Forum - View topicINTEREST: Parrot Analytics: Global Anime Consumption Has Nearly Doubled Since 2017
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5828 Location: Virginia, United States |
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I am sure we don't need 40 anime a year in the future, but nor am I going to say we need to reduce the amount of anime that currently exists.
We have finally come to a place where there is quite literally something for everyone. No one can say that anime is solely the provenance of boys and young men now. American production companies don't really seem to care about Japanese animation studios or their workers, nor does the money that they are injecting into the anime industry reaching those that anime fans want to help. The issue doesn't appear to be how many shows that are being put out, but rather that the production companies here and in Japan don't want to pay a living wage or salary to the animation studio and their workers. The calls to reduce the amount of anime currently available, won't solve the worker wage issue. The workers won't get more money and they will still have to do overtime, no matter how much you reduce the amount of anime out there. The problem is what the production companies in American and in Japan want, and seemingly, they do not want to contractually ensure the animation companies are paying a living wage. I think the animation studios and the production companies have equal blame. It is a thorny issue that will require some sort of 'sea change' in the industry. I think many of us thought the influx of American money would have provided an impetus or have shown a way forward to the anime production committees, but if the American production companies don't give a damn, why should Japan. Just like the PC/Console Gaming industy, the anime industry suffers from 'crunch' and set schedules that must be met. If you don't meet your commitments, you start losing money. It is easy to say, set realistic goals, but I think there are many outside factors that reduce your options to do that. I don't know what you could do to solve that. At the very least there should be significant rewards to those that do meet their commitments, when it comes to 'crunch'. In my opinion, there is another bad thing in advocating the reduction of anime, is that you are going to lose that diversity in anime, that many have wanted for years now. Then you are going to have an anime fandom meltdown, where we all start blaming each other for the loss of our individual favorite themes and genre. You want better conditions for anime studio workers, then force the American production companies to contractually bind the animation studios to pay them a living wage. This can be done as part of the contract process, during contract neogotions with the anime company. Of course, someone would have to make this profitable for the anime studio. But that is all part and parcel of the contractual process. So, someone has to lead the way, and the Japanese production companies aren't going to be the ones to do that. So why not us American PC overlords. |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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People just need to ask themselves if they'd be fine with all the anime that sells under 2000 disks each season being culled. since studios would only go with safe bets if the industry collapsed. Looking at 2021's sales so far, that only leaves mostly mobage anime and LN adaptions. I might be okay with that, but that's a lot of diversity that's going to get cut and would no doubt upset folks. |
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poltroon
Posts: 104 |
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As far as demand, my family generally likes to watch two episodes a day of anime and this is pretty much all the TV we watch. But that means that we need 14 shows a season to be fully satisfied. Times three seasons and you're pretty close to that 50 shows a year number. The back catalog won't last forever, alas.
We won't watch everything and we'll drop shows that aren't working for us, but it does mean we watch some mediocre but watchable shows at times. To an earlier point, what we consider watchable is surely not universal. Like others, I'm amused at the "not enough to meet demand" because I'm not sure the numbers have enough data to show that. But still: yes, bring me another season of my favorite animes, please. I don't care that much about genre, but I like to see something that is well animated, with a decent story, good voice acting, and reasonable dialog and characters. |
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azhanei
Posts: 79 |
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My big question is what is the survey defining as "anime"? Hulu and Netflix have bigger subscriber bases, period, and a fair amount of anime. But they also basically use "anime" as a marketing term for animation.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4371 Location: New York |
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The democratization of media via streaming has shown a demand for anime that wouldn’t be noticeable had it been confirmed to more traditional media.
But how you define shortages? Shows can only be made so fast, and defining the it in those terms makes the assumption all anime is equal, like demand for hard products such as iron and gasoline. We have an industry operating at capacity and the best way for it to reach more people is with quality product. Maybe I’m off on this, but shortage feels like a peculiar way to quantify it. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9841 Location: Virginia |
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If I read the article correctly they were not actually measuring a shortage or an inability to meet demand. What they said was that anime made up a larger percentage of the streaming audience than the percentage of content available. That basically means more people watched the same content. I'm not sure how you would measure an inability to meet demand. Viewers who can't find anything to stream don't leave measurable tracks that I know of.
I can think of several causes for the difference that don't involve a lack of content. Reports indicate that China severely restricts what anime can legally be streamed in the country, so a huge market has to concentrate its measurable viewing on a few shows. Europeans on this forum constantly complain about lack of legal access to much of available anime which would have the same effect. In North America, the anime available on non streaming outlets is minor. If you want to watch much anime you have to stream it. Other media has multiple outlets. I don't think the answer is more anime. Europe could be addressed by better access and the causes of the discrepancy in North America acknowledged. Nothing to be done about China. |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4371 Location: New York |
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That makes more sense. In that context, the solution is what caused the increased consumption in the first place, easier access to markets less served by existing channels.
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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They sorta do make mediocre anime on purpose. Good anime are unique. They try things, either visually, or with storytelling, that haven't been done before. They also cost more if you want good production values. But being unique is risky. There's no guarantee that it will be good / well received (ie: all good anime are unique, but not all unique anime are good). So to make a really good anime with widespread appeal, it's more expensive and more risky. It's much cheaper and much safer to make an anime the follows the mold as is guaranteed to do reasonably okay sales figures. So companies decide to make mediocre anime because it's safer. |
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