Much of the anime produced over the decades has had the dubious role of seeming to exist solely to boost sales of the original source material. It's no secret that some of the most popular anime is derived from successful manga. From the very beginning with Tetsuwan Atom. The popularity of the TV anime saw a surge of interest in the original manga content, validating the risk of the new medium.
In the modern industry, run by semi-official multi-corporation agreements known as production committee's, the most important thing seems to be using an anime as an extended commercial. The purpose being to make the manga more profitable and to expand peripheral goods sales. At the most cynical conclusion this is very true indeed. It's hard to dismiss this idea for even the most pessimistic of view points on a portion of the TV anime that exists currently. But how successful is it really?
This article talks about the seemingly correlated affect of One Piece author Oda Eiichiro praising the manga Your Lie in April on a podcast late December. Almost overnight sales of the existing copies of the manga surged, requiring a new edition to be printed. That's a sales pitch with some serious clout behind it, akin to Oprah Winfrey recommending a book. The week following the broadcast of the final episode of the anime, March 2015, saw the newest volume of the manga hit 15th on the weekly Oricon sales chart. As of January 11th, 2016 the first volume of the manga was 10th in the weekly sales rankings. The series though, as a whole ranked, 23rd on the 2015 year in manga sales ranking with 1.2 million units sold. It did not crack the top 30 best selling list for 2014, which would suggest some correlation in its raise in sales with the progression of the TV anime. Which begs the question, does anime work well enough to boost the sales of its source material to offset the cost and energy it takes to produce?
Anime can ignite interest in a manga, that is without doubt. Yet most anime never see's more than 5% viewership on a weekly basis and disc releases see paltry sales, usually spiking on the week of release and sharply declining in consecutive weeks. Many are lucky to sell more than 10,000 units per disc. In 2015 the top selling anime blu ray ranked number 11 over all, the 7th volume of Love Live Season 2. The disc sold over 70,000 copies alone. That is around 80% of all Your Lie in April blu ray volume sales, which ranked 10th for total sales of an anime series over all that year, selling around 90,000 copies between all of its available volumes. The top selling anime series on blu ray over all for the year was Uta no Prince-sama, moving over 214,000 copies of its available volumes.
Anime blu ray sales tend to go to collectors and fans as opposed to the general populace, which still buys more DVD's. The top selling DVD of 2015 was that years Yokai Watch film. Over 133,000 copies were sold making it 8th top selling DVD of the year. The runner up in DVD sales was The Last Naruto Movie, which sold 33,000 copies. The Last Naruto Movie sold just under 32,000 blu ray copies.
Lets do some generic and not entirely accurate math, but it can give a vary basic look at how much an anime can be worth by comparing the cost of production against disc and manga sales related tied to the shows broadcast.
By estimates the average cost to produce one episode of a TV anime can be $1 million. A full cours series would then cost roughly $13 million to produce. Lets say that series generates 6 volumes for both dvd and blu ray. Each volume of the DVD costs $35 and 15,000 copies of each volume are sold, equaling 90,000 total, generating a gross revenue of $3,150,000. Then lets assume the blu ray does better. It moves 20,000 copies for each volume at a cost of $50 per volume. That would generate $6,000,000 in gross revenue. Disc sales alone would account for $9,150,000 of gross sales in this example. $4 million short of breaking even with the cost to produce the anime in the first place. In order for the manga to pick up the slack, over 900,000 single copies, selling for $4 each, would have to be sold. Your Lie in April moved 1.2 million manga volumes in 2015.
This is not really a realistic example but more of an easy draft to simply express the value of the anime product against the needed market return for goods sales. This example takes liberties in using what may be an average cost per episode for the top production series' instead of the true average. Those numbers are incredibly difficult to come by as the industry keeps a close lid on its profit and loss. The other snag in this example which, realistically, would drastically reduce the revenue return, is how much profit the production committee actually makes on the sales of the discs and manga. They obviously do not receive 100% of the sales. Very likely they don't see 50% of the gross sales revenue.
With this crude and somewhat unrealistic example we can see that anime has a difficult task of overcoming its production cost through the sales of peripheral items it generates. it is difficult for the anime it's self to be the sole source of revenue generation. This is the reasoning behind production committee's pursuing successful and already established franchises to turn into anime. The risks appear to be lower based on historical data for them so in theory the increased awareness and interest in the title should result in further sales across different media types. In this rare example of an impressed peer in the industry, who has the most successful manga in history, only needs to be impressed in order to propel sales of a different manga. Praise that essentially cost nothing to produce, nothing but creativity and admiration. I wonder how well sales of the novel Ichigo Domei, which inspired the manga, would fare if Oda had mentioned that instead?
In conclusion this should serve as a wake up call to the anime industry that needs to examine its business model at a time when some of its most respected members question how long it can sustain its self as a whole. Perhaps it needs to pull back a bit and focus on incubating creativity more and focusing on selling products less. Perhaps we will see another original series appear that surpasses everyone's expectations and becomes a powerful brand all in its own right.
