Anisong concerts return to stages abroad
Plus: Nojima sees success with Animax purchase; Crunchyroll Anime Awards return to Tokyo; Digital manga platforms connect publishers to reader data; and more
This is the weekly newsletter of Animenomics, covering the business of anime and manga. Today is Wednesday, December 11, 2024.
In case you missed it: The Summer Hikaru Died, an anime series based on the award-winning horror manga published by Kadokawa, will be distributed by Netflix next year.
Digital advertising group CyberAgent leads the anime’s production committee, as the group seeks new anime properties in an effort to diversify its business.
Animelo Summer Live festival returns to world stage
Animelo Summer Live organizers last month held the anime music festival’s first event overseas in more than a decade, signaling fresh confidence in anime music’s global prospects as live entertainment rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why it matters: Animelo Summer Live, abbreviated as Anisama, is Japan’s largest festival of anime music, also known as anisong.
This year’s edition of Animelo Summer Live drew 70,000 concertgoers to Saitama Super Arena, just north of Tokyo, over a three-day period in August.
What happened: Shanghai last month hosted Anisama World, an international brand that Animelo Summer Live organizers haven’t used since 2014, in a venue that has a capacity of up to 15,000 people.
Shanghai-based Platinum Live, which has produced concerts in China for anisong artists, brought a dozen performers for Anisama World, including hometown star Liyuu, who is now an anime voice actor in Japan.
Following the successful event, organizers are now want to hold more stops in cities outside Japan.
Zoom out: Japan is known in the concert scene for its iconic summer music festivals, but these festivals are facing new challenges like rising costs under a weak yen.
Despite a recovery in overall domestic concert attendance, Animelo Summer Live attendance remains below the 2019 peak of 84,000 people.
Publishing giant Kadokawa, whose entertainment unit Dwango operates Animelo Summer Live, saw a 2.8 percent decline in revenue in live entertainment for the first half of the current fiscal year.
The bigger picture: Outside Japan, Asian anime events like Bilibili World in China and Anime Festival Asia in Singapore are seeing increased attendance since the pandemic.
Japanese singer Ado, who is popular among anime fans, will also hold a 34-stop world tour next year, a demonstration of anime music’s new global reach.
Nojima sees early anime business success with Animax
Japanese electronics retailer Nojima is seeing newfound success in the anime business with Animax, the satellite anime broadcasting network it acquired from Sony Pictures and other shareholders earlier this year.
Why it matters: Nojima is among a number of Japanese companies that have found unexpected synergies when their legacy businesses enter the anime market.
What’s happening: Animax Musix, an anime music concert series run by Animax, has been able to sell more merchandise to its 10,000 attendees thanks to a collaboration with Nojima’s apparel e-commerce subsidiary Cecile.
The intrigue: Cecile primarily sells womenswear and lingerie online, but T-shirt production has grown 50 percent in the last year as part of the collaboration with Animax.
“I come here [to Animax Musix] every year, but this year there are a lot of products for sale,” a concertgoer told the Nikkei financial newspaper last month at the event’s venue in Yokohama.
Catch up quick: Many observers initially saw Animax’s sale to Nojima as a move by Sony to divest itself from traditional broadcasting to focus on newly acquired anime streaming service Crunchyroll.
Anime industry expert Tadashi Sudo, however, saw precedent in Nojima’s decision given that the retailer had also acquired the AXN television network from Sony Pictures in 2021.
Nojima told investors in May that acquiring Animax lets the group broaden its demographic reach using entertainment content.
By the numbers: Animax reported a net profit of ¥555 million (US$3.67 million) in the fiscal year before it joined the Nojima group.
In the six months ending in September, Nojima’s broadcasting business that includes Animax and four other television channels reported ¥5.9 billion (US$39 million) in revenue and ¥1.1 billion (US$7.1 million) in ordinary profit.
Clippings: Crunchyroll Anime Awards return to Tokyo
Crunchyroll Anime Awards will return to Tokyo next year for the third year in a row, with Sony Group CEO Kenichiro Yoshida scheduled to give the opening address and the eligibility period shifting to the calendar year. (Animation Business Journal)
Rewind: 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.
Fuji Television’s signature noitaminA programming block, which has aired anime in a time slot after midnight since 2005, will move to an earlier 11:00 p.m. slot beginning in April. (Press release)
The bigger picture: Fuji TV’s move marks a trend in Japan’s television networks shifting anime blocks near prime time hours to draw more viewers, as TV Asahi did earlier this year with the creation of an 11:30 p.m. anime time slot.
Bandai Namco’s Gundam pavilion at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, which will open in April and take visitors through the Mobile Suit Gundam universe’s fictional history, will begin accepting entry reservations next month. (The Yomiuri Shimbun)
Pirate website visits by Japanese users have risen sharply since June to 460 million visitors a month in October, the highest level in nearly three years, according to an analysis by publishing industry anti-piracy consortium ABJ. (Shinbunka Online)
Anime and manga’s popularity in India is driving rapid growth in the the number of ramen restaurants and sales of ramen products in the country. (Nikkei Asia)
Digital manga platforms connect publishers to readers
Japan’s digital manga platforms are emerging as critical partners for manga publishers in taking the place of bookstore staff who traditionally played a role in recommending new titles for readers to discover.
Why it matters: More manga is published today than at any time in the history of the Japanese publishing industry, and readers are faced with a deluge of options.
Japan last year published 14,761 new manga volumes, up 15 percent from 2019, and this year’s number is likely to match or even surpass it.
Driving the story: Publishing giant Kadokawa has developed a partnership with NTT Solmare to distribute digital manga beyond Kadokawa’s own Book Walker platform.
NTT Solmare operates Comic C’moA, a digital manga service that has become one of Japan’s largest e-book platforms with more than 40 million monthly users.
What they’re saying: “When a publisher offers a free campaign, they can’t track data like how many chapters a reader read and when they dropped off,” Naobumi Ashi, who leads Kadokawa’s digital publishing business, told Oricon News.
“When it comes to advertising, the analytical ability to determine which image resulted in the most clicks is knowledge unique to e-book stores. In a sense, you could say they are closer to the user than publishers," Ashi added.
What’s next: Kadokawa is extending its partnership with NTT Solmare and its English-language Manga Plaza service as the publisher seeks new hits from born-digital titles.
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