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NEWS: Japanese Anime Home Video Market Falls 24% in 2018




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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
Posts: 1135
Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 8:44 am Reply with quote
Overall home video market seems to be declining ever so slowly wondering what's making up for the huge hit to anime home video. 5% decline for general home video vs 22% decline for anime. Ouch.
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Morry



Joined: 26 Jun 2016
Posts: 756
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:20 am Reply with quote
With the rise of streaming, I wonder if Japanese home video prices are as inelastic as they once were. More and more people might just be unwilling to pay north of 100 USD for an entire series when you can watch it for much cheaper online.
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Azza Murphy



Joined: 08 Jul 2018
Posts: 115
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:59 am Reply with quote
damm right I would rather pay a streaming service then buy a DVD/blu,ray. I go down to look at them and the prices are just so stupid it's like I got to pay for 3 years or streaming service just for one dvd/blu ray and most of the time it's like you only get half the episode like only 6 of them then you got to buy another DVD for the last 6.
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Ushio



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 630
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:29 am Reply with quote
Яeverse wrote:
Overall home video market seems to be declining ever so slowly wondering what's making up for the huge hit to anime home video. 5% decline for general home video vs 22% decline for anime. Ouch.


One cause could be the reduction of the amount of volumes a late night anime is released over.

Number of late night anime who's home video release is 5 volumes or more.

2018 - 56
2017 - 71
2016 - 100
2015 - 103

High School DxD is a good example.

2012 High School DxD - 12 episodes - 6 volumes
2013 High School DxD New - 12 episodes - 6 volumes
2015 High School DxD BorN - 12 episodes - 6 volumes
2018 High School DxD Hero - 12 episodes - 4 volumes
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dark_bozu



Joined: 03 Sep 2012
Posts: 208
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:37 am Reply with quote
Well, it was coming - the sreaming services like niconico, abematv etc is popular nowadays and there's no reason to buy bd/dvd if you just want to watch anime or movie.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:30 pm Reply with quote
Ushio wrote:
One cause could be the reduction of the amount of volumes a late night anime is released over.

I'm pretty sure the numbers would be a lot more dire about right now if they hadn't gone the path of reducing volumes to adapt...
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Remington Steele



Joined: 06 Dec 2015
Posts: 63
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:23 pm Reply with quote
Hard to keep an industry profitable when your government and creators demonize and turn every consumer in to a criminal when they resell an altered copy of a Blu-Ray or a figurine.

I saw this coming when they starting criminalizing fans. The blame is solely on the creators and the Japanese government.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:45 pm Reply with quote
Remington Steele wrote:
Hard to keep an industry profitable when your government and creators demonize and turn every consumer in to a criminal when they resell an altered copy of a Blu-Ray or a figurine.

I saw this coming when they starting criminalizing fans. The blame is solely on the creators and the Japanese government.


Lol, no, that has nothing whatsoever to do with it. The tiny tiny tiny amount of revenue that official companies got from the few BDs and figures that were sold to be altered, is statistically negligible. Not to mention that obviously NONE of the profits from selling altered BDs or figures goes to the official companies.

This is because there is a global trend toward less physical media and a greater trend toward digital consumption, while at the same time 2018 didn't see any huge hits like Your Name, A Silent Voice, Love Live, etc that generally inflated the figures or kept them from falling as much as they otherwise would've. This is just the way of the world. Nothing unusual about it at all. And certainly no blame to be placed on Japanese copyright law.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:32 pm Reply with quote
Morry wrote:
With the rise of streaming, I wonder if Japanese home video prices are as inelastic as they once were. More and more people might just be unwilling to pay north of 100 USD for an entire series when you can watch it for much cheaper online.