Special mention to onepiecepodcast.com which initially lead me to the article about Oda's comments and the boost in sales.
In the modern industry, run by semi-official multi-corporation agreements known as production committee's, the most important thing seems to be using an anime as an extended commercial. The purpose being to make the manga more profitable and to expand peripheral goods sales. At the most cynical conclusion this is very true indeed. It's hard to dismiss this idea for even the most pessimistic of view points on a portion of the TV anime that exists currently. But how successful is it really?
This article talks about the seemingly correlated affect of One Piece author Oda Eiichiro praising the manga Your Lie in April on a podcast late December. Almost overnight sales of the existing copies of the manga surged, requiring a new edition to be printed. That's a sales pitch with some serious clout behind it, akin to Oprah Winfrey recommending a book. The week following the broadcast of the final episode of the anime, March 2015, saw the newest volume of the manga hit 15th on the weekly Oricon sales chart. As of January 11th, 2016 the first volume of the manga was 10th in the weekly sales rankings. The series though, as a whole ranked, 23rd on the 2015 year in manga sales ranking with 1.2 million units sold. It did not crack the top 30 best selling list for 2014, which would suggest some correlation in its raise in sales with the progression of the TV anime. Which begs the question, does anime work well enough to boost the sales of its source material to offset the cost and energy it takes to produce?
Anime can ignite interest in a manga, that is without doubt. Yet most anime never see's more than 5% viewership on a weekly basis and disc releases see paltry sales, usually spiking on the week of release and sharply declining in consecutive weeks. Many are lucky to sell more than 10,000 units per disc. In 2015 the top selling anime blu ray ranked number 11 over all, the 7th volume of Love Live Season 2. The disc sold over 70,000 copies alone. That is around 80% of all Your Lie in April blu ray volume sales, which ranked 10th for total sales of an anime series over all that year, selling around 90,000 copies between all of its available volumes. The top selling anime series on blu ray over all for the year was Uta no Prince-sama, moving over 214,000 copies of its available volumes.
Anime blu ray sales tend to go to collectors and fans as opposed to the general populace, which still buys more DVD's. The top selling DVD of 2015 was that years Yokai Watch film. Over 133,000 copies were sold making it 8th top selling DVD of the year. The runner up in DVD sales was The Last Naruto Movie, which sold 33,000 copies. The Last Naruto Movie sold just under 32,000 blu ray copies.
Lets do some generic and not entirely accurate math, but it can give a vary basic look at how much an anime can be worth by comparing the cost of production against disc and manga sales related tied to the shows broadcast.
By estimates the average cost to produce one episode of a TV anime can be $1 million. A full cours series would then cost roughly $13 million to produce. Lets say that series generates 6 volumes for both dvd and blu ray. Each volume of the DVD costs $35 and 15,000 copies of each volume are sold, equaling 90,000 total, generating a gross revenue of $3,150,000. Then lets assume the blu ray does better. It moves 20,000 copies for each volume at a cost of $50 per volume. That would generate $6,000,000 in gross revenue. Disc sales alone would account for $9,150,000 of gross sales in this example. $4 million short of breaking even with the cost to produce the anime in the first place. In order for the manga to pick up the slack, over 900,000 single copies, selling for $4 each, would have to be sold. Your Lie in April moved 1.2 million manga volumes in 2015.
This is not really a realistic example but more of an easy draft to simply express the value of the anime product against the needed market return for goods sales. This example takes liberties in using what may be an average cost per episode for the top production series' instead of the true average. Those numbers are incredibly difficult to come by as the industry keeps a close lid on its profit and loss. The other snag in this example which, realistically, would drastically reduce the revenue return, is how much profit the production committee actually makes on the sales of the discs and manga. They obviously do not receive 100% of the sales. Very likely they don't see 50% of the gross sales revenue.
With this crude and somewhat unrealistic example we can see that anime has a difficult task of overcoming its production cost through the sales of peripheral items it generates. it is difficult for the anime it's self to be the sole source of revenue generation. This is the reasoning behind production committee's pursuing successful and already established franchises to turn into anime. The risks appear to be lower based on historical data for them so in theory the increased awareness and interest in the title should result in further sales across different media types. In this rare example of an impressed peer in the industry, who has the most successful manga in history, only needs to be impressed in order to propel sales of a different manga. Praise that essentially cost nothing to produce, nothing but creativity and admiration. I wonder how well sales of the novel Ichigo Domei, which inspired the manga, would fare if Oda had mentioned that instead?
In conclusion this should serve as a wake up call to the anime industry that needs to examine its business model at a time when some of its most respected members question how long it can sustain its self as a whole. Perhaps it needs to pull back a bit and focus on incubating creativity more and focusing on selling products less. Perhaps we will see another original series appear that surpasses everyone's expectations and becomes a powerful brand all in its own right.
Special mention to onepiecepodcast.com which initially lead me to the article about Oda's comments and the boost in sales.
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