The Death of the Anime Industry

Recently, it was announced that Central Park Media, one of the early pioneers in bringing quality animated series and films from Japan to the American market, was filing for bankruptcy. This news came within a year of an announcement of mass layoffs throughout the company, as well as that they would no longer be offering new products, but instead clearing out their old inventory. This is not the first anime and manga distribution company to fall in the United States, and it will not be the last.

The anime industry as we know it is dying. Despite drastic changes in business models, rebranding and desperately trying to find any corporate outlet for its product, many studios are now facing the stark reality that the business model they have helped to develop is quickly collapsing on itself. What makes this even more sobering is that this model has been seen before; in 1993, the comic book industry suffered a similar crash for similar reasons. That industry was forced to the edge of financial ruin, and it survived only with massive restructuring of their product and sales models, as well as a healthy box office infusion. The anime industry won't be so lucky.

The problems behind the anime industry are ironically tied closely to its reasons for success. Back in the early 90's, many small companies such as Central Park Media and ADV were purchasing the rights to translate several cult favorites that had been circulating around sci-fi conventions for years. These titles were bought for next to nothing, subtitled or dubbed, and then sold to a select, yet rabidly loyal, fanbase. The result was slow, but steady. In 1995, when Pioneer purchased the rights to shows like Tenchi Muyo!, El-Hazard and others, it steadily picked up steam.

Many collectors thought nothing of paying upwards of $25 per VHS cassette for 2 episodes of their favorite shows. They were new and they were a novelty, and admittedly, many of the titles that arrived on our shores in the mid to late 90's were some of the finest ever released. Titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost In The Shell and yes, even Pokemon helped to give the industry a serious boost in the arm and raise awareness of Anime as an entertaining art form.

The industry was aided further by the convention crowd. In the late 1990's to the early 2000's, dozens of anime conventions sprouted up all over the United States. Many of these mirrored one another, and had the same recurring vocal and artistic talent from show to show. Fans, happy to have a massive outlet for their hobby, swarmed many of these three day shows. The companies that sponsored them saw a huge growth potential and kept close track of what titles the fans demanded, and were ultimately provided with a massive free commercial and focus group all in one. Their talent was given star treatment, and corporate executives knew instantly which titles would be hot to purchase.

As more and more titles became available to the public, Cartoon Network got in on the game with their Toonami cartoon block (now discontinued). This provided fans a larger outlet to the most popular titles of the time (such as Dragonball Z, Cowboy Bebop and others), and helped to expose a mass audience to anime. This naturally helped with video and DVD sales, and the industry, now rolling along nicely, was finally faced with a problem.

As more and more people became tied into the Internet, it became easier and easier to get shows from Japan instantly. Soon fan subtitled, or fansubbed, copies of shows would become available within 24 hours of their release in Japan. This led many fans to download the shows they wanted to watch instead of purchasing them. While many fans made the effort to purchase their favorite shows, it can be argued that the sales numbers on several 'sure things' such as Full-Metal Alchemist and Read or Die were drastically hurt by this action.

Another problem facing distributors was a significant lack of quality. Many companies were criticized for not putting the time or care that had once been found in their dubbed titles of the mid 1990's into their later works. Many titles were rushed with poor quality voice work, and with companies changing out recognizable voice actors from title to title, it soon became frustrating to follow a series.

Another quality issue concerned the titles themselves. When the anime industry took off in the mid to late 1990's, it had over 30 years worth of quality titles to pick from. This ensured that nearly every title that came out would be at least above average in terms of quality (although this can be debated). As the industry exhausted their library of classics, more and more sub-par anime and current series were quickly licensed and brought out with the belief that fans would by it just because it was anime.

This model soon proved to be disastrous, as many titles met with poor sales either due to their quality, or due to negative reviews found online. Stores were soon found flooded with product that wasn't moving and more on the way, so liquidations soon took place. Geneon, formerly Pioneer Entertainment, was the first to offer their Anime at a massively discounted price, notably through the now mostly-defunct Suncoast movie store chain. As of 2008, Geneon sold out to rival Funimation as well as its Japanese investors (source: www.wikipedia.org).

With the market severely saturated, internet content becoming more and more available and many fans losing interest in the newer titles, sales plummeted from 2006-2009. Many anime companies reported significant losses, and two major distributors (Geneon and Central Park Media) closed up shop. Other companies tried to salvage their customer base with re-releases of titles, such as ADV's re release and re-re release of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Others tried offering anime content through cable on-demand channels or selling rights to companies like the Sci-Fi Channel. In the end, it still didn't save the industry from their most crippling blow.

In late 2008, Best Buy announced that it would liquidate a massive portion of their Anime stock as it was no longer moving at the rate they deemed it should. Many stores only retained a few select titles, and several stopped ordering new titles altogether. Also, with the rising cost of guests for conventions, many shows found themselves unable to provide anything new or relevant to the industry, and subsequently folded.

The anime industry as we once knew it is dying, and what will emerge in its place are a few diverse companies like Funimation and Bandai that were smart enough to license their shows ahead of time and limit their library output, but even this may not be enough to save them. The writing on the wall is so vivid that Cartoon Network, once the largest provider for anime on cable, as since discontinued their entire anime programming block save for the occasional Naruto episode.

Will anime continue in the United States? Yes, but not the way that it has. As long as there are quality titles available, networks will distribute them. The question now is what shows will the fans deem worthy, and which ones will fade away? Time, and consumer wallets, will tell.

All anime titles listed are the respective properties of their distributors.