Japanese Anime Industry Thread

[gloomranger]

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...ndustry-sales/

Japan animation industry sales fall 1.8% in 2020, first drop in decade

Aug 15, 2021

Sales in Japan’s animation production industry fell 1.8% on year in 2020, the first drop in a decade, as hit movies such as the record-breaking success of the film on the blockbuster “Demon Slayer” manga series failed to offset the pandemic impact, according to a credit research firm.

The industry’s sales totaled ¥251.1 billion ($2.3 billion) last year, down from a record ¥255.7 billion in 2019, Teikoku Databank said in a recent survey report.

In the movie business, the industry had smash-hit “Demon Slayer — Kimetsu no Yaiba — The Movie: Mugen Train,” which became the highest-grossing film in Japanese box-office history with more than ¥40 billion in revenue.

Among other hit movies was “Violet Evergarden: The Movie,” a Kyoto Animation Co. film that some of the victims of the deadly arson attack at a studio of the company two years ago had been working on.

Still, the COVID-19 pandemic had delayed production processes at many studios, leading 48.6% of 300 animation production companies surveyed to report a sales fall in 2020.

While average annual sales per company fell for the first time in four years in 2020 with ¥831 million, some 31.6% said their sales rose last year.

Profit-wise, 37.7% incurred losses and 29.5% said their profits dropped, as 31.1% reported profit growth, according to the survey.

The outlook for the Japanese animation industry appears difficult, with competition likely to intensify from Chinese animation firms, the research firm said.

Chinese companies are offering higher salaries to hire Japanese talent and gaining Japanese production skills by taking stakes in Japanese studios. Their animation quality is improving in recent years with advanced facilities, Teikoku Databank said.

[gloomranger]

Anime Industry Report 2021 Summary
https://aja.gr.jp/english/japan-anime-data

Our organization has been publishing “The Report on Japanese Animation Industry” on every year, which provides with the latest information about Japanese animation industry and its business.

It is only available in Japanese; however, for non-Japanese readers, we have prepared the summary version of the report, which you may download from the link below.

https://aja.gr.jp/download/anime-industry-report-2021-summary (PDF)

[SweetDaria97]

anime is getting more and more popular

[kk1]

What industry DIDN"T take a hit during Covid?

[Vixzer]

If they sold anime with english subs they would sell even more.

[gloomranger]

CloverWorks, WIT STUDIO, Shueisha, and Aniplex have combined forces to found JOEN, a new company focused on the production of art and animation.

They aim to build a new business model wherein profits are directed back to the creators.

https://jo-en.co.jp/en/

[Kyle15]

The symbol looked like a handcuff to me at first glance.

[kk1]

I hope they succeed as it can only lead to a bsttwr product for us to enjoy.

[The Collector FX]

Nice. This needs to be commonplace in Japan and the animation industry as a whole. Producers and the publisher obviously deserve a cut as they're entitled to it due to whatever investments were made, but more money that comes from royalties, merchandise licenses and streaming licenses (and box office earnings if it's a theatrical release) needs to be paid towards the ACTUAL animators/studio that made the product possible in the first place.

This is a step in the right direction.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

Corporations co-opting labor discourse so that nothing has to actually change while establishing partnerships to keep the Mass Produced Popular Content going, isn't it beautiful (no it's not, don't fall for this ass garbage)

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1531243499781242880

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

On paper it's a similar idea to Twin-Engine, except rather than being spearheaded by a producer who spent decades fighting for creators who wanted to make alternative works, it's a project by companies that are directly responsible for how awful the industry is right now

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1531243960211066880

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

You're supposed to believe this is an attempt to "make money reach the creators" when it involves studios that won't pay a salary to their animators, that the companies that have enforced impossible schedules on production teams now want to "make animation comfortably"

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1531244488630353922

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

The truth is that securing a team capable of making an impressive work right now is a nightmare, and that beyond big name studios and even money (it's not much regardless), what works best is personal magnetism of individuals everone works with - something companies can't control

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1531244980362264577

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

With this, all they're doing is securing themselves a stable pipeline to adapt popular titles and the likes, trying to turn the SpyFam deal into a regular practice. Slap some nice sounding PR and you fool some investors and people online who will think corpos are their friends

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1531245570454654976

Originally Posted by ardia2001

Remember how Aniplex expected A-1 to somehow finish 86 in 2020, even though it got plenty of delays in 2021

Remember how people working on Wonder Egg Priority had to be hospitalized due to unrealistic schedules

I don't believe a single word of this, lmao

https://twitter.com/ardia2001/status...32364755619845

[The Collector FX]

Maybe they wanna turn a new leaf? And this is the beginning? Yuyucow is right though; actions speak louder than words.

