Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Is the Anime Industry Dying?

A Brief history of anime

Anime, or Japanese Animation, has been around for decades. Astroboy is probably the oldest, well known Japanese cartoon. “After being the first comic to be animated in Japan, being shown on Fuji Television, dubbed into English and sold worldwide, he’s been a lot of different places in between!” (http://www.astroboy-online.com/history.php). Speed Racer, Sailor Moon, Dragonball and other Japanese cartoons made their way to the United States and grew to a 2.8 billion dollar industry in the USA alone in the year 2007.

An Anime Legend

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most famous anime feature film directors in the industry. His Studio Ghibli's most known works include: Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro and Ponyo. He has a unique imagination that usually stars strong women in his films along with aspects of environmental awareness. Ponyo, for an example, sends the message about the pollution that is dumped in our oceans and how a magical fish girl is rescued by a young boy. Walt Disney took honor in dubbing his work in English and sharing it with America and other English-speaking countries. Spirited Away made a record breaking gross sales of over 234 million U.S. Dollars in Japanese theaters alone with over 10 million in the USA(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/ ).

Statistics for Sales of Anime in the USA

According to the Anime News Network website, character goods make up more than ninety percent of the entire anime market. With 2.512 billion dollars in character goods and only 315 million dollars in DVD sales(http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-04-01/n-america-2007-anime-market-pegged-at-us$2.8-billion).


Industry is dying

Every year people are buying less and less anime DVDs and most of the blame is pointed on to illegal internet file sharing and fan-subs. Japan's anime industry relies on America's anime fans to keep the business afloat. Even the legendary Hayao Miyazaki faces closing his studio if sales in America doesn't go up. “Cut Magazine has an interview with Hayao Miyazaki where the venerable animator confesses that if their upcoming Arietty the Borrower doesn’t do well in the box office, plans are already in place to shut down Studio Ghibli. Presumably Miyazaki means the American box office, as the film has already been released in Japan.” (http://www.geekosystem.com/studio-ghibli-closing/)

Analyzing the problem

One of the reasons that American anime fans resort to free internet file sharing for their shows is because anime takes too long to be translated in English and want access to the most recent material that is released. American television also doesn't have enough anime aired on cable unless its strictly for children. Naruto, Pokemon and Dragonball Z all have been poorly dubbed and edited to meet the children cartoon rating standards to be broadcast on channels like Disney XD and Cartoon Network. This issue goes far deep than this. Most anime fans are adults! They don't want the edited shows and horrible voice overs. They want purity and more material like any fan of any show would want. The DVDs that are available at the stores are way overpriced for the average anime fan and more than likely only sell if that consumer has seen the anime before and has a well knowledge of where their money is going. If something isn't done soon, retail revenue will be lost, jobs will be dropped, trade in entertainment will be depleted and, most of all, anime will cease to exist.

Forming a solution

Unless if this is researched, the problem doesn't announce itself to the anime fans in America. The only thing that Japan has tried to solve this problem is have the government donate some money to keep this wonderful tradition alive. Which is, unfortunately, the wrong thing to do. This answer is more simple that it seems. Make anime more available to the public! An investment in a cable channel that features teen rated anime during the day and more mature shows in prime time would help the business immensely. With a widespread of genre varieties and proper advertising, anime fans can go out and buy the DVD's of the shows they fall in love with on the way. Treat these shows like any american reality drama or sitcom and the money will start flowing in. More money makes more anime and more anime makes fans all the happier to spend.

If this problem isn't fixed soon, anime will be nothing but a lost past time. So let's come together and save this beautiful art form of unique storytelling and imagination!