Hey, Answerman!

So I recently went to an anime convention about last week and of coarse, I attended a lot of panels.  One of them happened to be about producing anime.  It was more of a discussion based panel upon anything with one panelist being from Funimation and the other panelist being a well-respected director (I'll just keep their names out for privacy reasons).  Then, just like every other panel in the whole con, it became a discussion about fansubs.  Then, someone asked the question that, they heard at another con from a dub anime producer that the anime industry would be dead in 2-5 years.  The director in our panel then shock his head and said "Yes.  I'm not sugar coating this at all.  The anime industry WILL be dead in 2-5 years if something does not change about fansubs."  So, I guess the question is: Will the doom of the anime industry really come that fast?  I knew the whole scales of anime fandom rising and DVD sales dropping, but the whole industry dead in 2-5 years?

These people appeared on a public panel in a public event and you're keeping their names secret for "privacy's sake"? Hey, that makes no sense at all.

At any rate that's a very reactionary answer and people who still claim the industry is DOOMED, DOOMED I SAY are clinging to the almost overwhelming negative atmosphere the industry experienced in 2007 and 2008 that I feel was offset somewhatby Funimation rescuing all those lost titles and posting generally upbeat sales information. True, things are still bad - ADV is quiet as a mouse, Geneon is alive but not doing their own sales or distribution anymore, etcetera etcetera. And I could certainly see where a dub producer would feel the pinch more than others working in the industry - dubs are definitely taking the hit from the market shrinking more than anyone else, since they're expensive to produce and it's become very clear that it's impossible to make any sort of profitable return when the series you're working with is a niche title that doesn't attract enough DVD sales to cover the cost of the dub. So we're seeing a lot more sub-only releases (take Right Stuf's effort, for example), which mean less work for everyone involved in dub production. But 2-5 years? Ridiculous. Not going to happen. Yes, something - something smart and reasonable - needs to be done about fansub distribution and proliferation. But thanks to moves by Funimation and the endless success of Viz Media, the sky isn't falling right now.

Predicting that if fansubs don't stop or change radically that the entire industry would be completely kaput inside 2-5 years is, to me, excessive and sounds like an overreaction. If the writing on the wall were really that stark, things would be in much worse condition now than they are.

NOTE: since I'm feeling so crappy this week, I asked our beloved Director of New Media, Justin Sevakis, to pinch-hit for me on a question. Naturally he knocked it out of the park, in stark contrast to my usual terse half-assedness. Here's Justin's response:

The answer to this is pretty much exactly what happens to Japanese animation in America: some of it is so popular that it gets absorbed into their pop culture; the middle-of-the-road stuff is the dominion of animation nerds, and then there's a ton of stuff that just doesn't click with the Japanese taste on any level. Japan has never had anti-American xenophobia when it comes to devouring American TV and movies.

The top-of-the-heap animated features from the likes of Disney and Pixar are easily as mainstream in Japan as they are in the United States. There are plenty of hardcore Disney otaku over there; Toy Story toys can be found in Gatchapon machines. Mickey Mouse decals adorn backpacks and strollers. Smarmy, self-referential pop culture cartoons from DreamWorks Animation and its ilk just don't translate very well, but even their better films (the Shrek series, for example) still gets released over there and do decent business.

As for television cartoons, most of the time allotted to animation is already taken up by domestic product (or Disney), but occasionally a hit American show will get a Japanese company backing it, sometimes to the point where the series will get Japanese-produced spin-offs. The most obvious recent example of this is Powerpuff Girls, but Transformers had several Japan-only TV series, and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had an OAV. The Simpsons plays in dubbed form on Japanese TV, though it's somewhat adapted for local tastes. All of these are far more likely to get domestic sponsorship if there's some sort of merchandise angle, which is key to keeping long series on the air.

Less popular or edgier American shows might get a direct-to-video release or shown on Cable/Satellite channels, but by and large those get ignored. South Park airs on satellite channel WOWOW (though they, as well as the DVD release, omitted the infamous Chinpokomon episode), and has a small but devoted fan base. (I own a South Park doujinshi, actually. No, it's not dirty.) But ultimately, there are only so many cartoons even the most ardent fan can watch in a week, and there's SO much product out there that it's easy for even the domestic stuff to get lost.

American animation production is generally a LOT more expensive than in Japan, as American studios tend to value smoothness, lip sync and design uniformity over the freedom given to Japanese staff. Therefore the budget for a show like Powerpuff Girls will still rival that of a high end Japanese show like Fullmetal Alchemist. The end result is that it might make more financial sense for a sponsor to help craft a new show that suits their purposes than licensing one that already exists. I remember once we asked Utena director Kunihiko Ikuhara if he'd seen Powerpuff Girls, and his reaction to the show. His answer: "This cost... HOW much? And it looks like THAT?!"