Nobody ever paid 100 dollars to watch a series in Japan. People would record it from TV during late night and buy the 100 dollar disk to support only the franchises they loved. Only video rental stores and superhardcore fans who already watched the stuff brought disks, which is why Attack on Titan, for instance, only sold 50,000 volumes on average even though manga sales increased by 12-13 million volumes when the TV show first aired in 2013. I suspect that there is about 100 people who watched a show for every person who purchased the disk. Failing disk sales might be because of multiple causes, I guess with streaming services now people can just watch their favorite shows over and over without buying the disks.

The habit of buying movies to watch is an American cultural peculiarity. In Brazil I usually rented movies and with the advent of broadband internet I gradually shifted to streaming. The concept of buying the DVD of movie to watch it, which I see when I enter a big American store and see many moviescfor sale for 10 bucks or so mixed with groceries and other stuff for daily use, is an American thing.
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shabu shabu



Joined: 25 Jan 2019
Posts: 79
Location: Tokyo
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 4:09 pm Reply with quote
Jose Cruz wrote:
The habit of buying movies to watch is an American cultural peculiarity. In Brazil I usually rented movies and with the advent of broadband internet I gradually shifted to streaming. The concept of buying the DVD of movie to watch it, which I see when I enter a big American store and see many moviescfor sale for 10 bucks or so mixed with groceries and other stuff for daily use, is an American thing.


Yes. In Japan there are lots of people who watch a show on television but never buy a DVD. Most shows in Japan do not get DVD releases, or they are limited to rental stores only. DVD releases are for hardcore fans only. There has been a decrease in late night anime and an increase in daytime anime over the years and a lot of daytime anime do not get DVD releases. Every year there are different amounts of DVDs being released. The price is not important to collectors who buy DVDs.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 4:38 pm Reply with quote
shabu shabu wrote:
Jose Cruz wrote:
The habit of buying movies to watch is an American cultural peculiarity. In Brazil I usually rented movies and with the advent of broadband internet I gradually shifted to streaming. The concept of buying the DVD of movie to watch it, which I see when I enter a big American store and see many moviescfor sale for 10 bucks or so mixed with groceries and other stuff for daily use, is an American thing.


Yes. In Japan there are lots of people who watch a show on television but never buy a DVD. Most shows in Japan do not get DVD releases, or they are limited to rental stores only. DVD releases are for hardcore fans only. There has been a decrease in late night anime and an increase in daytime anime over the years and a lot of daytime anime do not get DVD releases. Every year there are different amounts of DVDs being released. The price is not important to collectors who buy DVDs.


That's going to be an issue down the line, in fact anime already has had this problem with shows with no VHS/LD/DVD/BD releases for decades, there are dozens of anime that are known to be partially, mostly, or in a few cases completely lost.
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El Hermano



Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Posts: 450
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 7:54 pm Reply with quote
Hoppy800 wrote:
That's going to be an issue down the line, in fact anime already has had this problem with shows with no VHS/LD/DVD/BD releases for decades, there are dozens of anime that are known to be partially, mostly, or in a few cases completely lost.


I doubt this will be an issue at all considering the digital age lets people preserve everything now. Pre-internet media had that issue, where the companies just threw away the masters because the idea of home video releases weren't even a thought. But these days every show or movie is going to be captured and uploaded and saved somewhere on the internet. You can still watch the original broadcast version of the first episode of Osomatsu-san, or the Porygon episode from the original Pokemon anime, despite the creators desperately trying to ban and bury those episodes forever.
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sailorstarsun



Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 170
Location: Japan
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:28 pm Reply with quote
shabu shabu wrote:
The price is not important to collectors who buy DVDs.


That's not exactly true. I myself am a DVD collector, have multiple box sets of my favorite series, and will run out to preorder entire series as soon as preorders are open, but even I have my limits. For example, I really really loved the Double Decker anime series, but $100 per DVD is just too much for me. Price is important, so no matter how much I'd like to support the series and have the discs, it's just too much. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:35 pm Reply with quote
^^Not to mention that those that like to stress "money is not an issue" account for an insignificant percentage of an already niche market it seems a little delusional to suggest "collectors" drive the general DVD market...
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