Forum - View topicINTEREST: Kadokawa Producer: Physical Sales Are Still Important in Anime Industry
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Kadmos1
![]() Posts: 13590 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Tanaka-sensei "said that even titles that fail to create a buzz in Japan have sometimes become very successful overseas, and many titles have turned out well from the viewpoint of production committees." While Tanaka-sensei listing at least 2 examples would help, it might be a business/legal reason barring him from doing that.
My fave 2017 anime, [/i]Sakura Quest[i], has so far flopped in Japan. However, I would like to think that Sakura Quest Fest could help the home video sales here. That was a Periscope live stream where ADR director Caitlin Glass would have a breakfast-time with VA that were main or episodic characters for that week's dubbed episode. Fans submitted Twitter or e-mail messages to be answered with by the host and guest. SQF cover all 25 episodes. There are 2 versions: the Periscope live version and a longer version that is later added onto YT. Last edited by Kadmos1 on Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:23 am; edited 1 time in total |
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relyat08
![]() Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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You are way angrier than you need to be about this. And as with many others, totally misinterpreting the primary argument which is "disc sales are not the only source of revenue for most anime". Does not mean they shouldn't exist, does not mean they aren't important, does not mean they have no value, etc. But they are not the end-all-be-all. Also, anyone who is willing to spend $300 to have a series on Blu-ray with all of the cleaned up animation, would definitely be willing to rewatch the show on a streaming service if a Blu-ray version was made available.
This is completely irrelevant. Many people who stream also have physical collections. Streaming being incredibly important does not mean that physical media has to go away. They can coexist and even help each other. Like they've been doing for years.
Only the very shortsighted ever rely on ONE revenue stream when multiple are available. I think a lot of people seem to think that "streaming is very important" somehow means that "disc sales don't matter". It's obviously a combination of a lot of things. The problem is exactly that a lot of people still think that disc sales ARE the most important thing, or even the only important thing. And, in my experience, a lot of the people making this argument come at it from the angle of, "since streaming doesn't matter, I have no personal responsibility to stream shows on a legal platform. I bought that one Japanese DVD set 10 years ago, so I'm the real fan supporting the shows I like at the source!" That's obviously not everyone, but it's a big enough contingent where putting down their argument by proving how important streaming is, is important. As an aside, niche shows can definitely survive or die because of disc sales, but with the ever decreasing numbers disc sales are pulling in, niche shows are also relying more and more on streaming revenue. And streaming revenue for niche shows is still good. That level of access can be very important for a niche show. I won't say everyone does this, but I know many people who will check out a new seasonal show simply because it happens to be on a streaming service they use. If the show wasn't streamed at all, it never would've found that additional audience. |
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Stuart Smith
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I would be interested as well. I can't think of a single show that bombed in Japan but did well overseas and thus got another season based on viewers alone. The only examples we have are where American companies footed the bill, like Big O 2, but viewership and sales alone? Can't think of any. I suppose 'turned out well for the production commitee" could just mean they managed to recoup their investment and offset losses, just not enough to risk more episodes.
What's wrong with that? I've spent thousands of dollars importing disks from Japan of my favorite shows. I spent over 1000 for all of Sket Dance alone, and assuming all your CR money goes directly to that show, which it doesn't, it would take someone watching it for 15 years straight to spend that much,which probably isn't possible as the license would be pulled before that. For a 1 cour show, it'd only be about 360 dollars, which is a more manageable 4.5 years, but still. As an aside, when companies say disk sales are less important than they were, they also mean things like merchandise, music, and events also bring in money. If stuff like Love Live and UtaPri had abyssmal disk sales, Im sure music and event sales would make them profitable franchises still, not so much the streaming I would wager. -Stuart Smith |
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relyat08
![]() Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Yep, missed the point completely. Yaaa sure did. ![]() I never suggested that it was bad to buy anime on disc, nor to import. I have personally imported 129 series from Japan on Blu-ray, as of my last count. My most recent purchase being the awesome Made in Abyss Blu-ray box sets. Ideally, people will both buy physical media and watch stuff streaming legally. The problem is with people who import once in a rare blue moon and use that as justification for never using a legal streaming service while they pirate 25+ shows per season. Spending $300 on a single series a decade ago, does not make up for the hundreds of other series that person didn't support. Streaming's value is in multiplication of small numbers across very large audiences, not individual massive purchases by a few diehards. When hundreds of thousands of people watch a show streaming legally, those tiny royalty sums add up to incredibly significant amounts of money. Sure, if every one of those people bought the show on Blu-ray after pirating it instead, that would be more money, but realistically, this does not happen. A very very very very small fraction of the people who watch any given show actually buy it. But if they watched it on a legal service, they contributed to the show's success both because of the royalties that were paid, and for analytical data about viewership. There is a reason that Netflix is spending a hundred million dollars on anime streaming content in 2018. They don't care about the physical release because they are able to make back their money simply from the number of people streaming the shows on their service.
