Ask John: Would Monopolistic American Anime Distribution Result in Faster Releases?

Question:
If the anime indstry was a monopoly business, do you think we will get more new anime faster and the anime business will be bigger than what it is today?

Answer:
By hypothetically extending present day circumstances into the future, I have to say that if all anime was licensed and distributed in America by a single company, anime still wouldn’t see American DVD release faster than it does now, nor would anime be more popular in America than it is now.

Despite the fact that countless reports claim that Japan’s anime industry now relies upon revenue from international anime sales, Japanese anime releases don’t seem to be targeted at international sales, and Japanese distributors don’t treat America as an equivalent market. Japanese distributor Bandai Visual, for example, now releases some of its Japanese titles in America. But Bandai Visual does not release its Japanese and American products simultaneously. American releases of Freedom and the Royal Space Force movie in HD and Blu-ray have followed a few months after the Japanese releases. The American home video release of the Tokyo Metro Explorers movie is scheduled for slightly more than two weeks after its Japanese release. American subsidiaries of Japanese distributors including Viz Media, Bandai Entertainment, and Geneon (up until recently) have released American versions of titles owned by their parent companies in Japan, but the American releases have consistently followed after the initial Japanese releases. The lag time between Japanese home video release and American home video release for average titles is decreasing, but I don’t see any reason to believe that simultaneous Japanese and American release will become an industry standard in the foreseeable future. Nor to I have any reason to believe that simultaneous release would occur commonly if America’s anime distribution was entirely controlled by a single company. Japan’s anime industry may be aware that America is a lucrative market for anime, but Japan remains the primary market, and the market that Japan’s anime industry concentrates its distribution resources on.

I’m also not convinced that actually anything short of time will dramatically increase the popularity of anime in America. Spirited Away won an Oscar. Afro Samurai combined Japanese animation with Hollywood talent. Naruto has become a major mainstream American success. America has two television networks exclusively devoted to broadcasting anime. Yet, despite all of this, anime accounts for only about one percent of all American DVD sales. Another revealing example is that fact that Bandai Visual USA president Tatsunori Konno estimated earlier this year that there are less than 200,000 serious American anime fans. By comparison, the 2007 Transformers movie sold 4.5 million copies on its first day of release – more than 23 times the estimated total number of American anime fans!

Despite its growing popularity in America, anime is still a very niche genre in America. I honestly believe that a majority of contemporary Americans have no interest in Japanese animation, and no changes in distribution strategies will change that disinterest. Current generations of young Americans growing up as anime fans may slightly boost the percentage of interest in anime within mainstream American society in future years, but anime will never be as popular or successful in America as it is in Japan. Until the time that Japanese animation stops being Japanese, it will always be a foreign import, and that will always limit its exposure and popularity in America.

Right now, anime reaches America with the frequency that it does because it’s licensed and distributed by a variety of domestic companies that work at different speeds and have different resources. Market competition and the needs of small companies to sustain themselves through constant sales encourage American anime distributors to get titles to market as quickly as possible. If all American anime distribution was condensed into the hands of a single distributor, there’s no certainty that a single distributor could handle localizing and distributing a large amount of anime in a short amount of time. In fact, contracting anime distribution into the control of fewer distributors may result in less anime getting American release on a slower pace. It’s competition that encourages innovation and responsiveness, so ultimately it’s in the best interests of American anime fans to support multiple distributors and encourage diversity rather than hope for consolidation and monopoly.