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INTEREST: Parrot Analytics: Global Anime Consumption Has Nearly Doubled Since 2017


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Redbeard 101
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:24 pm Reply with quote
Touma55 wrote:

Who decides what is mediocre? Not everybody likes the same thing, so I really don't see how that would work. You my hate a certain isekai while someone else might love it. It sounds like you are saying people shouldn't watch what they want, but should instead watch what everyone else says is good. That is absolutely ridiculous imo if that is what you are saying.


For starters it's not what I am saying. So let's start there.

Of course people have different tastes and not everyone likes the same thing. Just because someone likes something though doesn't mean that show can't still be mediocre. I for example quite enjoyed Ikki Tousen and Queens Blade. You won't see me claiming though that they aren't mediocre and are somehow bastions of great anime storytelling.

The topic though of "what is mediocre" is a bit of a conundrum. There is no easy answer most times. Ex-Arms, for example, shows it can be a bit easier from a technical stand point though. Much as how people have different tastes, people also have different ideas on what mediocrity might be. For some it might be based on the technical merits of the animation itself. For others maybe it's the oversaturation and inundation of a specific genre or sub-genre. Which currently is isekai titles. In the past it was moe. There's always one genre/sub-genre that's beaten to death at any given time period.

The point I was making though is that as long as people keep watching 20+ shows a season, they will keep making 20+ shows a season. The production companies will only stop if the viewership stops. They might even know that title "X" is garbage and redundant, but if it gets them the money they won't care. We can all debate on which ones are the mediocre shows of a season, but statistically they are not all great shows. If they were all amazing then we wouldn't be having the discussion of there not needing to be more anime produced each season than what there already is now would we? We wouldn't be championing better pay rates for animators and better working conditions if they weren't already worked to the bone.

Deciding which shows are worth animating and which ones should be left on the cutting room floor is the conundrum for the production companies. It's the conundrum they should figure out though. Not see reports like this and think that even more is the answer.
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Touma55



Joined: 22 May 2021
Posts: 225
PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:35 pm Reply with quote
Redbeard 101 wrote:
Touma55 wrote:

Who decides what is mediocre? Not everybody likes the same thing, so I really don't see how that would work. You my hate a certain isekai while someone else might love it. It sounds like you are saying people shouldn't watch what they want, but should instead watch what everyone else says is good. That is absolutely ridiculous imo if that is what you are saying.


For starters it's not what I am saying. So let's start there.

Of course people have different tastes and not everyone likes the same thing. Just because someone likes something though doesn't mean that show can't still be mediocre. I for example quite enjoyed Ikki Tousen and Queens Blade. You won't see me claiming though that they aren't mediocre and are somehow bastions of great anime storytelling.

The topic though of "what is mediocre" is a bit of a conundrum. There is no easy answer most times. Ex-Arms, for example, shows it can be a bit easier from a technical stand point though. Much as how people have different tastes, people also have different ideas on what mediocrity might be. For some it might be based on the technical merits of the animation itself. For others maybe it's the oversaturation and inundation of a specific genre or sub-genre. Which currently is isekai titles. In the past it was moe. There's always one genre/sub-genre that's beaten to death at any given time period.

The point I was making though is that as long as people keep watching 20+ shows a season, they will keep making 20+ shows a season. The production companies will only stop if the viewership stops. They might even know that title "X" is garbage and redundant, but if it gets them the money they won't care. We can all debate on which ones are the mediocre shows of a season, but statistically they are not all great shows. If they were all amazing then we wouldn't be having the discussion of there not needing to be more anime produced each season than what there already is now would we? We wouldn't be championing better pay rates for animators and better working conditions if they weren't already worked to the bone.

Deciding which shows are worth animating and which ones should be left on the cutting room floor is the conundrum for the production companies. It's the conundrum they should figure out though. Not see reports like this and think that even more is the answer.


I am sorry, but English isn't my first language and maybe that is what is causing me trouble, but I don't think I understand. What exactly are you wanting viewers to do?
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:46 pm Reply with quote
Redbeard 101 wrote:
The point I was making though is that as long as people keep watching 20+ shows a season, they will keep making 20+ shows a season. The production companies will only stop if the viewership stops.


