Anime and “Chinamation”
Some people in Japan’s animation industry are sharing their thoughts about the difficulties They are facing…One particular case mentions the relationship between Japan’s Anime and China…
Kazuo Obara, CFO of anime firm Madhouse Studios’ Peking office, spoke to Chinanet about the difficulties facing the his industry. “The Japanese anime industry is stagnating. It’s facing a harsh reality. Television station revenues are falling, the number of shows airing and the amount of money available for production in serious decline. DVD sales are dropping precipitously, a lethal development for production companies, which depend on DVD sales for some 40% of their revenues. The time has come for the Japanese animation industry to revise its thinking and devise a better business model for a new age.”
Obara continued that if properly trained, Chinese animators could well usher in a new era of animation history, but said hurdles remain — the main one being that of time. “China doesn’t have the luxury of taking as long of a time as Japan did to become good at animation. They need to push onto the world stage immediately.”
Reactions from the always-reliably-reactive 2ch crowd varied. “The anime industry is already saturated, so it’s going to be extremely difficult to break through no matter how much technology you have,” remarked one poster. “Given the political stance there, can anyone really create something truly free-thinking or thematically complex?” commented another. Others took a less thoughtful approach: “So the Japanese anime industry is going to sell itself out to the Chinese.” And: “This is like an article from a North Korean paper! What is it really saying? ‘Japan is out of the game, and China’s giving its best?’”
Source: Yahoo Japan News via AltJapan
We know that Japan’s animation is having a tough time and wonders what is going to happen next…Chinamation?
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Arguably its been in steep decline for the last 5 years or so and it has tried to change itself by being world leading in streaming and pay per view. Remember South Koreas been actually animating a lot of Japanes and American material from key frames for over a decade. (something even referenced in Excel Saga).
The industry needs to shape up and produce less quantity increasing the value of the content. Digital technology has increased the quality massively over the last decade and reduced the number of animators, however the fact that animators can be paid a pittance and yet still willing to work shows theirs still perhaps too many people chasing too few jobs.
I dont think anything can produce a big turnaround at the moment short of a big increase in advertising revenues, but even then entropy is setting in, as more and more channels and distributioon becomes available the income from each dwindles further.
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