Akira Toriyama leaves stronger legacy in anime
Plus: Journalist revisits Wall Street Journal verdict on 'Dragon Ball Z'; Hayao Miyazaki wins second Oscar; Weak yen puts pressure on anime studios; and more
This is the weekly newsletter of Animenomics, covering the business of anime and manga. Today is Wednesday, March 13, 2024.
Programming note: Animenomics will be taking a break next week. The next newsletter issue will be on Wednesday, March 27, 2024.
Tokyo anime award festival celebrates Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama, the celebrated manga artist who died on March 1 at 68 years old, has been influential in manga and anime since the 1980s, but his recent personal involvement in Dragon Ball anime productions has strengthened his legacy.
Driving the story: Tokyo Anime Award Festival last week posthumously released a reflection written by Toriyama about his work on Dragon Ball anime productions over the last 10 years, IGN Japan reports.
Toriyama and seven others were named recipients of the festival’s Achievement Award in December, recognizing invaluable contributions to the advancement of the anime industry.
Why it matters: Toriyama’s involvement in writing scripts for Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods in 2013 and subsequent anime productions like Dragon Ball Super has been credited with reviving enthusiasm for the franchise worldwide.
As previously reported by Animenomics, Dragon Ball’s resurgence triggered a feud last year over who should control licensing rights for the work.
By the numbers: Entertainment researcher Atsuo Nakayama found that Dragon Ball’s economic impact in 2022 totaled more than ¥550 billion (US$3.7 billion), largely driven by a surge in merchandise and mobile game revenue.
Between 2010 and 2014, the Dragon Ball franchise was averaging less than ¥40 billion (US$270 million) in sales annually.
What he said: “For a long time, I didn’t have a strong interest in animation. Even when my works were adapted into anime, with deep apologies to the staff, I didn’t watch them much out of embarrassment,” Toriyama begins.
His first memorable moment of working with anime was in the 1988 Weekly Shonen Jump original anime production of Kosuke and Rikimaru, in which the drawings of animation director Toyoo Ashida left an impression on Toriyama.
“About 10 years ago, I was unexpectedly asked to make script revisions to a Dragon Ball anime film,” Toriyama recalls. “I suppose it was after doing some simple designs for characters and backgrounds that I found, to my surprise, that this work might actually be pretty fun and worthwhile.”
What’s next: Dragon Ball Daima, a new anime series commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Dragon Ball manga, will air starting in October.
“[It] was originally planned as an anime-original series to be made without my involvement,” Toriyama explains, “but as I gave advice here and there, I ended up getting heavily involved.”
U.S. journalist re-evaluates verdict on ‘Dragon Ball Z’
“Dragon Ball Z was groundbreaking and opened the door for American children to new and sophisticated storytelling. […] Given what we know today about social media and its impacts, the violence in Dragon Ball that concerned parents at the time seems very tame today.”
— Sally Beatty, former staff reporter with The Wall Street Journal
Context: Beatty spoke with Animenomics about her 1999 article “Kids Are Glued to a Violent Japanese Cartoon Show” that was published in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal.
As news of Akira Toriyama’s death spread this week, the article resurfaced on social media websites as an early example of how the Dragon Ball Z anime was reported negatively by news media when it aired in the United States.
What they’re saying: “The article was written for parents at a time when cable TV choices were exploding and audiences were splintering,” Beatty explained in an emailed statement.
“Instead of nuclear families gathered around a TV set watching the same show, individual family members were into their own shows,” she continued, “and most busy parents were just beginning to know the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what their kids were consuming.”
Zoom in: Beatty added that her daughter, now 24, found Dragon Ball Z to have more depth than any other children’s TV program available at the time.
“From the perspective of the children who watched Dragon Ball, it was mature, engrossing and emotionally moving,” Beatty observed.
Clippings: Hayao Miyazaki wins second animation Oscar
The Boy and the Heron was named the year’s Best Animated Feature Film in the 96th Academy Awards, making it the second Academy Award win for director Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli after 21 years. (Variety)
For GKIDS, the American distributor of anime films and other international animation films, this is their first Academy Award win.
Publishing giant Kadokawa acquired a majority stake in the publishing unit of South Korean entertainment company BY4M Studio, with the goal of publishing translated works of manga, light novels, and other literature. (Animation Business Journal)
Voice actor Tarako, the voice of Chibi Maruko-chan’s title character for more than 34 years who died last week, will have her final recorded episode broadcast at the end of the month. A replacement voice actor has not been selected. (Oricon News)
Tokushima Prefecture officials have resumed negotiations with the Machi Asobi executive committee to possibly continue holding the twice-yearly anime industry event this spring. (NHK News Tokushima)
Catch up quick: As reported by Animenomics, Tokushima’s newly-elected governor previously balked at the amount of subsidies the government paid Machi Asobi in prior years, putting into question the event’s continuation.
Weak yen presents labor challenges for anime studios
Japan’s yen has risen in currency exchange markets in the past week as the central bank considers a monetary policy shift and the country’s economy barely dodges a recession, but a historically weak yen continues to put pressure on anime studios.
Why it matters: A weak yen makes work outsourced to overseas subcontractors are more expensive, eating into anime studios’ already-thin margins.
Some context: Inbetweening—the drawing of intermediate frames between two key frames—is the type of work most commonly outsourced by anime studios because it’s labor intensive.
Outsourcing studios also exist in Japan, but because of the domestic animator shortage, most outsourcing work is done in China, South Korea, and recently Southeast Asia.
By the numbers: A survey of inbetweening credits conducted by Yokohama-based studio office furniture and software distributor Haksankan found that 67 percent of inbetweening work in 200 anime aired in 2019–20 was outsourced overseas.
Trigger managing director Kazuya Masumoto told anime researcher Atsushi Matsumoto in an interview last September that his studio outsources more than 80 percent of inbetweening and finishing work to foreign contractors.
Between the lines: While a weak yen can negatively impact anime studios, it’s of great benefit to companies that plan and manage anime rights.
As the yen depreciates, merchandise prices and licensing fees decrease in foreign currency terms, making anime products and content cheaper to acquire for foreign buyers.
Two years ago, journalist Tadashi Sudo cautioned that currency’s prolonged weakness will make Japan’s anime industry wages less competitive compared to other countries, worsening the labor shortage.
What we’re watching: As previously reported by Animenomics, overseas revenue in the anime industry shrank 7.3 percent on a U.S. dollar basis in 2022 despite growing 11 percent on a yen basis.
Data for 2023 won’t be released until the end of this year.
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