Economic Production

[TsukuyomiMagi99]

With a stagnant economy and debt double their Gross Domestic Product, how is Japan able to produce a vast quantity of anime every year? Furthermore, why was the output of anime lower during the bubble economy of the mid-eighties to early nineties?

[Caster13]

Software advancement and also a massively underpaid artist workforce.

The latter being something that might be coming to a head and can't go on much longer.

[radiator123]

With a stagnant economy and debt double their Gross Domestic Product, how is Japan able to produce a vast quantity of anime every year? Furthermore, why was the output of anime lower during the bubble economy of the mid-eighties to early nineties?

Software advancement and also a massively underpaid artist workforce.

The latter being something that might be coming to a head and can't go on much longer.

Another great question for John, and I'd imagine it's a mix of different factors.

Like Caster13 says, improvements in tech together with perennial low pay of a large pool of artists on short-term contracts have kept costs down. Plus, there have been outsourcing of anime production to other countries like South Korea.

Another big factor in the profit equation is demand, and this has increased due to expansion of anime into overseas markets, notably the States but also emerging markets like China. For the local market, anime and manga may be so culturally ingrained and relatively cheap (compared with other things like computer games) that local demand is always high regardless of the state of the economy in general.

[Hiroshimafuu]

I know the word “stagnant” gets tossed around a lot in economic articles about Japan, but I think the term is a little misleading. A lot of times that analysis compares Japan’s current economic conditions to what they were during the bubble economy, but as the name implies, the bubble economy wasn’t a stable, sustained type of growth. It was a confluence of a number of factors, including Japan becoming a modern democracy for arguably the first time in its history, the completion of post-World War II infrastructure rebuilding, technological turning points in car and electronics ownership overseas, and an artificially weak yen inflating profits of export-focused companies. That’s not to say the current Japanese economy couldn’t be better, but it’s not like there’s widespread poverty in the country or that people don’t have enough money to spend on entertainment media like anime.

As for why there’s more anime produced now than there was in the bubble economy years, the collective demand for anime in Japan is higher than it’s ever been, and a lot of it has to do with societal perceptions and how anime is distributed. Though Japan has always had more adult fans of animation than most western countries, even within Japan anime wasn’t a mainstream hobby until pretty recently. Sure, there were always a few hit series that became pop culture phenomena, like Dragon Ball, Touch, or Urusei Yatsura. Beyond a few of the most broadly appealing, broadcast-on-TV mainstream hits, though, anime was still pretty much a niche hobby. Hardcore fans got -very- into that niche, but for most people, they didn’t really watch much anime after they got out of their teen years. I’ve been traveling/living in Japan for more than 20 years now, and in the first decade of that, it was rare for me to encounter an adult who wasn’t a full-on otaku but who had a professed fondness for anime as a medium, not just a particular series they were nostalgic for because they saw it as a kid. You weren’t going to walk into your office the day after a new episode of, say, Gundam Wing aired and overhear your coworkers talking about it at the water cooler.

It's a very different situation today, as anime has become, if not necessarily a full-on mainstream hobby, at least a hobby that many more people in the mainstream are happy to dip their toes into from time to time. Part of that is the medium maturing. Up through the early ‘80s, a lot of anime was still aimed at very young kids (giant robots with kid pilots, magical girls, etc.), and part of it is people becoming more accepting of fantastic storytelling elements (by which I’m including animated visuals as opposed to live-action).

Then there’s how content is distributed. During the bubble economy, a lot of anime wasn’t broadcast on TV. Japan has never had a large number of TV channels, so airtime was limited, and unless you went to the trouble of programming your VCR, you had to be home while the show was airing, which was usually during the day or early evening. A lot of anime was in the OVA format, which in turn meant you either had to go to a video store and rent it (which is a pain in a country where most people don’t have a personal car), or you had to buy it, and OVAs were very expensive to purchase.

Now, though, the vast majority of new anime airs on free broadcast TV, usually in late-night spots which are bought up by production companies. People can watch new series for free at a time when they’re more likely to be home, and more and more anime gets added to streaming services every year, which lets people watch whenever they want, even while commuting on the train if they’re watching on their phone. Watching a lot of anime used to mean trying yourself to broadcast schedules or spending a lot of money, but now it’s something you can do for free and just about anywhere.

