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Old 2013-01-20, 21:50   Link #921
relentlessflame
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo View Post
But in terms of mainstream anime - and I mean shows like SSY, Chihayafuru, NoitaminA series and the like, not just Ghibli, One Piece or kid shows - I haven't seen any indication that there's any sense of embarrassment attached. That's because animation isn't viewed the same here as it is in America (France also fits into this description, I would argue). It's just another medium, full of work that spans both the quality and thematic spectrum from end to end, and the mindset about it can't be conveniently packed into a one-size-fits-all box.
This is a nice theory, but I'm not sure how we'd go about proving it. I think it sounds awfully "truthy". I haven't seen any evidence myself that "mainstream anime [like] SSY, Chihayafuru, NoitaminA series and the like" are seen with any greater degree of broad acceptability in Japan, but that doesn't mean they'd be as heavily stigmatized simply because they're not going to get the sort of publicity that "Akiba culture" shows will get. Lack of negative publicity, and appeal to a slightly different audience, doesn't necessarily equal "mainstream acceptability" either. Personally, I'm inclined to think that even our NoitaminA fan crowd would be labelled as "anime geeks", even in Japan, but again I don't know how to prove that supposition either way beyond just anecdotal evidence. (In the end, if you're talking about stigmas and stereotypes, it's obvious that this won't apply to everyone anyway, so the fact that there's no "one-size-fits-all box" is clear. There will always be some people that are more open-minded than others, and it probably depends a lot on the sort of circles you run in.)
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Old 2013-01-20, 22:03   Link #922
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Well, I can't disprove an argument based on "I'm inclined to think" so I guess this is effectively circular at this point...
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Old 2013-01-20, 22:12   Link #923
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Quote:
Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post


I suppose it may be interesting to do a comparative analysis of the nature and presentations of these two shows and speculate why one is more popular than the other, assuming they do in fact aim for and reach the same target audience in Japan. (If I were to guess, I suppose marketing is some of it (including particularly the writer involved), along with the art style, age of the characters, and overall themes. The fact that Psycho-Pass is anime-original may also work in its favour in some regards.) I certainly agree that some dark/disturbing shows have sold well in Japan (one could argue that Madoka is a prime example of this, though perhaps it's a special case in all regards), but these tend to buck the trend. In general terms, I do think it seems to be another sort of niche audience in a community full of niches.
I'm inclined to agree with you here.

Dark/Disturbing anime shows can sell, but my impression is that they do have a limited customer-base. I do think that SSY probably was hurt a lot by going head-to-head against Psycho-Pass (which has an edge named "Gen Urobuchi").

It reminds me of what Clannad did to True Tears and ef, although SSY's sales situation is more severe of course. An anime show is better off not going head-to-head against a more hyped show with a similar genre and tone.


P.S. I'm inclined to think that Madoka Magica sold so phenomenally well, in part, because it brought in both magical girl fans and magical girl critics. I think there was a real hunger out there for a magical girl show with classic-style magical girl aesthetics after Nanoha went all mecha, and as dark as PMMM is, it does provide classic-style magical girl aesthetics. And with PMMM, I think Shinbo's style also helped sales. Maybe SSY should have been done by SHAFT, lol.
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Old 2013-01-20, 22:15   Link #924
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo View Post
Well, I can't disprove an argument based on "I'm inclined to think" so I guess this is effectively circular at this point...
Well, you made the assertion in the first place that the view was a "gross oversimplification, a myth commonly believed in the West", but then your argument was "I haven't seen any indication". So this is why I say that it seems "truthy". I can only base my understanding on what I've read from Japanese fans and my own personal experiences interacting with them (and Japanese "non-fans"), but it's hard to "prove" perception without a serious cultural study. If there is evidence to support your theory, though, I would be interested.
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Old 2013-01-20, 23:35   Link #925
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Not sure the Psycho-Pass and Shinsekai Yori comparisons are too appropriate. It's not just about being dark and edgy. SSY's content is much more stylistic and the content is much more unusual (cyberpunks have long been established by series like Ghost in the Shell in anime). Also Psycho-Pass has more notable staffing to help propel it with big names such as Urobuchi Gen (Who is currently hot on the market). Moreover, they marketed this as something akin to their next Ghost in the Shell. So I am not surprised to see Psycho-Pass surpass SSY by a decent margin in sales (Though I still wouldn't call its sales very good either).

