For the 2015 JVA report post, see this post.

The numbers below are for the category 日本のｱﾆﾒｰｼｮﾝ(一般向け) which the official translated reports list as “Animation for Grown-ups Domestic” though 一般向け more means “general public”. I assume they’re defining the general public as “not kids”. It’d primarily, though not exclusively, cover the prime time/late night series we mostly focus on here.

2011-2016 Retail vs Rental (JP): 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

2001-2015 Totals (EN): 2001-2015

Google Doc source data: [link]

2001-2016, Total (¥ is units of ¥1 million)



(raw data)



Year Total ¥ All % Change Total ¥ DVD Total ¥ BD Total ¥ UMD Total ¥ Oth Total # All % Change Total # DVD Total # BD Total # UMD Total # Oth 2016 50212 0.248 0.858148755810774 18046 32166 9833393 0.142 0.840473008501319 4825674 5007719 2015 58512 0.268 0.909249129786176 19368 39144 11699832 0.161 0.901599692002958 5579013 6120819 2014 64352 0.28 0.862858675248056 24102 40250 12976748 0.164 0.826192826721774 6516266 6460482 2013 74580 0.296 1.11386582233108 29124 45456 15706682 0.191 1.18334460171628 7935344 7771338 2012 66956 0.259 0.977217332924676 30392 36564 13273126 0.157 0.91596569008523 7395302 5877824 2011 68517 0.262 0.978702434007542 37219 31298 14490855 0.176 0.974242127710699 9094449 5396406 2010 70008 0.263 1.03074204946996 44351 25583 74 14873977 0.165 0.948018256996203 10376365 4446176 51436 2009 67920 0.248 0.965005754230425 55442 12128 350 15689547 0.179 0.936248637581652 13569193 1874684 245670 2008 70383 0.246 0.87788906489716 65901 4454 28 16757885 0.195 0.948462928247421 15983864 759253 14768 2007 80173 0.253 1.00071146837086 80176 17668466 0.183 0.986073282153901 17668466 2006 80116 0.242 0.960565913314549 79565 551 17918005 0.17 0.972201227258566 17800432 117573 2005 83405 0.225 1.41881432338182 80487 2918 18430346 0.161 1.46435025583538 17838260 592086 2004 58785 0.157 0.887387727375651 52786 5999 12586023 0.115 0.9399903237785 11569191 1088832 2003 66245 0.189 0.888836710049644 57067 9178 13389524 0.141 0.776517327622973 11591254 1798270 2002 74530 0.23 1.73176568998768 55078 19452 17243046 0.202 1.85143565067648 12800184 4442862 2001 43037 0.146 37568 5469 9313338 0.121 7874049 1439289







2011-2016, Retail Only



(raw data)



Year Sale ¥ All % Change Sale ¥ DVD Sale ¥ BD Sale # All % Sale # DVD Sale # BD 2016 41849 0.273 0.852634366977711 9806 32043 7285140 0.195 2327719 4957421 2015 49082 0.302 0.930552659019812 10196 38886 8993309 0.213 2922290 6071019 2014 52745 0.315 0.863794176410861 12701 40044 10314305 0.212 3883708 6430597 2013 61062 0.333 1.14776038044398 15909 45153 12435495 0.246 4749986 7685509 2012 53201 0.291 0.995714018341756 16951 36250 10064047 0.2 4245341 5818706 2011 53430 0.296 22359 31071 10969809 0.211 5652596 5317213







2011-2016, Rental Only



(raw data)



Year Rent ¥ All % Change Rent ¥ DVD Rent ¥ BD Rent # All % Rent # DVD Rent # BD 2016 8363 0.17 0.91870811820279 8240 123 2548253 0.08 2497955 50298 2015 9103 0.168 0.805575221238938 8919 184 2275969 0.077 2250372 25597 2014 11300 0.184 0.858206121364016 11120 180 2512958 0.084 2489785 23173 2013 13167 0.196 0.982758620689655 12944 223 3003076 0.097 2938928 64148 2012 13398 0.18 0.916917601970983 13099 299 2996420 0.088 2940045 56375 2011 14612 0.185 14446 166 3158053 0.106 3136273 21780







Comments

1. Chart format:

• It’s structured a little differently this year. I noticed that JVA has a report that separates Retail and Rental sales back to 2011, so I have separate tables for those.