We'll have to see.

[BigOnAnime]

This thread may be of interest...

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

Not pointing fingers at any title (or rather I am but this is widespread) but bottlenecks in anime are atrocious. People picture troubled productions as everyone constantly overworking themselves and there's a lot of that, but also tons of sitting around unable to do their job

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1537104186428604416

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

That's why we have a chief animation director grumbling that despite being on a project employing tons of supervisors that could steadily be delivering cuts for them to work on, there has been nothing to even touch. And it'll be like that until hundreds of cuts suddenly drop

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1537104494886014977

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

Everyone struggles to meet deadlines set unreasonably early, leaving those who depend on the materials being delivered to sit still doing nothing... with the knowledge that it'll all drop in bulk and they'll have to do an idle month's worth of work in a week, if not worse

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1537104751627849731

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

The entire industry has built around that, which is part of the reason why assistance work between studios is so common (even if it pays like crap, you might as well use your personnel rather than keep them sitting still) but it's only gotten worse as the industry deteriorates

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1537104959208046592

Originally Posted by Yuyucow

Basically the busier the industry gets, the more often people find themselves unable to work for long periods of time. Anime is dumb as hell

https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/1537105118402949122

[gloomranger]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/fea...-anime/.186464

How True Is the Trickle Down Effect in Anime?

Anime is bringing in more revenue than ever, even through COVID times, but to what extent is the workforce at large feeling the trickle down effect? Gaku Narita, executive director of original content for Japan at The Walt Disney Co., recently claimed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that “It's not just the select few who are getting rich; the artists on the ground are starting to make decent money.”

How true is this, exactly?

[BigOnAnime]

How Kadokawa is Redefining the Anime Market
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/int...market/.187622

[wingzero]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

How Kadokawa is Redefining the Anime Market
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/int...market/.187622

kadokawa has the advantage with in house publishing but the data they get from Crunchyroll & Netflix bit alarming, not much else from other sources

kadokawa put out great anime series but over streching to put out 40 series per year

Feel sorry for artist who do all the work , and get paid not much

[BigOnAnime]

Teikoku Databank: Record 39.8% of Anime Studios Were in the Red in 2021

Industry contracted for 2nd straight year for 1st time since at least 2000

The financial research firm Teikoku Databank published on Friday a report on the anime industry in 2021. The report noted that 39.8% of the 309 anime production companies surveyed had incurred losses in 2021. The percentage is 0.9% higher than 2020, and is the highest ever in Teikoku Databank's records. The firm cited the drop in the number of TV anime productions, the COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage of human resources, and the delays to many of the productions in 2021 as the reasons for the record high.

Total industry revenue for 2021 amounted to 249.582 billion yen (about US$1.87 billion), 5% lower than 2020. This marks the first time since at least 2000 that the anime industry contracted for two consecutive years (Teikoku Databank also recorded a 1.8% contraction of industry total revenue in 2020).

42.6% of anime companies specializing in subcontract work (such as for in-between animation or backgrounds) also incurred losses. The average revenues for such companies in 2021 amounted to 287 million yen (about US$2.15 million).

The average revenue for an anime company in 2021 was 818 million yen (about US$6.13 million), reduced from 2020, and the second time the amount has decreased from the previous year since 2017. (The first time was in 2020.)

Of 309 anime companies surveyed, 70 made transactions with overseas companies through outsourcing or production contracts in 2021. 33 of those companies had transactions with Chinese companies, 25 companies with American companies, 15 with South Korea, seven with Taiwan, and 19 with other countries.

According to the Association of Japanese Animations, the number of television anime titles dropped for the fourth straight year in 2020, and had dropped by over 80 from its historic peak of 278.

Update: Nikkei reported that the survey is for the fiscal year 2021, but Teikoku Databank clarifies that its survey is for the calendar year 2021 (January to December).

Sources: Teikoku Databank, Nikkei via Yaraon!