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Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
If I were looking for reasons anime titles have gotten more "niche" since 2006, I'd probably cite falling broadcast revenues and a light novel industry who thinks anime is a great way to market to certain kinds of fans more so than anything to do with the optical disc market. Maybe the fact studios are no longer chasing the export bubble as well.

Could a more diverse disc-buying market have helped mitigate those factors. Perhaps, but I don't get the impression that selling TV series on discs in Japan is all that easy regardless of price, possibly due to things like limited storage space encouraging renting as opposed to owning. There is data for a few priced-down reissues in the sales thread - it's not exactly inspiring from what I remember.

IMO, getting a broader audience is probably going to require some changes in business model much more significant than a disc price adjustment.
Well just bringing down the disc costs isn't a catch-all fix by itself, nor would I think it would be the best option. Like I said before, I think the late night anime barrier is problematic for the more general population. I also think the content of many of these last night anime are also problematic. Those are probably much more important issues than DVD sales in trying to appeal to a more wider audience.

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Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post
You're missing the most important thing that happened around that time: the utter collapse of the North American anime market. Back in the day, the potential of anime in North America was so over-rated that companies like ADV, Geneon USA, and the like, were paying rather insane amounts in licensing fees (hundreds of thousands of dollars for shows that have barely a hint of popularity), and this was a major funding source for anime. They were even investing in productions up-front and listed on Production Committees. The way they marketed to the local Japanese market didn't really change during that time (they were still being marketed as collectables), but the collapse of the North American market meant a doubling-down on the paying Japanese market and a decided lessening of the influence that the Western anime fan had previously brought to the productions that were being made.

That said, I would point out that, since the bubble burst, the market has been slowly recovering/stabilizing, and I think recent seasons have shown a fairly robust variety in productions.
Yes you're right, but you should also consider why perhaps the US market might have collapsed. They assumed at first that the US market is like Japan, that we would be willing to spend exorbitant prices on anime. They were charging companies like Geneon HUGE licensing fees to distribute anime here.

Problem is that the consumers of anime in the west tend to be much more pragmatic. We rather pay a cheap subscription to a place like Crunchyroll, and then if we like it enough choose to but the boxed sets when they are sold at a reasonable price. The GFC made it even more so because consumers here could not financially afford to purchase anime at the prices they were selling (And hey look how much prices on DVD/BD have come down in the US to accommodate this). It isn't too hard to figure out just why Geneon and other licensing companies went south here.

Of course comparing the US market's style of consumerism to Japan's is very limited, but like I said before... The anime industry seems to be the only one that is becoming more insular. To be more specific, it is the only one where the price of physical media seems to be going up instead of down. I am not convinced that it has to be this way though.
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Old 2013-01-21, 00:07   Link #926
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Originally Posted by Reckoner View Post
Yes you're right, but you should also consider why perhaps the US market might have collapsed. They assumed at first that the US market is like Japan, that we would be willing to spend exorbitant prices on anime. They were charging companies like Geneon HUGE licensing fees to distribute anime here.
That's not really why, though. Anime in the West was always substantially cheaper to consumers than in Japan, and in the time since the Western anime industry collapsed, prices have dropped even further (as you said). One of the reasons that precipitated the fallout was that the perceived value of anime kept dropping as companies like ADV kept trying re-releasing titles as boxsets right on the heels of the Single release, to try to push out more inventory (to meet licensor quotas) and at the request of big box stores who didn't want there to be so many SKUs.

They were charging Geneon huge licensing fees because they assumed the customer base was there to support. As with most bubbles it seemed at the time that the market had nowhere to go but up. After all the U.S. is double the size of Japan in terms of population. But anime was a "fad" rather than an enduring cultural element. Once the bubble burst, people realized that the remaining customer base was small. It remains a small but not insignificant niche market to this day, and I would suggest that has nothing to do with the price tag. There were more people buying anime back when it was more expensive than there were when it dropped substantially (but raising the price obviously isn't going to bring those people back either). This wasn't all directly correlated with any other financial events either.


