Ask John: How Can America’s Big Three Save the Anime Industry?
Question:
Who is the Big 3 of the anime industry and how can they come together to do something about the slowing industry?
Answer:
Unlike America’s “big 3” automobile manufacturers that are universally recognized as General Motors, Ford, and Daimler Chrysler, the “big 3” of America’s anime distribution industry vary depending on the perceived constitution of the anime industry. From a traditional perspective, meaning anime DVD producers, America’s three most influential companies would be FUNimation, Viz Media, and Bandai Entertainment. However, with a prospective perspective, America’s “big 3” would be FUNimation, Viz Media, and Crunchyroll. These groupings reflect the condition of America’s anime distribution industry, and also hint at the answer to the question of what must be done to sustain America’s anime distribution industry.
As a long time supporter of America’s anime industry, it’s a bit harrowing to realize that AN Entertainment, AnimEigo, ArtsMagic, Bandai Visual, Central Park Media, DiscoTek, Geneon, Pathfinder, Super Techno Arts, Synch Point, and Urban Vision have all ceased licensing new anime. With only about one new title a year, Manga Entertainment’s activity in new domestic anime licensing and distribution is practically insignificant. So the core active American anime DVD distribution industry now consists of only ADV Films (which only distributes anime on behalf of other companies), Bandai Entertainment, FUNimation, Media Blasters, Nozomi Entertainment, and Viz Media. I don’t like to be negative, but it’s an obvious fact that America’s established industry dealing in anime packaged media is shrinking, and may be on ain irreversible path toward extinction. But that’s not to say that anime distribution in America is in jeapordy of vanishing. It’s simply evolving from packaged media to digital distribution.
The era of anime distribution on physical media in America may be unavoidably entering its twilight years due to a combination of evolving technology and short sighted domestic marketing. Advances in digital technology and the proliferation of broadband intenet has made online anime distribution cheap, easy, and convenient. Domestic marketing that has promoted Japanese animation as a commercial product to the exclusion of promoting it as an intrinsically valuable art form has conditioned consumers to perceive anime as a product lacking in worth. Anime DVD sales in Japan are down, but not remotely as depressed as American anime DVD sales. More than half of all Blu-ray discs purchased in Japan are anime releases because Japanese otaku are still willing and eager to support the anime industry and purchase anime at prices that sustain the distribution industry. That’s not the case in America. American consumers have developed a presumption that anime should be cheap or free, and isn’t worth the prices that distributors charge for commercial anime DVDs. As a result of being unable to continue selling anime DVDs for an amount necessary to sustain viability, more than half of America’s anime distributors have ceased licensing and distributing new anime.
Today’s three most assertive and progressive domestic distributors have all launched initiatives to distribute new anime online, forgoing traditional physical media releases. FUNimation and Viz do still release supplemental physical media, but so far all of the new titles made available through Crunchyroll, including Tower of Druaga, Blassreiter, Strike Witches, Linebarrels of Iron, Skip Beat, Shugo Chara, Catblue Dynamite, and Time of Eve, have no announced American DVD or Blu-ray releases. It may be already too late to reinvigorate America’s anime DVD distribution. Contemporary American consumers are now largely unwilling to pay DVD prices that can sustain the American anime industry. Domestic anime on Blu-ray doesn’t seem to be taking off, and a large portion of domestic packaged anime media sales may not be able to hang on until Blu-ray becomes widely affordable and adopted.
In effect, the American “big 3” consisting of Crunchyroll, FUNimation, and Viz are already doing what’s necessary to sustain American anime distribution; they’re beginning to prioritize digital distribution, and even eliminate physical media distribution entirely. In order to survive, distributors have to provide what consumers want, and market trends have proven that American consumers want anime cheap and quick. Anime on DVD or Blu-ray is neither cheap nor quick. As more and more Japanese content owners begin distributing their anime internationally online, I think we’ll either see America’s anime distributors increasingly move into digital distribution – as FUNimation and Viz Media have done – or we’ll see them attrition out of domestic distribution.
Update: Since this article was originally written, AD Vision has continued to license anime titles in addition to serving as a distributor on behalf of other companies.
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For the big three to take the most influential action to prevent the deterioration of consumer support, it’s pretty much too late: legal action (…forcing the market’s hand back into retail).
As it now stands, DVDs carry an inferior product compared to much of what is “released” in Japan. With the advent of High-Definition broadcasting (720 &1080 resolution), many anime series are available in HD long before they are even available on DVD (only 480 resolution), even in Japan.
The only way for American licensing to keep up with the technical aspects of the industry is online distribution or (prohibitively expensive) Blu-Ray.
The online distribution of X’amd: Lost Memories via the PlayStation Network in 720 resolution is an example of this new method.
Call me old fashioned (because I am), but the day physical media distribution ceases is the day my yearly anime budget shrinks to double digits. Part of the fun of anime for me is having a physical collection to stare at as a monument to my dedication. Take this away and replace it with files on a hard drive that could have just as easily been pirated without being able to tell the difference, and you have something that just isn’t as impressive.
Right Stuf saw at least $500 from me this past month. In a digital age, that number could drop to $5 when I need my fix (after getting though the library I have on hand now, of course). I’m just a crazy old otaku in my twenties, and this is how I was brought up. While there are still a lot of true fans out there, good luck surviving in a world of fan sub-happy posers.
If the American anime industry knew what it was doing, it would take Blu-ray as an excuse to increase prices on physical media and start cultivating a new mentality among fandom, similar to that of Japanese anime fans. The reality is these companies, especially giants like Funimation, won’t be able to live on streaming alone.
Far too late. The fanbase, as I’ve said numerous times, is the enemy of an American anime industry.
