anime industry face It's end

well I watch some anime on the net, then if it's good i'll look for the DVDs

The Kara no Kyoukai films will NEVER be liscensed. The reason being is that you can read their lips when the characters are talking. Trying to rework the mouth movement will prove too difficult and extremely expensive, probably leading to re-animating the scenes.
It's why they liscensed the books instead, which happen to be VERY hard to find 'round here.

True, the price of anime DVDs in Japan are ridiculous. You pay anywhere from $50-70 (in USD) for one or two episodes. While here in the United States, you could buy one or two whole series for that much (Box Set or ThinPak Sets). Anime that I like, I buy when they are licensed here. I pay, on average, about $20-21 for a DVD containing 4-5 episodes per, sometimes 12 episodes in the case of Clannad though it came subbed only.

Looking at production costs, though, it may not be a surprise why they charge so much: Some articles I found:

http://zepy.momotato.com/img/0808/kaneganai.jpg
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090304f1.html
http://zepy.momotato.com/2008/08/30/anime-business/

Reports say it cost on average between 5-13 million yen ($50,000-144,000 USD at current exchange rate) to produce a single episode. That doesn't cover the price of the broadcast slot which can range from anywhere between 10-100 million yen for a prime time slot or less than 5 million yen for a late night slot.

Then you have to split up revenue generated by DVD sales (the main source of income it seems) to cover production costs as well as with affiliates/investing companies.

The animators are the ones who suffer as they get paid so little, apparently 1/4 of the animators in industry live in poverty ($10,000 USD or less a year) while putting in more than 8 hours of work a day. And in order to cut costs further, production is either outsourced or wages cut/layoffs equating to more work for the same or less pay.

When DVDs come out I buy them as box sets, however they take a while in the UK to be released, I've just pre-ordered Ergo Proxy box set which is released at play.com on the 04/01/2010, it was actually aired between 25 February 2006 – 12 August 2006. So nearly four years from start to getting the Box sets, its a bit much for most people to hang around.

"PS don't trust this post 100%"
Don't worry, judging from what you wrote, I won't :P

To answer the poll..
New anime from Fansubs, yes.
This country has a giant lack of anime on TV, besides Pokémon and stuff (Hey, and we're losing that next year too, thanks to Disney XD taking over Jetix! Pfff!)
The channels are also turning more into those "look I'm a 12 year old actor" Nickelodeon shows with bad dubbing than cartoons.

'Course I buy the DVD's of the shows I enjoy most. Wish the licensed boxes came with exclusive figures like in Japan sometimes :x

tl;dr
TV sucks here, the Internet is better.

Prepainted figures need lots of manual labour forces. So, naturally China will be much better choice for task that requires lots of manual labours. As for Gundam (or to be exact, Bandai model kits), their manufacturing process does not require many manual labour, since almost all of the manufacturing processes were automated (require manual labour to just manage the machinery only). Bandai can leave the manufacturing processes to machines because their model kits does not have any prepainted parts.
For items that requires prepainting, even Bandai also outsourced it to China (MSiA, GFF for example). Kotobukiya kits also were outsourced to China, because Kotobukiya kits usually includes some prepainted parts.
As for bootleg Gundam kits, Bandai was actually the one who sold the kits' mold to the bootleg manufacturer. As part of QC, Bandai usually discarded the molds after a particular amount of use. This discarded molds then were sold to bootleg maker, tbus explains why the bootleg quality was far from the original. Bandai even permits the bootlegged to be sold, but with on condition;never put Bandai logo on the products.

I watch a lot of the newer anime online. And then when they're available in the US, I either buy the DVD (from Best Buy, etc) or watch them through Netflix.

Most on TV because I really don't like fansubbing (they are often so bad that it makes my optical receptors leak vital fluids.) but with ANN and a few other places putting series up, especially uncut, I will probably shift to watching online more.

The anime industry is being squashed by rampant piracy just as the music, movie and PC game industries are.

People cite the high DVD prices as one of the reason, but I can tell you that Gurren Lagann has been licensed, subbed and sold locally. The licensees package half of Gurren Lagann episodes into a box and sell it at about USD 34. The second half would likely be sold at the same price. At that kind of price, it's a steal over the Japanese DVD version, right? The reality is that sales will be lukewarm, at best, because the locals have watched the fansubs already. Why pay for something when you already had it for free, yes? Some will no doubt buy it because they enjoyed the fansubs, but don't bother to deny that these people are a very small minority.

-5-7 years ago I can found figures that wrritten 'made in japan' now most(all) of them are 'made in china'

that's not limited to the anime industry; all companies tend to outsource production to countries where labour is cheaper

-anime that cost 5000+ yen for two episode is a. Provement that no one buy anime (abroad otaku usually use fansub for this )

one thing to keep in mind: the anime and manga industry, at least until very recently, was focused on the local market;

this make most anime have at least 1 or 2 OVA so they still buying anime DVD/blue ray

i could say the same thing about Star Wars and merchandising

-the trying to sell stuff more to people outside japan that's why japan online store start make english sites starts with hobby search and now even amiami as if they want to said let's the gaijin eat that stuff

true, they've started to try and capture the foreign market, but is that really bad? for example, Cospa SEA means here we get to have better access to merchandise we'd gladly buy, and that some have already been buying and shipping from japan anyway

-in this current states around 25%+ figures,gundam,anda the others stuff is sell outside japan (will be increased by 30-40 within 2-3 years)

sorry, can't make sense of this; quantity or price?

