Recently, Kyoto Anime Carnival 2014 has left a deep impression on many anime fans. In this event, the sales of various peripherals to voice actors and singers from fans were booming, which made people feel the strong consumption power of anime. At the same time, however, business people in the industry are cautious about the prospects. Among them, the two major seminars, "Space Battleship Yamato 2199 from the perspective of commercial websites" and "The current state of overseas business of TV Tokyo anime", attracted a lot of attention.

Among them, the seminar "Space Battleship Yamato 2199 from the Commercial Website" invited Mikio Gunji, executive member of the Planning Division of Production I.G., a well-known animation company, to give a speech. I.G is also the main officer of the "Space Battleship Yamato 2199" production committee, and the county secretary is responsible for coordinating the related business activities.

"2199" has taken the form of multi-platform broadcast and has achieved unprecedented popularity. The overall economic performance exceeded 10 billion yen, and the sales of related products also reached the 500,000 unit mark. This work was released in theaters and distributed online, and it was also well received in TV screenings, and even achieved the highest ratings in anime in a regional city in Japan. In this regard, the county secretary analyzed: "Although the economic benefit of this work is only 1/15 of that of the latter, this series has also gone through 30 years, and it is not a rare success story. In addition, "2199" has also won the love of young audiences, so related plastic toys have also sold well.

■Misunderstanding of how TV stations and advertising agencies operate!? The structure of the "system of committees".

Kenji continued his analysis, giving a rough overview of the dramatic changes that occurred around the anime environment in 1974, when Space Battleship Yamato premiered, and 2013, when 2199 came out.

In 1974, the programs that broadcast animation were mainly provided by state-scale sponsors, so that the ratings of animated works were able to reach 30%. At that time, the requirement of national sponsors for advertising was "How much does the advertisement cost?" How many people can see it? "How many times can an ad be broadcast? On the other hand, the average viewership of anime viewing has been decreasing in recent years, falling to an average of 4.4% in 2005 and 2.8% in 2012.

And the way animation shows are produced has also changed. This was the establishment of the "system of committees". When it comes to the cost of animation production, people often think that "the sponsoring company pays the animation company through the advertising agency and the TV station", which means that the animation worker will not get any salary. As a result, accusations are often circulating on the Internet that "advertising agencies and television stations are deducting a lot of money from them". But the county secretary said, "It's a misunderstanding." "Almost all animation works don't get money directly from any sponsor. The cost of making a system is realized by a number of companies. This creates a "system of production committees", and if you want the anime to be broadcast on a TV station, the production committee needs to pay a sponsor fee to the TV station through an advertising agency. It's not the same process as people think of it.

In other words, when using the production committee system to produce animation, the funder needs to bear the double risk of the production fee and the broadcast program fee. In some cases, it is the case that the production committee includes not only animation companies, but also advertising agencies and television stations. Therefore, in order to make the investment cost-effective, many parties will naturally guide fans to buy Blu-ray & DVD discs with high profit margins to get the maximum profit. In this way, works that do not cater to the tastes of a fixed group and are difficult to recover (i.e., they cannot sell the discs) will not be produced.

And from the perspective of the animation industry as a whole, although there are some popular works that sell very well, which has achieved the return of funds, it is also because the price of related products is very high that it can be profitable. This unsettling situation is not going to change with one or two popular works. In addition, some animators with children wanted to make children's animations, but because the project could not guarantee the sale of the discs, they had to fall short. In the industry, there are only about 300,000 fans who actually have the purchasing power of discs, and it is clear that children's works do not bring them more benefits.

When describing the animation industry today, Kenji uses the metaphor of "baking a potato with money." No matter how much money is invested in the animation industry, it is difficult to make a big splash, and "one or two hundred million yen of money is gone in an instant."

The current anime model is like this: the guò TV series is used for promotion, and if it is well received after the broadcast, then a theatrical version is released. Of course, this qiē and qiē are all for "selling discs". The county secretary also joked, "Those works that advertised the 'DVD' decision with great fanfare were actually determined to sell discs from the beginning." His words also sparked laughter in the room.

■The propaganda power of TV still exists! The sense of crisis that today's animators have

As for the operation process of "2199", it was proposed by Bandai. They took advantage of the success of Mobile Suit Gundam and launched theatrical releases, online distribution, and disc sales campaigns at the same time, and finally released the riskiest "TV anime", which is also a departure from the usual model.

But then the question arises: is it necessary to advertise a work that is not promoted by a guòTV anime? In this regard, the county secretary also said a small tidbit: Originally, MBS TV asked them to make zuò advertising videos, but they were not sure whether they needed to make zuò at first, and if they didn't use it, it would be a waste of time. So the county secretary replied, "If there is no advertising at that time, go downstairs to advertise the pizza shop." "Actually, on the first floor of I.G. is a pizzeria run by the company, and they do make advertisements for that. In the end, the TV station compromised and avoided the cost of advertising for I.G.

Of course, this does not mean that as ratings decline, the influence of TV stations is no longer important. Although animation companies are happy to see the "end of the television era", in most cases, everyone knows about their works through television, and if they do not gain influence in TV animation, they will not be able to expand the publicity effect of the work.

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In addition, the audience also raised some questions. The county division also answered this one by one. "Can't you advertise a little more? -- It costs three times the cost of making a tsuò", "I want to hold more exclusive events in local cities -- the more I go, the bigger the deficit", "I want to make a neighborhood like zuò -- now that the cost of crude oil and labor has increased, it is not easy to make a key chain, for example". His answer made many viewers suddenly realize. He also gave an example: "Supply and demand determine the outcome. For example, if everyone doesn't take the night train anymore, then the night train will be suspended. It's all pretty much the same thing. If fans usually take the night train, the night train will not disappear. ”

To complement this, he gave some insider tips on the box office aspects of theatrical releases. They care more about the number of seats and the number of screenings per day than the number of screenings overall. For example, the 200-seat show, one show per day, and 90% attendance may seem very lively, but compared to the 500-seat, 6 screenings per day, and 30% attendance, the latter may not seem popular at first glance, but the number of visitors is five times higher.

At the end of the symposium, the county secretary proposed to the audience participating in the business forum: "Everyone should become a sponsor of animation and participate in the animation industry!" Although the whole speech gave people a naked impression, they could also experience the deep sense of crisis of animation practitioners. And after knowing this truth, will there be local tyrants from all walks of life as he wishes? Let's wait and see.