Forums

Taguchi Koji, the Square Enix producer (Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater, Saki, Kuroshitsuji), gave a lecture at Japan International Contents Festival held on October 6th. He revealed backstage information of the anime industry by showing concrete data. He said Square Enix has produced 30 titles for eight years, and none made a deficit at least to Square Enix.

He gave three key steps for the success in the anime production:

1, Find promising genera: eg. Moe, Fujoshi, Surrealism Comedy, Orthodox Shonen manga
2, Choose suitable manga for the genera: Saki (Moe), Kuroshitsuji (Fujoshi), Tentai Senshi Sunred (Comedy), Fullmetal Alchemist (Shonen).
3, Assign fitting production studio: GONZO (Saki), A-1 Pictures (Kuroshitsuji), AIC ASTA (Sunred), BONES (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Taguchi said the publication business utilizing anime is much easier than the game business, which he was working in the past.

Manga publishers have to pay the production costs, the expenses for the advertisement, and the fees for the airing blocks on TV.

Production costs: 10 million - 20 million yen ($110,000 - 220,000) per one episode
Airing block fee: 25 million - 50 million yen ($270,000 - 550,000)
The total investment of Square Enix in Fullmetal Alchemist 1st season was 500 million yen ($5.5million).

Manga publishers earn the profits of TV anime mainly from the increase in the sales of the original manga.

The average sales per volume (number of copies)
Saki
Before airing: 150,000
After airing: 350,000

Kuroshitsuji:
Before: 600,000
After: 1,000,000

Fullmetal Alchemist 1st Season:
Before: 150,000
After: 1,500,000

The amount of profit Square Enix earns by selling one copy of manga is 150 yen.

The Balance of Fullmetal Alchemist 1st Season
Investments: 500 million yen
Profits: 150 yen x (1.5 - 0.15 million copies) x 8 volumes = 1,620 million yen

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood:
Before: 1,900,000
After: 2,100,000

Profits: 150 yen x (2.1 - 1.9 million) x 23 volumes = 690 million yen

Tagushi said the manga business outside Japan doesn't make profits. Even in the cases of NARUTO and Fullmetal Alchemist, the numbers of copies sold in US are one tenth - twentieth of those in Japan. He surmised the reasons for the poor sales are:
1. Manga books are expensive in US because printing small number of copies is inefficient.
2. The amount of children's pocket money is relatively small.
3. There are few manga stores within the walking distance from home.
He expects the download service of manga will expand the manga market outside Japan.

Source: Business Makoto

lol really?

Just what I thought xD

if i can attend his lecture...

"Manga publishers have to pay the production costs, the expenses for the advertisement, and the fees for the airing blocks on TV."

And now we know why there are rarely original series lol.

I believe his summary on manga sales in the US are very accurate. The closest bookstore to where I live is about 40 minutes away (And I'm pretty sure it closed down LOL)~ And its far too expensive per volume even now that I'm an adult. When I was young I was NEVER given pocket money unless I decided not to eat lunch at school and saved it... I only ever convinced my mom to buy me one volume of manga ever (of pokemon=3)
I didn't really have any money till High School... and that I usually saved for video games which had a longer enjoyment span xD (although much more expensive unfortunately)

Now that I'm in college with a job I still can't afford any... Most of my savings is for tuition and cost of school books (which can be about $500 pers semester =/)... then there's also the fact my car is going to die any day T____T
Why couldn't I have been born a millionaire.

I didn't knew manga (and I'm assuming light novel adaptations work the same) publishers were the ones that funded adaptations. And what about DVD and merchandise sales? Don't they make at least a sizable portion of the profits?

Of course the business model for OVA, original scripts and full adaptations (like ARIA) should be different from this one.

They should atleast exploit the Asian markets. India is completely fucked up!

He also mentioned the royalties from the DVD sales, but the income from the manga sales matter most to the publishers. I guess the sales of the DVD affect the DVD distributors like Geneon, Bandai Visual etc.

Interesting/predictable that grooming decent fucking TV screenwriters does not appear anywhere in this businessman's plan. But hey, if they concentrate on adaptations, that's fine, I'd rather a failed adaptation than failed 'original' story.

EDIT: Actually I just remembered Blade of the Immortal. :|

EDIT EDIT: And Gantz. :| :|

lol.. fujoshi.. XD i hope more fujoshi will come out... XD it seems moe and yuri is getting too popular lately..

Wait, the Naruto manga doesn't make money in the US. HOW THE HELL?

Question: if the anime is really, really bad, how does it accept the sales of the manga?

Moe never was and never will be a promising genre.

Maybe because people think: Hey, manga > anime in general -> let' look into the manga.

Actually, Moe brought me into Anime/Manga and keeps me there.


This should not happen if you assign the right people to it (director, production studio, ...) ;)

While arguably being the shittiest thing ever thought up by evil human mind, it still sells.


From sales POV it works perfectly as there are a lot of people who drool after every moe blob animu.

So how much is a manga volume in Japan?

Sad to say it sells very well... Personally I hate it D:

Soooo true....


At least regarding my personal experience. D:

Around $4.50 in USD.