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Japanese Animation Declines

The current status of the Japanese animation industry was documents in a recent report by The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). Suprisingly, it stated that anime market sales in Japan declined from 213.5 billion yen in 2002, to only 191.2 billion yen in 2003. This significant 10% drop suggest that Japan is losing it's once firm grip of the Anime Market.

There are many reasons to this steady downfall.

One, being the cost of producing a typical 30 minute TV episode. The average episode cost up to 10 million yen to produce! The report stated that the majority of tv series don't even gain a substential income from the broadcasting. They must depend on other resources such as DVD's, Licensing, Toys, etc..etc..

Another reason to this downfall is that Japan use to provide most of the animation broadcast in South Korea, but now South Korea produces 30% to 40% of the animation on television in their country.

The sale of Anime DVD's and videos also appear to be suffering dramatically:

Quote:

Originally Posted by www.awn.com Sales of anime DVDs/videos were 92.59 billion yen in 2004 — a 5.5% decrease from 2003. The sales of animation DVDs/videos in Japan was 80% Japanese anime and 20% imported animation. In 2004, the anime home video market was estimated to be worth 20 billion yen according to the Nomura Research Institute. The numbers were based on the amount of DVDs sold. METI issued a report in January 2004 stating that internationally 60% of the anime shown worldwide is made in Japan.

Is Japan bound to lost it's grip on the Animation Market entirely? Who will be the next supreme of Animation? And what does the United States have in this situation? Only time will tell...

• www.awn.com