Well you'd wager wrong then. Streaming revenue has made many shows financially successful, where other sources of revenue have failed. It's actually the most consistent and reliable source of revenue for anime right now, since nearly every show can count on a certain number of people at least checking it out for a few weeks. |
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KH91
Posts: 6176 |
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Physical sales will always be important just like with video games. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
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Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
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Im speaking as a collector, not an investor. Unless you're on the production commitee, consumers should worry about their end rather than the corperation's investments. Saying a producer is behind on the times for not writing off physical media is asanine. This notion that Japan is 'backwards' for having a healthy physical industry in books, music, games, and TV seems like the mindset a CEO looking to control distribution outlets would think, not a consumer who wants options. |
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TarsTarkas
![]() Posts: 5909 Location: Virginia, United States |
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It is the same old mantra, anime physical media is dying, just like the PC is dying. No one is arguing that streaming services are not getting stronger, they are. But as long as streaming libraries are not permanent, physical media will remain strong.
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relyat08
![]() Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Japan does not have a healthy physical industry in TV animation though. That's the point of this entire conversation. I definitely agree on the importance of physical media economically and for collectors, individually. And I also hope, and don't doubt, that physical media will be around for quite a long while into the future. I'm actually a big physical media collector myself. But Japan doesn't have a healthy physical media industry just like most other major media consuming countries don't these days. Hence, a producer claiming that physical media is the sole backbone of the industry, while statistics for 2016 clearly show that streaming was over 25% of industry revenue while physical media was 11%... sounds kind of like someone is living in the past a little. |
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FD2Raptor
![]() Posts: 100 Location: Viet Nam |
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All I am seeing is a 2016 report with graphs up to 2015, so can you point to, and specifically mention which data/number did you get the 25% of the industry revenue in 2016 is from streaming coming from? |
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relyat08
![]() Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Ah, sorry, it's apparently in the paid full version of the report. I don't know why 2016 is not listed on the site though. If you want to extrapolate from the data on that 2015 report, you could probably easily get to a similar conclusion by breaking down domestic streaming figures from Japan and overseas revenue. Domestically, streaming was about half of home video sales in 2015, and when you consider that a good chunk of the overseas revenue shown here came from Chinese streaming sites, while the rest came from other foreign licensing and NA streaming, as expanded on in the written part of the report, it's pretty easy to get to a 20%+ figure even for 2015(It's only going up). |
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TarsTarkas
![]() Posts: 5909 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Maybe, but he is in the industry, and we are all a bunch of armchair quarterbacks. Statistics don't always show the true picture, nor may always be accurate. Much like political polls. |
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relyat08
![]() Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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^
I'm not calling this guy out as much as it sounds like, he's making some good points, and I don't disagree with the premise that physical media is important, nor that all of these other streams of income are valuable. In fact, everything the guy is saying is pretty much perfectly in line with my own position based on the numbers I've looked at. But on principle, in general, when I have enough information and research to reject something presented by a professional in a particular field, I'm not just going accept the word of that person. Professionals who have worked in an industry are often working based on very obsolete information in almost every field I've studied. This is especially the case in the medical field(my family has 3 generations of doctors and this has been a sore spot for us, especially). Last edited by relyat08 on Sun Jan 07, 2018 10:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Tenchi
![]() Posts: 4505 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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He's right. I watch streaming anime but I will never stop wanting to own the shows I love on a physical format, including many shows I first saw streaming.
Modern optical media (made after they figured out how to avoid glue rot) will always have a certain advantage in that, once you've already paid for it, you can watch it as many times as you like without having to pay for it again (provided you don't damage the disks, they'll likely outlive you). |
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