So I talked a bit about how the business model of the Japanese anime industry needs to change.
From the general consensus I’ve heard (of course I haven’t talked to everyone in the industry, so please take this as my own personal impression), the core issue seems to be how late-night TV anime are produced in Japan.
The concept is a decades-old idea that “anime is made for TV first, and DVD sales are secondary.”
For those who don’t know how the late-night TV anime gets on air in Japan, anime studios BUY air time from TV stations. Late-night hours are cheaper than “golden time” (around 7pm), so if anime studios/production companies wanted to air a non-mass market anime show, they just bought time slots & looked for sponsors themselves.
The sponsors are what became the “animation production committee” that you see on copyrights. Of course there are non-production committee sponsors who just buy commercial time during the show, but that’s a whole different thing. Production committees are the initial investors of producing the anime show. They include DVD distributors, merchandise makers, CD publishers, financial institutions, licensing agency companies or occasionally foreign investors (for overseas license).
Anyhoo, for a decade, this model worked. Because there was enough fan base in Japan that bought DVDs & the production committee was able to recoup the cost of buying the time slot by DVD sales.
Then the digital age finally caught up to video media. And DVD sales started declining. And to top it all off, US companies who used to pay MG that amounted to over half of the production cost (at one time) couldn’t do that anymore. And anime production became harder and harder to recoup.
And they tried everything in Japan. Decreasing production costs by going overseas. Raising prices. Adding bonus items. Raising prices & adding bonus items. Making limited editions. Adding bonus content not seen on TV. Everything you’ve seen in the books.
So what’s the problem?
There’s lots of things that can be brought up… lack of initial revenue (no revenue when it’s aired on TV). Decrease in consumer’s value towards video. Too many titles for the demand. Lack of top notch creators.
And the solution?
That’ll be for tomorrow…
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Interesting post about the current TV / DVD market in Japan. I think the anime studios made way too many late-night TV shows, many of the shows are really bad…. basically bad shows are bad investments.
Is the answer one of the following?
1. LAWSUITS.
2. THE POWER OF THE GUN.
Naaaaaaaaaaaaah. Maybe not.
I’m not too sure, really. The only solution I wanna suggest would make me a heretic in front of today’s postmodern society.
I personally find it irritating when i buy a box and then a few months to a year down the line i see it get re-released with a bunch of extra stuff. What ADV did with evangelion is a good example. Remember the 250 dollar box they put out? it came with a jacket and a bunch of other crap.