-if you think that anime became popular outside because is going popular rapidlly it's a big mistake this change within last 10 years (very bad in 2005)

lol i had the impression that 2005 was when the boom in overseas fans was taking place

-I am sure within 5 year ther will be anime studio move and make their base outside japan ^^;;;

-most figures are made in china they want to make it as cheap as possible

outsourcing~

about Gundam I found something interesting if you guys have made bootlegs gundam(I made one before but not gundam it's patlabor if i'm not mistake) before sure you guys know the differences of quality

between them so easily and the runners very different because gundam still the only stuff made in japan. bootlegs maker can make PVC,figma,nendo almost perfect like the real one but not the gundam (no factory outside japan :D )XD

almost perfect??? u must be joking...

this also a big answer why there are more and more anime movies (and OVA) so they got more buyers for DVD/Blue ray

of course they make OVAs and movies to sell and make money; u expect people to fund and produce anime for a loss? as a charity?

-evangelion split into 4 movies

milking the fans, but eva's good anyway

-gundam 00 and seed turn movies next years

milk milk milk...but understand that unless people buy, the industry model will fail. means no more anime. which is why as much as i can i will support the industry (though can't do much yet as a student)

-kara no kyoukai

it's an epic adapatation anyway

I can prove it by this

oricon best selling anime(1st week)

-evangelion 1.0 49.000 copy

-bakemomogatari 37.000 copy

-K-ON! 33.000 copy

-macross F 22.000 copy

see 12.000 copy differences between evangelion and bekemonogatari ^^;;;;; (I am sure evangelion 2.0 will beat them all)

i'm sorry, what was this supposed to prove? and eva has a pretty established fanbase from when it first aired, and these fans are now enjoying the remake...something like star wars 20th anniversary special ^_^

with more DVD they got more money (sure fansub is a Big trouble for anime industry ^^;; now)

once again i say, they are still focused mostly on the local scene. heck i could argue that fansubs are beneficial to the anime merchandise industry, at the very least. no exposure to the anime equals less interest in the merchandise, right? generally speaking of course

we can figure as much as we can but not the anime right (it's hard to find and (5000 yen for 2 episodes T_T ) !!

for me, that's the highest level of support i can give for the industry: if i really love the anime, i would buy the DVDs for collection...

well, if the anime industry ends, so will be the manga, figures, so on and so forth up to the end of otaku....looks like my late friends nightmare has just begun....thank you kami-baka sama... "-_-"

If piracy gets difficult enough, many of us will simply limit materialism in this sector accordingly, so is that better than having an angelic but smaller fanbase?

Is it only from watching (fansubbed) anime that I've found this niche and bought related merchandise at all. I can imagine this behavior is very common; if this is worse than not being a participant in the first place, the only compensation we can give is willingly proliferating the subculture, which apparently comprises a majority of visitors here, according to the poll above.

Good observation ;-)

No way to buy dvds here

I feel that anime productions should actually start airing through net, rather than TV. I mean, I recall when I was young, all the animes were actually on at times when I was still awake as a kid. Now, that I see RAWs, I see the times and they are at midnight or later. You aren't going to get viewers if you do that. As well, since you want a bigger audience, and there is a potential for out of country viewers, online streaming is the best option IMO.

I usually watch anime online but if I really like a series, I will buy it online. Where I am from, anime is pretty expensive. For example, Lucky Star is sold in parts. There is like 6 volumes and each costs like $24-30. That means that I would have to pay $120 to just have the whole thing. I buy import anime and it isn't as bad seeing how I bought Lucky Star 1-24 for like $30 ^^ I am really angry that I can't watch anime here on television because I like watching anime on my television instead of on my laptop screen ^^. They used to show anime on television here but anime is kind of dead in my neck of the woods >_<

let me be straightforward. the retail prices are a big put off for wannabe buyers in many countries like my country. not everyone can manage to shell out 50 usd or more for a dvd or figure. not everyone earns according to what people in usa or uk or japan do. what people in japan earn in a month, we earn in a year here. so companies should actually start thinking of pricing their wares according to regions, and not restrict themselves to just Japan, USA or UK and one or two countries. They will get a lot more customers than if they were to restrict themselves to a few countries.

I was trying to start an anime business here, and to be honest in a month i found just 6 customers in total. The prices, the extra customs charges, are a huge downer to this trade here for me. I cannot even get the minimum number of people to signup, to get the lowest percent of discount from any company. This will probably be the last month for me, after which I will go back to the normal day job schedule.

TBH, high input costs or not only the anime industry can find a way out of the mess they created. Its up to them to stay afloat using new methods and finding new territories to sell to or sink like a stone in the pond.