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INTEREST: Anime Producer Discusses Changing Benchmarks for Home Video Sales


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WashuTakahashi



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 415
Location: Chicago, IL
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 1:53 pm Reply with quote
Maybe if Japan wasn't charging like 100 bucks for 4 episodes they'd sell more :/ Personally, still a big fan of owning physical media, but when you can get an entire series for 20 bucks in the US, makes being a physical collector much easier.
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TheAncientOne



Joined: 06 Oct 2010
Posts: 1892
Location: USA (mid-south)
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 1:59 pm Reply with quote
".., more anime could get made with a smartphone screen in mind".

I hope that doesn't mean portrait mode aspect ratios.
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chronos02



Joined: 25 Feb 2009
Posts: 272
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:18 pm Reply with quote
I think this guy is halfway there.

Right now, the anime industry is divided between movies, TV anime, net anime, and phone anime. OVAs having almost disappeared, sometimes bundled with manga or LN volumes, or as special extra episodes inside DVD/BD sales of the TV anime.

The ratio of these different mediums is probably around 70% TV anime, 20% anime movies, 8% net anime (ONA), and 2% phone anime (simply checked anichart for a couple of years).
These will shift towards ONA and phone anime, movies will probably stay the same, but I believe they will also get a hit at some point, and TV anime will tank very hard, to the point there won't be much besides precure, sazae or doraemon, everything else moving to ONA (they will probably keep the same design they have for TV anime, and release them on subscription services like Netflix, Hulu, CR, etc.). Keep in mind TV anime will not disappear, but rather, it will simply ignore TV and focus on the subscription services, the only difference between ONA and TV Anime is whether they air on open/paid TV or not, Although ONA also includes 5 min episodes and 15 min ones, guess we'll need to establish new sub-categories, or simply categorise them by episode duration rather than by medium.

He's also ignoring a very important market on physical sales, which is the luxury and high-premium segments. Sales curves have more than a single intersection point for price/demand, and luxury/premium items have an intersection on the very high price with very low sales point. This is the exact same thing that will happen with books at some point, very premium and luxury editions will still be a thing, people will covet them, and as the mobile market has shown us, whales will go to any length to obtain that which they want. To be clear, I'm talking about editions that cost above 800$, which would be high-premium, luxury obviously goes way beyond that number.
The problem here is, these sales would not give a lot of information, they wouldn't be useful for understanding the market, shifts in tastes, etc. It's also likely their target demographic isn't the type to buy luxury editions (safe for late night anime, maybe).

What he's really spot-on is that sales do not provide useful data in terms of how successful an anime is (even in the 2000s bubble, the data was not very accurate, but that's the nature of sales data to success correlation). They need to switch to some other type of meter.

I only hope the structure of TV anime doesn't disappear, I can live without the intermissions (I don't think I remember many from TV anime for the past 2 years at least), but I'd like them to keep the OP, 19-22min ep, ED style, and duration. I don't enjoy short anime, it feels like opening a potato chip bag only to find there's just 1/5th of it with actual chips.
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MetalGarurumon





PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:42 pm Reply with quote
I would say the trend right now are movies/mobage and not TV anime, especially in male-otaku related stuff. In the last few months we had Fate, Code Geass, Love Live with a box office gross of more than 1.000 million yen, something almost unthinkable in otaku movies 4-5 years ago.

To make a comparison:

- Unlimited Blade Works (2010) -- ¥280,000,000
- Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel Part II (2019) -- > ¥1,530,000,000


Last edited by MetalGarurumon on Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:10 pm; edited 5 times in total
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5499
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:48 pm Reply with quote
This producer seems to be confused about the timing of the bubble. It started in 2010 and started to deflate in 2016.

Last edited by Angel M Cazares on Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:52 pm Reply with quote
That explains why we have a lot of 7-15 minute anime this season. Also, I mentioned anime with cell phones and other mobile devices in mind when I first mentioned that the anime industry needs a "Steam for Anime". I was on the right track all along.
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ajr



Joined: 29 Nov 2010
Posts: 465
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:05 pm Reply with quote
They’re talking about the bubble that wiped out Borders. 2009 was not a bubble, I suspect; you’ll recall that’s right after / during The Great Recession Of 2008. Anime seems to be aiming at broader demographics than in was circa 2008, when it was moe uber alles in a concerted effort for “safe” reliable otaku dollars (or yen, I guess).

My hot take: anime is globally more popular than every, and Japan has gradually managed to capitalize on that popularity. I don’t know if we’re in a “bubble” exactly, not like 2004/2005ish, but I think it’s pretty clear the global economy is in the positive part of the cycle.
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H. Guderian



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 1255
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Japan's high prices might have something to do if it could be backed up that cheaper discs sell better. But they don't. Not a single person I know buys discs, except one guy that used to.

Frankly there is a lot of burnout. Part of the feeling of being a "collector" and paying those prices is to point to my wall and have it say something. Even if I wanted to pay the current prices (which includes Japanese imports) there is too much content to watch. How can i buy content I am not even going to see?

Sometimes I just buy the show if I torrented or streamed it. But some of my 'show-of-support' purchases remain unwatched. I missed most of the last year of anime and it all feels hopeless. There is too much.

