Anime Recognized as a Genre

A two-page article in this week’s Video Store Magazine retailer and distributor journal cites anime as a $65 million dollar-a-year growth industry, excluding the “Pokemon phenomenon.” The article refers to “otaku” as one of the leading forces in the evolution of the DVD market. “Anime fans closely match the DVD demographic: They are mostly male, early adopters of new technology- and have a great deal of money to spend.” According to the article, “anime fans are a vocal customer base with a great deal of influence over the decisionmakers at anime labels.” The article reveals, though, that “The vocal bunch is the minority while the more casual fans take what they can get.” For example, the article claims that “the ardent fans who frequent the Internet anime forums were in an uproar” over digital editing in ADV Films’ releases of Evangelion on DVD, yet the disc is still ADV’s top-selling DVD title.

Mike Pascuzzi, sales director for CPM, is quoted, “You simply can’t please both [the casual fan and the “otaku”] 100 percent…[but] DVD is the best of both worlds. We’re offering a choice of dual languages, subtitles and piling on lots of added features.” The article continues to cite anime fans as not only a significant factor in the virgin DVD market, but also as an influence on the manufacture and release of DVD boxed sets. Lance Schwulst, sales director for Media Blasters, claims that the rush to release a boxed set of Rayearth on DVD was due to fan demand, and in return, “these new and different types of releases ‘will demonstrate how profitable the genre can be.'” According to the report, though, the impact and true sales figures on anime are up for debate. “According to VideoScan, anime labels are able to track the performance of their own titles, but at the moment, there is no way to identify all titles as a genre. But VideoScan hopes to start tracking the genre in the next few months by giving anime its own identifiable category.”

In effect, the American anime industry is still small enough to be considered a niche market in comparison to traditional Hollywood studio releases and sales figures, but the increasing profit experienced by anime labels and mainstream markets such as Tower Records and Virgin Megastores (two sources the article cites), coupled with the influence demanding, vocal anime fans have on the production, quality and content of VHS and DVD are moving anime ever closer toward becoming a legitimate, recognized genre within the Western home-video entertainment industry.