Ask John: What Are the Top Ten Reasons for Anime’s Decline in America?

Question:
What are top 10 reasons why the anime industry decline in Japan and North America?

Answer:
While the question asks for ten reasons behind the declining status of the anime industry in Japan and America, I’m going to limit my response to just America. I’m doing so because I’m more familiar with the circumstances of the American anime community, and because the downturn of the American anime industry is far more significant than declines in the Japanese industry. While Japan’s anime market is financially slowing and even slightly contracting, more anime productions than ever are in development in Japan (including at least 48 new TV anime scheduled to premier next month alone!) To put it simply, I don’t think I can identify ten causes for declines in the status of Japan’s anime market.

However, it didn’t take me very long to determine ten causes for the sharp decline in the health of the American anime industry and market. In fact, I came up with a dozen reasons. Since this analysis could easily be expanded into an exhaustively researched and documented book, rather than provide heavily abbreviated summaries for each point, I’ll just identify the points themselves.

Presented in the order these points sprang to my mind:

• Consumer ennui over the DVD home video format
• Anime has reached the current maximum extent of American viewer interest
• Advertising, promotion, and distribution which has failed to significantly expand the American audience for anime beyond its primary demographic
• The availability of anime through unlicensed channels, fast and free, has undermined the authority of commercial packaged media releases
• The intentional commercial devaluation of anime caused by unrestrained, multiple discount priced re-releases has undermined the distribution industry’s ability to earn sales at prices that sustain industry growth
• Too rapid over-saturation of anime DVDs into the domestic market
• Willing appeasement of over-inflated Japanese valuation of anime’s American distribution value and profit potential (Agreeing to pay over-inflated licensing fees during the American anime boom of the early 2000s)
• Mixed messages regarding tollerance for anime piracy from industry mastheads including Gonzo, ADV Films, and Media Blasters that authorize online anime distribution through websites including YouTube and Crunchyroll that continue to tacitly advocate anime piracy
• American consumers, and particularly the anime fan community, adopting an entitlement attitude resulting in an unwillingness to contribute financial support to the anime production and distribution industry
• Artistic devaluation of anime in America via drastically altered dubs, censoring, editing, and the domestic industry’s general tendency to promote anime as a disposable, value-less commodity rather than as a foreign art form worthy of respect and financial support
• Decreasing television exposure, including a total absence of any anime targeted specifically at female viewers
• Domestic licensors unwisely licensing and distributing costly titles with minimal domestic market potential