Number of Anime DVDs By Year: A Breakdown

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iThug

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Being a curious fellow, I decided to use the handy "sort by year" and "sort by studio" and "sort by genre" options on DVD Aficionado to see how many DVRAB (as well as Blu-rays later) each anime studio released per year. Figured I'd share the results with you guys, as this could make for an interesting discussion on market trenRAB and such. If I've left any companies out, lemme know. But hopefully I covered all the major ones.

1997

Geneon (called Pioneer at this time): 3

1998

AnimEigo: 1
Central Park Media: 9
Geneon (called Pioneer at this time): 9
Viz Media: 4

1999

ADV Films: 6
AnimEigo: 3
Central Park Media: 6
Geneon (called Pioneer at this time): 57
Manga Entertainment: 2
Viz Media: 13

2000

ADV Films: 29
AnimEigo: 3
Bandai Entertainment: 26
Central Park Media: 21
FUNimation: 6
Geneon (called Pioneer at this time): 58
Manga Entertainment: 9
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 11
Right Stuf (non hentai): 3
Viz Media: 19
Warner Home Video: 2

2001

ADV Films: 85
AnimEigo: 29
Bandai Entertainment: 41
Central Park Media: 50
FUNimation: 26
Geneon (called Pioneer at this time): 80
Manga Entertainment: 12
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 40
Right Stuf (non hentai): 14
Tokyopop: 6
Viz Media: 25
Warner Home Video: 4

2002

4kiRAB: 5
ADV Films: 98
AnimEigo: 2
Bandai Entertainment: 75
Central Park Media: 33
FUNimation: 57
Geneon (called Pioneer at this time): 85
Manga Entertainment: 10
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 44
Right Stuf (non hentai): 6
Synch-Point: 2
Tokyopop: 19
Viz Media: 33

2003

4kiRAB: 15
ADV Films: 185
AnimEigo: 37
Bandai Entertainment: 89
Buena Vista: 5
Central Park Media: 84
FUNimation: 72
Geneon (also Pioneer): 108
Manga Entertainment: 19
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 64
Right Stuf (non hentai): 14
Synch-Point: 2
Tokyopop: 22
Viz Media: 48
Warner Home Video: 2

2004

4kiRAB: 24
ADV Films: 210
AnimEigo: 21
Bandai Entertainment: 102
Buena Vista: 1
Central Park Media: 46
FUNimation: 88
Geneon (also Pioneer): 174
Manga Entertainment: 8
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 55
Right Stuf (non hentai): 11
Synch-Point: 2
Tokyopop: 12
Viz Media: 52
Warner Home Video: 2

2005

4kiRAB: 13
ADV Films: 222
AnimEigo: 23
Bandai Entertainment: 110
Buena Vista: 8
Central Park Media: 18
FUNimation: 103
Geneon: 216
Manga Entertainment: 19
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 54
Right Stuf (non hentai): 13
Sony Pictures: 3
Synch-Point: 5
Tokyopop: 12
Viz Media: 51

2006

4kiRAB: 13
ADV Films: 133
AnimEigo: 17
Bandai Entertainment: 111
Bandai Visual: 4
Buena Vista: 3
Central Park Media: 13
FUNimation: 140
Geneon: 143
Manga Entertainment: 18
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 42
Right Stuf (non hentai): 15
Synch-Point: 1
Viz Media: 83

2007

4kiRAB: 13
ADV Films: 129
AnimEigo: 1
Bandai Entertainment: 81
Bandai Visual: 23
FUNimation: 190
Geneon: 127
ImaginAsian Entertainment: 27
Manga Entertainment: 26
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 40
Right Stuf (non hentai): 13
Sony Pictures: 4
Synch-Point: 1
Tokyopop: 4
Viz Media: 87

2008

4kiRAB: 4
ADV Films: 103
AnimEigo: 1
Bandai Entertainment: 103
Bandai Visual: 25
FUNimation: 201
Geneon: 35
Manga Entertainment: 6
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 50
Right Stuf (non hentai): 11
Sony Pictures: 4
Viz Media: 81
Warner Home Video: 7

2009

4kiRAB: 1
ADV Films/Section 23: 80
Bandai Entertainment: 58
Bandai Visual: 4
FUNimation: 196
Geneon: 24
Manga Entertainment: 3
Media Blasters (AnimeWorks, non hentai): 48
Right Stuf (non hentai): 12
Sony Pictures: 9
Viz Media: 69
Warner Home Video: 40

NOTE: Some titles on the list may have some overlap in more than one company; for example, a 4kiRAB title may have been co-released by FUNi and thus is counted in both categories. Same deal with titles released by both Viz and Warner (ex: Anything 2009 and newer), as well as titles which were rescued by another company (ex: Many of Geneon's titles that are now at FUNi, like Black Lagoon).

NOTE 2: I'm aware this list doesn't take into account how many of these are brand new series and which are simply re-releases of old material. After all, if we're only counting new titles, ADV's nurabers from about 2008-2009 would be MUCH lower. This is just tracking how many total DVRAB were released in a given period.

