Being the type to delve into how industries operate when I’m interested in their products, I’ve been watching the problems with the anime industry – especially in the United States. Boom and bust cycles are fascinating to observe and the anime here in the States managed to do that in in the space of one decade. So an interview with the former Bandai Entertainment USA director of marketing gives a rare insight to how things actually work. Be warned, there is profanity in the podcast.
As I’m listening to it, the brief mention of how online piracy damaged sales caught my attention. It got me thinking on how a niche industry can be devastated by people stealing the product and never paying for it. Disclaimer: It isn’t right to steal from the big industries like Hollywood or music too. Also, I won’t get into the manga side of things.
Many are the mistakes that have caused companies to fold or retreat from the anime market in the U.S., but the explosion in file sharing coincided with rise and fall in my eyes. Once broadband saturated the country around the middle of the 2000’s, piracy of videos increased. That was also when anime imploded.
There is a gray area I should first address, which is fan subtitled copies of TV broadcasts from Japan. I have watched a few myself, but only because there was no legal streaming available and no DVD or Blu-ray issue. Given how many titles are available for free low quality or subscription high quality streams from Funimation, Crunchyroll, The Anime Network, and Hulu, there is no excuse for downloading these if the title is available in your country.
Right now, it is possible to see new animes within 24 hours of their broadcast in Japan through streaming services like those. Such irony that even as anime has fallen in popularity it is now so easily – and cheaply available. Still, people are ripping DVD’s and BD’s and torrenting them to others.
It’s strange, but people seem to think products are materialized out of thin air and that other humans aren’t depending on them to make a living. Even if they are, they rationalize things by thinking they are only one person doing this and so it doesn’t hurt the companies/creators involved much at all. They have enough money and won’t miss it.
Multiply that by thousands, if not tens of thousands of people thinking the same thing and the financial loss gets dramatic. Most of the work done on anime is by contract and salaried workers who don’t make a lot of money.
Another excuse used to pirate is that it promotes sales. I kid you not, there are people who believe this to be true. So distributing illegal rips is actually doing the companies a service is claimed. It is highly doubtful that anything other than a tiny percentage of pirates end up buying the real deal. Tiny as in less than one percent.
So out of curiosity I decided to take a look at the anime I own and how I first saw them. Note: I’ve seen a lot more anime than this thanks to streaming services and friends loaning their library to me. These are the ones I deem worth owning and purchased:
- Area 88 (TV) – Netflix recommendation.
- Bleach – I own season’s 1-3 and watched them on Hulu.
- Bleach: Memories of Nobody – Fansub of TV broadcast.
- Bleach: Fade to Black – Fansub
- Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 – Hulu/Funimation
- A.D. Police – Blind buy for ridiculous cheap price
- C - Control – Hulu/Funimation
- Castle in the Sky – Netflix
- The Cat Returns – Netflix
- Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth – The Anime Network
- FLCL – Hulu/Funimation. Only had first episode and had to own it.
- Fractale – Hulu/Funimation
- Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl – Fansubs of Denpa Onna
- Howl’s Moving Castle – Netflix
- Kiki’s Delivery Service – Netflix
- Kimi ni Todoke – Sets 1-3, fansubs, but now on Crunchyroll
- Millennium Actress – TCM or Netflix
- My Neighbor Totoro – TCM
- Nausicaa – TCM
- Only Yesterday – TCM
- Porco Rosso – Netflix
- Princess Mononoke – Netflix
- Spirited Away – Cable/satellite rental
- Squid Girl – Sets 1 & 2, Crunchyroll
- Steins;Gate – Sets 1 & 2, Hulu
- Summer Wars – Blind buy
- Tiger & Bunny – Set 1, Hulu
- The Vision of Escaflowne – Netflix
Traditionally, television broadcasts cause a series to sell and the podcast verified that. Me, being an oddball, saw very little anime on TV except back in the late 1990’s. The one exception was when they had the first Studio Ghibli event on TCM, which introduced me to more than just Spirited Away.
Let’s see who got me to buy the most anime sets:
- Hulu – 10
- Netflix – 9
- Fansub – 6
- TCM – 4
- Blind buy – 2
- Crunchyroll – 2
- The Anime Network – 1
Hulu may be reviled by many, but it has sold some sets if I’m any example at all. Netflix DVD rentals are on their way out; I just dropped them due to every other disc being damaged to some degree. Fansubs have hurt my wallet since four of the six are NIS America sets. TCM which I haven’t viewed in years since ditching TV got me into Studio Ghibli in a serious way. Blind buys are rare for me and are statistical noise. Crunchyroll will end up getting me to buy more sets than the two Squid Girl ones before it is over. The Anime Network got me to buy Croisee.
Discounting the blind buys, that makes 13 sets from legal streaming, an additional 9 from renting DVDs, and 4 from watching TV for a total of 16 purchases inspired by squeaky clean viewings. Six more from the gray area of fansubs. All are new except for four.
So if you enjoy anime, you should be funding it in my opinion. I’m doing my part with purchases and subscriptions to Crunchyroll and Hulu +.
2 comments:
Factors to consider:
Most new anime fans get introduced through piracy.
Much of the money going to Crunchyroll & Co doesn't pass through to the actual creators. Producers likely consider such streams advertising, a bit like Spotify in the music world where most artists get hurt monetarily, but expect to gain in recognition.
In this case piracy coupled with directly funding anime industry, that is, by buying the original Japanese BD/DVD releases, is clearly the most reasonable option if you're concerned about giving the creators their fair share.
There are different levels of piracy though. Rips of said Blu-rays and DVDs simply kill sales in countries outside of Japan, not to mention the tiny amount of sales to foreigners self importing from the land of the rising sun. I mentioned the gray area of fan subs of shows and condone that when the series is not available through legal streaming or domestic release. Frankly anime would have next to no market in the United States and South America without it.
As to profits going to the creators, that's a complicated area to say the least. Right to properties are different in each country and in Japan the original creators tend to have more control and share in the profits than in the States. There isn't a huge amount of money going back through streaming so anything seen would be pennies. Sales of sets here aren't as ridiculously overpriced as in Japan (though could be considered underpriced in many cases), but licensing fees usually have something going back to the creators depending on contracts with the producers in the first place.
Non of this justifies pirating DVD and Blu-ray rips. I've seen arguments that you don't get the full quality with TV broadcast rips since errors and omissions in animation are corrected for those releases. In an era of DVR machines, there needs to be some incentive to buy for those who think digital is good enough (I'm not one). So I don't view that argument as valid.
It must be noted that it is very rare to get rich off of making anime. There simply isn't a market big enough to support massive success. Fansubs used to help the market ten years ago, but now they are considered a sales killer by both the original producers and creators. I could go on at length, but I've already have gone too long!
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