When viewers stop or radically decrease their watching then Crunchy, Funimation, HiDIve, etc. will be the next DramaFever. Japan and Korea has not afaik stopped making live action dramas, they simply stopped exporting them and adjusted their production for the internal market, they didn't went soul searching for what went wrong and started producing "good" and "quality" series.
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Yttrbio
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:59 pm Reply with quote
Is the growing demand from anime watchers individually wanting to watch more anime, or the number of people watching anime going up? Because if it's the latter, the idea that more needs to be produced to "keep up with demand" seems kind of silly. Each show can meet the demand of an infinite number of people, animators don't need to crank out more work as more people watch the show.

I also don't really understand the Redbeard 101 argument. I don't see how to read it as anything other than "don't watch the stuff you like if it's not high quality," which seems like putting the cart before the horse in an consumable entertainment medium.
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Redbeard 101
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:08 pm Reply with quote
Touma55 wrote:

I am sorry, but English isn't my first language and maybe that is what is causing me trouble, but I don't think I understand. What exactly are you wanting viewers to do?


It's not really a situation of what I want viewers to do, it's what viewers need to do. If people want the anime production studios to actually make less anime then viewers have to watch less. As long as people keep watching 20+ series each season then the companies will keep making 20+ series each season. This leads to animators working even more hours for low pay, and a higher percentage of simply average quality titles each season.


Yttrbio wrote:

I also don't really understand the Redbeard 101 argument. I don't see how to read it as anything other than "don't watch the stuff you like if it's not high quality," which seems like putting the cart before the horse in an consumable entertainment medium.


I really am failing to see what is hard to get about my point. Look, you can watch whatever you want. Anyone can. I have not said people should only watch what the masses deem to be good quality. The simple truth of the matter though is not all anime are equal in quality. We can debate what is or is not "quality", but if every series was top quality we would not even be debating the idea of there needs to be less anime produced each year right? If every title was amazing we'd all be clamoring for more, not less. Right? That has zero to do with someone's personal enjoyment of a show. I'm sure there are some that enjoy Ex-Arm for example.

There are a plethora of lower rated titles each year that still get a lot of views. Perhaps some people truly like those titles. Perhaps some simply watch everything they can even if they don't like it out of some sense of completionism. We see a lot of people in these very forums that keep watching shows they don't even really enjoy or rate low.

The simple fact is if people are going to say that there needs to be less anime, not more, produced each season then one of the only true ways to achieve that is if viewers don't watch as much. As long as people keep watching every title possible, even those they don't care about, companies will keep producing more and more titles. Animators will continue to be overworked to the point of sickness to fulfill this ever increasing demand as well. Companies aren't going to simply put more effort into shows or be more selective with what they produce unless we (the viewers) put their feet to the fire so to speak.


Last edited by Redbeard 101 on Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Touma55



Joined: 22 May 2021
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:22 pm Reply with quote
Redbeard 101 wrote:
Touma55 wrote:

I am sorry, but English isn't my first language and maybe that is what is causing me trouble, but I don't think I understand. What exactly are you wanting viewers to do?


It's not really a situation of what I want viewers to do, it's what viewers need to do. If people want the anime production studios to actually make less anime then viewers have to watch less. As long as people keep watching 20+ series each season then the companies will keep making 20+ series each season. This leads to animators working even more hours for low pay, and a higher percentage of simply average quality titles each season.


I honestly don't see how that will help. If a company makes 20 series and 10 of them get poor viewership they will most likely just consider those 10 to be flops and hope more of the next 20 they make aren't flops. Besides most anime adaptions are basically ads for the source material so as long as enough Japanese viewers buy the source material it will most likely be considered a success anyway.
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:32 pm Reply with quote
Yttrbio wrote:
Is the growing demand from anime watchers individually wanting to watch more anime, or the number of people watching anime going up? Because if it's the latter, the idea that more needs to be produced to "keep up with demand" seems kind of silly. Each show can meet the demand of an infinite number of people, animators don't need to crank out more work as more people watch the show.


