundam, Precure, One Piece, etc.), right now it's primarily shorts that get the mobile streaming treatment outside of the West. Also, region locking for these apps needs to go ASAP. The Japanese fanbase is waning slightly while the Western, Chinese, and Taiwanese fanbases are increasing, it's time they let us get into the action without so many issues for the sake of your wallet. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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Wow, someone in the industry actually talking sense and considering the future? Hell must be freezing over again.
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khczvgm
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Edit.
Last edited by khczvgm on Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:39 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah! back in the late oughties when Anno had a similar rail about the decine of the industry, and the recent grumblings from Hayao (Grumpy-san) Miyazaki. Yet the people making the product keep chumming out the the same old otaku bait, No change there then.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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In one aspect they were saved by the increasing foreign dollars. Which when those foreign dollars stopped we had the implosion of the early-mid 2000's. This time there might not be a new miracle bailout from new sources.
I say this often, but I'm not against a small implosion of the market. The matter I think is less of price, and more of too much content. Fans tend to be obsessive and buy everything they can. I feel many are hitting burnout. We have so much that is so good, one can barely wrestle down our priorities. Also for the music folks, they don't have the saving grace of the foreign markets. People import their shows, yet I rarely encounter anyone that imports a music CD. |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1747 |
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I definitely think that the industry needs to be willing to try new ways to make money for their artists. There really is no reason why those beginning animators can't make a living wage from their hard work. Expecting them to put up with it under the "paying your dues" reason is what is driving them away. I would love to see studios acknowledge this is an issue and at the same time, allow those who can, donate to help them as a sort of crowdfunding project. I'd feel much more happy, as a fan of anime and manga, to be able to donate to something like a "Hana to Yume" or Studio Wit fund that would directly help these artists rather than hope that five cents of my overseas manga or anime purchase will trickle down to them. Of course, I'm sure that companies would find a way to take advantage of this and adjust what they pay each individual artist because the crowdfunding money will supplement their earnings.
Expecting overseas fans to subscribe to the antiquated methods Japan uses to distribute media, such as preventing the sale of music on non-Japanese iTunes, is what is also driving fans from buying. Why go through these hoops when, with a couple clicks of my keyboard, I can find it for free elsewhere? While it's nice to see someone else in the industry point out these issues, unless changes are made, this amounts to nothing more than a venting session. |
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Jonny Mendes
 Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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I understand the suffering of music and DVD/BD makers that need the CDs and the DVD/BD sales to make a decent profit on anime. They are the part of the production committee that have lost more in the recent years.
Less people are buying music CDs, BD's/DVD's. Looking in a deeper outlook, not many people buy physical media in Japan now or in the past. The houses don't have that available space and there here never a culture in buying DVDs/BDs. The high price of BDs in Japan came from that. Otaku started to buy the BD's that were destined to the rental market at rental market prices. When they try to decrease the price, there were little increase in sales and the makers of that BD/DVD had to return to higher prices or lose the profit. So even if they decrease the prices again, they will loss even more money than now. So now come the elephant in the room. How to keep the profits for BD's/DVD's and music companies. They can forget about going after profits in Late Night anime. Most of them are founded by big manga/LN publishers that only look at the increase of sale numbers of their manga and LN. That anime are infocomercials for the otaku market, the only ones watching that animes.
They can hope that manga/LN's publishers want to promote more mainstream manga/LN but still the Late Night otaku audience is still small and not very willing to go after that kind of anime. The only way out for music and DVD/BDs companies are: they founding original anime and find a way to bring that anime to the public. Outside of the Late Night market, daytime TV are not investing in having time slots for anime. So probably the have to make anime for streaming and hope that international market buy in to them. An the other question is. Are music companies looking at the international market? (looking at you, Avex Pictures) |
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omiya
 Posts: 1827 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Cough, I'm more of an anime music fan than an anime fan and feel that ANN doesn't properly cover the music side (where composer, lyricist, arranger and song title matter as well as the musicians, singers and what anime a song is from), so those who do import anime music on CD would not necessarily post about it much on ANN. Both the new music / anime and secondhand music / anime stores that I have visited in Japan have been very helpful when I've tried to find music by particular artists or from particular anime. Sites like CD Japan offer some of the best online service anywhere for ordering anime music. The goodwill from Japanese anime music artists in person and via Twitter to their overseas fans is amazing also. Some anime music record companies in Japan make their material more accessible to overseas customers by allowing worldwide access to their YouTube channels and offering overseas electronic sales (eg iTunes), and others eg Avex go out of their way to restrict overseas sales. PS I only found out that ANiUTa was a streaming company by reading the referenced article, not from the article that this thread is the talkback for. I would think that if subscribing to a streaming service or buying downloadable versions of music, one should get access to the credits (names of people responsible for the music) and lyrics. That is one of the reasons that I buy physical CD's. Last edited by omiya on Wed Apr 05, 2017 6:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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