2.2% of Consumers Purchase 81% of Blu-ray in Japan

Maybe so, but how much are you willing to bet that between TV broadcasting, box set releases of primetime TV shows, and pay for film rekleases based on high profile studios and names, the average number of people who consume any of this stuff is generally higher than in Japan?



I'll be frank here, I don't know where you got those numbers from, but over here Eva 1.0 sold 219,000 DVDs on its first week (look on the top of the top-selling DVD of 2008 article and it says Eva 1.0 sold over 297,000 copies total). And in that 2009 chart I linked earlier, Eva 2.0 sold over 373,000 copies. And as far as what anime sells well, Spirited Away is the highest grossing animated film in Japan alone by $229,607,878. So again, no clue where you got your numbers, but as well as Bakemongatari sells, I can't imagine stacking up well compared the amount of money Spirited Away made in general.


Here's the thing. At that point, you need to switch over to where the problem lies not from an economic perspective, but from a storytelling perspective. That's part of what I was arguing here. Most anime fans don't bother to realize that storytelling in anime TV shows are often not only too quaint and profound for the average audience (forget about otaku or anime fans for one moment), but also really slow.

When I took my storytelling course and then my storyboarding for animators course in my art college, I learned that your stories have to make some sense with how you transition from scene-to-scene and more importantly, need to be clear and to the point. Don't just drag a scene using every limited animation trick in the book where characters stay still. Don't confuse the audience with a character in a situation just so you have to back-track at how they got there. Immediately give the audience a reason why they should care for a character because they don't understand why they should pay attention to the main characters or what he/she wants, why it drives the story, and what conflicts that character from what he/she wants until episode 5 or something.

Anime studios need to tell and make stories that can give people an immediate reason to be engaged in the story. It's so easy for hardcore fans to look into a TV show and not be phased by the fact the story doesn't make its point until later on because those hardcore fans are already drawn in to whatever unique ideas the show has even if they're not presented well. I'll admit, even I as a hardcore fan think the same exact way with certain shows, like Sekirei. I like the concept of big-tittied chicks act silly and kick ass at the same time in a twisted game of life and death. But at the same time, I can understand why no one else would be sold on the first episode if it felt to them too perverted, misogynistic and pointless for anyone else who's not some hadcore fan of the "nature" of the show to care.

As an fan of not just anime but animation in general, it just bothers me that most anime anything is really niche and hardly appeals to anyone outside of that niche fanbase. I don't understand why animation in Japan can NEVER bother to appeal appeal outside of a small consumer crowd when I see American animation usually aiming to do the opposite and be successful at it. I want anime to appeal to more people and not be this stupid notion of you have to think differently in order to get it. It's just stupid to me to have to alienate a medium from so many people like that. I get why taking higher budget projects is risky to do, but guess what? If anyone in the anime industry wants to make significant numbers, then at some point they have to take a risk. And not just one risk, but multiple risks. There's no way around that. The only thing is that if people in the industry are going to take risks, then they need to strategize and know the tools and tips to properly making that risks. In other words, think smart and not just hard, otherwise, nothing will change and the industry will just be stuck appealing to the same limited crowd over and over again.


Okay, but the key word your using is "personally." This isn't about what you think as one individual. I'm trying to look at this under a much, much wider umbrella than what one, die-hard fan of Japanese animation would vocally prefer on the internet because let's face it, there are probably a lot more non-anime fans out there than we would assume. Besides the problem with OVAs from my understanding is that they're a straight-to-DVD format which you still have to buy to keep without even knowing whether what you're watching will appeal to you. OVA title honestly appeal to fans that already know what they want out of that show and not anyone else, which is what I'm being concerned. Again, not just the hardcore otaku crowd, but also the mainstream consumers in general who many of which might also be movie-goers for all we know.

