When talking to other fans of anime, it becomes quite clear that many think of Japan as a paradise where people are watching anime all the time and all of their favourite shows have massive followings. This could not be further from the truth and it is important that we, as Western fans of anime, learn how popular anime truly is in Japan.
Let’s start off with what anime are actually popular in Japan. Taking a look at the recently released broadcast ratings in Japan (keep in mind that many are currently reruns due to the pandemic), we notice that many of the most popular shows are series either unreleased (Sazae-san, Chibi Maruko-chan) in the West or have been released (Detective Conan/Case Closed, Doraemon) and failed to make a splash.
Instead, many of the shows we’re familiar with such as Sword Art Online, Attack on Titan, Yuri!!! on Ice etc air as “Late Night Anime”. These anime typically air after midnight and attract such a low viewership that the production committees for the anime generally have to pay the network to air the shows. These shows would be considered niche in Japan and, unless they have an associated book, manga, movie, TV drama etc, it is unlikely that many Japanese would even know these shows existed.
This also applies to theatrical anime. While you have your mainstream exceptions such as Studio Ghibli, Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai films, most anime movies are released in a limited number of theatres and are lucky to break $1,000,000 at the box office. Instead, these theatrical releases are often used to promote the film and encourage people to pick up associated merchandise and the upcoming home video release.
Speaking of home video, it is also interesting to look at the sales figures for these releases. Taking May 25th to May 31st as an example, we can see that the recently released Makoto Shinkai film “Weathering with You” reached close to 100,000 units sold on Blu-Ray in its first week. Ignoring Frozen II (western animation is listed alongside anime), we can see that the next anime on the list “Demon Slayer” sold 9,926 units.
While quite a sharp drop compared to Weathering with You, this figure is actually considered quite successful in Japan with an estimate of about 5,000 units needed to be sold per volume for an anime to make a profit (as I mentioned, this is a rough estimate and does not take into account the budget differences or additional costs some anime might have).
I don’t want people to think that I am trying to discredit these anime that don’t have a large following in Japan. Some of my favourite anime series would be considered extremely niche in Japan. However, it is important that more people know that the illusion of a Japan where everyone is obsessed with anime is just that, an illusion and that only very specific anime enjoy mainstream success. Let me know if you have had any experiences that highlighted the disparity between how popular you thought anime was in Japan and how popular it actually is.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!