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Originally Posted by Reckoner View Post
Problem is that the consumers of anime in the west tend to be much more pragmatic. We rather pay a cheap subscription to a place like Crunchyroll, and then if we like it enough choose to but the boxed sets when they are sold at a reasonable price.
I think Western anime consumers are not that much more "pragmatic". Japanese customers in most areas have the option of renting, which has basically gone by the wayside in the U.S. (absent Netflix and things like Redbox). Anime is of course also more accessible on TV (though still not terribly accessible), and there are Japanese online streaming services that stream anime as sort of Video-on-demand. There are plenty of ways to watch anime that don't involve paying large amounts of money to collect it. And I would also point out that the Japanese economy hasn't been "hot stuff" either for much of the last decade or two, so it's not like it's a case of boom economy vs. bust.

When the market collapsed in ~2006, it was way before services like Crunchyroll went mainstream (Youtube had just started the year previous). Some say it was due to fansubs, but fansubs were around when the market was booming as well.

And besides, even if all that you're saying were true, what does it say? You have one market that is more willing to spend a huge amount of money on their niche hobbies, and another that is too "pragmatic" to buy anime even at the now-reduced pricing. What market are you going to focus on? And why is the answer to lower the price further in the market that is willing to pay? In a niche business, lowering the price isn't necessarily going to increase your sales enough to make up for the drop in revenue. (And keep in mind that, if sales rise, so will the licensing fees.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reckoner View Post
Of course comparing the US market's style of consumerism to Japan's is very limited, but like I said before... The anime industry seems to be the only one that is becoming more insular. To be more specific, it is the only one where the price of physical media seems to be going up instead of down. I am not convinced that it has to be this way though.
I think the claim that the anime industry is becoming more insular is difficult to prove, particularly if you consider the output of the last few years. If you actually do a breakdown of the content and consider the target audiences, there seems to me to be a pretty large spread of content that appeals to different interests and demographics. I'm sure you could point to some shows that were more-present ~7-10 years ago, compare to today, and then say that the lack of these sorts of shows suggests that the market is lacking in diversity... but I think that's inconclusive. Trends change after all.


Anyway, this topic has been done before, and a recent example is here.
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Old 2013-01-21, 06:27   Link #927
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Quote:
Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post
I suppose it may be interesting to do a comparative analysis of the nature and presentations of these two shows and speculate why one is more popular than the other, assuming they do in fact aim for and reach the same target audience in Japan. (If I were to guess, I suppose marketing is some of it (including particularly the writer involved), along with the art style, age of the characters, and overall themes. The fact that Psycho-Pass is anime-original may also work in its favour in some regards.) I certainly agree that some dark/disturbing shows have sold well in Japan (one could argue that Madoka is a prime example of this, though perhaps it's a special case in all regards), but these tend to buck the trend. In general terms, I do think it seems to be another sort of niche audience in a community full of niches.
Psycho-pass plays on a lot of established markets that SSY doesn't, markets that are much more 'mainstream' for anime fans:
+CyberPunk (this includes stuff like AR, Holos, etc).
+Urobochi.
+Constant gruesome deaths and violent nudity.
+Guns.
+I repeat, Guns.
+Badass 'Edgy' main characters that enjoy violence.
+Traditional charismatic villains.

It's format is also much, much more episodic (appeals to anime fans) and uses constant 'action' to create false tension (even if it's at the price of believability).
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Old 2013-01-21, 06:39   Link #928
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Originally Posted by Arkeus View Post
Psycho-pass plays on a lot of established markets that SSY doesn't, markets that are much more 'mainstream' for anime fans:
+CyberPunk (this includes stuff like AR, Holos, etc).
+Urobochi.
+Constant gruesome deaths and violent nudity.
+Guns.
+I repeat, Guns.
+Badass 'Edgy' main characters that enjoy violence.
+Traditional charismatic villains.

It's format is also much, much more episodic (appeals to anime fans) and uses constant 'action' to create false tension (even if it's at the price of believability).
That and the fact hardly anyone watching it would be old enough to know about Blade Runner and only a few more to know about Minority Report.
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Old 2013-01-21, 07:31   Link #929
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People are still referencing Blade Runner? Get over it!
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Old 2013-01-21, 08:01   Link #930
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Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post
I think it depends on how you look at it. My personal experience in my Japanese interactions has been that it's culturally acceptable to admit to watching "mainstream" anime like Ghibli movies and maybe a few big name franchises like Evangelion and maybe Gundam or Macross (particularly saying you watched it growing up -- kids watching anime is always acceptable), but not all anime is treated equally. Generally, the average person is not going to openly admit in most circles to staying up to watch some late-night anime, because that's more "maniac". Calling yourself an "anime fan" is also not something you'd likely do openly (outside of certain circles), although that doesn't mean you don't watch "some" (selected) anime.

