Plus: Aniplex reassesses overseas anime marketing approach; AnimeJapan consolidates again at Tokyo Big Sight; Japan's manga apps outperform e-book apps; and more
Sony's chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida recently told the FT that "Sony is betting on a multibillion-dollar push into producing more original content, as part of a “creation shift” the Japanese tech giant houses will win it a greater share of the $3tn entertainment industry."
How are they going to do that. As your Crunchyroll story suggests, they are investing heavily in co-productions by buying into committees. Traditionally! Crunchyroll would invest 40% of the anime production budget in exchange for the exclusive distribution rights of that content into the 200 territories they cover. generally! They exclude Japan, China, Korea. This does not give Sony "ownership" over the IP. Most anime are adapted works from either manga or light novels. Very little output is adapted from videogames, which is weird because Sony actually owns a lot of cool videogame IP and has had a lot of success in this space recently thanks to The Last Of Us adaptation for HBO.
Sony does not own a manga publisher, and even if it did, it wouldn't own the individual manga copyright as these sit with the original author and/or their estate. So! My question is this. How the heck are they going to own more IP in the anime space? Sure! They can own hundreds of original anime IP that no-one likes or watches. But! As we all know. This is not where the value lies.
...And there's no point buying the original copyright to a retired or deceased author's work if they have expressly forbidden any new works to be adapted from it. This would be an even less attractive proposition if the new owner has to run everything they make for author approval via the author's estate. Which reminds me of a joke...
"How many brand approval managers does it take to change a light bulb?"
Sony's chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida recently told the FT that "Sony is betting on a multibillion-dollar push into producing more original content, as part of a “creation shift” the Japanese tech giant houses will win it a greater share of the $3tn entertainment industry."
(Article here: https://www.ft.com/content/307f7a2e-a755-4f6e-badc-9bc119f185df)
How are they going to do that. As your Crunchyroll story suggests, they are investing heavily in co-productions by buying into committees. Traditionally! Crunchyroll would invest 40% of the anime production budget in exchange for the exclusive distribution rights of that content into the 200 territories they cover. generally! They exclude Japan, China, Korea. This does not give Sony "ownership" over the IP. Most anime are adapted works from either manga or light novels. Very little output is adapted from videogames, which is weird because Sony actually owns a lot of cool videogame IP and has had a lot of success in this space recently thanks to The Last Of Us adaptation for HBO.
Sony does not own a manga publisher, and even if it did, it wouldn't own the individual manga copyright as these sit with the original author and/or their estate. So! My question is this. How the heck are they going to own more IP in the anime space? Sure! They can own hundreds of original anime IP that no-one likes or watches. But! As we all know. This is not where the value lies.
...And there's no point buying the original copyright to a retired or deceased author's work if they have expressly forbidden any new works to be adapted from it. This would be an even less attractive proposition if the new owner has to run everything they make for author approval via the author's estate. Which reminds me of a joke...
"How many brand approval managers does it take to change a light bulb?"
"Don't even bother."
I'm here all week. Boom-boom!