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NEWS: Japanese Anime Market Grew to 242 Billion Yen in 2006


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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:31 pm Reply with quote
kokuryu wrote:
Also the DVD titles are just too expensive! Have you seen how much the 2nd volume of Galaxy Angel Rune is? $50! When the average "Hollywood" DVD runs $20 to $25 when first released, and can be found in bargin bins for under $8, the prices need an adjustment...


Good job, pick a title form the publisher that everyone agrees overcharges and charges twice as much as everyone else (for less content). Let's ignore that $24.99 is now the typical retail price for Viz and some Bandai Entertainment titles, and that some are even $19.99, the same as a Hollywood movie, and that the average anime DVD doesn't cost that much more than a Hollywood DVD after the typical discounts are taken into account.

tempest wrote:
So, the result, 50% more sales, split between 100% more shows = -25% sales per show average. Add in the higher productions costs, and the bottom line is looking very grim indeed.


So, could it not be logically deduced that perhaps part of the problem is that there is simply too much anime?
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:13 am Reply with quote
HitokiriShadow wrote:
So, could it not be logically deduced that perhaps part of the problem is that there is simply too much anime?


Not only would it be logical, it would be correct.

-t
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britannicamoore



Joined: 05 Dec 2005
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:43 am Reply with quote
kokuryu wrote:
lots of points


i agree with a big chunk of what you said. i can't speak on the 70s (as i didn't exist) but everything esle makes sense. I buy most of my anime at Best Buy with occasinal online purchases. I haven't been able to get the Genon titles I wanted because they're $30 and i said I wouldn't spend $30 on a single DVD anymore unless its special edition.

I was thinking the same thing along the lines of trying to close the gap on release times. I think Tokyopop took a good start with that by releasing Gravitation EX aroudn the same time it dropped in Japan. So hopefully manga will start getting over fatser.

As for anime well..i'm not sure it'd be possible. it'd be nice to see.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:09 am Reply with quote
tempest wrote:
Spoke to a few people, and my supposition was basically right. The market has grown by about 50% since 2000, but the number of titles has grown more significantly (about 100%).

In order to compete, companies have increased their production budgets (look at how many times companies like GDH have talked about per-episode budgets in the past couple years, with frequent boasts of "most expensive ever").

So, the result, 50% more sales, split between 100% more shows = -25% sales per show average. Add in the higher productions costs, and the bottom line is looking very grim indeed.


If were still on the topic of illegal downloads though, the statistic we need to look at from here is how the fanbase has grown. Unfortunately thats very tough to measure.

If the number of shows has increased by 100% and the average number of sales per fan remained the same, the fanbase would have had to also increase by 100% Has that happened since 2000? If were talking about just Japan still here, I really doubt it.

If it had increased 50% or less, then the average sales per fan has remained constant. Perhaps even increased. If this is the case, you cant say that more people are illegally downloading now than they used to be.

Falling sales are mostlikely much more a result of the market over producing. Its nice to have double the titles ofcourse, but the fanbase cannot support this quantity. Thus the market must go through a recession.
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Swissman



Joined: 11 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:48 am Reply with quote
Fiction Alchemist wrote:
Well, I like that the anime industry is making money, but then they say that it's because of Earthsea (Ghibli making money is typical; they're Ghibli), Pokemon (that ultra popular kids show), and Doraemon (ditto). From there, it goes "increase in television titles".

So... Are the properties I like not making any more money than before, or are the reports misleading and only mentioning what they want to mention?

The original report in japanese comes from this site.

"One of the characteristics of 2006 was the biggest number of broadcasted anime yet. Especially the number of late-night anime (after 23:00) has increased and now makes around half of all broadcasted shows. As dvd releases those anime will attribute to the increase of the market but it's necessary to see that the number of broadcasted anime shows a tendency of declining since summer season 2006.
In 2005 video soft (market)* which has towed the (overall anime) market takes a breather. Stocks of dvds are decreasing due to (the boost of) dvd production of past produced shows coming to and end, and the number of new produced titles has decreased. The question will be if sales of new produced dvds can be boosted in the future."

