Here’s an interesting piece of industry news. 8-Bit, the studio behind stuff like Irregular at Magic High School and Encouragement of Climb, just set up a regional office in Niigata City. That’s about three hours from Tokyo on the Shinkansen. 8-Bit is recruiting animators for …Read more »
Wit Studio, the folks behind titles like Great Pretender and Attack on Titan seasons 1-3, are having a bit of a money problem, it seems. For the fiscal period that ended this May, the studio posted a loss of 480 million yen (about $4.2 million). …Read more »
Japan’s anime production market contracted in 2020, bringing in less money than the year before for the first time since 2010. In total, the market brought in some 251 billion yen, or about 2.3 billion dollars. That’s a 1.8% decrease compared to 2019. (Hey, isn’t …Read more »
Remember how Tenet sparked a backlash against modern audio mixes that make it hard to hear dialogue? Now one anime director is launching the same complaint against some anime mixes. Said director is Ashina Minoru, known for helming Isekai Quartet and Kaiju Girls. Ashina tweeted: …Read more »
If you stick around for the credits when you watch anime (which you totally should!), you’ll notice that a lot of the folks who help make it happen are from outside Japan. It’s been pretty standard practice for decades for Japan to outsource animation—especially in-between …Read more »
So, the big news a few weeks back was that Sony had decided to buy everyone’s favorite orange anime streamer, Crunchyroll. But it’s not simply a matter of Sony handing AT&T a big bundle of cash. Big ol’ deals like this one need to get …Read more »
With Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba making mega yen in Japan, weekly rag Spa! has decided to delve into that time-honored topic: poor conditions for animators. To learn more about conditions on the ground, Spa! interviewed a 43-year-old Japanese animator going by the pseudonym Daigo …Read more »
Publishing company Simon & Schuster, previously owned by ViacomCBS, will be sold to Penguin Random House for a little over $2 billion, it was reported today. What does that mean for manga, exactly? A lot, potentially. S&S distributes manga released by Viz Manga. Meanwhile, Penguin …Read more »
It’s Christmas for anime industry numbers geeks: the Association of Japanese Animations is prepping to release its yearly report on the industry. The full report will come later this month, but the AJA has released some interesting deets already. The topline takeaway for 2019: growth. …Read more »
As anyone who’s interested in the anime industry knows, animators (especially young ones) face chronically low wages, causing a majority of newbies to drop out of the industry within one or two years. Why the low wages? Many blame Osamu Tezuka, the “god of manga” …Read more »
AT&T is looking to sell Crunchyroll to Sony for $1.5 billion. That’s the report from The Information, who are citing “three people familiar with the situation.” The Information is also reporting that Sony has balked at the $1.5 billion price tag, with negotiations ongoing. Meanwhile, …Read more »
Things are a long way from normal in Japan, but efforts by health professionals and citizens doing their best to stay home have led to a reduction in cases in Tokyo and elsewhere. Meanwhile, it looks like anime voice actors, who were largely on standby …Read more »
On the morning of April 20, the phrase “anime industry” was trending on Twitter in Japan — and as you might guess, it wasn’t due to happy news. An article out today from Sports Nippon takes a look at the various COVID-19-related troubles facing the …Read more »
COVID-19 is taking its toll across virtually every industry, including anime. Several big-name films like Violet Evergarden and Detective Conan have been delayed, as has the latest season of Sword Art Online and others. Now one animator has a bleak prediction for the upcoming summer …Read more »
Manga is a giant business, both in Japan and abroad. In the US, we regularly hear about how volumes of One Piece or Naruto outsell homegrown American comics by a wide margin, and new players are getting into the manga publishing game all the time. …Read more »
Matt Schley
