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State of Animation Industry In Japan

posted on by Isaac Alexander
The Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO) has released an updated report on the status of the Animation Industry.

JETRO's 2005 report is an update of the 2004 report. The changes going on in Japanese Animation industry are quite profound. Here is some excerpts from the 2005 with a list of the sources for some of the data in the report listed below.

The anime market sales in Japan declined from a high of 213.5 billion yen in 2002, to 191.2 billion yen in 2003(a 10.4% drop).

There are about 430 anime production studios in Japan, with 264(over 60%) of them concentrated in greater Tokyo - 70 of these are in the Suginami district of Tokyo.

Earlier this year, the Japan Digital Contents & an independent government agency gathered 500 million yen each to start an investment financing fund for content production in animation.

A typical 30-minute TV episode costs 10 million yen to produce, however some cost as little as 5 million yen to produce.

Most TV series do not recoup their production costs through TV broadcasting and rely on other revenue sources (DVDs, licensing, toys, etc...) to make up the shortfall and profit.

Employees in many smaller animation studios are not paid monthly salaries. Many also don't have guaranteed stable incomes.

Almost all of the animation broadcast in South Korea used to be from Japan. South Korea now produces 30% to 40% of the animation on television in their country.

WAO Corporation is behind the opening of Japan's first vocational graduate school. It is scheduled to open in April 2006 in Suginami.

The 2.5 billion yen used in the production of Spirited Away was invested bythese businesses: Studio Ghibli, Tokuma Shoten Publishing, Nippon Television Network Dentsu, Tohokushinsha Film and a few others.

Feature-length anime movies released in theaters have dropped in revenue for several consecutive years. Box office revenue has dropped 53% between 2001 and 2003, from a high of 53.3 billion yen in 2001, to 33.7 billion yen in 2003.

The number of TV anime programs continue to grow each year. In 2003, there were 2,850 episodes of anime broadcast in Japan, up from 2,748 in 2002. This was the second consecutive annual rise. Over Sixty percent of TV anime is broadcast in the evening after six p.m.

Sales of anime DVDs/videos were 92.59 billion yen in 2004. This however was a 5.5% decrease from 2003. The sales of animation DVDs/videos in Japan was 80% Japanese anime and 20% imported animation.

In 2004, the anime market was estimated to be worth 20 billion yen according to the Nomura Research Institute. The numbers were based on the amount of DVDs sold.

METI issued a report in January of 2004 estimating on sales internationally that 60% of the anime shown worldwide is made in Japan.

Sources:
Dentsu Communication Institute
Japane Digital Contents
Japan Video Software Association
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry(METI)
Nomura Research Institute
Video Research
Woa Corporation
Yano Research

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