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Impact of Covid-19 on Japanese Animation Studios and the Need to Embrace Digital and Telework

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Artist:stick jitb

Believe it or not, I have covered the impacts of the Anime Industry due to Covid-19. However, we still didn’t know the full impact back then, until now. This just didn’t happen overnight. Animation studios faced problems such as poor working conditions, a packed production schedule and noticeable delays in 2019.

As expected, the coronavirus situation made the whole thing worse. Sure, a handful of titles suffered minor delays. Eventually, the coronavirus situation worsened with more than forty titles facing delays.  As a result, studios had no choice but to delay productions. Eventually Japan declared a state of emergency on April 16, weeks after delaying the Olympics. This does not come at a surprise since the workplace at these studios clamped. As a result, this makes social distancing efforts nearly impossible. With that, I want to focus on some thoughts on the whole situation.
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The SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak – The Impacts on the Anime Industry and Everyone’s Lives

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While Eripiyo doesn’t have Coronavirus, but the flu, this scene is relatable to this situation.

As expected, it seems that the Novel Coronavirus has started to affect everyone’s lives. For an anime fan, it definitely had an impact. Not only anime productions are getting delayed, but also events and even anime conventions. Even the Tokyo Olympics that is happening later this year is in jeopardy and will most likely see a delay.

Not only that, various anime productions faced delays as a result. Some are very noticeable with Koisuru Asteroid, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T, A3, and others. It doesn’t end there. Some spring anime, most notably Re Zero Second Season along with a bunch of films pushed back until the summer. Moreover, Amazon is prioritizing shipping of certain goods to deal with the virus. This causes things like anime DVD/Blu-rays, merchandise, video games, etc to face shipping delays. With that, we are living with a new reality and life as we know it is changed forever.

You might be wondering, what is the Novel Coronavirus (aka Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2/SARS-CoV-2/nCov-19/Covid-19) and what affect it is happening on the anime industry. Most of you should have heard about this virus on the news and social media. As expected, it’s having a huge effect on people’s everyday lives. I will share some of my thoughts on how this situation is affecting me personally.
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Pitfalls of Anime Streaming, Competition and Subscription Fatigue – Is It Becoming Too Fragmented?

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Artist: stick_jitb</a?

It’s obvious that the Novel Coronavirus has caused a lot of public events to become cancelled along with schools. Aside from people who have a job, but can’t telework, most will be at home. In other words, some or most of you would binge watch on anime while being stuck at home.

This of course brings the topic of anime streaming. In recent years, anime has become more accessible legally through legal streaming services like Crunchyroll, Funimation, and others. Not only that, you don’t have to spend $50-250 to buy the whole series on DVD or Blu-ray to watch it. Of course, we started to see Crunchyroll losing the lion share of the anime streaming as competition heated up.

If you recall, Amazon tried to jump in the fray with Anime Strike and Netflix doing its own thing. While competition is good as it doesn’t cause a service to become complacent. During that time, Crunchyroll became a bit lazy by not updating their video player and with poor video quality.

Once competition took hold, they eventually added an HTML5 player. It’s not without consequence. They lost a good amount of their catalog once Funnimation pulled out of the deal.

As expected, exclusive simulcasting is becoming an issue as people have to subscribe to the multiple services to watch the content they enjoy. Otherwise, he or she will miss out unless they subscribe. As they say, each subscription adds up in the end. This phenomenon is called subscription fatigue. While some bloggers have covered this concern, it’s time to go more in depth in it.
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The Reasons Why You Should (Probably) Not Pirate Anime

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Artist: キュードリ

Since 2017, I started the shift towards streaming mostly because it’s convenient and it’s probably the cheapest way to support the industry. From the monthly subscription fees, royalties are paid from the shows you watch, which eventually goes back to the studios and the industry.

Given the problem that studios are facing with low pay and poor working conditions, if more switched to legal alternatives, it would help the industry. After all, revenue generated overseas will become more important given the change in demographics in Japan.