The American anime industry is dead (and now admittedly outdated). None of the remaining companies (with the POSSIBLE exception of Shonen Jump/Viz) are long for America. Anime’s future (such that it has any) is digital distro. And all the Japanese studios reliant on the licensing fees that American fans bitch about are either going to have to be sold off to become part of larger Japanese TV networks (like the Shin-Chan studio) or go bankrupt (like Gonzo).
Fact is, people don’t want to pay for the anime they consume. For every person who says “I BUY!!”, there are _hundreds_ who do not. Over 300 million episodes of anime every year are stolen off the Net to American audiences. The DVD-based industry cannot compete with that.
The fact that Crunchyroll is one of the Big Three is all the evidence you need to know that the American anime business is dead. The people behind CR should be behind bars. Instead, they have a legitimate place at the table they have no freaking right to.
What big three?
John, your the last great voice for us who really and truly respected this genre.
Your saying the domestic business is dead because these new uneducated horny 15 year old sexually confused SOB’s want there anime cheap and free?
That isn’t the only reason. The other reason being is that the networks (or should I say the mainstream folks) have taken the whole animation industry back and its seems to me Disney and the like are remaking it into a image that isn’t anywhere what any animation fan worth his salt would like.
Lets make things clear – the anime fans who are now the leaders of crunchyroll, I have DEALT with them. I have fought them tooth and nail. But these idiots in CR are no better than the idiots over at Foggy-Bottom who stole our tax money to feed there buddies. They said crap about 4Kids, DIC, Saban – all who brought this anime genre to its forfront – well guess what Saban and DIC are SHELLS of there former selfs and 4Kids had to go through BS litigation from FOX in order to live… They have done more than CR will ever do.
You know why the anime fan-base lost respect? They lost respect because they kept fighting petty conflicts against the Hollywood big shots and now the majority of these live action movies based on anime is to break the fan-base into a million pieces. Funi and all these boys know it. All the fanbase want is a broken english translations, because that same fanbase cannot write a essay in english themselves and I bet you they taking remedial courses over at a community college near you, because they longed around in HS being full of it, getting beat up and shot down by the jocks and there girlfriends because they have no souls or no damn idea about themselves. So anime (and Japan to some degree – and to Japanese men and women in some cases as well) is now their escape from an american society that wishes they were dead in a forest, bleeding on a mossy rock over in the bayou.
But the fact remains, the business has major problems. If I was a smart man, and im looking to get things back to a good state – I would make blu-ray a way to get the real fans back. I would look at a Syndicated TV deal in the vain of Tyler Perry’s deal with Debar Mercury for the House of Payne, I would do branded blocks in the vain of Toonami, because many anime series are not strong enough or not LONG enough to survive on their own, and the Digital content would have to be in a ITUNES or Amazon like format because this BS with CrunchyRoll and the Japanese TV stations is the biggest ponzi scheme i have ever seen. And I like said in other places, you want to get respect back from the animation fans who TRIED and I MEAN TRIED to give you a Hand up not a hand out from CrunchyRoll for the last 10-15 years or so – do more cons like the one in Providence RI and have some respect for your damn selfs and maybe we could talk again. But until then **** OFF.
I agree with starcade about Crunchy Roll. I contacted them once because I was outraged with all of the licensed anime they had available. While I think fans subs of unlicensed properties have their place (I wouldn’t have shelled out for Ninja Nonsense so quickly without them), the problem is once most of these “fans” watch a title, they don’t see any reason to buy it, thus taking money out of the pockets of folks who bring us anime.
They replied that they only take videos down if the licensor contacts them, and that’s there policy, they claim. So it’s okay to steal as long as the owner doesn’t know about it. Someone should apply this policy to there homes and see how they like it.
What irritates me is now that they’ve taken away enough revenue from the industry, companies are turning to them to sell their product. That’s like if I steal from Best Buy and sell their wares, and then they decide, what the hell, they might as well sell me their stuff at a fraction of the price so I can sell it.
Now their execs are jumping up on their pedastals and raving about how wonderful they are for helping the anime industry and bringing us into a new age. Who do you think helped get us into this mess in the first place? I refuse to give Crunchy Roll a cent of my money.
Funimation had a solid and practical business structure that I’ve been supporting: release DVDs in 13 episode sets at the price DVDs were at seven years ago and you have a hit. This is where my cash is going.
Yeah, with the internet as it is I don’t see much reason to buy anime or manga. Though I say this I buy and intend to buy more manga and anime, but for every anime or manga I buy I watch/read a dozen more online.
I would say the price is the biggest issue, if anime was cheaper I would buy a lot more.
But back on the subject, anime and manga have never been as popular in America as in Japan. I don’t expect that it will ever come close.
I think Viz and Funimation are doing reasonably well, but I’m not really sure where Crunchyroll comes into this… I think as long as good companies like Funimation keep bringing in anime titles then the anime industry will never truly die.
For anyone reading this right now and into the future, the real answer is: None. The Great Recession was caused by a real estate bubble accelerated by real estate speculators hoping to buy low and sell big while also maintaining absurd gambling like loans to wait on before a payoff, among other greed based garbage like increasing debt rates on the little guy and Hedge Fund corporations like Blackrock hoping to save their bottom line through the real estate market. tl;dr preppies and trust fund babies and their mommies and daddies caused this atrocity and they should be all hung and quartered for it like the bourgeois pigs they are.
Hindsight is 20/20 but a lot of you look stupid, imho. Nothing you could have done would have ever saved the anime industry, the Great Recession was an inevitable enormous shitshow on a huger scale than any of you at the time. Anyone who blamed moe and new anime at the time of this post deserved anything that the got coming to them.