My explanation would be that (believe it or not) that atm most anime viewers watch 0-3 series per season, people that have an account at MAL (or similar) would be hard core and those that comment on this or other anime forums are the core of the core minority.

You might be thinking "How would producing twice the amount increases the amount of shows casual viewers watch?". When I look at top three animes this season what do I see:

1) asexual isekai protagonist.
2) young superheros
3) yankee delinquents.

There are no other animes atm with said characteristics. Yeah, this way oversimplified, but thinking that the people that invest their money into anime production are also anime fans imo is a mistake, they want to see an explanation that fills at most one sheet of paper saying why some new proposal can become top tier in popularity.

Of course, I can be totally wrong, someone with more insight please do correct me with some data,
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MagicPolly



Joined: 26 Nov 2020
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 12:07 am Reply with quote
I think my main issue with "people need to stop watching 20+ shows per season" (which honestly I agree) is that I'm not entirely sure how much the producers will care considering that outside of Japan is a secondary market. Unless the plan is more obscure shows get less views = streaming services don't find them profitable = don't license them = Japan doesn't get licensing money. Even then though, I don't see them stopping making so many shows simply for that reason. The main market will always be Japan and even if a show like Wonder Egg Priority gets good reception over here, it ends up selling only around a thousand copies of its first BD volume. (Though I bring up WEP and Cloverworks was pumping out three shows that season to each of their detriments)
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 12:51 am Reply with quote
Tripple-A wrote:
There are A LOT of people that watch nearly every anime each season, even if they don't particularly like it, you just have to check how many people watch stuff that they rate really low. Sure everyone watches stuff once in a while that they don't even like, I guess most people don't like to quit and leave something unfinished, but the sheer amount of low rated stuff that some watch is astonishing.

Redbeard 101 wrote:
The point I was making though is that as long as people keep watching 20+ shows a season, they will keep making 20+ shows a season. The production companies will only stop if the viewership stops.


Even when my free time was at its greatest, it never, ever made sense to me that people watched anime this way. Even one new episode per weekday has always been more than I could keep up with.

MagicPolly wrote:
I think my main issue with "people need to stop watching 20+ shows per season" (which honestly I agree) is that I'm not entirely sure how much the producers will care considering that outside of Japan is a secondary market. Unless the plan is more obscure shows get less views = streaming services don't find them profitable = don't license them = Japan doesn't get licensing money. Even then though, I don't see them stopping making so many shows simply for that reason. The main market will always be Japan and even if a show like Wonder Egg Priority gets good reception over here, it ends up selling only around a thousand copies of its first BD volume. (Though I bring up WEP and Cloverworks was pumping out three shows that season to each of their detriments)


Did you see the feature on how big licensing money is these days? Nearly half the industry's revenue came from overseas in 2019 according to the AJA.
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MagicPolly



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 1:16 am Reply with quote
Shay Guy wrote:
MagicPolly wrote:
I think my main issue with "people need to stop watching 20+ shows per season" (which honestly I agree) is that I'm not entirely sure how much the producers will care considering that outside of Japan is a secondary market. Unless the plan is more obscure shows get less views = streaming services don't find them profitable = don't license them = Japan doesn't get licensing money. Even then though, I don't see them stopping making so many shows simply for that reason. The main market will always be Japan and even if a show like Wonder Egg Priority gets good reception over here, it ends up selling only around a thousand copies of its first BD volume. (Though I bring up WEP and Cloverworks was pumping out three shows that season to each of their detriments)


Did you see the feature on how big licensing money is these days? Nearly half the industry's revenue came from overseas in 2019 according to the AJA.

I did see that but I didn't get a chance to read it thoroughly at the time.
So I guess while licensing money would be substantial, there's still the fact that you have to get so few people watching a show that the streaming service just straight up chooses not to license it. And it's not like they can just see what's a flop early on and then stop licensing it, they have to make the decision months/years in advance (as the feature says). This goes doubly so for originals since nobody knows how the public will react to them beforehand where adaptations can be judged on their source material.
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animefan57892





PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 2:53 am Reply with quote
(I think) Oversea market is not comparable to local market(Japan).
Good anime is not necessarily profitable anime.
Anime industry is business.

