The Fallout From Not Buying Anime
Haruhi Suzumiya (c) KyoAni, etc.
From a fascinating article on AnimeNews.biz, about the $499 retail price for Aniplex’s Fate/Zero
Aniplex USA is importing the Japanese set as a limited run…importing the Japanese sets at a 20% discount is preferable to sublicensing the series and taking an 80% haircut on profits because of lower pricing on home video here. It’s getting to the point where Japanese fans are pitching fits about what we pay compared to them and Japanese companies don’t want to risk losing those fans to cheaper imports.
So that’s important: cheap anime for us means protests from Japanese fans, who still account for most anime sales. Japanese companies literally can’t afford to annoy Japanese fans, but they can afford to annoy us (the Western fanbase), because we don’t buy much anime anyway.
Again, this isn’t so much about fairness, as about the fact that we aren’t buying enough anime for the Japanese companies to care about us. Any number of Gaia posts about how much Westerners love anime won’t keep the studios in business.
This also explains–as the quoted article mentions further down–odd delays in Western releases: the companies are waiting for Japanese sales to taper off. If the companies released shows in the West shortly after the shows’ broadcast, the Japanese fans would just buy the discs off Amazon.com at the US $40 per show we demand, undercutting the Japanese discs’ higher prices.
Why are those prices so high? Because that’s where Japanese companies make their money.
That’s one tough thing: anime can be cheap for us, because we’re an
Now, it’s a lot more complex. Westerners see shows as they’re released in Japan, and want their discs immediately and cheaply. But somebody has to make money off these things, and traditionally, the Japanese companies did it with
Our demand for cheap anime quickly is now driving a race to the bottom, and it’s the Japanese companies producing the anime we love that suffer. Now we see the alternative: we’ll all pay Japanese prices.
So this reverse importation impression is something that are actually complaints from their consumers?
In the end, see if it bites. It’ll all be answered if it sells or not.
AsteriskCGy
5 Dec 11 at 3:09 pm
Well, it’s not an impression; reverse importation has been happening for years (at least as far back as 2004, where it was mentioned in this ANN article: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/2004-04-07 ).
Brent
5 Dec 11 at 4:17 pm
Oh, the vagaries of global markets! Great analysis, Brent.
I was a little confused, though, by the conclusion you draw here: “Again, this isn’t so much about fairness, as about the fact that we aren’t buying enough anime for the Japanese companies to care about us.”
Yet, I’m not seeing any direct evidence that the new sales tactics are in response to a weakening US market. The AnimeNews post implies this when it talks about the “increasingly marginalized” US market, but again there’s no solid connection made between the box set in question and anime sales in the US. It seems that there could be more plausible explanations–like simply greater awareness of what’s going on and more sophisticated means of reimportation. I know anime sales in the US is hot topic, but I’d be curious to know more concretely how that issue has to relate to the Aniplex’s new strategy.
LitReview
6 Dec 11 at 1:23 am
Thanks! I was probably being unclear. I didn’t mean that as a conclusion for this piece; I meant it as a general statement, with this move by Aniplex as circumstantial evidence.
Brent
6 Dec 11 at 9:07 am
“Japanese fans, who still account for most anime sales.”
Is that in total # of units sold or total $$$ made from BD/DVD? I’ve always been curious about how well anime sells in America but there are like zero numbers ever released. I know that Japan has companies that track retail sales and they release figures. Is it safe to say that like 9/10 times you can count on the US release selling fewer #s or making less $$$ than the JP release did?
sick
7 Dec 11 at 3:32 pm
sick: Japanese sales are certainly higher in terms of total money made, considering the much higher prices of Japanese releases. Not sure about number of units sold. Good question!
Brent
7 Dec 11 at 4:35 pm
Isn’t it the same deal with Gundam UC and Ruroni Kenshin Blu-Rays Bandai has been releasing around the world at the same time as their initial release that we are paying the US equivalent of the Japanese sticker price.
When comparing the 00 movie DVD/Blu-ray combo to the price of 1 Gundam UC episode does it all come down to the time of the release or is the US market just becoming that small that they charge as much?
iCards
1 Jan 12 at 8:08 pm
iCards: In a way, it’s both.
Brent
4 Jan 12 at 1:06 pm
On the subject of Fate/Zero’s $499 release I can’t help but feel Aniplex is testing the water for their own marketing scheme since they are starting to distribute anime themselves.