I can't tell if we're exactly in a bubble...but I think we need to let some air out. My theory is that so much anime will be produced that the fandom will actually splinter like when languages break off entirely from one another. But I'm not really seeing people hole up inside small camps. I do see the charm of being a fan diluting, as interaction about our shows was always a key force of the industry for decades. I'd rather go back to the days when everyone at the Con was Inu Yasha, than see a sea of people where no one knows what the others have seen.
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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
Posts: 1146
Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:54 pm Reply with quote
Wow what gym class is he attending where you can put like 100+ people in a class together, thats alot.

(though I dont know if there are truly shows that do sell 50 or so copies only). Also at the statement that they give away more copies than even get bought, wow.
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Thespacemaster



Joined: 03 Mar 2012
Posts: 1162
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:16 pm Reply with quote
Yeah i kind of figured this is the case as the sales for anime have been on the decline for quite a few years now. There have not been as amny 10k sellers anymore outside of a few sequals and idols shows.

So i kind of guessed right anything that sells 5k would be a hit. I think a minimum 2000 is the minimum number one needs to secure enough finacial support for more anime of a series consdiering that was the cut off point for drop kick devil to get a s2 ( ok i now in real life it is more complicated im just figuring out like a bear minimum.
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Ushio



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 635
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:30 pm Reply with quote
Thespacemaster wrote:
Yeah i kind of figured this is the case as the sales for anime have been on the decline for quite a few years now. There have not been as amny 10k sellers anymore outside of a few sequals and idols shows.

So i kind of guessed right anything that sells 5k would be a hit. I think a minimum 2000 is the minimum number one needs to secure enough finacial support for more anime of a series consdiering that was the cut off point for drop kick devil to get a s2 ( ok i now in real life it is more complicated im just figuring out like a bear minimum.



Being a hit by the standards of the day doesn't mean it's profitable. Unless you think production costs have collapsed in 2 years?
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Chrono1000





PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:19 pm Reply with quote
I am not looking forward to more short length anime shows but I could easily see it happening since it is already becoming more common. A short length show has a lower cost and is still an advertisement for a game, light novel, or manga. The idea that anime could be made for phone screens is even more troubling but outside of a few experiments it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 5577
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:22 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
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.


Yikes...I hope not. Shorter length= less time to tell a coherent story. Catered to smartphones = lower visual quality since you can hide more flaws in a smaller screen.

Basically everything is saying suggests quality will drop.

Quote:
As on-demand streaming and international revenue becomes more and more important


While true, it's still extremely depressing. Streaming quality just still isn't anywhere near as good as a blu-ray. Even 1080p blu-ray streams at around 30Mbps while the average stream is like 3-8Mbps...then Sentai do like 1Mbps for 1080p because apparently they have bad eyesight and can't see all the terrible artifacting/pixelation going on on their shows. I'll keep buying blu-rays to help keep QUALITY media alive as long as possible. I don't care if it's digital or physical, but unless sites boost the quality (they won't because higher quality=higher bandwidth costs=less yachts for CEO) then physical is simply where the quality will always be at. Newer codecs like HEVC and AV1 won't even really help alleviate this because even with those the average bitrate will need to be double of what sites currently use.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:44 pm Reply with quote
Chrono1000 wrote:
I am not looking forward to more short length anime shows but I could easily see it happening since it is already becoming more common. A short length show has a lower cost and is still an advertisement for a game, light novel, or manga. The idea that anime could be made for phone screens is even more troubling but outside of a few experiments it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.


Actually, I'd rather see anime released for download for tablets along with mobile, I already watch anime on a tablet today, so it would just be business a usual.
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El Hermano



Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Posts: 450
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:57 pm Reply with quote
Wonder where he's getting his numbers from because they're completely contradicting what Oricon says. Not very many shows in general have ever sold 100K like he seems to claim was a regular occurrence for popular shows in the 2000s. I look back at sales for the early 2000s and I see a very similar trend. A couple shows that sell well (over 10K) and then the vast majority which sell between 1000-9000, and then the stinkers who sell below 1000.

WashuTakashi wrote:
Maybe if Japan wasn't charging like 100 bucks for 4 episodes they'd sell more :/ Personally, still a big fan of owning physical media, but when you can get an entire series for 20 bucks in the US, makes being a physical collector much easier.


That's a really dishonest exaggeration. Right Stuf lists Part 1 and Part 2 of Darling in the Franxx as being $97.48 before tax for the complete series if you go for the standard editions and not the limited editions The first volume of Darling in the Franxx from Japan currently costs 6480 yen which is roughly 58 American dollars. And Japanese releases are not just a few episodes only, they also include tons of other content as well since Japanese home video releases are essentially premium editions. Each volume of Darling in the Franxx in Japan comes with additional physical content like soundtrack disks, hardcover art books, and other promotional material.

If you just want the show itself and nothing else, then it's one thing. But owning physical media is for the high end collectors in Japan who want all the soundtrack CDs, art books, and every piece of merchandise they can get. Most Japanese people just watch anime on television for free, since it actually airs on television in Japan unlike here where it's all locked behind subscription services aside from the handful of anime Adult Swim airs.
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