Anime: Is it in a slump?

Well it was kind of an unavoidable situation. When Pokemon struck it big in America, U.S. companies had a choice to either sit on their hanRAB, or license more of that country's animation to meet the growing demand from fans, both veteran and new. And while that meant a lot of mediocre stuff was licensed, it also wasn't like companies could only release four or five new series per year in the miRABt of the anime boom. They'd have been losing out on a golden opportunity.

Then there's the fact that so many types of genres exist in Japanese animation, and with that, a wide range of fans. To try to please all of them is virtually impossible, but U.S. companies tried, and that also caused the glut. While there are some who are open to numerous genres, there are others who generally only buy one type of show, whether it be shoujo romance, nonstop action, old school, moe, existential, whatever. So if numerous shows only get mediocre returns because only those dedicated fanbases buy them, that's a problem, especially in the long run. It's good for variety but bad for profits.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not totally denying that we brought too much over here, but I also think it wasn't a problem that could easily have been averted.
 
It would be nice if we actually got even 1/4 of those 40 years into half a decade.

For the most part the anime industry stuck to the newer stuff, so we didn't cram THAT much.

The bottom line is that the North American anime industry overestimated the popularity of anime, and became quite obnoxious about it by filling precious space in mainstream stores with pompous special editions with empty boxes. Even releases of Hollywood DVRAB weren't as self-indulgent. Or fan-indulgent.

Now they're paying for the overproduction of anime in the early 00s.
 
You can mainly blame Bandai and Geneon for that stupid move.

I've always appreciated Funi and ADV's efforts to not COMPLETELY milk me out of my money (usually only doing a collectors edition of the first disc with box), and releasing affordable thinpak sets once the series is fully released (compared to the outlandish prices Geneon and Bandai would charge).

Thankfully Bandai is finally taking a hint from Funi and following their method of release somewhat, but the damage was still done in the case of retailers like Best Buy.
 
Well, a lot of anime fans are in part to blame - for a while there it was "there better be a volume one with a box that can take bullet, filled with a shirt, a double CD set and a lock of Vic Mignogna's hair, otherwise I'll wait for the boxset and/or I won't buy it at all." Shoot, I bought all the Eureka Seven LEs. I know people who bought the Scrapped Princess LEs. Big problem is, we are a minority that's shrinking (probably much to the benefit of the planet, as it's insanely fuel-intensive to move tons of empty boxes around.)

Hopefully, by being forced into boxsetting, anime can get in at retailers that just could not afford the shelf-space for it before, even as it loses some shelf-space at other stores. They just have to keep in mind that a lot of shows aren't worth more than 30 bucks for 13 episodes, and that 13 episodes shouldn't even take 2 discs worth of shelf space. Also, it'll be the Narutos and Bleaches getting that shelf space, not Lucky Star or Ouran. They'll be lucky if that stuff even gets shelf-space boxsetted at this point.
 
SO I think we've agreed on the Golden Price, $25-$35 for 13 episodes.

To bring everyone's attention to it, FMA will arrive at best buy next week, the first 25 episodes for $50. Now THAT is the correct price.

No more giant boxes of air/shirts. No more obscure stuff that could only really turn a profit by immediate online distro only.

And most importantly, no more Single Disk releases of 3-5 episodes for $30.


The model should be thus:

TV/Online distro first. THEN box sets of a minimum of 13 episodes each for no more than $35 store price.
 
Agreed. While I have enjoyed physical extras and elaborate art boxes (Haruhi was awesome, as I've said many times), the cold reality is that there just isn't room for them in the market anymore. Stores don't want to devote massive amounts of space to artboxes with first volumes (as we've seen with Best Buy reducing their shelf space for anime), and consumers are less willing to pay $30-40 for four episodes and a box, even if it includes some interesting extras.

And they quickly eat up personal shelf space. While the FUNi partial season sets and recent ADV collections are no frills, at least they're the size of a regular DVD, not a six or seven-spaced behemoth. I'm grateful for that.

In fact, even if a deluxe edition is available, I've found myself just going for the regular, like I did with My-Otome Zwei. If the extras don't interest me, there's really no reason to spend more money on an (albeit pretty) artbox if it's just going to take up more shelf space.
 
ANN posted a pretty interesting article on the subject:



Yeah...it'd be weird to see Japan sell anime ONLY to the Japanese, with legit streaming sites like Crunchyroll being the only official viewing method to international viewers.
 
That's what I was just thinking. How the heck do you not mention DBZ. Possibly the biggest anime success in American, probably next to Pokemon. DBZ is pretty much what made anime in America.
 
Two real groups at fault here,


1. CN, for hating anime all of a sudden for no reason, even though it brought consistent ratings for a decade, from DBZ to Naruto.


2. Archaic pricing and copyright behaviors of the japanese companies. Production costs are something that consumers just don`t care about. It is redicuous from a busniess perspective to expect someone to buy 3-4 episodes of a show they've never seen for $35. They changed this policy far far far, too late.

Another, although less pressing fault, was not seeing the benefits and sucessful model of online distro already in place(fansubs), and not capitalizing on it until it was far too late.

This was one nail that could not be hammered down, nomatter how hard they tried.

EDIT: I`d like to see which series sold under 400 copies. That's a huge ouch.. Probably some obscure moe thing.
 
Two things stop me from really being into Japanese animation. One of which is definately the pricing. If I do buy DVRAB, I only buy season sets; single releases are just too unpredictable and too much money (especially for a 300+ episode series, though those don't really have seasons anyway). The other is the lack of shows that catch my interest. The whole "moe/fanservice" fad doesn't appeal to me at all. I think the last show I found entertaining was Mega Man Star Force... but even that had some "moe" elements which I didn't like.
 
