When I started watching anime it was still kind of obscure. I'm not saying I was cutting edge or anything, anime has been around for a long time and it was largely thanks to Toonami and shows like Gundam Wing that I became a fan. Not exactly the most underground of sources. Anyways, when I started seeking out anime it was still a small niche market and pretty hard to find. If you were lucky one of your local video rental places might have a small shelf with Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and maybe some random volumes of Slayers or Lodoss War but that was about it. If you lived in a town large enough to have a Suncoast(remember those?), which I did not, you'd see a small section, usually in the back, with a few VHS copies of the more popular stuff, DBZ, Ranma, EVA etc. Again, that was it, anime simply didn't have a large enough market to validate any more.
Then something crazy happened around 2000/2001, anime blew up. Suddenly those hidden corners became giant, extremely visible and advertised, sections. By like 2003 half of Suncoast was anime and even place like Blockbuster were carrying a decent selection. It was still a niche market, make no mistake, but it had grown exponentially and it had grown in an extremely profitable demographic; 13-30 year-olds. America was finally a valuable part of a lot of shows' profits. Things were looking up for anime.
A few years ago when I went to a few conventions I started to hear people, especially voice actors and directors, talk about how bad sales had become. It seemed like even a lot of fairly well known voice actors were having to get other jobs just to pay the bills. More then that they suggested that it had become increasingly harder to break in since the actors who were already in the industry needed every job they could get, and with their connections, would take as many as possible. It seemed like the popularity of anime was still increasing but, at least according to many insiders in the American companies, fansubs and the Internet were really hurting sales.
Then a few months ago I read an article that stated that most professionals in Japan starting out in animation were making the equivalent of under $22,000 a year. If you know Japan you know that Japan is crazy expensive which makes this amount seem even more paltry. Many of these professional animators were still living with their parents because they couldn't afford to move out. That's pretty crazy.
Finally, today I stopped by Best Buy. I had noticed for a while that the anime section was slowly getting smaller and smaller with less and less variety. Tonight, anime consisted of only one small shelf unit. It was the late 90s, over a decade later. Now granted I'm sure that legitimate Internet purchases account for some of the reasons Best Buy doesn't sell anime in 2004 numbers, as does the struggling economy. That's not all of it though and the decline of anime sales started in 2007, before the economy took a nosedive.
So what does this mean? If you look around anime is as popular worldwide as it's ever been, should we even be concerned? In short, yes. Companies make anime to make money. It doesn't matter how many people you run into that have seen anime if that doesn't translate in to profits. Now don't think for a minute that this means anime will suddenly disappear cause that's not going to happen. What's going to happen, and it's already happening, is that companies are changing the type of shows they make and how they're made. You would think that this could actually beneficial, that it would weed out the bad show, letting the creme of the crop rise to the surface. That's not necessarily what's going on. The reaction of the industry seems to fall into one of two categories:
1. Stick with something safe or proven.
Just like Hollywood, Japan knows that if you have a popular, successful series it means that you can run it in to the ground with sequels, spin offs, adaptations etc. until fans finally lose interest. They also understand what formulas work, and while I've enjoyed some Shonen Jump shows I wouldn't want all my shows to be like that. What this does is hurt anything unique or challenging, leaving it either made with major budget constants or left in production hell, never to be seen.
2. Appeal to your base.
Just like politicians, The Anime Industry knows that its base, the hardcore otaku, are extremely passionate and can sometimes prop up a show without mainstream appeal. What essentially seems to be happening is that almost every new show is filled with fan service and typical otaku fetish stuff, many of them offering uncut versions on DVD. Again, like Shonen Jump, there have been some fan service heavy shows that I quite enjoyed, but there's also shows where the over use of T&A hurts the final product. What this does is hurt any chance of really good anime breaking in to the mainstream. Panty shots on cartoon characters are a hard sell for American TV and even a show that avoids this still has to deal with the public perception that is only reinforced by this trend.
So what can we do? Pretty simple, buy some anime. Now I won't sit here and say that I've never watched some free fansubs on the Internet...I won't say I have cause you know, laws, but I think we all know the reality of the situation. People only have so much money, and there are a lot of shows and movies out there, so I'm not going to say you have to buy everything or that you can't watch fansubs but if you see something you really like, you should probably go ahead and buy it. Also a lot of shows and movies are now available through legitimate means. Mainstream rental places like Netflx and Blockbuster all have pretty good selections and you can even see a lot of shows for free online through legal sites like hulu or Funimation's own website. Certainly this doesn't create as much profit as purchasing the series but at least it's something.
I think ultimately the companies themselves need to make some major changes to move anime forward. If America is an important part of a shows profits then Japanese and Amercian companies should be working together so that shows air in both countries, in both languages, at the same time. Otakus are impatient and when they hear about something awesome they won't wait around for it to get stateside if it's already available online. I realize that this means the American companies can't wait and see if a show is popular or even any good but I think a lot of the time they know which shows would translate to an American audience well before the show is actually on TV. A great deal of shows are based off popular manga and so many others are made by popular directors/writers/designers that you can often tell before they come out that they'll hit big. I don't know all the numbers but it would seem like getting a show on TV, especially if they could manage to get a show on prime time cable or, dare I say, on one of the networks, it would create as much profit as you'd get from DVD sales. Plus it would probably turn out to increase the DVD sales themselves. That's a mighty big 'if' though and one that is only accomplished if a show is really good.
It's not a problem with an easy solution but as an anime fan it's one that does concern me and it's one that I'll probably revisit form time to time. This is definitely a subject that I'd be really interested in hearing from others on so if you have any thoughts, comment below.
-egs
-I live in a dream world where a new Shinichiro Watanabe show is on CBS instead of the 100th crappy reality television show.
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