Forum - View topicNEWS: Japanese Anime Market Grew to 242 Billion Yen in 2006
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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When it says Japanese market does it mean only the Japanese market, or does that include all the investments that R1 and R2 companies put into the industry as well. Because we are always hearing how anime companies don't get enough money, and wouldn't be able to do many of the shows with out outside investments, and how horrible things are.
Because I have trouble believing that three franchises are responsible for a three year total market trend. |
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kokuryu
 Posts: 915 |
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As long as the Japanese companies continue to hammer away at the online fansub postings of their videos, they are going to find themselves in hot water very soon - similar to what happened to the CD companies and the RIAA - once the takedowns became prevalent and widespread, all sales of new CDs practically halted, and many record companies are now at the verge of bankruptcy - so I also expect this to happen with the anime market - once the takedowns reach a critical mass, this growth is going to turn into a 100 billion yen deficit in a year, and will never recover. That will mean that tons of anime production houses will go out of business as well, and the total number of titles released will continue to decrease. We already see this happening with the manga market as they continue to do house by house sweeps of people putting scanlations online and arresting them - the result is more and more manga production companies have gone out of business, very swiftly. They need to open their eyes to reality.
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SharinganEye
 Posts: 402 Location: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique |
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That trend seems non sequitur but kind of makes sense in a twisted way, maybe. Can I have some links supporting said trend?
Something vaguely related to this is NBC's taking down of the Cloverfield trailers on YouTube. Why take away free publicity and excitement? Or maybe the Japanese don't like paying $60 for 2 episodes of a series. |
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Roy9076
 Posts: 286 Location: California |
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That's real great! I'm not sure how that works out in America. Kokuryu, I do agree with your statement. Now if people can understand that, then there wouldn't be problems. Heh, like people listen.
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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I wanted to write a reply that tried to knock some sense into people about how precarious the industry really is, but I know it would fall on deaf ears so I'll just sit back and watch. I'll watch with tearful eyes as, over the next few years, major studios start to die.
Of course, I'm sure that will just be their own fault for trying to protect their legal rights and actually get people to pay for the product they spent time and money producing. Damn idiots actually wanting to be paid. Don't they know that anime fans are poor losers who need their charity!
Seriously, why can't so-called fans just buy the DVDs, CDs, or whatever. Supposedly they do actually like these things. |
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Mindless Watcher
Posts: 68 |
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Music companies are going after sharers. Yes. CD sales go down. Yes. Is there a connection? Hardly.
The point is that Universal, Emi, Sony etc just got to fat and detached from the market. They produce shit. And thanks to the internet talented musicians don't need them anymore to distribute their music, and they can produce more diverse music because their costs are low. All what's left to the big business is the 10th or 20th Madonna clone they've created in their labs for decades. Anime is a whole different thing. You can't produce good anime in your garage together with two friends. But anime thrives and anime sharing thrives so this theory is wrong on both basic assumptions anyway. |
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SharinganEye
Posts: 402 Location: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique |
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Anime is expensive, yes, but look a bit and the deals are there. Even Best Buy, especially Best Buy. |
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Gage
Posts: 480 Location: United States |
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I'm a bit surprised Pokemon was credited as it posed some problems when it first took off as it caused sickness across Japan. I figured people would have stopped watching it for a bit. But yes, I forgot - the special effects problems were fixed a little (if I remember reading correctly).
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10455 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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What hole did you pull that piece of stupidity from? Is it something you came up with on your own, or did you decide to just repeat some BS that some pro-piracy troll spit out. There's tons of documented, expert opinion and research out there that says otherwise. I'll summarize some of it for you, but I strongly suggest you go read some articles (and stop listening to the wrong people) before repeating anything I, or anyone else says. On a side note (but quite important to note), anyone who gets pissed off at a takedown notice is probably someone who wouldn't buy anything in the first place. CD sales did not tank because of the takedown notices. They tanked because with a free (pirated) alternative, people don't want to pay $10-$20 for a CD. The RIAA is reacting to that by trying to kill the free alternative. Unfortunately they're fighting a losing battle and CD sales are still declining. Alternatives like online music sales (ie: iTunes) are picking up some of the slack, but not all of it. (Don't get me wrong, I dislike the strongarm tactics of the RIAA and the MPAA, and I think those organizations, are a part of the problem) The industry needs to adapt, and may have no choice but to trim some fat. Hopefully fat (as in fat record executives and unnecessary middlemen) is all that will get trimmed. Unfortunately, musicians might lose out, which in the end, hurts consumers who want more music. Same can be said for the anime industry, online piracy (fansubs and DVD rips) are really hurting them. Takedown notices aren't having much effect in stopping the piracy, but at the same time, the companies need to send them out from time to time to provide a sort of balance. But their future lies in finding ways to earn money despite the free online availability (see my recent blog post for one aspect of this). TV, merchandise, online sales, added value DVDs, VOD, these are all part of the equation, but minimizing piracy will also be part of the equation. One big fear is that if companies decide to no longer put up with fansubers, they'll just end up driving fans to complete pirates like Pirates Bay. At least with major fansub sites, the downloads stop when the title is licensed. Again, like with the music industry, the consumer loses out if the anime industry is forced to cut too much. We get less anime, cheaper production values, and less licenses. Already one anime company nearly went bankrupt last year. People like to point out that it was the bankruptcy of Tower that nearly pushed CPM over the edge, but Tower would have merely been the straw that broke the camel's back. Compare the number of licenses in the first 7 months of 2007 to the first 7 months of 2004. Not very impressive growth wise. Compare DVD sales growth, not impressive either... -t |
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Richard J.
Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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I'm not saying saying fansubbers are evil demons who should go to jail for a thousand years. I'm not even saying they're the worst problem the industry has. Heck, I'm not even saying that they have to go away! Maybe the industry could actually work with some of them in some mutually beneficial way. I've downloaded fansubs. For the most part, I've decided to stop because I've had so much disappointment with series I watched via fansubs not getting the kind of release over here that I would have wanted. (English dub fan here.) For the most part, I've decided that if I'm going to watch any more of them, it will strictly be things that have a very small chance of ever being licensed. My point is: I never stopped buying DVDs. Actually, if anything, I've been buying more than ever before, but mostly it's been series that I've seen legal previews for rather than things I saw fansubbed. About half the series I've seen fansubbed, I won't be buying because I have problems with the way they're being released, which would have prevented me from buying them anyway. It just drives me nuts when people start about how bad it is that the companies are actually trying to defend their rights. tempest said a lot of good things in his post, I'd love to see some links to some of those good articles, and I couldn't agree more with him about trimming the fat by getting rid of the middle men. (Actually, I can't think of any company, organization, or governmental office that would not benefit from this strategy.) I don't think attacking individual downloaders is a good idea. Much like with going after random drug users, it really doesn't do much to solve the real problem of the illegal supply or the demand. Having legal anime downloads is a step in the right direction. However, probably the smartest thing would be if the Japanese themselves would release English subtitled downloads for purchase as the episodes air on their TV. (Yeah, this is not going to happen, but you've got to admit it would be a pretty cool thing and likely it would generate a decent income.) |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Whew, okay now that that is over, I don't know how this news sparked a fansub debate. But does anyone know an answer to my original question. About whether this is counting the Japanese animation market as contained only in Japan? Or if this counting Japans animation market, as a sum total of worldwide market income?
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britannicamoore
 Posts: 2618 Location: Out. |
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It seems more and more increasing that technology comes around to bite people on the ass.
I'm glad to see the market is doing well- from how some people go on around here i'd think they were in the hole 242 billion Yen. I hope it continues to grow. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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I have the same question. It reads like it's just the Japanese market, but if it's reporting anime company profits, it might include foreign licenses.
ADV when they last came to Comic-con 2 yrs ago (before they returned this year), stated the anime market was being artificially bouyed by foreign investment & if that money dried up, there would be much less anime being made because the domestic(Japanese) sales alone couldn't keep it going. As for the pirating, that was kokuryu's hit & run attack out of the blue. Manga companies are adjusting to changes in the industry. Simply saying Ooo-look another anthology bit the dust, they're going bankrupt is insane--what if we're simply seeing a down cycle. Some of these dead books lasted a whole years-that's common in business(to fail in the first year) . If one's been watching this site, one has seen the new wave of the futire is downloading manga to one's phone--several companies were pitching that or on-line versions of their titles so it's not too hard to believe that they might actually stop printing hard copies(which I would hate) Nor did I care for CMX's line about streamlined only-not a version one could keep. We had a law in California where gas stations had to line their storage areas to prevent leakage & they had to a certain date. All the big companies had no problem, though they used it to ckose a few shops while the general reality was many little mom/pop indies simpluy waited to the last day to comply & shut down because complying would have been exhorbitant. We don't know how many of these magazines folding in Japan are due to poor sales, or perhaps looking at their sales & what it would take to keep up with where the market's headed, they're just giving up. |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10455 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Well, on the magazine sales topic, Weekly Shonen Jump's circulation is down 50%, from it's high about 15 years ago. Most Japanese anthologies are also down, although some have fared better than others. Shonen Jump is still a gold mine regardless. Shueisha has found new ways to pump more money out of the titles despite lower circulation. This is an example of adapting. Speaking of Jump titles, look to Naruto in North America. Viz does absolutely nothing about the largest fansub/bootleg (I call it a bootleg site because it's a business that charges for access) Naruto site. Why? Because DVD sales aren't their primary focus with Naruto, manga sales, video games, tv broadcast, merch, etc... make the money. This is Viz's way of adapting to the market, but their methods only work for a title like Naruto, they wouldn't work for less popular titles. Look at the video game industry, which dealt with PC piracy by taking most games online and charging subscription fees. Most single / two player games have moved to consoles.
Taking a look at the numbers, I would assume Japan only. And anime (TV sales, DVD sales, theatrical tickets) only, we're not talking merch, licensing, etc... This is an educated guess though. I'll explain why. In short, "It's only $2 billion, Japan + International would be much more." North American Anime DVD sales are worth somewhere around $600 million a year. The total North American anime/manga industry is worth somewhere around $5 billion (video games, tv, dvd, manga, merch, etc...) and the Japanese market is much, much larger. Obviously it doesn't include manga sales, which are almost a trillion yen a year. But let's not trust my speculation here. I'll ask Tadashi and get back to you shortly. -t |
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starcade
Posts: 204 |
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Why not? It's the only way that fansubbing and piracy is going to end is if the American market comes under the _direct control_ of the Japanese -- and this is basically how they'd have to do it. Simultaneous release and the subtitles. Of course, this might put the American VAs out of business, but... I mean, here's the main diff between anime and the music industry: The reason CD sales have tanked is because the payola that is put forth on the radio today _STINKS_. STINKS OUT LOUD. Anime, you can't say that about -- and not all the "good stuff" (no matter how you define that term) is licensed. Unless the Japanese want to say "You get nothing until this problem is solved..." |
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