• For 2001-2010 we only have the combined totals. But this does confirm something I wasn’t sure about before. The JVA numbers we’ve been looking at each year do indeed include rental copies. Not number of times they’re rented out, but rather copies sold to rental shops. It’s interesting to see it split out for the past few years. As far as I know Oricon does not cover sales of rental copies. Also interested to see just how obvious it is that BD never got any foothold whatsoever at rental chains.

• The data is available in three ways – the images, the raw data tables below the images, and maybe most usefully, in a google sheet linked near the top of the post.

• Note that the Rental + Retail numbers don’t exactly match the totals JVA provides in their other reports. The totals are generally a bit higher. The difference is not very significant, but if you add them up and wonder why they’re off, that’s just how it is in their data. However since we don’t have an equivalent totals report for 2016 yet, for that year only I have manually added up Rental + Retail. So if they ever do 2016 totals, it’ll be slightly higher than seen here.

• “%” column in the table means a percentage of all disc sales across all genres/categories.

• “Other” in the chart is overwhelmingly VHS, though there’s some other weird formats making up tiny amounts too.

2. Comparisons to other categories:

• While the Domestic Animation for Adults category has a slightly lower share of the overall market compared to the last few years, 24.8% is entirely within the normal range for 2005-2009 when the total sales of the category were much higher. This category retained 85% of 2015 revenues and 81% of 2015 units, compared to the video market as a whole retaining 94%/88%.

• My guess is that anime weathered the decline in physical media slightly better than other genres from 2010 to 2015 (peaked at 29.6% of discs by revenue in 2013), but the decline is catching up to it now, and it’s settled into something closer to its natural baseline of about a quarter of all disc revenue.

• Domestic Animation for Adults is, for the first time, not the largest category. That goes by a significant margin to Domestic Music (think of all them concert discs), which slightly increased versus 2015.

3. Comparisons to recent years:

• 2016 continues the trend of every year seeing a decline, with the exception of 2013, since 2005.

• 2016 is lower in both revenue and disc sales than any year since 2001, so we’re really getting close to the nadir of the whole late-night era of anime. 2017 may end up being the weakest year of the millennium (though we don’t have data for 2000).

• It’s also the first year below 10 million units sold since 2001. It’s possible the final adjustment in the totals document (if they ever update it) would put it just barely over 10 million, but I’m not sure about that.

It’s obvious that physical media is never getting its mid-00s market share back. Maybe the category will get a shot in the arm in the 2017 report with Kimi no Na wa sales, but it’d just be a small blip in the persistent decline. Domestic and international streaming is obviously what needs to fill the gap, with an assist from still small yet rapidly growing live event revenue. And if streaming does push things forward, that’s great! But the chicken and egg question is:

• Did physical media decline independently, only to have its revenues coincidentally rescued by a rise in streaming?

• Or did streaming actively cannibalize physical media revenues, causing their decline?

In the first scenario, streaming rescued a declining industry. In the latter scenario, streaming is both the cause and cure for the current situation, and it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. Personally my feeling is both scenarios are at play, though the former perhaps moreso. I’m not sure physical media was going to hold up, even if streaming weren’t as big.

But that’s more about the domestic situation. I think, internationally, it’s beyond question that streaming is a huge net positive for revenues. And regardless of how we got here, well, we’re here. The big question now is what the next few years will look like. Will physical media hit a floor in the next year or three and stabilize around ¥40-¥50bn, or are we going to see it continually drop ¥6-10bn a year until it shrivels into insignificance?





Once again, a disclaimer that bears a reminder: the late night anime I track on this site does not match 1:1 to this genre category. It should be contained within it, but other things will count in it as well. You cannot use these numbers to measure with perfect accuracy the performance of late night anime as a whole. It is possible for late night to do better or worse than these numbers show.