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Anime Producer Discusses Changing Benchmarks for Home Video Sales

Former Ultra Super Pictures producer and president and CEO of Arch Inc. Nao Hirasawa held an interview with cultural critic Tsunehiro Uno on the online program NewsX on March 5. The channel posted a transcript of the interview on April 1. The two discussed the current trends and future of the anime industry.

One of the main topics of discussion was the declining home video sales in Japan. Hirasawa pointed out that there was a bubble for anime disk sales in the 2000s, and that sales started declining in the latter half of the decade. This has resulted in changing benchmarks for what constitutes a "hit" in the modern market.

"During the bubble era, the first volume of a TV anime that was selling well would move 100,000 copies. Just recently, Yuri!!! on Ice sold 100,000 copies, but it's just that back then, an anime selling 4,000-5,000 copies would be considered a flop. Selling 5,000 copies is considered a hit these days. The biggest thing that's changed is that the anime that doesn't sell well tends to tank completely. That started happening from 2005-2006."

Hirasawa mentioned that it was around 2007-2008 that anime discs started selling less than 1,000 copies per volume. "The numbers are now so low that everyone who bought it could attend gym class together in the same hall. In some cases, more copies are given away as samples to people involved in the series than are actually sold."

It's not all doom and gloom, because home disk sales aren't the major source of revenue these days. As on-demand streaming and international revenue becomes more and more important, Hirasawa predicts that anime will change along with that. For example, the length of anime episodes may get shorter. It may also be possible that, as watching anime on smartphones becomes more popular, more anime could get made with a smartphone screen in mind.

Nao Hirasawa's title updated.

Source: Planets Channel blomaga via Yara-on!