Interest

Are Anime Sports Collaborations Effective?

The project Anime × Soccer!! (or Animation × Soccer) brings together three different Japanese soccer teams that have collaborated with anime in recent years: Mito Hollyhock, Tokyo Verdy, and F.C. Gifu. All three teams are in the 2nd Division of the J. League (Japan's professional soccer league), and all of them are struggling financially. Accordingly, their anime collaborations — with Girls und Panzer, Amagi Brilliant Park, and No-Rin, respectively — were expected to bring in a new crowd and greater revenue and boost the clubs' name recognition.

An Anime × Soccer!! poster advertising which games have anime tie-ins

But have the collaborations succeeded? Masaru Gotō, a writer for the Japanese soccer fan site J-Ron, examined the subject in a recent article. Titled, "Was Anime × Soccer Ultimately a Failure?," he is critical of the concept. Anime is fundamentally an indoor activity, he points out, while soccer is an outdoor spectacle. It is uncertain whether anime fans are genuinely interested in the game, or just there for the tie-in. Furthermore, the anime fan crowd doesn't mingle very well with soccer spectators. "The scene of rowdy core supporters behind the goal at Giravanz Kitakyushu [another soccer club] mingled with banners of anime characters with moe designs makes an impression, and you can't get used to it. It's not unreasonable to feel like they're oil and water."

A booth outside of a Gifu game ("Becky's Cafeteria")

Gotō stresses that the collaborations are mostly designed to benefit the clubs, since they are struggling more than the anime. The Mito Hollyhocks garner less than 5,000 spectators on average, while Girls und Panzer discs have sold over 30,000 copies. Yet the collaborations have not resulted in an appreciable increase in spectator numbers. The opening game of this season for Tokyo Verdy drew 12,217 fans, while the third game with an anime tie-in for the Hollyhocks attracted only 3,514 fans, and the seventh anime tie-in game for FC Gifu attracted 3,178 spectators. "If they were expecting a direct boost in spectators thanks to anime, you can only conclude that they missed their goal," he writes.

A milking demonstration outside of a Gifu game

Yet all three teams are still carrying on the collaboration. Why is this? Gotō stresses that the three anime chosen for the collaboration were quite deliberate: all three are set in the area where the corresponding team is from. Ōarai, the setting of Girls und Panzer, is next to Mito; Amagi Brilliant Park is set in the suburbs of west Tokyo (as is A Certain Scientific Railgun, Tokyo Verdy's previous partner); and No-Rin depicts the farm life of Gifu Prefecture. Mito and Gifu, in particular, are eager to draw tourism to their regions and increase their visibility. The struggling high school in Girls und Panzer and struggling amusement park in Amagi Brilliant Park are also appropriate parallels with the struggling soccer teams.

[Via J-Ron]