Another thing that can’t be understated is how the societal image of anime fans in Japan has changed in the last 10-20 years. A generation back, the common stereotype was that adult anime fans were nerds: awkward, antisocial, and unattractive. That image has gradually eroded over the years. Part of it is social media making it easier for people to connect with others who share their interest in the hobby, and part of it is anime marketing’s increased focus on fan events, pop-up cafes, real-world location pilgrimages, and other things that have made anime fandom a much more active and social activity than it used to be. So now, hearing that someone is an anime fan doesn’t always trigger the assumption that they’re a loner who sits by themselves in a dark room in front of a flickering TV screen all day, but might instead have people thinking that they have an active and passionate leisure life.

Add it all up, and you have a combination of people in Japan being more open to consuming anime and the distribution model making it easier to consume, with the result being much more anime being produced now than in the bubble years, even if the economy isn’t as strong now as it was then.

[radiator123]

I know the word “stagnant” gets tossed around a lot in economic articles about Japan, but I think the term is a little misleading. A lot of times that analysis compares Japan’s current economic conditions to what they were during the bubble economy, but as the name implies, the bubble economy wasn’t a stable, sustained type of growth. It was a confluence of a number of factors, including Japan becoming a modern democracy for arguably the first time in its history, the completion of post-World War II infrastructure rebuilding, technological turning points in car and electronics ownership overseas, and an artificially weak yen inflating profits of export-focused companies. That’s not to say the current Japanese economy couldn’t be better, but it’s not like there’s widespread poverty in the country or that people don’t have enough money to spend on entertainment media like anime.

That's a fair point, and even after the bubble economy burst, Japan had the second biggest economy in the world for many years until China took over. And even now Japan has the third biggest economy. Japan's large public debt is worrying though and is stifling growth.

As for why there’s more anime produced now than there was in the bubble economy years, the collective demand for anime in Japan is higher than it’s ever been, and a lot of it has to do with societal perceptions and how anime is distributed. Though Japan has always had more adult fans of animation than most western countries, even within Japan anime wasn’t a mainstream hobby until pretty recently. Sure, there were always a few hit series that became pop culture phenomena, like Dragon Ball, Touch, or Urusei Yatsura. Beyond a few of the most broadly appealing, broadcast-on-TV mainstream hits, though, anime was still pretty much a niche hobby. Hardcore fans got -very- into that niche, but for most people, they didn’t really watch much anime after they got out of their teen years. I’ve been traveling/living in Japan for more than 20 years now, and in the first decade of that, it was rare for me to encounter an adult who wasn’t a full-on otaku but who had a professed fondness for anime as a medium, not just a particular series they were nostalgic for because they saw it as a kid. You weren’t going to walk into your office the day after a new episode of, say, Gundam Wing aired and overhear your coworkers talking about it at the water cooler.

I remember you mentioning something along these lines in a previous post of yours, and it was an eye-opener because I had assumed previously that anime had been popular among children and adults in Japan for a long time. Interesting how it's only recently gaining more legitimacy among adults. So does this mean it's acceptable now for people to talk about the latest episodes of Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen (or whatever) in the office... for example, do you sometimes do this?

It's a very different situation today, as anime has become, if not necessarily a full-on mainstream hobby, at least a hobby that many more people in the mainstream are happy to dip their toes into from time to time. Part of that is the medium maturing. Up through the early ‘80s, a lot of anime was still aimed at very young kids (giant robots with kid pilots, magical girls, etc.), and part of it is people becoming more accepting of fantastic storytelling elements (by which I’m including animated visuals as opposed to live-action).

I think the medium has matured from the 1960s-70s to 90s-00s, with more mature elements being woven into the story (not just lots of gore). But the medium doesn't seem to have matured much during the last couple of decades or so (someone can correct me if I've wrong here). A lot of the newer anime I've seen still play on stereotypical anime tropes such as coming-of-age teenagers and shouty conversations, and are targeted at children. As exemplified by the wave of isekai anime trying to outdo each other with their zany titles. There are also a fair number of remakes.

Now, though, the vast majority of new anime airs on free broadcast TV, usually in late-night spots which are bought up by production companies. People can watch new series for free at a time when they’re more likely to be home, and more and more anime gets added to streaming services every year, which lets people watch whenever they want, even while commuting on the train if they’re watching on their phone. Watching a lot of anime used to mean trying yourself to broadcast schedules or spending a lot of money, but now it’s something you can do for free and just about anywhere.

Yeah, streaming services has been a real game-changer for anime distribution, for Japanese and international audiences alike. It's much more convenient to have all the episodes of a series at one's fingertips, rather than scattered among a pile of discs or tapes. Without streaming services I probably wouldn't have got back into anime recently.

[Suiko Eiji]

Awesome analysis, Hiroshimafuu.