About a week ago I posted that 2011, for all its problems, was a stable year for anime. It turns out that stability was short lived. In an interview with Justin Sevakis and Chris Macdonald on AnimeNewsNetwork, Bandai Entertainment President and CEO Ken Iyadomi announced Bandai’s decision to stop licensing and releasing shows. Some bloggers (including Charlie Maib from Kotaku via Japanator) have suggested that piracy killed Bandai. But if you look at what Iyadomi said, I think it’s more likely that Bandai Japan is to blame. And not blame in a bad way, blame in the sense that Bandai Japan (full name: Namco Bandai Holdings) made a rational business decision. It decided, maybe prematurely, to protect its profits and let mainstream fans get anime digitally.
Tag: streaming
All told, 2011 was a stable year in the anime business. No anime company of any worth (so 4Kids doesn’t count) went bankrupt, although over in the manga world TokyoPop bit the bullet. The tsunami and resulting nuclear incident will unfortunately overshadow anything else that happened with anime this year. While there were no dramatic changes in the industry, a number of trends began or picked up steam in 2011. It is these trends, more than any anime production, that will be this year’s industry legacy.
Trend #1: Lawsuits
I love when the mainstream media tackles anime. Tomorrow’s New York Times’ features a story about the business opportunities in streaming anime. In its discussion of what shows work, the articles drops this great quote: “The small but avid audience is made up of mostly male viewers aged 18 to 34. Distributors said comedies, sports shows and anything aimed at women tend to not work.”
Digital is the future of video media. Funimation’s announcement of a new premium streaming service this weekend shows that it recognizes what it needs to do to maximize its profits. Up until now, Funimation mostly used streaming to advertise its physical disc releases. I think this announcement reveals the company’s true online strategy, to use streaming as the primary source of Funimation’s profits.
Free. Legal. And released within a week of the show’s Japan air date. Streaming video is something that I have craved ever since I started watching anime. I always feel guilty about not doing enough to support the industry, even if I do buy more anime than a normal person should. Watching streaming anime gives me a way to offer my support without needing to shell out $30 for 13 episodes. The biggest (legal) services right now are Cunchyroll, Netflix and Hulu.