Answerman

How Will Brexit Affect The UK Anime Market?

Grace asks:

British anime fan here. How will the impending exit from the European union of the United Kingdom affect our anime and video game industry? Will it have any international impact?

At the time I'm writing this, it's been a few days since the United Kingdom narrowly chose to leave the European Union, and things are an utter and complete mess. England has no Prime Minister, the previous one having resigned without making any sort of plans as to how such a pull-out would be implemented. Political forces in Scotland are talking about breaking away from the UK and joining the EU by itself. Two of the major political parties are coming apart at the seams, government officials are resigning left and right, the value of the British Pound has cratered, and the world financial system is basically on the floor in the fetal position. Even in the US it seems like everyone who follows the news is really rattled by the whole thing.

The whole situation is ugly as hell, and it's bringing out the absolute worst in people. All of my UK friends are understandably freaked out, and I'm hearing reports of racist incidents in the streets (even against children), nasty fights breaking out between old friends and family members, and all manner of ugliness. In times like this, for anime fans, our beloved media plays an important role in keeping us happy -- escapist storytelling is such an important respite in tough and uncertain times. But even the world of anime cannot be sheltered from such political unrest, and the companies that serve UK fans will have to weather some worrying possibilities in the coming months.

The most obvious issue is the massive drop in the value of the British Pound Sterling. When licensing a property for distribution in the UK, local publishers must license the show directly from Japan, or sub-license the show from an American company. That means that to make these payments, they have to convert their funds to Japanese Yen or US Dollars -- and the pound buys quite a bit fewer of both, these days. Additionally, some production is done in the US by American partners (either the US publisher, or a US disc author such as myself), and those expenses must be paid in US Dollars as well.

As far as European trade goes, there are currently no Blu-ray replication plants in the UK. All of the discs produced for sale in the UK are actually manufactured in Austria or Poland. If trade with those countries is made subject to additional tariffs or taxes, the prices to replicate those discs will go up further (and those prices will also have been affected by the exchange rate with the Euro). The anime publishers' ability to order additional printings of back catalog discs will be greatly affected, as those are often not sold as quickly as an initial print run. That can make additional printings hard to justify financially. Ultimately, prices may have to rise in order to keep the operation profitable.

And the Brexit mess potentially affects other parts of the anime business too. US and UK publishers often work together very closely, and there are definitely projects and releases that would not have happened had a UK company not participated. It is in all of our best interests that the UK anime market flourishes alongside the US one.

While the referendum has passed, Britain has not exited the EU yet, and there's a chance still that it may not happen. The situation over there is changing very fast, and even by the time this article goes live, something major may have changed. Ultimately nobody knows what will happen, or what will change. Eventually the storm will pass and a new normal will set in, but we have no idea what that will look like. All of us, even if our own interests don't have much to do with the UK, need to keep up with what's happening. It affects pretty much the entire world economy.

Does anyone know when the new season of The Great British Bake Off starts? I feel like if anything can re-unite the people of the UK, it's that.

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Anime News Network founder Justin Sevakis wrote Answerman between July 2013 and August 2019, and had over 20 years of experience in the anime business at the time. These days, he's the owner of the video production company MediaOCD, where he produces many anime Blu-rays. You can follow him on Twitter at @worldofcrap.