The Anime Biz
The Anime Biz: It's transforming Japan's $100 billion entertainment industry. Can Anime become the next big export?
Yumeta Co. hardly screams big business. The animation studio, producer of Beyond the Stream of Time, a TV cartoon about a time-traveling high school girl, is based in the Tokyo suburb of Kiyose, an hour or more by train from the city center. On arrival, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're in the wrong place. There's no sign on the door. Inside the cramped, nearly windowless building, the company's 30 or so jeans-clad staffers busily draw by hand the thousands of frames necessary for cartoons. They work quietly, pausing only occasionally to sharpen a pencil or skip a track on their iPods. 'It's a lot of work, but that's how we do it in Japan,' says Chief Executive Satoshi Yamaguchi.
Yet Yumeta's humble establishment is part of a business that has achieved plenty of fame at home and abroad: anime. This is the realm of iconic Japanese cartoons in which doe-eyed characters with waiflike faces have fantastic adventures that inspire devotion in millions of fans. (Indeed, the reason Yumeta's building bears no sign is that some fans are so rabid that they rifle through the garbage in search of discarded drawings.) Box-office receipts and DVD sales from anime films are expected to reach $5.2 billion globally this year, according to trade group Nasscom. And games, toys, and the myriad marketing tie-ins to anime characters and films represented some $18.5 billion in Japan alone, according to Digital Contents White Book, an industry guide. What's more, the images that roll out of Japan's studios inspire everything from Hollywood blockbusters to high fashion. Anime 'has been hugely influential,' says John Lasseter, executive vice-president and creative chief at Pixar Animation Studios (PIXR ), which produced The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. The influence is all the more extraordinary when you consider that the outside world sees so little of what Japan comes up with. 'The Japanese have been the largest animation producers for years, but 99% of the stuff stays in Japan,' says Lasseter.
Did you hear that? 99% of the stuff stays in Japan!!! We only get 1%???
I truly believe that as Anime/Manga gains more popularity here in the US, we will be able to tap into this awesome entertainment. Not only Made in Japan, but from local artists here in the good 'ol US of A.
Mark
Anime Times
Yumeta Co. hardly screams big business. The animation studio, producer of Beyond the Stream of Time, a TV cartoon about a time-traveling high school girl, is based in the Tokyo suburb of Kiyose, an hour or more by train from the city center. On arrival, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're in the wrong place. There's no sign on the door. Inside the cramped, nearly windowless building, the company's 30 or so jeans-clad staffers busily draw by hand the thousands of frames necessary for cartoons. They work quietly, pausing only occasionally to sharpen a pencil or skip a track on their iPods. 'It's a lot of work, but that's how we do it in Japan,' says Chief Executive Satoshi Yamaguchi.
Yet Yumeta's humble establishment is part of a business that has achieved plenty of fame at home and abroad: anime. This is the realm of iconic Japanese cartoons in which doe-eyed characters with waiflike faces have fantastic adventures that inspire devotion in millions of fans. (Indeed, the reason Yumeta's building bears no sign is that some fans are so rabid that they rifle through the garbage in search of discarded drawings.) Box-office receipts and DVD sales from anime films are expected to reach $5.2 billion globally this year, according to trade group Nasscom. And games, toys, and the myriad marketing tie-ins to anime characters and films represented some $18.5 billion in Japan alone, according to Digital Contents White Book, an industry guide. What's more, the images that roll out of Japan's studios inspire everything from Hollywood blockbusters to high fashion. Anime 'has been hugely influential,' says John Lasseter, executive vice-president and creative chief at Pixar Animation Studios (PIXR ), which produced The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. The influence is all the more extraordinary when you consider that the outside world sees so little of what Japan comes up with. 'The Japanese have been the largest animation producers for years, but 99% of the stuff stays in Japan,' says Lasseter.
Did you hear that? 99% of the stuff stays in Japan!!! We only get 1%???
I truly believe that as Anime/Manga gains more popularity here in the US, we will be able to tap into this awesome entertainment. Not only Made in Japan, but from local artists here in the good 'ol US of A.
Mark
Anime Times
posted by Mark Alderwood at 5:55 PM
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