(
yeah this is pretty much it, Although I just say that I watched Dragonball and HnK when I was a kid(which is pretty much true) and make a joke about the famous "yuriaaaaaaaaaa!" line to get a laugh.

But yeah I don't get into conversations about anime, as far as they know, I've never even heard of one piece (even though its all over Japan)
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Old 2013-01-21, 12:35   Link #931
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Well, it's kinda like anything pop culture. A lot of people might have heard of it, but it doesn't necessarily mean they care.

If you asked me about American pop culture, I might be able to gather what you are saying, but I will probably also not give a damn about most of it.

That being said, would it be fair to say that at least for the States side of the equation, hard media itself is falling out style?
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Old 2013-01-21, 13:43   Link #932
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Well, it's kinda like anything pop culture. A lot of people might have heard of it, but it doesn't necessarily mean they care.

If you asked me about American pop culture, I might be able to gather what you are saying, but I will probably also not give a damn about most of it.

That being said, would it be fair to say that at least for the States side of the equation, hard media itself is falling out style?
I'd say, at least for music and PC games. Once online video catches up to Bluray quality, that will probably be the next to go.

Its strangely got to the point where music CDs cost 75% what the album on iTunes costs. And itunes also had that stupid DRM crap that made it so I could only put it on a few devices. I'll always go for the control Cd gives me, screw DRM (im cool with drm to prevent piracy, but i dont like it when anti-piracy measures cut into honest customer's enjoyment).
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Old 2013-02-04, 22:14   Link #933
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Another Update!

***,*47位/***,*48位 ★ (**3,069 pt) Love Live! 1 [Blu-ray]
***,*79位/***,*76位 ○ (***,347 pt) AMNESIA 1 [DVD]
***,106位/***,*98位 ★ (**2,898 pt) Vividred Operation 1 [Blu-ray]
***,152位/***,149位 ★ (**1,136 pt) Oreshura 1 [Blu-ray]
***,160位/***,155位 ★ (***,489 pt) Yama no Susume [Blu-ray]
***,182位/***,178位 ★ (**1,790 pt) Haganai NEXT 1 [Blu-ray]
***,200位/***,233位 ★ (**1,451 pt) Minami-ke 1 [Blu-ray]
***,224位/***,330位 ★ (***,236 pt) AMNESIA 1[Blu-ray]
***,248位/***,246位 ★ (***,570 pt) GJbu 1 [Blu-ray]
***,348位/***,319位 ★ (***,446 pt) AKB0048 next stage 1 [Blu-ray]
***,360位/***,385位 ★ (***,611 pt) Kotoura-san 1 [Blu-ray]
***,362位/***,360位 ★ (**1,372 pt) Tamako Market 1 [Blu-ray]
***,422位/***,479位 ★ (**2,600 pt) Maoyuu Maou Yuusha 1 [Blu-ray]
***,473位/***,543位 ○ (***,565 pt) Hetalia The Beautiful World 1 [DVD]
***,493位/***,643位 ★ (**1,053 pt) Senran Kagura 1 [Blu-ray]
***,567位/***,589位 ★ (***,586 pt) Hakkenden 1 [Blu-ray]
***,586位/***,555位 ★ (***,221 pt) Osaka Imouto Blu-ray
***,640位/***,607位 ★ (***,501 pt) Sasami-san 1 [Blu-ray]
***,752位/***,665位 ★ (***,438 pt) THE UNLIMITED Hyobu Kyousuke 01 [Blu-ray]
**1,544位/**1,352位 ★ (***,466 pt) Mondaiji-tachi 1

AMNESIA has jumped hugely since they announced an event ticket in Vol. 1

【2013年 02月 04日 19時(月)】 **5,108位
【2013年 02月 04日 20時(月)】 **5,602位
【2013年 02月 04日 21時(月)】 **5,903位 ← Event ticket announcement
【2013年 02月 04日 22時(月)】 ***,102位
【2013年 02月 04日 23時(月)】 ***,*76位

Maoyuu plummets, Sasami-san continues to suffer, and Amnesia simply waltzes itself through the bestseller list.
Also, it seems that a particular scandal relating to a member of AKB is also affecting the sales of the anime.
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Old 2013-02-05, 03:13   Link #934
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Jojo da gawd.

