Personally, I think it's more accurate to say that KyoAni has safe properties than safe genres. Until they get people excited about their work again, playing with genres they're known for can only do so much.
And I don't just mean "well, KyoAni is a pretty good studio" kind of excited. I mean the kind of excitement that accompanied their productions from 2006-2009. Don't know about you people, but I noticed a
immense difference in the anticipation I saw for Lucky Star in 2007 and K-On! in 2009 versus Nichijou in 2011. The "new KyoAni work" reverence just isn't there anymore. K-On! and Haruhi are still revered, the studio that made them not so much.
And yes, I can't help but notice that Endless Eight falls between the launch of the last great KyoAni franchise and a flop. I'm thinking that killed an awful lot of the momentum behind the studio - and Kadokawa's insistence on doing 13 volumes for 26 episodes as opposed to the industry standard 9 probably did the rest.
I see little chance for these new properties to achieve the sort of success the Key trilogy, Haruhi, K-On!, or Lucky Star did. Now that said, I'm not going to rule out the idea that they're playing it safe, because the announcements really make it feel like they're doing marketing for Kadokawa. Or perhaps not so safe given Kadokawa's track record in anime the last year. But that's because of the business arrangements, not the genre.
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Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama
Man sorry but they usually play it pretty safe and easy by my standards. Almost all of their shows have come from already pretty popular source material and while it can be argued that the popularity of the anime they made from them eventually gave back to that source material over time in the form of further increased recognition for the franchises in question I don't think you can deny that bringing in fanbases like Key's or the various hit light novels from Kadokawa that they've been given to adapt have really helped them get a head start when it comes to the popularity of their shows.
As far as I can see the only real risk in this business model is in making sure the adaptation of the source is faithful and other than that it's a matter of sitting back and watching the profits role in. Pretty safe, simple and easy to manage business model if you ask me.
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I'd always heard that Haruhi wasn't a major hit before the KyoAni got its hands on it. Ditto for K-On. Air would be the major exception, and even that sold 3X what the previous attempt at adapting a Key work did.