Delicious in Dungeon
| anime adaptations are marketing purposes too for the source material specifically |
| Trigger has a very good staff for animation, but they are terrible writers. They should give up on originals and get good content to animate from now on |
| And here I thought they would just tease us with the commercial. Nice to see they'll be giving us a proper series. |
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Hydroalbidius said: studios like olm, pa works and now trigger started to do adaptations but damn good ones though i just hopes we see more adapted works in near future as original works usually are not that great as they are usually made for marketing purposes or for trending topics. Yes, and it is great that changes like that happen! We need it! I think it is because Kadokawa expand the market. There was an interview with their representatives recently. Last year, Kadokawa announced that it is aiming to produce 40 anime per year until 2023. Is the company still on track to achieve this, or have the goals changed since then? All: We're still on schedule, yes. It is said that one of the biggest long-term problems in the anime industry is that there are too many anime projects, but not enough manpower to complete the work. How much does Kadokawa take this issue into consideration when planning projects, and do you have trouble getting the manpower for your 40 shows? Kikuchi: This is an acute, complicated issue. I think the entire anime industry realizes that we need to do more to provide better conditions and compensation. We have three studios, ENGI, Kinema Citrus, and Studio Kadan, within Kadokawa. Within those studios, we're undertaking efforts to improve conditions and create an environment where animation is a career that provides people with a good living. While a lot of these changes are going to take time, our industry is losing staff to the video game industry, and we could potentially face staff shortages if changes aren't made. One of the generally given reasons for the drain of animators from anime to video gaming is that the pay on the video game side is higher. There are a lot of people unhappy with the pay, especially for entry-level jobs in anime. Is improving that part of your strategy for making anime a better place to work? What do you think of the current discussion surrounding animator salaries? Kikuchi: I think this issue ties into initiatives to make anime more popular worldwide. Comparatively speaking, the industry is still small. We're also restricted in China. As such, we see North America as the main market for expansion for our titles. If we're able to streamline income from our anime globally, like Pixar and Disney does, or reach an audience as large as IPs like Marvel and Star Wars, that opens up a lot of possibilities. On top of that, you have a lot of viewers in Southeast Asia and India still viewing titles for free. If we're able to expand that global market effectively, we believe it would be easier to compensate all of our staff properly. Shuzo Kasahara: We'd love to see Crunchyroll get the subscriber numbers that Netflix has. If subscriber numbers go up, much like Netflix or Disney Plus, that brings in a lot more income. If that happens, we can certainly increase staff compensation. Moreover, we'd be able to boost funding for new projects. That's the kind of system we'd love to build, and that's why we're optimistic about the benefits of the Crunchyroll – Funimation merger. We have close ties with those companies and they know anime, so we hope they can overtake Netflix in the anime space in the future. Regarding Kadokawa anime titles, how much are you taking viewer feedback about content and quality of the animation into consideration? Kikuchi: Obviously you can't change the content of an anime once it's already airing; it's already out there. Once a title has wrapped, that's when we check domestic streaming numbers, feedback on Twitter, how many followers official social media accounts for shows get, and so on. Kiyohara keeps an eye on international streaming numbers, on sites like Crunchyroll, bilibili, Funimation, and so on. From there, we collect all the data and analyze how each title performed. There are times in anime when you have an enthusiastic core base for a show separate from the wider general audience. Core fans can be quite vocal, either with their approval or disapproval. How much more does that core audience influence decision making compared to that larger general market? Kasahara: As you know, with anime you have a majority of titles that are based on an existing manga, so most of the time, a title we'd make into an anime already has a strong fanbase that we are trying to grow by making that anime. While we always want to keep fans of the original happy, we also consider how the casual fan might react to the anime version of that story when we're in production. That being said, every anime is different, and there's a different pattern for each title. Any anime based on an original work or manga always begins with the interest and passion of the original creator, so we always want to take their perspective into account to see how they would picture having their work adapted into an anime. There are some light novel and manga titles which receive an anime adaptation at a remarkably early stage. At what stage in the serialization are you able to determine the IP's franchise potential, and have there been any downsides to proceeding with an anime early? Kudo: If we see a title that's got a solid start and becomes more and more engaging, that's the sort of title we might consider adapting early. One advantage we have is that we are both an IP holder and an IP maker, but fundamentally, we don't try to make a decision on a title adaptation too early. The earliest we'd consider an adaptation is when the original work already has a single volume released and a second volume is about to be published. Especially if we're working with an IP from another company, that's the soonest we'd consider pitching an anime. Ideally, you'd like the process to go quickly, but if you want to make a hit, you want to take the time to meet with the original author and plan things carefully. You also want the time to assemble the best staff for the job. If you make time for all of that, there's a much better chance for that anime to become a hit. Kikuchi: One of the unique advantages we have as Kadokawa is that we're also a publisher; other companies don't have that. We maintain close relationships between anime producers and editors on the publishing side. That gives us a kind of antenna to pick up on potential hits. If we hear something like “this light novel is going to be really interesting” or “this creator is going to be famous in three years” from someone on our team, that is the sort of thing that would enable us to create an anime at an earlier time than you'd typically see. On top of that, if we are the original publisher, it's also our job to help drive sales of the original books, so sometimes