Forum - View topicINTEREST: Anime Producer Discusses Changing Benchmarks for Home Video Sales
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Chrono1000
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Top Gun
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Even with the price difference, I wonder how many shows these days are making substantially more off of disk sales in the US than Japan.
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luffypirate
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Besides karekano the other week haven’t bought anything new in a while (don’t know if that even qualifies as “new” being a 20 year old TV anime lol) I haven’t been devoting enough time to check out what’s airing on TV. Newest stuff on my shelf is old anime that’s made its way to Blu-ray. I’d totally like to jump back into buying regularly but life and stuff. Recently got a set of vinyl turntables and related equipment. Been eating up all of my free time.
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Mr. sickVisionz
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Did a bubble really burst though? Is anything actually going wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Anime_television_series_by_year In 2000, 2005, and 2006 the number of TV anime were 56, 107, then 160. In 2018 it was 187. Did the # of otaku in Japan nearly triple from 2000 to 2006? Did the average otaku income triple in that time span? Where did the industry think these magic consumers with magic wallets were going to come from? Either way, they obviously haven't shown up like expected. Hopefully new revenue platforms kick up. It seems like rampant over production is the primary issue. The theory that Japan would have 3x the otaku or all otaku would have 3x the income is failed. The only options imo are to find a new market/income source to support 3x the output... or we see even more studios shuttering until the industry literally can't produce an insane number and can only do something reasonable. Maybe not 56 like 2000, but there's a ton of middle ground between 56 and 160. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Well, not just for the sake of owning, but for the sake of getting uncensored and corrected animation--sometimes massively corrected--and/or extra content whether in-episode or separate, I hope the bluray market never dies out, and I hope they still keep licensing them to western markets as usual.
If I had to guess, I'd say most of the low performing titles in the Japanese market probably do better in US sales which would be the majority. That's not because there's large dislike for all the other titles that aren't selling like hotcakes, but rather, collectors really, really have to choose how to spend their money with those kind of prices. Hell, I bet those US BDs sell better in Japan than the native JP BDs do seeing how there's a huge reverse importation market on Amazon.co.jp |
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Aphasial
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 122 Location: San Diego, CA |
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That brings in the elephant in the room too -- How much has the JP anime industry seen disc sales obliterated by English and Japan being in the same Blu-Ray region code vs DVD's distinct ones? When the market segments can't be compared, it's hard to continue contrasting media in different regions, but when two markets are merged and they have vastly different value propositions, it's not a surprise when the bottom drops out of one of them... |
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gloverrandal
Posts: 406 Location: Oita |
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The overall anime market in America is much smaller than Japans. I see no reason why America disk sales would not also be much smaller than Japans. Dragonball Z is currently being crowdfunded by Funimation and they only have 2541 pre-orders so far. For one of the biggest franchises of all time that is very low. Funimations previous Kickstarter for Escaflowne only had 2058 backers. If two popular series can only garner those numbers, the market is no doubt much smaller than Japans. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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That's a flawed proxy. Myself is a disproof of that. I buy a ton of anime blurays, I mean a lot., yet I have never really been that interested in DB/Z enough to buy its discs, so I have absolutely none. Escaflowne and DB/Z were already released titles that were getting re-released. That means people already have them. The amount of viewers watching all the streams combined would be a better proxy then some nominal fraction of that buying the discs. There's a lot more people in the US and a lot more who can afford to buy the discs. Note that I'm referring to the comparisons of the low performers as stated in the article. 1000 avg copies per volume sold in Japan literally means only 1000 people in the whole country bought those discs. When you only have a handful of big sellers, then the rest, the vast majority are comprised of such low sellers, that's not a big consumer market full of disposable income at all there |
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Steve Minecraft
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As far as I know, there's zero info on American sales numbers so it's pretty unfounded to say more Americans buy disks than the Japanese. Most anime do not even get American home video releases these days, especially ones that sell poorly in Japan. You don't exactly see companies rushing out to put out a set for Caligula, Koi wa Ameagari no You ni, Tenshi no 3P, or Sengoku Night Blood just to name a few flops from last year. By default, those low selling series still sell more in Japan because there are no American sales for them. America having a bigger population doesn't automatically equate to more people buying a product. By that logic American comic books should sell much more than manga, but we know that they clearly don't. Remember anime is a niche in America, much more than it is in Japan. And even if we agree American disks sell more, it doesn't mean they automatically make more money. A show selling 1000 is actually selling 1000 per volume. So a single cour length series which puts out 6 disks is actually selling 6000 disks at lets say 7000 yen a pop, which is 42 million yen. Would a budget American release of a failed anime bring in that much money? |
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Chichiryuutei
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I'm starting to think that Japanese managers/companies don't understand basic supply side economics.
My manager (Japanese) constantly thinks (well he's force by his managers) that we can sell the same device that was manufacture >5 years ago for more than when it was released. Purple walk away (specially if you've competitors). The big issue in Japan is that you need to give a day's worth of your salary to purchase 2 (maybe 3/4 if you are lucky) episodes of an anime series. It's incredible that they've gotten away with it for so long. The American model (Funimation) is far better. They'd be selling >100ku if they adopted it. I mean Aniplex is asking for $150 for 15 episodes of Bakemonogatari. $150 for Gurren Lagann. $240 for Valvrave. $300 for Kill la Kill. They're crazy!!! No wonder there's so much piracy in Japan. They can't even import US releases (try it, Amazon will tell you no due to customs restrictions). I do think the West is yelling though. Anime is selling better and better here (Funimation was value at $150M) and with streaming in China and the West, they committees can make up the revenue that they're obviously leaving in the table in Japan (so that gatcha games can leave you homeless). |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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This has already been proven false a long time ago. Lowering the price of disks did not lead to an increase in sales numbers, it only led to a decrease in profit because they were selling them for less money. Price is not a concern at all for collectors in Japan. As you say, they've been doing it for decades. The American model is not better in my opinion. I've seen Funimation's releases and not only is the packaging always terrible and ugly, the video quality is also worse than the Japanese disks. Their upscales and remasters are notoriously bad among the videophile community. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. It seems the real issue is a lot of Americans who refuse to pay more than 30 dollars for a boxset are trying to impose their views on other people who clearly do no share their opinion. Yet despite all this, Japan's domestic market is still worth more than the American market, and always will. |
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Chichiryuutei
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I don't know about the always will be stronger part (when they're expected to lose 20M-30M citizens over the next decades).
Whenever Funimation/Sentai does a sale, the volumes tend to disappear so anime is selling better and better in the US (maybe all over the West). Don't get hurt dude, Japan is nice but it has many flaws. This been one. In the past, otakus needed to buy releases not anymore. The internet has changed things.I don't think that Japanese otakus are asking for $200 releases either (please find me a report of otakus asking for $300 releases). The most loyal will pay them but not the rest hence the decline in sales. Also, why is $30-60 (collector's box price) bad? That's $2-$5 per episode. A Hollywood movie cost $10-$20 and those are 2-3hrs long. A song is usually $1. A tv season can be had for $6-$10. So I'm overpaying for a lower quality (anime is usually done at 540p (unless high end movies) and then upscale, lower cost (12 episodes = ~$3M production cost) product and you still think that I should pay $60 for 1hr of entertainment (comparing to Japan prices) lol. Japan can stay silent for all I care and let their big corporations run the show but in a market economy I set the price and $30-$60 pays for the dub and release here. I don't have to think like Japan nor feel bad about it because I want to avoid conflict. That's laughable |
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