Anime Expo 2009's "State of the Anime Industry"

[suquamish]

I read, with much interest, Shawne Kleckner's keynote speech on "the State of the Anime Industry." (found here at ANN)

Anyone who's been paying attention for the last few years will nod at much of what Kleckner says. He's repeating some of calls he's made to the anime industry previously, has some nifty new ideas, and demonstrates a pretty solid grasp of how the market has changed from under the business of distributing Anime.

However, as he's talking about the need for streaming anime, he says this in his speech:
Although online streaming of Anime is one way to replicate the effect of TV broadcast in Japan, "content cannot be left online indefinitely" because of the damage it would do to DVD sales.

To me this smacks of trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

Once you put content on-line, it's going to stay there whether you want it to or not -- and by eventually removing the legitimate source, you'll steer your consumers away to other sources; and lets face it -- torrenting down Anime is still easier than finding [affordable] legitimate sources.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the Anime industry is dangerously close to figuring out how to evolve, but seems reluctant to go that last mile?

[Orion1]

Oh Shawne... Of course he is right.... and he's got the rightsuf!!!! Actually he is my favorite person to purchase anime from on Amazon too. LoL! He addresses many interesting points about the anime market in Japan and in the U.S. like dubbing and subbing costs without sponsors. He also talks about the glory days in the 90's when the selection was a lot greater than in today's constrained markets. He also addresses a little the topic of how technology has made it easier for free fansubs to offer quality material. Where to begin? Personally I still buy anime. Too much I'm broke all time because of my little habit, ok big habit.

To address what needs to be done to increase sales of anime, I think that places like Cruchyroll and FUNimation are already on the right path, but not quite there. Example of how they are on the right path being Eve no Jikan. If I want to watch that series then I can watch it on Cruchyroll exclusively. Of course there are still fansub rips, but it's still easy enough to go and watch it streaming, and the quality isn't terrible but still not as good as many of the fansubbed versions. Why? I actually think it's just their player programming, because the NF player is amazing!!!

As for Anime Expo here is the link to ANN highlights. Oh course one of the key note speaches was Shawnes' from rightsuf another was on the subject of Anime on the internet by Kun Gao, CEO/Co-founder of Crunchyroll. He basically states the obvious, which is digital media can operate for less costs, and therefore can release more niche product that wouldn't be profitable if distributed via dvd/blu-ray.

Actually I was a little disappointed that ANN didn't have any streaming video on the convention or I missed it somehow. I always enjoyed watching the keynote speakers vs. the transcript format or even worse the paraphrased one.

[Led]

Very interesting article on the anime industry. Rightstuf is my main source for anime/manga products and also news (besides ANN of course). Did you see the article ANN had about the top manga/anime properties that icv2 published? That was very interesting to see as well. (I think it can still be found online at icv2.com)

I fall under the last category Shawne talked about - watching anime online through places like Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Netflix. I watch fan subs only on the shows that I can't get any other traditional/legitimate way (Vampire Knight for example). But I watch the shows in this way to see if I will like them enough to buy them. And then I follow through and purchase the series that are worth it (good value) and the shows that I know I will watch again and again. I watch both dubbed and subbed, and enjoy both. I tend to prefer dubbed most of the time, especially on the shows where the artwork is very detailed, just because I want to be able to focus on the pictures/scenes and not just trying to read as quick as possible to get all of the text in before the scene changes.

I hope the coming years show a a good fix to the time and technology problems we currently seem to be having in getting us the shows from Japan that we want. I hope the anime industry worldwide can figure out these dilemmas they are having quickly so fans everywhere are able to enjoy even more anime - in a timely manner, and for good value! I would also love to see these advances applied to the manga side of the business as well. It would be nice to see manga volumes published here in the U.S. closer to the Japanese release dates. (If possible with all of the behind the scenes translating and work that needs to be done.)