While streaming is not the ideal solution mostly because of region restrictions, it’s not a problem if you live in North America. Of course, exclusivity of titles and fragmentation is another issue. Certain titles will only be available on Crunchyroll, HIDIVE, Amazon, Netflix or Funimation. In other words, this will require subscribing to multiple services.

If you take these drawbacks from the picture, it’s a better way to watch anime as it’s convenient. One doesn’t have to mess around with Bittorrent, worry about what video players to use, and having enough disk space. You just watch whatever you want.

However, people who live in regions where legal options are readily available and can afford it still choose to pirate. People have to realize that not only this is selfish and immoral given the poor state of the animation industry, you are also putting your information security at risk. Not to mention, piracy or rather the correct term, copyright infringement is illegal. I will explain why you should probably stop pirating anime and consider legal options if available.

(Note: Pardon the lack of images, they are coming in a few days)
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When A Fairy Tale Becomes a Nightmare – Analyzing the Production Failures of Märchen Mädchen

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Back in 2015, I analyzed production issues in regards to Anime. It seems that every year, production issue are becoming more apparent. It’s saddening that a lack of production values can hold a show back regardless of how good or interesting the story and characters are. To me, no adaptation deserves the poor treatment that this show received. This adaptation is Märchen Mädchen.
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All Work and No Pay – Part II – Animator’s Pay and Working Conditions Keeps Getting Worse

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Artist: ハジメカナメ

Back in 2015, I covered and analyzed the poor wages and working conditions animators face. It’s a known fact that animators are paid very little, they work long hours, and receive little free time. Since then, I wonder how things progressed since then. Have they improved?
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The Sad State of Legal Anime Streaming or Why Anime Strike is Cancer – Update: It’s Dead

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In recent years, there is a big shift towards legal streaming. As mentioned in an earlier editorial, streaming sites like Crunchyroll makes anime more accessible. While there are drawbacks such as region restrictions and lack of offline viewing, it keeps most people from pirating anime. Legal streaming overall allows anime to become more mainstream than it did in the past. Of course, this spawned more competition such as Funimation, Daisuki and others.

However, in 2017, the state of streaming deteriorated. It’s obvious that Amazon and Netflix now wants the piece of the streaming pie. Earlier this year Amazon launched Anime Strike. Meanwhile, Netflix becomes a serious contender by taking more high-profile titles such as Little Witch Academia and Fate/Apocrypha. While competition is good as it prevents companies from being too lazy, it has a lot of drawbacks. As seen with the huge backlash towards Anime Strike, it can have negative impacts to the fandom as a whole. Moreover, it can derail the trend towards legal streaming and drive people back to piracy.
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Avex Export Ban and Why It’s Bad for the Anime Industry

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Just a few days ago, something blew up in the fandom. Apparently, Avex Pictures have banned exports of Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs to countries outside of Japan. While this does not affect the music division, it does bring negative implications for people who imports Anime Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs. I will share my thoughts about the Avex export ban along with background information behind it.
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Does Downloading Anime Makes You Less of an Anime Fan?

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Artist: 世音
Artist: 世音

In the past, I have touched upon thoughts about piracy and how they are taking a wrong approach. Although legal alternatives have made some strides, it has shortcomings besides other issues like region locking and that the subs have quality issues in the viewer’s eyes.

With that in mind, while fans tend to look down other fans because of their tastes of Anime, there is another issue that is also apparent, people chastising people because they prefer to download anime opposed to streaming it legally or buying Blu-rays. While I will share why this practice is counterproductive, there are various reasons why people choose to continue to download instead of watching it on a legal streaming site.
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Thoughts about Japanese Anime Releases: Why they are Expensive?

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Artist: 冬ゆき
Artist: 冬ゆき

A few years back, I have shared my thoughts about collecting anime Merchandise. While I stopped buying anime DVDs several years back since I wanted to focus more on importing Japanese games and anime CDs from Japan, I decided to buy Idolmaster Cinderella Girls in Blu-Ray, which makes me wonder about Japanese anime releases and how they differ from licensed releases.

While I covered it somewhat in previous editorials, I never gone into much detail considering that I did not own a single Japanese release. Now I do, so it is time to talk about some differences and why they are expensive.
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