Compile Sakura
Recently, the American streaming media giant Netflix The financial report for the fourth quarter of 2020 was released, which showed that the number of subscribers of its video streaming media service exceeded 200 million for the first time.
While creating this milestone, the company said that it would increase the production of original programs and prepare to release at least one original film on its service every week this year. Before the release of the financial report, Netflix announced that it would release more than 70 films of various types to American customers in 2021.
It is easy to see from these actions that Netflix is constantly consolidating its position as the "king of streaming media". But Japan has long been unwilling to be inferior in the field of streaming media Sony The company has also seized a "lifeline straw", hoping to turn the tables against the wind and launch an impact on Netflix's throne.
The cartoon "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba" is that "straw".
This young cartoon, which mixes blood and blood, is very popular. In Japan, fans can buy strawberry milk with the theme of Ghost Blade in any convenience store. They can also buy hard candy with the flavor of lemon, curry bread lunch sandwich, folding chopsticks or virtual pets.
However, these small surrounding areas are just sweet candies on them, and the big cake at the bottom has more market value.
In 2020, the sales volume of the "Ghost Killing Blade" comic series exceeded the total sales volume of the other nine subsequent competitors. At the end of October of the same year, "Ghost Blade" went from television to the big screen. The theater version of "Gemetsu no Yaiba" produced by a Sony studio jumped to the highest box office in Japan's history. Even when it was released during the COVID-19 epidemic, the box office of this film also reached 300 million dollars.
Goldman Sachs (Goldman Sachs) analyst Minami Munakata estimated that, in the most optimistic case, Ghost Blade IP may contribute up to 115 billion yen (1.1 billion dollars) to the annual operating profit of Aniplex, Sony's animation studio, including licensing fees for hand-operated and other characters, as well as revenue from the release of upcoming mobile and game console animation.
He said:“ Many investors believe that "Ghost Blade" is just a flash in the pan for Sony, but we don't think so. At present, Sony is in a good position, and it is fully capable of applying Ghost Blade IP to a broader global platform. "
01 "Ghost Killing Blade" Brings Hope of Breaking the Game
On the surface, the phenomenon of "ghost killing blade" is just another "Japanese mania" that triggered commodity boom. Because the previous "Pok é mon", "Power Rangers", "Super Mario" and "Dragon Ball" have all set off a multi billion dollar pop culture boom and industrial scale leverage effect of intellectual property in Japan.
The global pandemic of the COVID-19 epidemic forced the entertainment industry to rethink the form of content delivery. However, the current issue, which is worth billions of dollars, is whether Japan's long-standing animation industry and the annual production of more than 107000 minutes of content can make the craze of "Ghost Blade" become the industry norm, rather than a beautiful accident.
However, analysts, scholars and executives directly involved said that the "craze" this time was not the same as before. Behind the Ghost Blade is a series of changes in the structure, ownership and ambition of Japan's $24 billion animation industry every year.
Some experts believe that Japanese animation as a business model is a sure bet. The commodities, games and other income ecosystems created by animations such as Ghost Blade, One Piece and Gundam have long been the industry standard in Japan. Now, these animations are being reshaped Disney , Netflix, and others.
Rayna Denison, a scholar specializing in Asian media culture, and the author of Anime: A Critical Introduction "Japan is changing, but at the same time, I think we are witnessing the world learning from Japan's cross media business model, which Japan has already been familiar with."
On the list of the 25 most valuable media franchises in the world, Pok é mon and Hello Kitty from Japan topped the list with historical sales of US $92 billion and US $80 billion, respectively. In addition, 9 Japanese brands were also on the list.
But analysts pointed out that, Behind this seemingly success is the weakness of insufficient exploration of Japanese animation treasures, as well as the failure to solve many structural problems hidden behind the hot animation and the criticized industrial labor treatment.
However, over the past year, the surge in the number of compulsory homes and anime broadcasts has accelerated the reflection of the industry. The new charm of animation and its profit potential in the digital world are changing the views of some practitioners in the animation field.
George Wada, senior vice president of Production IG, the animation production company of Ghost in the Shell and Attack on Titan, said: "We are forced to speed up our pace in the three aspects of digitalization, global expansion and streaming media services. We are at a critical moment when Japanese animation is becoming bigger or smaller."
For many industry executives, the stage for Japanese animation to truly go global has been set up. A revitalized Sony is competing with Netflix and other global streaming media giants to explore the yet to be developed and profitable content treasure house of Japanese animation.
02 "Slow half shot" Sony VS is eyeing competitors
In recent years, Sony has entered the animation field on a large scale. Because it does not have the business scale matching its global competitors, Sony intentionally adopted a different strategy, that is, to purchase animation streaming media services with strong local content and loyal fans to replicate its great success in the game field.
In December 2020, Sony acquired with 1.2 billion dollars American Telegraph Crunchyroll, the animation streaming service of AT&T, is a proof.
Industry executives said that after acquiring the animation website with 3 million users, the Japanese group would be more able to cooperate with the four major streaming media giants - Netflix Amazon , Disney and warner HBO Max under the media - to launch a fairer competition.
Before reaching a deal with Crunchyroll, Sony acquired up to 95% of the equity of Funimation Productions, an American animation publisher, in 2017, and invested $400 million in Chinese animation video websites last year Bili Bili （Bilibili）。
However, analysts said that Sony should take this measure long before the global Japanese animation craze led to its soaring valuation. Damian Thong, an analyst at Macquarie, said: "If Sony had done this 10 years ago, their move to enter the Japanese animation market would have been more forward-looking. Now it seems that Netflix may have more advantages in terms of resources and audience size."
