Ask John: Why Do Licensors Acquire Long Shows if They’re Not Going to Release All of Them?

Question:
I was wondering why some companies tend to license long anime series, and after releasing a few volumes on DVD or a few episodes on TV, then later they lose interest in releasing any more of the series. For example is Funimation’s case with Sgt. Frog and Shin-Chan. Both series still on going and have a huge amount of episodes, yet both seem to have stopped after having 51 or 52 episodes released from their respective series. Although the most notorious of licensing long anime series and then not releasing them in their entirety is Viz, among there catalog includes Gash Bell, Prince of Tennis, MAR, Blue Dragon, and the Rockman.EXE series to name a few. I know in part that whether a series will get more episodes or DVDs released is due to sales, but why bother going through the trouble of doing all that work if there is no interest to follow through with the rest of the series.

Answer:
Anime fans and consumers naturally perceive anime retail instinctively from their own perspective. Fans that see a lengthy series licensed expect its professional licensor to honor an unspoken agreement to release the complete series. But consumers forget their own necessary participation in the agreement that they expect distributors to uphold, and consumers don’t think of the unseen other circumstances that affect licensors yet never reach the public eye. Anime distributors are, after all, for-profit businesses rather than philanthropic entities devoted to bringing anime to fans sheerly out of love for the medium.

Two primary reasons affect the licensing of lengthy series for American release. Long running shows are high profile and popular – if the shows weren’t high profile and popular in Japan, they wouldn’t be long running. Domestic licensors may perceive the acquisition of high profile titles as a sort of calling card or feather in the cap. Domestic licensors may also presume that a title which has been tremendously popular among Japanese viewers may have a smiliar potential for success in America. Japanese licensors aren’t entirely unconscious of international distribution. Getting high profile titles into international markets increases revenue and awareness of not only the title but also the studio and distributor behind the show. However, good intentions don’t always come to profitable fruition.

Domestic licensors face a love/hate approach to lengthy shows. The more episodes a licensor acquires, the higher the cost of acquisition, royalties, translation, production, and distribution. Anime licensing doesn’t work on the principle of “economy size.” Licensing more doesn’t reduce the cost. In the anime licensing business, getting more requires paying more. Especially long shows also typically face consumer attrition. The longer a show continues, the more consumers eventually lose interest or get distracted by other titles. However, lengthy shows like Naruto, Bleach, Dragon Ball, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh also have a greater chance of becoming popular, mainstream, long running hits than short, niche audience titles. To use an apt gambling analogy, long anime series are a big risk for a potentially big payoff. Licensors are also attracted to high profile titles because simply acquiring and distributing a well-known title becomes a strong point on the company’s “resumé.” A distributor that has been trusted with a high profile title, a distributor that has managed the domestic release of a high profile title, may be more easily trusted with another similar license. Naturally, when a licensing company presents itself in acquisition negotiations, the licensor doesn’t say, “Our company successfully distributed the first season of X,” or “Our company distributed a couple episodes of Y.” The licensor has earned the right to say, “Trust us to handle your anime series because we’ve already distributed X and Y.”

Similarly, Japanese licensors earn the right to claim that a title has been distributed internationally as soon as one episode has been commercially released overseas. A highly successful company may have dozens of titles distributed in dozens of countries. The mere ability to legitimately state that an anime series has been distributed in a dozen languages immediately increases the show’s prestige and marketability. So Japanese licensors may want their highest profile and most successful shows to get overseas distribution, so long as the distribution adheres to the Japanese owner’s vision and demands.

However, despite all of these motivations to license and distribute long running anime series, reality and practical circumstances often trump grand goals. In most cases domestic licensors simply can’t afford to license hundreds of episodes of a given anime series in advance. The Japanese licensor may also prefer to negotiate distribution rights piecemeal in order to avoid tying up all of a potentially profitable show in a single, untested contract. While there are infrequent occasions when a domestic distributor acquires and distributes a title with positive hopes but far more grounded realistic expectations, typically licensors acquire and distribute titles with the hope and expectation of success. Licensors don’t usually acquire distribution rights to one of Japan’s most successful anime series and expect it to flop and expire after a perfunctory American release. When a licensor stops releasing a long-running franchise, the reason is always necessity rather than choice. Tokyopop initially stopped releasing Groove Adventure Rave because the company ceased all of its anime DVD production. AnimEigo has (temporarily) not released additional episodes of Yawara because it’s been unable to negotiate acquisition of distribution rights to additional episodes. An observer doesn’t have to be an industry insider to recognize that Viz and Funimation have ceased future releases of lengthy shows like Kodomo no Omocha, Keroro Gunso, Crayon Shin-chan, Blue Dragon, and Prince of Tennis because consumer support didn’t sustain the shows. If these shows had been big hits, they’d certainly have continued getting additional American DVD releases.

Some of these titles have been victim of poor management; some have been victim to consumer whimsy. Monster would probably have been a bit more successful had it been licensed and released promptly rather than many years after its Japanese premiere. Prince of Tennis got a lot of bad publicity because of its music and video edits. Titles like Konjiki no Gash Bell, Blue Dragon, and Crayon Shin-chan may have earned a few more sales had they been released in bilingual editions that attracted otaku instead of jilting the hardcore fan demographic in favor of a strictly mainstream audience that didn’t materialize. During the VHS era, Kodocha was a beloved fan favorite, and Funimation persued the expensive license in response to vocal fan demand. Yet by the mid-point of the DVD era, Kodocha was a vintage show and the fans that had, at one time, so eagerly demanded it, simply weren’t around any more or didn’t support it when it finally did reach American home video. Funimation can’t be blamed for the edits demanded by Japanese copyright owners and the fact that the release stopped shy of half-way through the series because fans didn’t buy it after years of asking for it.