that might be taken into account as well. Related to that, a large part of Kadokawa's business strategy seems to focus on developing a “media mix” (anime, games, novels, manga, music, etc.). However, there are still some difficulties in making the various works within the media mix available in countries outside Japan. What is your strategy for dealing with this? Does the limited availability of some works affect how you approach marketing in foreign markets? Kikuchi: Typically, this is an issue that affects the original work more than the anime. Publishing [for manga and light novels] still varies a lot around the world; you'll have a title that's available in North America but not in Europe, Australia, and so on. Meanwhile, we're at a point where Jump Plus can be read by anyone anywhere around the world. The goal is to be able to make the anime and the original work available at the same time. In Japan, one of Kadokawa's strengths is our ability to market both the original work and the anime together. I believe that creating a market, where people who watch anime also have access to the original works translated into their own languages, will lead to greater popularity of anime around the world. I hope to do so soon. Kasahara: We're definitely optimistic about our work with Yen Press. Kadokawa's investments in anime also include the development of new animation production studios, such as ENGI. Is it currently a priority for Kadokawa to expand its in-house production capabilities? If so, why? Kikuchi: We're trying to expand production at our studios, as well as considering launching other studios. One point of focus is expanding capabilities to produce more episodes; another is being able to make a second season of an anime as quickly as possible if it is a hit. If we are producing an anime with a studio that isn't part of Kadokawa, it can be difficult to schedule a “part 2” or “part 3” of a popular series since that studio also has its own schedule to maintain. When that happens, you're keeping the fans waiting – sometimes past the point that the original work has ended. As a major investor in anime production committees, you're also working with a lot of outsourced animation studios. How does Kadokawa plan to address the problems of underpaid contract work in the animation industry? Kikuchi: As we touched upon before, being able to centralize income globally would help here. Japan's animation industry still has a comparatively small reach, and while anime has become more popular in North America, being able to monetize viewership worldwide in places like South America and Southeast Asia is essential if we want to support more staff and improve their lives. Developing a system for that is a major goal of ours. So the answer for both contracting studios and in-house studios is the same? Kikuchi: I think the entire anime industry stands to benefit from a global market in that way. Kudo: With our own studios, in the digital age, we've been able to make the entire production process more efficient. Aside from that, in the case of studios like Studio ENGI in Kurashiki, we've taken advantage of government grants and subsidies to expand studios in places where the cost of living isn't as prohibitive for staff, especially at the entry level. As you know, living in Tokyo can get expensive! This also allows our studios to help contribute to quality training programs across Japan, and we feel like its created a wealth of opportunities. In which other regions are you developing this kind of system? Kudo: So far, the biggest are in Kurashiki and Sapporo. In a lot of these areas, there are already Art Schools and Universities training people to become animators that we've partnered with to recruit new talent. In turn, that's also let us help address a problem in those regions. In the past, it was more difficult for new grads to find jobs near where they went to school; they were expected to move to Tokyo and job hunt. This way, they can find jobs at studios that are local. Kikuchi: A lot of other anime production companies are expanding in places like Osaka and Fukuoka. One good result of the pandemic has been the empowering of staff working locally, instead of having to move to Tokyo and settle for a small apartment on a low salary. If staff can work in the place they grew up in and that becomes a viable option, they benefit. This is a trend we're hoping to see continue. Full interview link: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2022-08-08/how-kadokawa-is-redefining-the-anime-market/.187622 |
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Hydroalbidius said: original works usually are not that great as they are usually made for marketing purposes or for trending topics. Hydroalbidius said: yeah absolutely but the point im trying to make is that a manga has a purpose to it and mangaka pours hours of research and creativity to make it rather than an original work which just created with ongoing popular tropes and trending stuff and yaa there are exceptions to both the cases like a mnagaka could make a shit story and an original work could be really good but im talking in general terms so, there that and that's why i prefer adaptation over original work i tend to appreciate if staff add original content on their own part Honestly, those are very bad takes pretty much proving you have no understanding of the whole industry workings. Sure, there's a lot of original works that were created to appeal to certain markets, but that apply to mangas and their adaptations as well - producers would greenlit whatever is popular now. Not to say that in recent years we've got some real passion original projects envisioned by the directors behind them, like Shingo Natsume's Sonny Boy or Hiroko Utsumi's SK8. Would you say that no time and creativity were poured to make them? Your messages imply that no anime creator put time to create anything and you put mangakas on some kind of pedestal, while the reality is that both of these professions require very similar artistic skills. Both anime and manga markets are very restrained and very rarely let their creators do whatever they want, which makes your point even less reasonable, cause adaptations are safe investments and their producers usually have control over how the things should go and look. Originals are a lot harder to get funded, especially if they're heavily creator driven. So if there's something being made for marketing purposes and making money, it's adaptations most of the time and not originals. |
| Where do you base the opinion that original works are made for marketing purposes and they are not that great? |
| MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST |
| This manga is ripe for adapting. If they manage to mantain its art style, it could be a hit. |
| I recall a bunch of P.A. Works adaptations like Another and Uchouten Kazoku so what are you on about? OLM did a bunch too ever since the 90's (and last season had Summertime Render). |
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