'Jujutsu Kaisen' leads Crunchyroll anime awards
Plus: Print manga continues dominance in France; Digital share of light novel sales grows; Gundam plastic model kits move upmarket; and more
This is your weekly Animenomics briefing, covering the business of anime and manga. Today is Wednesday, March 6, 2024.
Situational awareness: All eyes are on The Boy and the Heron this weekend as it competes for Best Animated Feature Film in the 96th Academy Awards.
‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ awards dominance raises eyebrows
Anime streaming giant Crunchyroll and English-speaking anime fans presented competing visions of an award ceremony that celebrates excellence in the anime industry last weekend.
Why it matters: Crunchyroll’s growing international influence gives its Anime Awards ceremony gives an opportunity to shape how anime is presented and discussed globally.
Anime fans on the social networking platform Reddit, meanwhile, held their own virtual /r/anime Awards ceremony on the live-streaming service Twitch.
What happened: Both events received plenty of media coverage, with industry figures lending their support with congratulatory messages for both ceremonies, but outcomes were entirely different from each other.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 was the biggest winner in Crunchyroll’s event as it swept 11 awards, including Anime of the Year, after being nominated for 25 out of 32 categories.
The /r/anime Awards, which separate winners of jury voting and public voting, named BanG Dream! It’s MyGo!!!!! and Vinland Saga Season 2 as Anime of the Year winners.
Some necessary context: As previously reported by Animenomics, anime industry observers contend that the primary purpose of Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards is to raise the prestige of anime.
For the second year in a row, the company held the Anime Awards ceremony in Tokyo with celebrity guests instead of in the United States.
Some argue that pomp and circumstance have made Crunchyroll’s event become detached from reality, given the dominance of blockbuster titles like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man among the winners.
“Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards have evolved into the final form of all high-profile awards shows: an industry patting itself on the back so loudly it becomes deaf to all else,” writes Anime News Network columnist Steve Jones.
Yes, but: Jujutsu Kaisen’s popularity also showed up in the /r/anime Awards, capturing four public voting categories.
Zoom out: At issue with anime awards are two questions that plague the broader film and television industry today, how to engage audiences directly (such as with public voting) and how to demonstrate demographic representation.
Crunchyroll believes that the current 30 percent weight it gives to public votes provides the right balance to complement jury votes in naming award winners.
/r/anime Awards winners, on the other hand, showcase a greater diversity of anime titles, but the votes only represent a small community in the larger anime fandom.
Deluxe editions keep print manga dominant in France
Internet piracy is conditioning manga readers in France to expect digital content to be free and preventing growth in the country’s digital manga market, says Kim Bedenne, the head of French manga publisher Ki-oon’s Japan branch office.
Why it matters: France is the largest manga market outside Japan, with sales of manga now accounting for more than half of the French comic book market.
What they’re saying: “In France, digital [manga] is 30 percent cheaper than print, but they don’t sell at all,” Bedenne tells Teller Novel’s Borderless publication.
Bedenne says deluxe editions of print manga sell well in France because customers want to display them as objects that represent their identity.
French-language manga releases include dust jackets, similar to how they are published in Japan but different from manga’s mass market paperback format in the United States.
Backgrounder: France’s current manga boom began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the country went into wide-scale lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.
To revive the culture sector, the French government launched a smartphone app that gave every 18-year-old €300 (US$325) to spend on books and music.
French media dubbed these allowances “manga passes” because booksellers reported that as much as 70 percent of the spending went to manga purchases.
Where things stand: Anime has a large influence on manga sales, and titles like My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen sell because their anime are popular.
Still, French readers have high expectations of art quality, says Bedenne, and titles like Blue Period and The Apothecary Diaries are popular because of that.
As previously reported by Animenomics, a joint venture set up by Kadokawa in France is now trying to crack the country’s digital manga market.
Clippings: 60% of light novel revenues are digital sales
Japan’s light novel market, which publishes text-based fiction containing anime-style illustrations, stood at ¥54.5 billion (US$362 million) in 2022, according to an independent calculation of Research Institute for Publications data. (Hon.jp)
Digital sales in the light novel market make up an estimated 60 percent of all light novel sales, according to the calculation.
Bandai Namco Filmworks, the anime production company previously known as Sunrise, has acquired anime studio Eightbit as a wholly-owned subsidiary. BNF previously contracted the studio to animate That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and Blue Lock. (Animation Business Journal)
Crunchyroll won’t raise subscription prices while it migrates Funimation content and users by April, but it isn’t committing to maintaining the same price point in the next two years. (Anime News Network)
Classic anime titles are finding new audiences in North America as specialty post-production companies like MediaOCD remaster them for physical releases on Blu-ray and DVD. (The Verge)
A Chinese court has found three people guilty of copyright infringement for pirating anime on the website B9GOOD, which authorities shut down last year. (The Mainichi)
Anime industry continues focus on domestic market
“For international IP owners and producers, dreaming of making their show in Japan or with Japanese creative partners, the primary question you must ask yourself is this, ‘Does Japan need this program?’ The answer is ‘It doesn’t’. You need to start thinking out of the box. What types of content do Japanese audiences spend a lot of their time with?”
— , former Manga Entertainment managing director
Context: Writing in his Substack newsletter, Mazandarani reiterates the common attitude that anime is largely produced for the domestic Japanese market, even if producers are internationally-aware.
Zoom out: Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini also told The Verge’s Decoder podcast last week, “The way we think about anime, we believe it is something that is conceived and / or created in Japan.”
At last weekend’s Crunchyroll Anime Awards, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho, best known for his Academy Award-winning film Parasite, expressed interest in producing an animated film in Japan.
1 chart to go: Gundam plastic model prices are rising
Toy manufacturer Bandai Spirits is producing more and more premium Gundam plastic model (Gunpla) kits with higher price points, according to an analysis by the Nikkei financial newspaper.
Why it matters: The Mobile Suit Gundam anime franchise is Bandai Namco Group’s highest-selling property in the toys and hobby category.
By the numbers: Bandai Namco is forecasting sales of Gundam toys and hobby products to reach ¥66 billion (US$440 million) this fiscal year, a 9 percent increase over last year.
Zoom in: The number of Gunpla kits priced above ¥10,000 (US$67) has tripled in the last ten years, the Nikkei found.
Bandai Spirits is catering to a growing segment of serious customers in their 30s and 50s with expendable income.
Growth is largely coming from the Perfect Grade line of 1/60 scale kits, which can contain more than 1,000 parts, about five to ten times the number of parts found in kits priced between ¥1,000 (US$7) and ¥2,000 (US$14).
Animenomics is an independently-run and reader-supported publication. If you enjoyed this newsletter, consider sharing it with others.
I am so honored and flattered to get a mention in your fantastic newsletter. Thank you. If you fancy a quick pint during Anime Japan do let me know. ;D