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...n-2021/.188588

[MOONPHASE]

qooop

Memory-Tech announced on Friday that its post-production firms Q-Tec and Pony Canyon Enterprises will merge into a new company called qooop, Inc. on October 1. Through the merge, qooop, Inc. will strive to improve its services and respond to an increasingly diversified business environment through business collaboration.

Tomonori Furusako, current president and CEO of Q-Tec, will serve as president and representative director of qooop, Inc. Yasuyuki Nishiya, current president and representative director of Pony Canyon Enterprises, will serve as managing director of the new company. Atsushi Sakamoto, Katsumi Satо̄, and Hirokazu Kokago will serve as directors. Kazutoshi Watanabe will be an auditor.

The new company will utilize Q-Tec's Suginami and Akasaka offices, as well as Pony Canyon Enterprises' Iikura office.

Memory-Tech Holdings fully acquired Pony Canyon subsidiary Pony Canyon Enterprises in March 2018 after purchasing 100% of its capital stock.

Pony Canyon Enterprise is a video editing, post-production, and DVD and Blu-ray Disc authoring company, and has also been involved with sound production for anime. The company also provides subtitles and dubbing for video, and also prepares and encodes videos for streaming.

Memory-Tech Holdings is the parent company of the Graphinica (Expelled from Paradise, Chain Chronicle: The Light of Haecceitas, Jūni Taisen) CG animation studio, which it formed in 2009 after acquiring Gonzo's digital video division through its Q-Tec subsidiary.

In December 2017, Memory-Tech acquired AOI TYO Holdings' TYO Animations and REAL-T subsidiary companies, with REAL-T becoming a subsidiary of Memory-Tech, and TYO Animations becoming a subsidiary of Graphinica. Memory-Tech also changed TYO Animations' name to Yumeta Company, reviving an old name that was retired in 2009 when the original Yumeta Company merged with Hal Film Maker to form TYO Animations.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...-merge/.188680

[Girls With Guns]

Should have named the company Q-Poop.

[InuYashaCrusade]

Anime DVD/BD Market in Japan Shrank in 2022

The Japan Video Software Association (JVA) released last week the Blu-ray Disc and DVD sales and shipment statistics in Japan for the first half of 2022. The home video sales of Japanese animation for general audiences (as opposed to children only) during this period were 11.82 billion yen (about US$86 million), a significant decrease of 54.6% from the previous year.

For comparison, sales for the first half of 2021 were about 26.08 billion yen (about US$190 million), which was a significant increase over the 18.67 billion yen (about US$136 million) during the same period in 2020.

Home video sales of Japanese animation for children were 403 million yen (about US$2.93 million), a decrease of 46.4% from the previous year. Sales to rental stores of Japanese animation for general audiences were 904 million yen (about US$11 million), down 27.9% from 2021.

The numbers may be attributed to the long-term decline in sales of packaged products and the lower consumption rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, last year's numbers were largely due to the record sales of the Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train anime film.

The total sales for home video software in Japan were 55.82 billion yen (about US$406 million), down 19.7% from the previous year. Of this number, Blu-ray Discs accounted for 32.93 billion yen (about US$239 million), and DVDs accounted for 22.89 billion yen (about US$166 million).

Source:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...n-2022/.188890

[gloomranger]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...evenue/.190756

Anime Concert Market Grew 195% in 2021, But is Still Half of Pre-Pandemic Revenue

​Market revenue hit 12.1 billion yen in 2021, 4.1 billion yen in 2020

The Pia Sōken live entertainment research company revealed on October 5 that anime-related live entertainment events (including anime song concerts, and concerts centering on anime voice actors and singers) recorded a total market revenue of 12.1 billion yen (about US$81.34 million) from the period of January to December 2021.

The number represents a 195% increase from 2020's low of 4.1 billion yen (about US$27.6 million by current conversion) brought about by the dearth of events due to COVID-19. The 2021 number, however, represents just under 50% of the 2019 market revenue of 24.5 billion yen (about US$164.7 million by current conversion) prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Notable live entertainment events in 2021 included the Animelo Summer Live (which was canceled in 2020) in August 2021, as well as Animax Musix, which had both a live streamed event in January 2021 and a live audience event in November 2021.

Sources: Pia Sōken, Animation Business Journal (Tadashi Sudo)
​