Temporal Blu-ray + DVD Sales Rankings for Fall 2012

26,445 *7 Girls und Panzer [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/21
19,370 *1 JoJo's Bizare Adventure[DVD+BD]: 2013/01/30
17,520 *5 Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/19
13,801 *1 Magi [DVD+BD]: 2013/01/30
12,674 *4 To LOVE-Ru Darkness [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/21
11,723 *2 Gintama' Enchousen [DVD]: 2012/12/19
11,609 *4 Little Busters! [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/26
10,440 *4 Initial D 5th Stage [DVD+BD]: 2012/1/11
*9,928 *3 Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/26
*9,297 *10 K [DVD+BD]: 2012/11/07
*8,644 *6 Psycho-Pass [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/21
*6,249 *3 Kami-sama Hajimemashita [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/28
*3,386 *1 Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo [DVD+BD]: 2013/01/30
*2,497 *2 Onii-chan Dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankenai yo ne [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/26
*2,494 *1 Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun [DVD+BD]: 2012/11/21
*2,392 *1 Jormungand Perfect Order [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/21
*2,184 *1 Busou Shinki [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/26
*1,911 *1 Zetsuen no Tempest [DVD+BD]: 2013/1/23
*1,759 1 Ixion Sage DT [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/05 (*3,841 v2 sales)
*1,314 *1 Hiiro no Kakera Season 2 [DVD+BD]: 2013/01/29
*1,235 *1 Robotics;Notes [DVD+BD]: 2013/01/23
**,594 *1 Shinsekai Yori [DVD+BD]: 2012/11/30 (v2 sales)
**,345 *1 BTOOOM! [DVD+BD]: 2012/11/21 (v3 sales)
**,*** *0 Code:Breaker [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/21
**,*** *0 Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/21
**,*** *0 Sukitte Ii na yo [DVD+BD]: 2012/12/26
**,*** *0 Medaka Box Abnormal [DVD+BD]: 2013/01/30
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Old 2013-02-05, 03:39   Link #935
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Jojo da gawd.

Temporal Blu-ray + DVD Sales Rankings for Fall 2012


19,370 *1 JoJo's Bizare Adventure[DVD+BD]: 2013/01/30
It made me so glad to be one of those JoJoBros who basically sent the message, "We want MORE!"
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Old 2013-02-05, 04:01   Link #936
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Also, it seems that a particular scandal relating to a member of AKB is also affecting the sales of the anime.
There's an apparent backlash generated by that PR disaster; the dismal viewer polls couldn't help either.

Otherwise the election arc is somewhat weak for some viewers, but it may be compensated by last weekend's 180-degree-turnaround episode -- assuming the same viewers don't let the IRL incidents affect them.
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Old 2013-02-06, 08:05   Link #937
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19,370 *1 JoJo's Bizare Adventure[DVD+BD]: 2013/01/30
Man. I think this is the happiest I've ever been seeing a series this high up. Completely and utterly deserved.
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Old 2013-02-07, 21:30   Link #938
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Man those SSY numbers...

At least Psycho-Pass is doing kinda decent for a show of its kind.

Quote:
Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post
That's not really why, though. Anime in the West was always substantially cheaper to consumers than in Japan, and in the time since the Western anime industry collapsed, prices have dropped even further (as you said). One of the reasons that precipitated the fallout was that the perceived value of anime kept dropping as companies like ADV kept trying re-releasing titles as boxsets right on the heels of the Single release, to try to push out more inventory (to meet licensor quotas) and at the request of big box stores who didn't want there to be so many SKUs.

