By the way, Hail to the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Ramen!

My bad.

As far as the quality-vs-crap ratio, there will ALWAYS be a ton more crap than quality programming no matter what you do. It was like that 80 years ago, and has remained true ever since. This is not to say that we should simply accept it (I personally believe certain trends in “reality TV” have been problematic for the past decade) but quality programming doesn’t just happen and it’s not an easy thing to just create in large quantities.

Basically, this data is faaaar to shortsighted to show anything more than a slight (and likely natural) dip in numbers from one year to the next. If the numbers had plummeted or had shown a significant decrease over a period of years, then it would be worth worrying over. This study shows neither.

Even if anime production becomes scarce, thanks to the internet we’ll still have access to some of the fantastic artwork out there done by our favorite anime artists (and it doesn’t have to be by stealing it – there are more than a few excellent artists who offer up their artwork proudly online). Let the sweatshops shut down. It doesn’t mean that the glut of artists and creators will crawl under rocks and disappear.

Manga itself, from which so much anime has originated, will always be around, whether larger publishing companies are willing to fund them or not. If doujinshi these days can be published with as much quality as any other manga by independent publishers, there’s no reason we won’t also be able to get some quality work by original writers and artists out there. Hopefully this will even encourage artists with great ideas who may have previously been turned away by larger publishers. Perhaps it’s just how this business is changing, and it may eventually be for the better from a creative standpoint.

Of course, the problem with the artists taking over will always be money. They work themselves to death to begin with just to meet deadlines in both print media and animation production, for very little pay. Working independently will mean they’ll have to work just as hard, on top of paying to publish their own work and get it out to the public for a smaller return (then again, I don’t know what the artist’s cut is from a major manga publisher out here. I don’t imagine it’s much). Full scale animation production will be trickier to handle in an independent way, since it requires teamwork, and the cost of equipment use and materials can rise pretty quickly. In the meantime, there are Flash snippets here and there by individual animation artists that can be found online. Not all of it is the greatest quality, but perhaps if there’s a real desire by artists to animate their own work (and if they have the time needed to do it), we’ll start seeing more and better things emerge.

So, after all of that blither – all hope is not necessarily lost, though there is a downside. If the anime artists are driven enough to keep working in the conditions they are already reported to put up with presently at the studios, we may still be able to see great things from them independently if the whole business ends up crashing. On the other hand, if former anime artists and creators lose their jobs and are forced to go into other businesses doing equally exhausting jobs, they may no longer have the time or energy to work on their art…Though even in that instance, there’s still likely to be a handful of artists here who may well be privately bankrolled and encouraged to continue creating through bad times in the business. We’ll just have to see how it pans out over time.

Either way, anime itself isn’t going to disappear even if it takes awhile for production companies to regroup and figure out how to do business without losing more money than it’s worth. I trust people to have enough brains to eventually figure out a solution that will be able to fund their production companies while making anime affordable enough for people to turn away from illegal downloads and start paying for it again. Does anyone know whether Crunchyroll has been very effective in their efforts to get people to pay for anime online?…Not that it’s of much use to anyone in Japan, but it might be a start in general.

Minus the entire anime and videogame culture, I am sure you can manage. Lots of things to see and do there.

Here in Poland our publishers started to publish titles with fansubs (still screened by professionals)… this is cheaper for publishers than doing the translation from scratch.

I like many recent anime but I don’t think that, say, every bishoujo game out there needs an anime, for instance. There are some anime adaptations of said games that are pretty good, and many that are bad.

There’s always been a lot of crappy anime out there, even in previous decades. It’s just that most of the crap from previous decades has been forgotten over time.

if you think about 2006, out of ~300+ titles only a few did really stick out. Suzumiya Haruhi alone was making something like 10% of summer Comiket.

So the number of title doesn’t really count, it’s more like a matter of quality.

Sorry, about that… This is just a sign of things to come, if they don’t start licensing “good quality” anime sooner. Keep prices as they are…(take $5 off and then look how they start to fly off the shelves…that is along with discount cards). If they industry don’t become more visulent and enforce laws a, programs that limit and or eliminate piracy via internet.

If the following doesn’t happen well, it’s good bye to all anime and manga, because when it comes down to it Japan will isolate sales to only Japan. They will seek out all infortrators and fire them. Then block off all internet sites that carry torrent or streaming tech.

This is just a warning.

Especially as part-timer work conditions and take-home pay keep getting worse.

And Aso’s 12,000 yen? Choose between maybe buying half of one anime series you enjoy, or get a 3 month rental contract and enough blank DVDs to copy all you want.

Personally I don’t think they stop it. It’s too easy to record, rip and subtitle a TV series, and get it out way before the legit version.

I don’t know if it is a factor in declining anime production. I think things go in cycles. It seems to me (as a long-time anime viewer) that a lot of modern series are formulaic and derivative, however that may just be nostalgia talking.

You would at least need to compare it to other types of business in the same time period. Also, it could be fun to see a graph of net surplus once the production costs have been subtracted.

Anime Central in chicago has gone(since I’ve been attending) from having 8,000 attendees to over 15,000 attendees. This isn’t to say Japan’s fanbase might not be waning, but I hope they don’t stop making it altogether based on a graph.

Secondly, a much longer set of time series data would be useful in examining trends.

If there is any possible underlying reason for a decline in anime, the declining birthrate and relentless fan-subbing draining profit from the overseas market might be mentioned.