* (I guess this means the general dvd/video/hd-dvd/blueray market)
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:45 am Reply with quote
ikillchicken wrote:
If were still on the topic of illegal downloads though, the statistic we need to look at from here is how the fanbase has grown. Unfortunately thats very tough to measure.


Nah, we're talking about Japan, fansubs aren't an issue there (obviously) although non-fansub Internet piracy is.
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CCSYueh



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:02 pm Reply with quote
kokuryu wrote:

The other things that are hurting the anime/manga industry as a whole is the gap between the original Japanese releases and the international releases, the sheer length of time it takes to put out the next volume of anything (you have to remember, we don't have the weekly manga books being released here in the US - and if they did, they would probably charge $25 a pop, rather than the $5 it costs in Japan), the sheer volume of titles being produced internationally (too many to buy), the limited release time of the titles (have to keep them in production for at least 25 years - we have been in the dark that long, its gonna take a long time to catch up!), and the fact the practically every international economy is in a downswing so money is tight. I don't care about the paper quality used in the manga, I just want to read it - use newsprint but get the manga out at an affordable price like they do in Japan!


Sorry. I don't want my Graphic Novel on Newsprint.
Britain speaks the same language we do(basically) why does it take so long for them to get most of our stuff? So much some just buy it online here & have it shipped. My daughter's online friend in Germany was talking about seeing some movie we'd seen about 3 months earlier-finally made it there.

kokuryu wrote:

Also the DVD titles are just too expensive! Have you seen how much the 2nd volume of Galaxy Angel Rune is? $50! When the average "Hollywood" DVD runs $20 to $25 when first released, and can be found in bargin bins for under $8, the prices need an adjustment...


I believe Demon Prince Enma was worth it. And who pays full price? Sale, sale, sale.

And since you claim to know so much about the industry, you have to realize there is a HUGE difference between a Hollywood Blockbuster like 300 or PotC3 which likely made enough off the box office to break even or make a profit that the home video market is just icing on the cake, There's also the rental & pay-per-view market, plus tv rights. Since you know so much about the industry, you also know 90% of anime not only doesn't get that box office offset, the licensee has to recoup the cost of the license & the cost of the dub. Their audience is also much smaller--tens of thousands will pick up 300 while a lot less will pick up Gakuen Heaven (list $20 sub only-shop smart & it can be yours for around $11)
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Dargonxtc



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:08 pm Reply with quote
tempest wrote:
So, the result, 50% more sales, split between 100% more shows = -25% sales per show average. Add in the higher productions costs, and the bottom line is looking very grim indeed.

In fact, given the typical profit margin in competitive markets (anime is most definitely competitive), it looks like the average anime probably loses money in the Japanese market. Hence the importance of foreign licensing and secondary income (merch).

It seems like a simple problem of supply and demand. You think that they would get it strait rather quickly. Seeing as only a small amount will ever make it to the North American market, or UK(not sure how it is with non-english speaking countries), that they would also take that into account.

...

Perhaps the problem is that there are too many anime companies, which would complicate the simple supply side of the problem. Since most companies will have a bare minimum on the number of products they produce just to stay afloat. Then each company will produce that many.

Ex: on a mini-scale
Say Company X needs to produce 3 anime a year in order to survive. But Company Y and Company Z also need to produce 3. And then Company T needs to produce 6. But there really is only demand for 10 anime. So it turns out to be a net loss to everyone, since most fans do not discriminate between companies, and networks will put on a show if they think people will watch, but can only pay what will be left over after paying for other shows. Competition between companies causes them to spend more money on each show than normal, increasing expenses, to make it stand out from the rest. Which is good for fans, but if the demand is already being supplied elsewhere, the show has to be a total breakout to be profitable.

All in all it is a tough situation, a catch twenty two, for Comapny X. Even though they are making fairly good, fairly popular shows, the market is so over-saturated at that point they still end up in the red, praying that the show gets picked up elsewhere, while at the same time they can't really produce less anime than they already are.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:35 pm Reply with quote
tempest wrote:
ikillchicken wrote:
If were still on the topic of illegal downloads though, the statistic we need to look at from here is how the fanbase has grown. Unfortunately thats very tough to measure.


Nah, we're talking about Japan, fansubs aren't an issue there (obviously) although non-fansub Internet piracy is.


