The Anime Business
Written by PeterAnime or animation is a 100 billion dollar industry that is fervent in Japan. Will anime become Japan’s next most popular export to the Americas and Europe? It may seem simple but actually it is quite complex.
Japanese anime is what influenced the creation of The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, which are created by an American based company, Pixar Animation Studios. As Vice President of Pixar, John Lasseter says Japanese anime “has been highly influential,” but “99% of [anime] stays in Japan.”
Worldwide DVD sales from anime films are expected to reach 5.2 billion globally while games and toys sales reach 18.5 billion in Japan alone. Many media executives agree that Japanese anime definitely has the potential of becoming the next big export. What most people like about anime is that they aren’t formulaic and have a lot of imagination.
Through the successes of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh people may think that this Japanese industry is really profitable. In reality, for every 100 animations only 10 will make any profit at all. Also the creation of anime is still largely all hand drawn and Japan is facing a shortage on full time animators. This is due to the fact that some studios pay a measly $2 for a frame that takes about half an hour to draw, translating to an inadequate $700 a month. Many Japanese studios have begun outsourcing their lower level drawing jobs to Korea, China, and the Philippines. This may eventually arise as a problem for the Japanese industry, since they are training Korean, Chinese animators of the future.
This Japanese industry has a tough road ahead of itself to become a major international competitor. While Pixar’s Shrek 2 took in $437 million at the box office in the U.S., Japanese’s Spirited Away took in only a paltry $10 million in U.S. sales. Considering the fact that Spirited Away is the most successful Japanese anime film to date Japan needs to seriously revamp their business and marketing strategies.