An industry executive who closely followed Sony said: "If you want to keep those who are interested in animation, you need to do more than just display the content. You also need to provide some after-sales services, such as social opportunities, social networks and commodities. For versatile streaming media services such as Netflix and Amazon, it is difficult to do this."
Although Sony executives have repeatedly said that animation is the natural choice of its diversified entertainment portfolio, which covers PlayStation games, movies, TV programs and music, similar to the situation where PlayStation business is independent of the group's overall strategic development, Sony has always been difficult to integrate its various animation services with music, pictures and games.
Roland Kelts, a Japanese American analyst, recently wrote in an industry report for CLSA: "Music, pictures and games are the holy trinity of Sony, but they cannot be well combined. Sony recently claimed that animation will become the cornerstone of its new content. If Sony can combine them, the results may be very surprising. "
People familiar with Sony believe that, "Business verticality" has hindered the possibility of strategic coordination between highly independent departments within Sony, resulting in a decentralized organizational structure.
Until recently, under the leadership of Chief Executive Kenichiro Yoshida, Sony Group has taken major measures to rectify its internal division of labor to give play to its advantages in the entertainment business.
Picture: Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida It is reported that Funimation, the largest Japanese animation publisher in North America, is currently operated by Sony Pictures Television. Its main business is to strengthen franchise rights and intellectual property rights, thus achieving success in the U.S. market. At the same time, Aniplex, which belongs to Sony Music Entertainment, and its streaming media services are mainly responsible for developing content for the Japanese market.
In 2020, the company will merge Aniplex's French streaming media service Wakanim and Australian distributor Madman Entertainment with Funimation to create a more unified platform.
While Sony reorganizes the company, Amazon and Netflix are also steadily expanding their footholds in Japan. They not only made radical changes in financing, but also made fundamental changes in content production methods,.
When asked about its strategy, Amazon said that it would be "fully committed" to animation content. "Fans in Japan and around the world will see more anime works from our company, which is just the beginning."
In addition, Netflix has also invested in Japan in recent years to recruit local talents and develop working relationships with animation studios.
03 Weak local market vs potential overseas market
Sony's recent aggressive (or rather late) move in the animation field has raised two key issues. The first question is whether Sony's integration strategy of advantages in the content and hardware fields can truly meet the expectations of investors. This question will be answered in the next few years.
However, the more direct question is whether other companies in the animation industry have the ability to replicate Sony's success, or whether it is possible to launch a better model. The answer is not clear.
After the success of Ghost Killing Blade, analysts began to pay attention to the potential advantages of this industry that was sleepy and focused on the local market. The animation industry used to realize globalization cautiously or accidentally, but now the success of this industry is achieved through the layout of stimulating vitality and pursuing profits.
Analyst Roland Keltz said that deep-rooted conservatism and excessive attention to the local market may still hinder the development of the Japanese animation industry. Over the years, even large production companies have not taken a good management approach in terms of international sales, although the leakage of IP through pirated and poorly regulated streaming media websites is one of the main ways for Japanese anime to build a fan base around the world.
However, Keltz acknowledged that the overall momentum of the Japanese animation industry looks good.
Although in the 10 years before 2012, the Japanese animation industry has been in a downturn. However, the animation industry reversed its decline in 2012. According to the data of the Association of Japan Animations, from 2012 to 2019, Japan's animation sales grew at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4%.
The research company's general forecast shows that by 2026, the value of the animation industry will expand from $24 billion in 2019 to $33.6 billion. This is largely because globalization will promote the growth of the animation industry.
Jay Defibaugh, an analyst at CLSA, pointed out that the Japanese toy and game groups Konami and Bandai Namco have recently achieved great success in China. He said: "We have known for a long time that Japan's IP can resonate in the entire Asian market. I think it is becoming more and more possible for these IPs to truly create miracles in digital content and commodity sales."
For Toei Animation and other large animation studios, which lead the entire animation industry, overseas revenue is expected to exceed Japan's domestic revenue for the first time.
Figure: The goal of Japanese animation industry is to increase the source of overseas income: FT Nowadays, streaming media services have gradually replaced traditional video and DVD publishers and become the main provider of animation production financing. Its growing influence and financial resources also mean that animation production companies now need to target global audiences at the beginning of content production, rather than simply exporting local popular films to the international market.
Soichiro Fukuda, a senior analyst at Frontier Management, a consulting company, said: "The way of thinking in the animation industry needs to shift from Japan to the world. This will lead to two kinds of differentiation, one is the person who successfully achieved this transformation, and the other will be sent to act as a subcontractor."
He Tian Zhangsi said: "Nowadays, it is very difficult to run an enterprise that only depends on the local market of Japan. What we must focus on now is not only to resonate in Japan, but also in the global market. What we need to do is not only to promote popular content in Japan to other parts of the world in two stages."
The crazy overseas mergers and acquisitions of Japanese enterprises in the past 10 years also revealed a truth, With the domestic market shrinking, growth must come from overseas. Now, the Japanese animation industry is also tentatively doing the same thing.
In 2016, the success of animation "Your Name" in the Pan Asian region triggered great interest in this type of film from Netflix and other streaming media service providers.
In addition, Studio Ghibli, Japan's most famous animation studio, also reached an agreement with HBO Max last year, which is the first time that the studio reached an agreement with an American streaming media service provider.
It is reported that, Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming media services are not only placing heavy bets on animation, but also promoting Japanese content, which was previously limited to the local market, to the stage of globalization.
