Over-saturated US anime industry doing well?

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
In news that is contrary to all the recent speculation regarding the "over-saturated" US anime industry, ICv2 are reporting that anime sales have actually improved this year by 7.6% when compared with the same period in 2004! Much of this success has been put down to big selling Disney re-releases of Ghibli/Miyazaki classics (Nausicaa, Porco Rosso) along with several of ADV's newer titles doing well too (Chrono Crusade, Gantz (on two episodes a DVD) and DNAngel).

ADV US have also clarified their position after angering fans by announcing at last weekend's KamiKazeCon that they had plans to sell their smaller 'niche' anime series (mostly shoujo anime) exclusively through the official ADV website only. It has now emerged that ADV are indeed planning on pushing these releases to other online retailers as well as their own store, "but due to competition and lack of shelf space" they most likely won't be appearing in high street shops too.
 
I think that the "anime market is saturated" position was more in reference to current distribution models than fandom itself. There are continuously new fans coming into anime and adding their spending power to the market, but I think stores are still not convinced that it's worth the shelfspace.

Hopefully ADV's online-only approach will take off well enough to bring other licensors into that approach, and the market will continue to expand without the space restrictions that "traditional" shops have with shelf space.
 
Personally, I don't mind if the less mainstream titles don't get to the high street stores. I do most of my animé buying online these days, and this type of distribution allows them to get out the titles that are less well known to the smaller niché groups that will buy them.

Smaller sales, smaller profits, but it means that the diversity is still there for those that want it.
 
I think the cheap price of the Gantz DvD's may attract impulse buyers in normal stores, which has caused the series to sell well with people in general not just the fans who want the release regardless of episodes per dvd. I think this 2 episode release system may be something we see more frequently ( in the US at least ) .
 
It's interesting how the anime scene works. ADV US claim fansubs are "devastating" the industry, but Gantz, one of their biggest sellers, was massive on the fansub circuit before it was licensed.

Also, given the news that they will be available across different online stores as well as their own, it's fair enough that ADV are making this move with some of their smaller titles. As others have said, it's important to have diversity within anime but in mainstream shops, it's also pretty critical (especially these days) that the shelves are filled with as many big hitters as possible.
 
Back
Top