@ jmal:

For the record, I do happen to agree with a lot of your points. I'm at the point where in news articles and reports of the industry such as this, anime fans are spewing so much of the same vague nonsense if it's not rocket science and that the anime companies are for whatever reason too stupid to realize and that thei marketing degrees are a sham. Most people don't seem to bother trying to look at what is likely a bigger picture in all this and merely think "lower prices, license stuff faster, have better quality, etc.". Anyway, I don't want to dwell too much into that because it would just be delicately regurgitating trying to avoid EXACTLY what has been said THOUSANDS of time in anime piracy/industry debates EVERYWHERE on the internet. And that would just give me a headache.

Anyway, I do want to just refer to one of your posts and then go on to making a certain point since it's difficult for me to respond all of them.


Let me just say in advance that I agree whole-heartedly in how anime on home video in the American market is just fine as is, price-wise and release-wise. I also agree in that not as many fans value products as much as they say they do (not saying no one does, some people do value anime enough to buy it and some while they value and want to buy it, can't buy for whatever the reason). Now while I think that Japanese DVDs are STUPIDLY expensive from my understanding, even if Japanese DVD distributors in Japan could somehow just slash prices of DVD releases as they first release them, I don't think that's necessarily the where the problem lies.

This is something that I've been thinking about for a bit and thought of doing some reasearch. And by research, I basically just searched on Anime News Network for the top-selling DVDs in the past few years, anime or otherwise. And I think it's important for anime fans to look outside of the scope of best-selling anime series on blu-ray because to me honestly, it's a given at this point that whatever sells well on blu-ray is some Kyoto Animation show, some Akiyuki Shinbo title, or some "girls in flying mecha-suits" show. When I looked at the higest selling anything on DVD in the past couple of years alone, I noticed that in 2008 it was the Transformers Special collectors edition. In 2009 the best selling DVD was Ponyo. And in 2010, the best selling DVD was the Deluxe collectors edition of Michael Jackson's This is It.

The thing about those best-selling DVDs is that they're all films. They're not 13-episode series, 26-episode series or 50+ episode series. 2 of those 3 films aren't even animated and the only animated film is a Ghibli title. I feel that with the anime industry and the way studios make shows, it makes it hard for most shows to be profittable when it comes to home video sales. It's hard for your average consumer to want to commit to a TV series where they have to pay for a few episodes at a time, especially if the show itself may entertaining to watch, but not entertaining enough to own and watch over and over again.

I feel that directors and script writers need to change how they tell stories in anime in a few ways. The stories need to be told at a faster ace to make an audience interested in. Less shortcuts and pauses in the timing, facial expressions and gestures in animation need to be put out there so you don't risk boring a general audience. Just basically give anyone who first watches an anime in that one sitting a reason to care about the story and the characters in it. And I think films are the best approach to doing that creatively. That's why I think the Evangelion Rebuild films sell so well in Japan. I don't know if the franchise was always this popular outside of the otaku crowd in Japan since the TV series premiered. But I think they're a good re-telling of a TV series and it makes it easier for a general audience to watch a story in 90 minute parts at a time and even buy on DVD. Whether it's accessible or entertaining enough to anyone outside of the Japanese and harcore fans is something I'm not entirely sure of, but displaying it as a movie makes it easier to try.

I think until the whole price issue with Japanese home video can be "lowered" somehow, studios need to try to make more stories in the form of animated films. They could be either original projects or adaptations or "careful" re-adaptations of short-running/long-running manga or light novels. Of course adapting long-running manga into movies are conceptually tricky because there's so much content to adapt. But if you focus on having that film introduce the audience and get to the point with the story and cherry-pick important parts in the begining of the manga to adapt to a film, then it wouldn't be a bad adaptation. I'm not saying it's easy to do that, but I think stuff like that is necessary at this point.

Oh, since when?



You can't just magically create something like that. A majority of the planet doesn't have access to a networking infrastructure able to support such a high quality streaming and/or IPTV service (no, 720p/1080p on Youtube isn't the same as actual Blu-Ray quality), and the amount of people with access to such a network infrastructure is most likely far less than the 2.2% of consumers buying Blu-Ray media in Japan.