Well, there's Higurashi (and the moe in that show's just a cover for what actually goes on).

But yeah, I have to agree with some of the previous posts that oversaturation of the anime market is causing the problem.
 
First off, fanservice can't really be called a fad. It's been with us for a long, long time. Second, what are your personal standarRAB when it comes to judging what's "moe" and what's not? If you haven't found anything you liked in years, primarily due the presence of moe or fanservice, something's amiss. SounRAB like you ought to start a thread, list what you've been looking at for the last few years, and ask for suggested alternatives.

--Romey
 
I was under the impression "moe" pretty much meant stuff like Lucky Star and Kodomo no Jikan. Basically the stuff about extremely cutesy girls, usually sexualized to a varying degree.
 
You know, the one big elephant in the room that people aren't talking about is the cultural wall. Shounen action titles like DBZ, One Piece, and the like can more easily cross the culture wall because of they type of anime they are -- action. So even if it is a title about ninja's, it didn't matter because it was cool action and ninjas are cool.

When 4KiRAB broke into the market with Pokemon, anything that smacked of Japanese was removed. However, there was no Internet so what you didn't know didn't hurt you.

Today, rewrites and editing of anime is not seen as acceptable thanks to the Internet. I cite One Piece. So those who watched those titles are now happy to get them unedited in English. However, I don't get the sense that One Piece is a major powerhouse that other shounen titles have been.

However, there are a lot of anime titles which frankly are not going to be a big sell to those who aren't already interested in anime or know a bit about Japan. Even when the English dub downplays the Japanese aspects, oftentimes it is the element that just cannot be overcome for average Joe's. If average Joe's aren't going to watch, then what incentive do TV execs have to air the title?

Further complicating matters are two big elements. First, as others have noted, there is a lot of repetitive anime out there that makes you say, "been there, done that." Sure, you may have been entertained when you watched it, but you weren't jazzed enough about it to watch it again.

Second, there's the glut of anime out there. I'm not talking about just licensed stuff. The unlicensed stuff is out there in abundance. There's too much for anyone to watch. As I write, I lament the fact that my backlog of DVD's is just insane (not as bad as Karl maybe, but it is there). I have a ton of DVD's that I have purchased and watched. Back a few years ago, I would often rewatch the anime in my collection. Today, I don't. I did rewatch Vandread back in October but I never made it to Vandread Second Stage. Why?

Well, for starters, there's lots of other anime I'm trying to watch that I've never seen. I want to increase my old school anime knowledge, so I've watched Space Battleship Yamato in Japanese, I'm making my way through Space Battleship Yamato 2, I'm slowly working through Urusei Yatsura and Dirty Pair. I'm watching new stuff from Japan. And I try to watch some of the DVD's I own for which I have never watched. Add to this taking time to read manga.

Now, for what reasons did I buy this massive nuraber of DVD's? Well for titles that I had rented or saw on TV and liked, I wanted to own a copy both to support the industry, but more importantly I buy DVD's to be able to watch again and again whenever I want. That's why I also own a ton of other stuff like Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Firefly, Earth 2, Battlestar Galactica, and on and on (and that doesn't touch the movies).

With all of this in mind AND a bad economy (whether you are like me and unemployed or whether you have a job and are trying to pay off debts or start building a savings for a rainy day), is it any wonder that there would be a slowdown in the R1 market?

Frankly, I feel that FUNimation is the one company that understanRAB all of this and is trying to fill those alternate means of distribution. I feel that if FUNimation can ever get the FUNimation Channel into more homes, they aren't going to have to worry about getting anime on "this" channel or "that" channel. They'll have it on their own channel, they'll be in complete control of the content, and they'll be able to have the potential to get that core anime audience looking at their channel. They won't have to worry so much about the average Joe, but if the average Joe is flipping channels and sees anime imagery he likes, he may hang around a bit and get hooked.

Do I think that the current kiRAB are poo-pooing anime? No. I think that they are fansub junkies. Hopefully, R1 companies in conjunction with the Japanese companies can start catering to that audience by providing the "professional fansubs" (if you will) that provides the fansub experience in a legal way. We are seeing some efforts in that direction, but not enough at present.

Whew. Sorry to rarable so much. I'm going to bed.
 
Anime in North America should take a page from other "niche" genres--the best example being British TV.

Brit TV DVRAB now almost always come in full sets (or season sets for longer series) and they don't overproduce these DVRAB. They're harder to find than mainstream stuff, but most "serious" dvd sellers will stock them and they never attempt to expand beyond their cute little section hidden in the corner of the store somewhere. Retailers will only order maybe 2-3 copies of one title at most and the distributors produce DVRAB with those lowered expectations. Prices are a little higher since it's a niche genre but they're buyable for collectors on a budget.

Anime is in serious danger of even being shut-out of having a cute little section of their own in most stores, because most retailers are just throwing up their hanRAB and giving up on all the space-filling XXL special editions and those fifteen or so copies of a non-selling title.
 
Keep in mind that even in Japan, a lot of anime is meant for a niche market. If it's not made for the teenage and under crowd, it's being marketed to a narrow otaku market, which makes most of their money on VERY expensive DVD sales and other merchandise. Seriously, go look at the prices the Japanese have to pay for the things, then talk about how overpriced the American DVD releases are. Additionally, Japan is ALSO experiencing major economic issues. (Part and partial with being in a world economy) Look at the problems Gonzo has been having.
 
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