A Tale of Two Media Forms: How COVID-19 Has Impacted Anime and Manga
No sector of the entertainment industry remained safe this year, and that includes Japan’s profitable anime and manga sectors. COVID-19 stalled production on most Spring 2020 season anime, forcing big names like Haikyuu!! and One Piece on hiatus. Multiple manga imprints found themselves in a similar predicament — even Weekly Shonen Jump couldn’t avoid a delay.
As of October, all manga imprints resumed printing and most anime are rescheduled for Fall 2020 or Winter 2021 dates. Simultaneously, quarantine has led to a jump in viewership for anime and manga— through both legal and illegal means. The real question is how these industries will endure the set backs and feel the growth, if at all.
Despite bookstore closings, the manga industry is doing well. A mid-year report from Japanese media statistics company Oricon reveals that volume sales of the top 5 titles tripled from the same time last year. This is due to the outrageously popular manga Demon Slayer singlehandedly outperforming every title in both years combined. Even without Koyoharu Gotoge’s breakout hit, the industry still holds itself up with slightly better sales than the first half of 2019. Similarly, North American manga distributors had to adjust release schedules but reported steady sales figures, in contrast to how the rest of the American book publishing industry did during the onslaught of the pandemic.
Anime is a different story. As opposed to the cost of printing black-and-white graphic novels, anime studios shell out between 18 million to 25 million yen ($170,000 and $240,000) per episode, with seasons ranging from 12 to 26 episodes. These studios, which usually operate in the red with very low pay to employees, have taken a fatal hit during this pandemic. Toyo Keizai business reporter Natsuhiko Ujiie claims that poor money management skills compounded by an industry standard to shoulder production companies’ financial burdens will lead many anime studios to collapse within two years. As Crunchyroll reporter Daryl Harding rephrases in English, “It becomes an endless loop of studios taking on more and more projects, overworking the staff and animators for low pay, and then not being able to train new animators due to the lack of time and the lack of a younger generation willing to get into animation due to rumors of all the above.” In it’s October 16th release, Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train exploded the Japanese box office. However, it seems that the Demon Slayer Effect won’t be enough to offset the long-term financial issues of the industry.
At the same time, anti-piracy initiatives by the manga and anime industry are finally taking form. For an industry that often loses key revenue due to online piracy, these changes are expected to greatly impact sales. In June 2020, the Japanese parliament revised an anti-online piracy law to include manga, academic texts, and magazines (previously, only music and videos were covered). This law prohibits illegal downloading of these texts and bans sites that host or link illegal copies. Fresh off this ruling, Kissanime.ru and Kissmanga.ru, two popular international anime and manga piracy sites, were shut down in August. When publishers worked together in 2019 to shut down Mangamura, an illegal site popular in Japan, they found a 29.5% increase in digital sales. Similar increases in revenue should be found in their North American, European and Chinese markets as online crackdowns continue, but the question of what to do for fans in parts of the world without legal options remains.
COVID-19 has been a reminder to us all of how systemic issues impact our lives, and the manga and anime industries are no exception. Hopefully, this year will spur the anime industry towards a much-needed business model restructuring.
*This story was edited on 10/21/20 for clarity and to include information about Demon Slayer The Movie’s box office debut.