The majority of people can't afford it. While you might think you're doing a humanitarian service by purchasing these outrageously expensive discs of generally not-as good as-the past shows, you are giving incentives for the industry to not come up with their own on-demand blu-ray quality streams or downloads. Or something. There is no special reason why we should go to extreme measures to keep an industry afloat.

I prefer watching animes on my laptop instead, why waste your money when you do already own every anime considering it is possible to watch every single one on your computer, thats a sensible logic. But of course, some animes that holds a prime class, take Death Note for instance are worth having on DVD.

They certainly do.

As I'm finding out it does but one of my first orders was from Amazon with my VISA Debit and it wouldn't go through forcing me to go to other places. One of the reasons why I was williing to try HMV with my card this time was b/c of a recent addition to their FAQ regarding the use of VISA debits. Also since my orders are small I usually buy instock items which is another plus at HMV.

This :|

@jmal Thanks for the tip on Amazon and how it prices the items. I've wanted to try out Amazon for some time now but I don't have a credit card yet, just VISA debit and PayPal, so I was looking into services like Tenso to use until I do. Unfortunatly from what I read their services can be expensive.

About your question, I am currently buying merchandise from CDJapan, usually one to two items per order, which is retail price and have been getting small discounts with their points system. I also recently placed an order from HMV to test it out which has a pretty good deal on most items if you purchase two at once.

Or, he could simply purchase a cheap region-free DVD player (for about 40-99 pounds). If he's prepared to spend 100 pounds more, he can go for a region-free Blu-Ray player.

Region encoding is hardly a limitation these days.

Great post, I was itching to post something similar but you've spared me from the effort. Too bad that it will most likely go under in a storm of "omg lol too expensive!!!!" posts...

Last time I checked, Norway's DVD region code was different from the one used in the US.

However, it IS the same as the region code used in Japan (assuming that the television used for playback supports NTSC-J) and other European countries such as the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy etc. Meaning you can import from those countries.

For Blu-ray, Norway is stuck with European (and Australian) licences to import if you actually want to watch what you buy on a Norweigian Blu-ray player.

You could always import a Blu-ray player from the US or Japan, of course. The US and Japan use the same region code, so you can play Blu-rays from both countries with a player from either country.

Last time I checked, Norway wasn't exempt from importing.

I would buy those Blu-rays if not because of their heavenly prices. I mean, who wouldn't want to watch your show in Blu-ray quality? But for now.. I just can't. :o

I'm one of those guys that buy Japanese Blu-Rays and it's not easy. One of the current shows I'm buying, Panty and Stocking, is around $100 a piece for around 50min of animation but it does come with extras like a CD or DVD. I'm not rich by the way not by a long shot, I just manage my money in a way to support my hobby.

It's a tough world for the anime Bluray/DVD industry. I think the biggest problem is that their targeted audience is too small. The vast majority of the anime we watch here on MAL are not broadcasted during prime time; instead, they are broadcasted well after midnight. This means that most viewers in Japan would have never even heard of such anime. To make matters worse, sponsorship for these anime are also pretty crappy. If you ever pay attention to the brief ten seconds of sponsors between the OP song and the actual episode, you'd realized that most of time, the anime's only sponsor is the very company that's producing it. Anime needs to be more well-known in order for its economy to get better, at least that's what I think (not an economics expert).

retail is overpriced! that is why I buy pre-owned, it's far more cheaper!
2 weeks ago i purchased GTO Complete collection in perfect condition for $40! which in store is priced at $90 - $120. Last week i purchased Fafner Complete Collection & Gun X Sword Complete collection also in mint condition for $20 each! which in store is priced at $60 - $80. need i say more...

I'm glad they are able to make some money off this but obviously the blu-rays are too expensive. I think a smarter business approach would be lower the price and have a wider license distribution in many countries.

Expected. $40-60 for 2 episodes on BD? Yeah, that's realistic.

It likely won't get much better in Japan, as a portion of the country is recovering from natural disasters... emotionally and financially.