Yeah, thats why I didn't say fansubs. I said illegal downloads AKA Internet Piracy.
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Goodpenguin



Joined: 02 Jul 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 10:14 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
It seems like a simple problem of supply and demand. You think that they would get it strait rather quickly. Seeing as only a small amount will ever make it to the North American market, or UK(not sure how it is with non-english speaking countries), that they would also take that into account.

...

Perhaps the problem is that there are too many anime companies, which would complicate the simple supply side of the problem. Since most companies will have a bare minimum on the number of products they produce just to stay afloat. Then each company will produce that many.


Dargonxtc, I think your overall point about market saturation is very solid, but let me add a bit on your demand point.

It's not so much that a production studio needs a certain number of anime to break even, one hit can meet the budget as well as five mediocre ones. The market saturation angle really boils down to TV channels/producers and advertising dollars brought in.

TV producers/schedulers look for a demographic to appeal to first, and if they have sponsors (or hope to attract sponsors) that have goods for that market the producers finance a property to fit same market. Anime producers don't get the opportunity to produce shows and hand them over, they are at the budget whims of TV execs who want a certain group appealed to. Alls well and good in boom times, as the Japanese market had in the 90's. Older otakus respond to advertising, high-school girls, tech geeks, sport kids, etc.

Just like what we see in our (US) movie and music fields, when the good times are rolling company execs bloat, licensing fee's bloat, studio costs bloat, etc., everyones getting a piece of a rich market. But when the market eventually cools (which all markets do), look out. Suddenly the advertising returns stop being so diverse, and markets begin to narrow (ie. 18+ market drops way down, niche otaku trickle out). Niche advertisers pull their ads, and studios suddenly don't have money for eclectic or unusual shows, which narrows the types of shows produced. Now you need to push a more mainstream or guilty-pleasure (like moe) show to attract as wide an audience you can. This alienates more fans, and at the same time as less money is rolling in anime production costs are staying what the where in the boom times, or even increasing. People are not going to change their pricing because the anime market is sliding, the producers will just have to narrow their genre field even more and cut actual animation budget-production corners to make ends meet. This of course drives away more fans from an increasingly stale anime market with an ever-lowering target age, thus the loss cycle repeats. Your left with a ton of cookie-cutter shows, because everyone is now fighting for that slim advertising yen in just a few demographics.

Japan is going to have to utilize foreign money wisely, and manage domestic expectation/cost reality in the animation production business if it wants to see growth times again.
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ac_dropout



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 10:58 pm Reply with quote
I believe some of Japan's anime growth in the pass two years is contributed to partnership in China as well. Since they are expanding into China to co-produce children shows.

The US, with the slow down of the economy and the bankruptcy of some larger retail chains has only further accentuated how fragile the market is.

I think people need to re-think how large the market actually is. If all fansubbing activity stopped, would DVD sales actually increase given the state of the general economy as it is? Some how I don’t think it is that simple.

Not to mention we are at a very unsuccessful cycle of replacing DVD technology. How many people you know dying to have anime on Blu-ray or HD-DVD? It’s not a really must-have on my list in 2007 either.

Sure the technology for commercial digital distribution may be on the horizon. But it is not ready yet for the mass market. And there is no telling if the behavior of people who enjoy fansubs will automatically become paying customers, when this is made available.

Seems like a “perfect storm” of why the anime industry is underperforming in North America this year…
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Mindless Watcher



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:42 pm Reply with quote
tempest wrote:
Spoke to a few people, and my supposition was basically right. The market has grown by about 50% since 2000, but the number of titles has grown more significantly (about 100%).

In order to compete, companies have increased their production budgets (look at how many times companies like GDH have talked about per-episode budgets in the past couple years, with frequent boasts of "most expensive ever").

So, the result, 50% more sales, split between 100% more shows = -25% sales per show average. Add in the higher productions costs, and the bottom line is looking very grim indeed.


First of all: companies always and everywhere whine about how bad the market situation is no matter how the real situation is.

When the number of titles rises by 100% this is a sign that the industry is in anything but in trouble. At one point the market will overheat of course, which might or might not be the case right now (see first sentence). But that is the risk any entrepreneur in any sector has to take. Some anime studios might die which is also normal in free business and not a sign that "the" anime industry is suffering. "The" industry is doing well as long as the market is growing.

