Why does anime have such a hard time making money? In the west television shows make a profit off ad revenue...

Why does anime have such a hard time making money? In the west television shows make a profit off ad revenue, so shows with broad appeal that can get high viewership are the most profitable. But in japan it seems that profit comes from DVD sales and merchandise, not ad revenue, so they appeal to a niche demographic of diehard fans most likely to spend money on physical goods. Is this because the television networks have a different deal with the anime studios that makes them loose out on that ad revenue? Or maybe it's because anime is just too expensive to produce to be covered by ad revenue alone?

> Or maybe it's because anime is just too expensive to produce to be covered by ad revenue alone?

No, ad revenue is the primary source of income for top companies novadays (Google, Facebook for example).

I never actually understood why japs don't take this approach. I also don't understand why do they base their industry on Japan alone? I mean, there are at least several million anime fans abroad, why isn't there a single attempt, by the industry, not the 3rd parties (like kissanime and such), to exploit those views.

Is it a pride thing, or sheer ignorance?

We have things like Crunchyroll and whatever other streaming sites partner with the company, but it always seems half assed. Sites like Kissanime are to blame for this in a way but making shows harder to access if at all legally will make people torrent or stream.

I'm skeptical about how much of crunchyroll's money actually gets back to the actual creators. If I buy a crunchy subscription am I supporting shows that I love, or am I just paying the paychecks of bad translators and enterprising american CEOs?

most of the anime nowdays is just shit and serves to promote the original source be it manga or light novels.

who cares?

>>anime nowdays is just shit and serves to promote the original source be it manga or light novels
>nowadays
It always used to be like that, retard.

The latter, sadly, keep it to import or pirating rather than giving bucks to the wrong people.

I care for that exact reason. Anime nowdays only exists to promote the source material because it isn't making money on its own.

Well to be fair only pirate if the anime is made before 2000

I just want to donate to the studio and the translators. If they just use a patreon style system I'm sure they could actuallu nake a decent profit

>nowdays
Yeah, I also love all of those mindlesss mecha toy shows from the 80's.

0079 was a toy ad

yeah, no, there used to be more original animes back in the day. now its not only manga and LN being adapted, videogames, visual novels, webmangas, even fucking songs.

Japan doesn't care so you really shouldn't either. they just see them as big Ads now.

Source material makes some money > Money is invested in an anime adaptation > Studios get paid to do an adaptation (being good or bad depends on the money invested) > Anime airs and promotes the source material > Source material gets more sales + sales from the anime itself as extras.

it's a win-win

>now its not only manga and LN being adapted, videogames, visual novels, webmangas, even fucking songs.
So you mean the same thing they've been doing for decades now. This phenomenon isn't new, and if you think it is then you're newer than you think.

>webmanga and visual novel adaptations
>for decades
yeah no you are retarded.

Your logic doesn't make sense. I care because I love the medium but I dislike the current status quo and wish more original anime made money. Adaptations are imperfect because a story is almost always better experienced in it's original format unless the adaptation takes heavy liberties, and creator prefer to work on original works that allow them to express their own talents and vision. It's not a win-win, the audience and the anime staff lose out.

Except nipland would never do that, their culture and bullshit honor prevents it.
Kickstarters are okay, but shit like patreon is a definite no for them.

I like how you basically admitted I was right. Webmanga are a recent phenomenon true, but visual novels have been getting adapated for decades, newfag. Yu-No had an adaptation almost 20 years ago. Anyways, you're still a retard for thinking that this phenomenon is new at all. And you've still not refuted the argument that anime has always been by-and-large an advertisement for a source material, you just keep side-stepping with non-committal garbage like this:
>yeah, no, there used to be more original animes back in the day. now its not only manga and LN being adapted, videogames, visual novels, webmangas, even fucking songs.
Nobody actually said that there were less original anime, just that your assertion that anime was never used to promote souce material is fucking retarded and rooted in idiocy.

Apart from the OVA boom you're still vastly overestimating the amount of originals that existed, probably because you've only seen 10 shows and don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Looking forward to another (You), since you're no doubt going to take offense at this and continue arguing what you don't understand.

Because patreon is literally begging. You cannot build a career or an industry based on begging.

There's a difference between street musicians that get money from people dropping coins in their hats/instruments cases and professional musicians who have a stable job, like a composer or an orchestra musician.

The anime industry has been around for decades.

Given the day and age, you could do it, not as a sole revenue certainly, but you could. But as you said, it's begging, the japanese do not beg.

Buying merch makes more sense anyways. Give them money and get something in return. The problem is that for western fans the price of the merch is inflated by the shipping costs. I wish they would officially sell figures on amazon or something to make it easier for international fans.

Yeah, because they inflated egos and have a sense of pride.