Author: Gabriel Persechino-Forest Published: January 21st, 2019
Japanese Animation Profitability Continues to Rise
The anime market was valued at 19 billion in 2017, which constitutes and increase of 8.1% from the previous year. The overseas market has grown by 29.6% over the last year while the domestic market has seen a 5.5% decrease; which should serve as a sign of worry to the increasing power foreign investments now hold over the Japanese animated market. One should also consider that the home market is still higher than the overseas market and that many productions are financed to help advertise other projects or sell merchandise, which offers a level of protection against foreign influence and may explain why American companies (Netflix) and other figures have been pushing for the end of the production committee system. A system where large corporations single handedly finance projects on their own would significantly advantage multinational American corporations.
The home video field and movie markets were weak during 2017.
Streaming grew by 13% while live events grew by 16.3% in 2017. However, the movie market dropped by 38.3%.
Source: Animation Business Journal (Article image as well) and Anime! Anime! Biz
Otter Media Lays Off Employees
Otter Media has just laid off 10% of its staff as part of its restructuring now that it is owned by AT&T. Ellation (The company responsible for High Guardian Spice) was not affected at all by the layoffs or the restructuring. Also, Rooster Teeth is now a part of Ellation.
Source: Deadline
Square Enix Profits are Struggling
Luminous Productions of Square Enix (Which is a label that produces AAA games) reported around US$33 million in losses.
Source: Gematsu
Viewster Sold
Cinedigm has acquired the video streaming service Viewster. Viewster will be incorporated along with Cinedigm’s other streaming services.
Source: Globe News Wire
Funimation Not Impressed with Netflix Getting Evangelion
Gen Fukunaga has recently stated that he believes Funimation would have been better to handle Neon Genesis Evangelion and used My Hero Academia as an example, where Fukunaga states that Funi fully markets big titles on its platform and gives them the exposure they deserve, whereas he feels Netflix will simply dump it on its service and be done with it. It should be noted that Funimation has licensed the Evangelion remake movies and as such also had a vested interest in wanting to acquire the series, which was likely impossible when competing with Netflix’s pockets. It should further be noted that since acquiring the series Netflix has already made the controversial decision to redub the title, even though no one really asked for this.
Source: Polygon
American vs. Japanese Voice Actor Pay
It was recently brought to light that voice actors on The Simpsons earn as much as US$6 million for a full season while by comparison, Japan’s top earners have been reported to make US$630 000. It was suggested by certain parties that the anime industry should do more to pay its voice actors fairly but this is a false equivalency if there ever was one. For one, The Simpsons is a very popular show that has reached over 600 episodes and is not representative of the average American animation gig. Secondly, anime series make far less than mainstream series that have achieved global success and so these numbers would simply be impossible to maintain.
Source: Sora News 24
Comic Market Considering Entrance Fee
Comiket is considering adding an entrance fee for Comiket 96 and 97 to compensate for the recent change in venue. The new venues have less floor space and could lead to fewer doujin circles, less commercial booths and less advertising; all of which will make running the event more costly.
Source: Esuteru