Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Does An Anime Studio Go Out Of Business?
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ultimatehaki
Posts: 1090 |
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It's a dog eat dog world. How sad really.
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5317 |
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No offence, but is this really a question that needs to answering? A company going out of business is pretty common, sure the why is not always obvious, but is not some big mystery.
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belvadeer
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The cold and powerful truth. I see so many new businesses open up in my town and many of them don't even last a year (or even five to six months), which sucks because they're all full of great ideas and services, yet they can't stick around long enough to be a familiar face. There are so many factors involved with running a business, it's often hard to tell what makes each of them shut down. It could be the cost of land property, for example. |
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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I see people blame fan subs and fan translations of manga that causes anime companies to go out of business like Geneon Entertainment USA, Streamline Pictures, Urban Vision, Bandai, Central Park Media, Tokyo Pop, and ADV Films.
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Thorfinn
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Because the industry is horrible and treats the animation studios and animators like trash.
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ArnisEnthusiast
Posts: 74 |
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Those can definitely hurt non-Japanese anime companies, but I'm not entirely sure how that's relevant to Japanese anime studios (the topic of this article). |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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One thing to consider. Since atm there is plenty of work available in the anime industry, when an anime studio goes out of business (for whatever reason), the people out of job will most likely will be those on the upper echelons of the administrative branch, animators, line producers, etc (the people that work directly in the production of anime) will most likely be hired in other companies (unless they decide it is a good time to look for job elsewhere).
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jesusalcala11
 Posts: 132 |
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Except the person that asked the question alluded to a significant difference than other businesses: animation studios are paid before or while they work, regardless of the success of the product. They wondered how someone that is paid up-front can become bankrupt. As Justin wrote, they either go over their budget, their original project fails, the company becomes mismanaged, or they fail to find work. |
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PFdaCIA
Posts: 111 |
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One of the things I hate most about the Japanese industry is that system of seasons by selling DVDs and Blu-ray. This is the worst thing there is. I already hate physical media, and with this system of Japanese studios I've come to detest it even more.
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#861208
Posts: 423 |
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This is like a lot of people will tell artists on DeviantArt not to give $5 commissions. It makes it harder for people who want to charge more to do so.
If one studio tried to ask for a higher price, they'd just lose the bid, not because some ephemeral ghost of The Industry is cruel and mean to them, but simply because five other studios are offering to do it cheaper. And if someone on a production committee suggested accepting a higher price, the rest of the production committee wouldn't let them. They're losing money even at these prices. Just making less anime would be a solution, but the shows that wouldn't get made would be the risky, interesting ones. Which would also narrow the fan base for anime - now there are a lot of shows for people who don't like shonen action series, or LN-based battle harems. But if half as many anime series got made, how many fewer audiences would be served? |
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chronos02
Posts: 267 |
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Being in charge of the finances at a couple of companies, I have been able to see first hand how badly medium sized companies manage their money and cashflow, they often don't even know that a lot of the money they see is money they can't use, nor do they know that having a customer doesn't mean they'll get paid in time to pay other debts. Still, these things can often be controlled by an accountant, however, that doesn't happen for project planning, and that's where most companies die off, because they don't really know what they are getting into.
More often than not, I have seen people plan projects by simply calculating the estimated costs, average eranings, and not much more, and never including the company's finances into the tables. But worst of it all, I have never seen anyone plan a project based on the most limit situations to see if it's feaseable, or at least to see what the danger they're getting to is like. If a project will cause the company to get into the red, they should at least create contingency plans for the what if scenarios, and this is all very basic stuff for project planning... From what I have been seeing all these years, animation studios need finance professionals and experienced project planning teams to tackle most of their "invisible" problems, I'm almost sure they could reduce the costs of anime production by at least 15 or even 20%, and then reinvest that excess estimated cost to increase the quality of the works, to increase the wages for the animators and/or to aleviate the pressure they're under. |
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NeoStrayCat
 Posts: 610 |
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Yeah, I can see how the struggles of a Studio would try to keep it open, but other factors drive it to closing.
Yeah, but out of those companies, ADV is/was resurrected as Section 23 and their subsideraries (most notable being Sentai Entertainment) and TokyoPop did come back, but not like how they were before, but only what they could do now. |
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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A tall order when they're busy just trying to keep themselves afloat with project after project, let alone involve themselves in non anime related responsibilities. |
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Spike Terra
 Subscriber Posts: 358 Location: Maryland |
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I can get being angry at business model that revolves around Blu-ray sales, even though the anime industry also relies on various other sales like music, books and various other factors. But Bluray sales factor heavily into the profit margin for many shows. What I don't get is why are you so angry at physical media? I love adding various anime and manga to my ever expanding collection, even though I am running out of space. |
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bigivel
 Posts: 536 |
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The question is how a company goes down, and instead of talking about the company finances and decisions the article talks about 3rd party companies and complains about them. Sad.
Funny enough the latest companies that went down(Manglobe), are going down(Artland), were going down until they were bought/saved(Madhouse), had nothing close to the problems this article talks about. A basic thing that isn't talked in this article is how a company is like a machine that is always running(just like a human brain), and that it needs constant nourishment(money) and the major reason companies go down is not getting this constant flow of money in. Manglobe went down, because wasn't getting work but it had to still pay his workers, pay the bills(electricity, water, ...) and the building(s) rent and other stuff. So in the end got into more and more debt. The same thing is happening with Artland and they are looking for ways out of the situation without going down. Madhouse wasn't lack of work, but the fact that they made a ton of expensive works that were total fails. Gainax right now is going to go in a similar path, if they keep not doing anything of value in the recent future they are going to be close to bankruptcy like Artland. I still need to see a company that went down, recently, because it made contracts that payed little and they went over budget. But this, and the fact that it villifies producers, is the only thing this article talks about. Is also important to understand that this, contract work, is not an animation and entertainment business specific thing. But you can find it in almost, if not all, areas of business. Unless you're in the creative/licensing business and create/handle stuff that gives you copyrights, you(company) pretty much work by contract. This villification of producers is the perfect example of "biting the hand that feeds you", funny enough before procuction committees became popular most anime studios had to get the license of the works or be the creators of those works. But because many studios, specially the stupid large amount of new studios, couldn't do that they decided to work as contracting companies and with that were able not only to survive, but to prosper and get a huge amount of work. To dance you need two, and as separate companies/entities is obvious that each one of them would fight for their benefit and not for the other, this isn't a charity, and the ones responsible to manage their finances and their employees payment isn't a 3rd party company(producers), but you have to look at your own(animation studios). Do you as a private individual never tried to get a better deal from a product, to pay less? Well that is the exact same thing a producer does. Would you say that you by being able to get a really cheap price, you would be responsible for the employees of that company product to receive bad salaries? Since when is that your responsability and not of their company? |
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