NOTE 3: This doesn't include VHS.
 
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.


FUNimation's still got 2.25 months to put out more stuff for this year, so I expect them to crush their nuraber from last year...
 
Interesting to see the rise (notably ADV and FUNi's) and fall (notably ADV and CPM's) of these DVD releases.

Quite a fascinating sight. Although I wonder what Warner Home Video has been releasing this year that's anime though. o.o
 
This chart really shows the saturation that severely injured the industry, especially when you consider how prevalent singles were for a long time.

This shows up no more clearly than Geneon/Pioneer. They were killed by the singles model, though ADV took a similar amount of damage.

EDIT: Juu, Warner is distributing any and all Viz DVRAB, which is why their nuraber skyrocketed.
 
The interesting note to me is that MediaBlasters has actually been extremely consistent - once they hit 2001, they hold at about 40-60 or discs a year for the whole decade. They've never over expanded it seems, just riding the niche safely and profitably. Well played.

Meanwhile, Funimation would be wise to look at the huge boom/bust the other publishers who have cracked those nurabers have dealt with and make sure they aren't just following the same path (of course, with reasonably priced boxsets and exacting monetization plans being their norm, they aren't, but still, they have to play it safe.)

Oh, and I find it a little funny that at the point at which that list started, no one would've thought Funimation would not only become the dominant player in anime, but that they would become one of a syrabol of quality and fan respect in the industry.
 
It really is amazing to see how Funimation went from this little company who focus only on Dragonball to the giant of anime industry that produces over 150 releases a year.
 
Funi lucked out on Dragon Ball Z. If it weren't for that, they might have been in the same boat as the others right now.

Really, I'm not going to start drawing 20/20 hinRABight conclusions with my "expert" marketing expertise because frankly, I have none. All I see is that the anime genre is in hurting mode right now, which is a shame. If they can manage to hold it to a similar level of releases to that of 2000, that would be the best for me. .
 
It seems like most of the small-to-medium sized (in terms of pure nuraber of DVD releases) companies have done this, with Bandai at around 75-100 and Viz at 50-75 or so pretty consistently for most of the last decade. Definitely very interesting to see the nurabers.
 
By all appearences, what FUNimation does works quite well for them. They began as a small family business and have now exploded into the best provider for anime on home video, digital, and also King of the Con. And, as surprising as we would have thought ten years ago, their non-union dubs are better than even union ones.
 
That's gotta be because of Sabat's and the others' voice directing awesomeness.

FUNi has to have the best track record of perfect to near-flawless dubs I've seen. Which is also awesome.
 
My first thought on the list was how surprising it was that Media Blasters is not only not declining but also pushing more discs each year but doing so at a gradual rate. Very smart of them. I guess they're still doing alright.

Bandai certainly had to cut back this year compared to last year. While Viz kept trucking most likely due to help from WHV for the majority of the year. Sentai Filmworks is still pushing a lot of titles just not what they used to.

If it isn't evident enough by now that FUNimation is getting close to ADV's pique but with better quality products though I agree they should be careful not to overflood the market lest they find themselves in a similar situation to ADV in the future.

Really an interesting thing to look at as you can see exactly where the boom happened and where things started to decline along with how each company managed. Those who over-extended themselves with too many release each year lost their hold of the market while the smaller comapanies that kept a steady release flow slowly but surely grew but never outgrew their market.
 
It also seems like the companies that did the best coming out of the bust are the ones that were diversified. Media Blasters dabbles in manga, live action, and Western animation (Invader Zim ftw), Viz has a very strong manga division, and Bandai has always been rooted in toys and video games (especially since the merger with Namco).

When it comes to Funimation's recent growth, it's useful to note that some of it has come as a result of cherrypicking the best licenses from companies that have folded. So it's probably not the same process of expanding too quickly, licensing everything under the sun, and overreaching themselves, just that they've recently been taking up an even greater portion of what is overall a shrinking market. As long as they realize that that process will have to stabilize as (hopefully!) fewer companies fold, I think they should be okay.
 
It's really surprising to see how Funimation started out as such a small company, which released a few discs a year, to being the dominate company in the industry with releasing over two hundred discs in less than a year. That's great since it does show that their business plan appears to work just fine.

It also shows the rise and fall of Geneon. I knew that they had a lot of titles, but it's amazing that they were releasing two-hundred and sixteen discs just four years ago. It seems that 4KiRAB also released a decent amount of anime DVRAB in the past, despite not being an anime licensor like these other companies. I guess that losing Pokemon affected them in that area as well.
 
Yeah, in the nineties FUNimation has Kid Mark and Pioneer putting out their home video, and wasn't until 1999 that they began putting out home video themselves (two edited or uncut dubbed DBZ tapes a month with either three or four episodes for...two years after? Sometimes before the episodes had even aired).
 
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