More global viewers demanding for anime (I think it means more people want to watch anime) don't mean studios should pump out more anime titles. The idea that X% of viewer demanding for anime so there should be X% of anime fit the category is ludicrous. The logic is If 100% of viewer demanding anime so anime output (less than 100%) lags behind demand.

For casual anime viewers, top ranking(score or number of viewers) anime should satisfy their needs.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 3:39 am Reply with quote
BonusStage wrote:

I guess I'm not as pessimistic as other people and think this is a good thing overall. If people don't like certain anime they don't have to watch them, but I would much rather we have too much anime than not enough.


Be careful what ya wish for - remember the joke back when cable TV exploded: "hundreds of channels, and nothing to watch! Laughing


Redbeard 101 wrote:

I agree. I would go one step further though. People need to stop tuning into the streams of these mediocre anime. We have how many isekai each season for example? As long as people keep tuning in to every lowest common denominator show they'll keep making them, regardless if it's isekai or not. The studios need to make better decisions and start focusing on quality over quantity. The problem is unless viewers hold their feet to the fire and don't watch the mediocre stuff they will just keep going as they are now.


Sounds like regular television Laughing

(Like the time when seems every channel has a reality show)

Anyways, guess it's just bears repeating - anime is becoming regular television

The complaints we're hearing here are the same complaints we've always heard about the boobtube. Take it as ya will
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504NOSON2
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 8:12 am Reply with quote
MagicPolly wrote:
Consumption going up is fine, it's production going up thats the issue. The Kadokawa announcement of 40 anime a year still scares me.


Absolute facts. Even if they were producing 40 Chaikas, Brave Witches, and Railgun 3’s, it would still be entirely too much, especially since about 200 series are produced each year already. The extremely long working hours and abysmal pay of the animators isn’t worth us getting another 50+ isekai titles (they’re good, but we’re over saturated at this point).
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El Hermano



Joined: 24 Feb 2019
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 4:44 pm Reply with quote
MagicPolly wrote:
I think my main issue with "people need to stop watching 20+ shows per season" (which honestly I agree) is that I'm not entirely sure how much the producers will care considering that outside of Japan is a secondary market. Unless the plan is more obscure shows get less views = streaming services don't find them profitable = don't license them = Japan doesn't get licensing money. Even then though, I don't see them stopping making so many shows simply for that reason. The main market will always be Japan and even if a show like Wonder Egg Priority gets good reception over here, it ends up selling only around a thousand copies of its first BD volume. (Though I bring up WEP and Cloverworks was pumping out three shows that season to each of their detriments)


The thing is 'overseas' doesn't just mean America, or the west as a whole. It includes China, Korea, Singapore, and other east and southeast Asian countries. And every market has their own tastes and preferences so there's no universal Although I suspect overseas and Japanese domestic tastes aren't as different as people might think they are. If isekai shows like Shield Hero are what are being funded and being made in regards to overseas audience consumption, then that's probably going to continue, Outside the occasional Netflix or Crunchyroll project that doesn't seem to appeal to anyone, I don't think anything is really going to change.

I watch a lot of anime every season, although I usually skip the ones I know I won't like or are aimed at me such as BL and most shoujo. But in general I don't like using places like MAL to judge audience reception or feedback. It's a niche community within the anime fandom niche. Not everyone uses it, and I'd even suspect most people don't; unless people really think Gintama is the most popular and well regarded anime of all time in English speaking territories I'd say there's probably more anime discussion on other sites like YouTube and Tiktok so to judge what's the most popular is going to be hard to do outside the obvious mainstream shows like Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia.
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DaResidentDouche



Joined: 06 Aug 2021
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 9:12 pm Reply with quote
Good and I hope the difference between the demand and supply widens. This will ensure the industry will reset after the burst and start all over again like how it was from the mid 90s and onwards.
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