They were charging Geneon huge licensing fees because they assumed the customer base was there to support. As with most bubbles it seemed at the time that the market had nowhere to go but up. After all the U.S. is double the size of Japan in terms of population. But anime was a "fad" rather than an enduring cultural element. Once the bubble burst, people realized that the remaining customer base was small. It remains a small but not insignificant niche market to this day, and I would suggest that has nothing to do with the price tag. There were more people buying anime back when it was more expensive than there were when it dropped substantially (but raising the price obviously isn't going to bring those people back either). This wasn't all directly correlated with any other financial events either.
Well there are lot of trends we could analyze, but I was earlier trying to get at that I thought the US consumer is much more "pragmatic" than the Japanese customer. In the sense that a US consumer isn't going to throw away a ton of money to purchase anime, there are other ways we can decide to spend our money in a more practical manner.

The huge licensing fees that were being charged were a main problem because it basically ensured the demise of oversea markets. Even at the prices back then, anime was too expensive for your typical US consumer. There was no way to make up the huge cost sink of bringing the anime over here.

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Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post
I think Western anime consumers are not that much more "pragmatic". Japanese customers in most areas have the option of renting, which has basically gone by the wayside in the U.S. (absent Netflix and things like Redbox). Anime is of course also more accessible on TV (though still not terribly accessible), and there are Japanese online streaming services that stream anime as sort of Video-on-demand. There are plenty of ways to watch anime that don't involve paying large amounts of money to collect it. And I would also point out that the Japanese economy hasn't been "hot stuff" either for much of the last decade or two, so it's not like it's a case of boom economy vs. bust.

When the market collapsed in ~2006, it was way before services like Crunchyroll went mainstream (Youtube had just started the year previous). Some say it was due to fansubs, but fansubs were around when the market was booming as well.

And besides, even if all that you're saying were true, what does it say? You have one market that is more willing to spend a huge amount of money on their niche hobbies, and another that is too "pragmatic" to buy anime even at the now-reduced pricing. What market are you going to focus on? And why is the answer to lower the price further in the market that is willing to pay? In a niche business, lowering the price isn't necessarily going to increase your sales enough to make up for the drop in revenue. (And keep in mind that, if sales rise, so will the licensing fees.)
I'm not asking for them to focus on us. Their greatest importance is of course their own markets. I just have not been given conclusive evidence to believe that the current market is the absolute BEST market. Maybe it is, but at the very least, anime does not seem like it will grow beyond a sort of nice collector's market anytime soon in Japan.

Yeah Japan has tons of ways for people to see anime, but who bothers to stay up that late to watch late night TV? These sorts of practices make sure that anime is a smaller circle of people and it is weird for an entire industry to depend on this small group with little intention of trying to move away from it IMO.

Quote:
Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post
I think the claim that the anime industry is becoming more insular is difficult to prove, particularly if you consider the output of the last few years. If you actually do a breakdown of the content and consider the target audiences, there seems to me to be a pretty large spread of content that appeals to different interests and demographics. I'm sure you could point to some shows that were more-present ~7-10 years ago, compare to today, and then say that the lack of these sorts of shows suggests that the market is lacking in diversity... but I think that's inconclusive. Trends change after all.


Anyway, this topic has been done before, and a recent example is here.
This is going to boil down to our personal perceptions of course. At least for me personally, even if there are a wide variety of genres in anime out there still to some degree, a lot of the shows have been married with certain anime tropes and devices which is where my own perception of "anime becoming more insular" stems from.

Of course this isn't really a provable claim, but I have also had a harder time getting people into anime lately with the sorts of shows that keep coming out. Strangely, enough. It's all anecdotal, but hey that speaks to me.
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Old 2013-02-08, 01:45   Link #939
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Originally Posted by Reckoner View Post
Yeah Japan has tons of ways for people to see anime, but who bothers to stay up that late to watch late night TV? These sorts of practices make sure that anime is a smaller circle of people and it is weird for an entire industry to depend on this small group with little intention of trying to move away from it IMO.
I think it's a bit unfair to say that, given how producers and studios gladly accepted foreign investment and brought to life a whole bunch of anime that were designed to be more palatable to western audiences. This is what caused the anime bubble of mid to late 2000s. I think studios keep on trying to evolve. For example, Production I.G isn't thinking only of the domestic "anime" market, they basically expanded over to Canada to work on animation projects for movies and other properties. The projects may not be the anime we know and love, but this is one way to survive, and from that other anime projects might get funded. I'd also love if Japan did more to move away from the maniac late-night crowd, but it's not like they're not trying. It's just hard.
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Old 2013-02-08, 01:54   Link #940
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