Goodpenguin wrote:
Except for a few 'no-brainer' hits, many popular fan-sub shows have meet with DVD sales flops. Hmm, could there be a connection?


No, there can't because your argument does not make sense. Almost everything is fansubbed (and the stuff that isn't is normally the last thing US companies would try to sell) so both DVD sales flops and DVD sales hits will meet with fansubs. DVD sales hits interest both the common otaku and the casual viewer, DVD sales flops (and the stuff that is never licensed) interest only the common otaku, or nobody at all. Flops thus meet with popular fansubs as well as with unpopular fansubs but hits will hardly meet with unpopular fansubs and even if they did it would only prove that people who watch fansubs weren't interested in the particular show. So your "many popular fan-sub shows have meet with DVD sales flops" doesn't really mean anything, let alone tell us anyting.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:35 pm Reply with quote
Dargonxtc wrote:

Ex: on a mini-scale
Say Company X needs to produce 3 anime a year in order to survive. But Company Y and Company Z also need to produce 3. .......


You've pretty much got it. Too much anime being produced, but each company has to continue producing in order to meet various targets.

Investors and share holders unfortunately expect these companies to grow.

But, this whole conversation has focussed exclusively on Japan, as if Japan was the one and only market that mattered. Fact is, as we've stated before, the American market helps support the Japanese market. The Australian market is growing, the European markets can't be ignored...

No company is going to willingly say "There's too much anime out there, so for the benefit of everyone else, we're not going to produce anime this year." That solution isn't going to happen, so other solutions need to be looked at, and the International market is already a part of the equation...

So while there's too much anime for Japan alone, there may not necessarily be too much for Japane + the international market

Provided the market doesn't completely collapse, market corrections will force a few companies out of business, and there will be a certain amount of consolidation, and hopefully this cycle will then lead to more growth later.

So, IMHO, the short term prognosis is simple. Some companies are going to suffer in the near future.

But in the long term, most people have faith that the market will succeed. Otherwise investors would be pulling their money out as we speak...

-t
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starcade



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PostPosted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:37 pm Reply with quote
I'm, frankly, surprised people aren't pulling their money out -- because it's clear that the American anime economy is NOT in a healthy state across the board.

If the fansubbers are that much of a problem, then Japan has to take control of its material -- THEY have to be the ones to sell the subbed material (quickly!), or it'll continue to be taken out from under them.

Frankly, there IS too much anime out there -- there are too many "C" titles getting licensed by the wrong people (listening, ADV? -- Why isn't Viz taking a couple B's and C's...), and the fact is that prices are going up.

AMG2 and a number of the other ADV new anime now SRP at $29.98.

And you can bet that, when Japan finally starts copyright actions on the fansubbers and YouTube, that'll be $34.98 rather instantaneously, simply for the fact that they will have to pass on the cost.
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Goodpenguin



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PostPosted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Goodpenguin wrote:
Except for a few 'no-brainer' hits, many popular fan-sub shows have meet with DVD sales flops. Hmm, could there be a connection?


No, there can't because your argument does not make sense. Almost everything is fansubbed (and the stuff that isn't is normally the last thing US companies would try to sell) so both DVD sales flops and DVD sales hits will meet with fansubs. DVD sales hits interest both the common otaku and the casual viewer, DVD sales flops (and the stuff that is never licensed) interest only the common otaku, or nobody at all. Flops thus meet with popular fansubs as well as with unpopular fansubs but hits will hardly meet with unpopular fansubs and even if they did it would only prove that people who watch fansubs weren't interested in the particular show. So your "many popular fan-sub shows have meet with DVD sales flops" doesn't really mean anything, let alone tell us anyting.


If you take an extraordinarily literal view of the statement, sure you can make your point. I do think, however, the spirit of that line refers to shows such as 'Rozen Maiden' or 'Kodocha', which were picked up in large part from internet-fan base buzz, only to have sales nowhere meet the level of download fan-ship. So many folks liked the titles, just not buying them.

Also, the sentence you quoted was a quick parting point, with the main body talking about the fallacy of using fan-subs as accurate 'sales previews', so I'm not really sure were at loggerheads on this point.
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