I base this on the following:
When you compare the upcoming Madoka US release to Japan’s release of Madoka ours’ is a steal. Our release is as follows at “RIGHT STUF” prices DVD $29.98, Blu-ray $39.98, Blu-Ray/DVD combo with a ridiculous amount of extra merchandise that, IMHO, can justify the $74.98 price tag.
Considering Madoka’s Japanese release is almost $70 for the extras and two episodes while our release is 4 episodes a disc we still got cut a better deal.
iCards
5 Jan 12 at 3:34 am
[1] Considering the fact that the US is still reeling in debt, I doubt this situation will turn around any time soon. For example right now 7000 yen is about 91 dollars. Compared to previous years when 1000 yen used to equate to 10 dollars (i.e. yen = 0.01 / 1 dollar), its now 1000 yen to 13 dollars (0.013). So people who were once able to buy manga left and right, or anime as they wished now cant afford to buy a single book, let alone pay 50$ for a third of the season of an anime (Code Geass did horrible in their marketing and Dvd sets i.e. 3-4 sets of 6 per season at 40-50$). Bandai Entertainment (Including the European branch) has also crumbled under their poor marketing, and isn’t releasing anything new.
[2] However that’s not to say the Anime Industry in general hasn’t been in free-fall, in the last five years we’ve seen an increase in anime based around nothing but fan-service, or moe (all my hate). With the former showing up in the latter more than often. Seikon no Qwaser, Queen’s Blade, Sekirei, To Love-Ru, Manyuu Hikenchou, the list goes on. Lets not even talk about Highschool of the Dead, as they could’ve made one of the best anime since the late 90′s, but instead ruined it with a fleet of 747′s filled with breasts, and jello-like jiggle physics. What I’m trying to say is they’ve been cutting down their own consumer-base from a broad diversified group with more than half of the people willing to buy the anime, to a exceptionally smaller group who buy it without fail. Its like making 10 different kinds of pizza, in which you get profits from all of them, albeit not excessively lucrative. Then instead you cut all production for 8 of those 10 cookies, and transfer it to making 2 types only, with those two types having brought in the most profit. So you keep doing that and eventually your consumer-base is non-existent, as eventually that “trend” will die out. As without diversity your business will fail, without fail.
[3] The dimming spotlight on anime in the Western world in general is due very few anime being shown there. In the US the few anime we get are for kids 90% of the time, with Pokemon taking the lead in leaps and bounds. Naruto Shippuden, and Bleach on the other hand are still catching up with the year(s) of waiting they had to do to get the dubs out. In which during that waiting period they re-runned episodes (specifically FILLER EPISODES) for year(s) on end. The two in particular lost a majority of their fans to this, as they either read ahead in the manga and became disinterested, or simply stopped caring altogether. Even Adult Swim which was widely known for having a solid selection (5 years ago) is down to showing two new shows, of which Durarara is for a very niche audience, unlike the broad spectrum they got with Trigun or Cowboy Bebop.
[4] The difference between the consumer bases of the Western World and Japan is massive, in the Western
World consumers are much more “cost-effective”, they aren’t usually willing to pay more than 50-60$ for a
season of an anime, let alone anything less than half of it. Whereas in Japan there are people willing to buy
several copies of the same show, just to show theyre that much more “loyal” (or obsessed). With the added
circumstances above (at least in the US), the market is dwindling quickly, some say its due to pirating but those
same people believe watching an anime online is piracy, when in every case I’ve watched an entire anime online
I’ve either bought it afterwards, or have waited patiently for its release here, as I have no mastery of the
Japanese language, the loss of Bandai Entertainment killed the prospects of Turn-A Gundam actually getting
realized in the US, which also killed any chance of me seeing that show legally, as Ive only ever seen the first
episode.
So these are the problems that I see on both ends (consumers vs companies)
Companies
A) Need money because they aren’t making a profit and therefore raise prices to gain higher returns.
Consumers
A) Don’t have enough money to pay for higher prices, and thus look for used or illegal copies, which does not help the companies.
Companies
B) Produce anime in several 6-8 episode volumes (in thirds) and sell them at around 30-40$ per volume, in an
attempt to get consumers to buy parts of the anime. Believing this is a more consumer friendly system
Consumers
B) Do the math and realize they’ll be spending two to four times what they would usually pay for a season box-set. So
once again they turn to used, and illegal copies, or rarely stop buying altogether.
Companies
C) Produce niche anime aimed at the genre’s with most revenues, while lowering the number of anime for broad
audiences.
Consumers
C) Most of the consumers become disinterested in the current anime, and wait for titles they would purchase to be released (In most cases those titles are never released).
Kabal13
5 Jan 12 at 11:12 pm