Short Story Vol.1: Frustrating Times
This time, we would like to change things around a bit and talk about the Otaku Coin concept through a short story.
Please sit back, relax, and enjoy reading it in your free time.
”This anime was pretty good.”
Several years have passed since I began living in Tokyo. As I bite down on a rice ball I bought after working overtime, the clock strikes 1:30 AM. I have to get to the office early tomorrow, and there’s definitely not enough time to get much sleep. All I want to do is to call in sick.
I’m a fan of a certain character designer and splurge on an art book. The intriguing story makes me want to know what happens next and I also want to collect the original manga/novels. But I have to be patient until my payday next week.
I’m dazedly looking up at the ceiling when an announcement for a new series comes on. It features totally different content and has a different art style. But it is beautiful. What are the other upcoming anime like?
What are they like?
Some people believe that you shouldn’t think about what is to come tomorrow. Others tell you to think about everything in the morning. It’s unlikely, but there also might be saints who plan everything two weeks in advance and write everything down in their calendars. Whatever the case, there isn’t a single foolproof answer. As for myself, I decided not to think about tomorrow at that moment.
I swipe through tabs on my smartphone as I clean up after my dinner. There is a piece of raw meat in my fridge that I intended to eat, but I pretend that it isn’t there. Sitting down again, I narrow my gaze to the list of the anime titles scheduled for the next season. The fact that information is abundant and easy to access is a great part of modern civilization. It does mean that there’s too much information at times, but the value of this freedom is unwavering.
I go on to check websites showing a bunch of personal opinions. Review sites are good to get an overview, but I sometimes get a craving for salty reviews. Has the overflow of information numbed my senses to the point that all opinions feel rather tame?
Whatever the case, I look through a few intuitive websites, see what people I like say, and list up animes to watch next season. Then, I watch them. That has been my anime viewing cycle for the past few years. I can only watch a select few due to time constraints, but I believe that the process of choosing titles lets me enjoy them even more.
Would have more time if I were to get promoted? It wouldn’t hurt to have a little more money to spend, right? But time would be an ambiguous factor. My mother’s words cross my mind: “Time can’t be bought. It’s something you have to make.”
I begin making my list while struggling to lift my heavy eyelids.
I’ve been watching fantasy-themed titles for a while, so I want to change my pallet by trying something along the lines of a mellow slice of life series. I want it to have a decadent setting, but does such a series exist? And aren’t there too many “Gakuen” or school genre animes?
I take a look at a list of titles from a certain category. Most of the anime look identical. It may be that eccentric titles would be excluded from the genre, but they all still look the same.
But this isn’t limited to a single category, and it isn’t a phenomenon that started recently. Come to think of it, it is strange. Why are so many anime with similar premises being made? Why do they get pumped out instead of long-anticipated sequels to anime that were actually good? And it all feels different from something like trends in fashion.
Why…?
Why are there a slew of similar anime? Why do most anime seasons consist of 12 episodes? Why aren’t there more anime that aren’t based on novels, manga, or games? Why are anime Blu-rays and DVDs so expensive? Why are so many series being created that it’s impossible to watch all of them? Why is it that it is extremely hard for creators who make wondrous works of art to make a stable living? Why do Hollywood movies become big hits all over the world while it’s rare for Japanese anime to become global sensations? Why?
There may be a root cause to all of these questions, and we, the Otaku Coin Committee, believe that it lies in the way money is gathered during the production of anime.
For example, the production cost for a season of twelve 30-minute episodes is approximately 300 million yen. This immense cost is too much of a risk for a single company to burden, since no one can accurately predict the reception their title will receive.
The production committee system was created to disperse this risk, and it is the mainstream method of gathering money.
Various companies participate in creating a single title. They are animation distribution companies, merchandise/Blu-ray/DVD sales companies, and video game-related companies. The companies then provide the required 300 million yen as an effort to disperse the risk of their title flopping. This system has made it possible to create many titles.
However, 25 years have passed since this system was created. Various issues have also emerged throughout these years.
① Online distribution has resulted in sluggish sales of Blu-rays and DVDs. The production committee system itself is becoming obsolete
② Even if a title becomes a hit, there is often no financial return to the studio that produced it. It is said that it is hard for people who actually make the animations to make a proper living.
③ It has become the norm for anime productions to be created from a business perspective. It has become hard to create titles that fans want and those that creators want to make.
④ Despite there being many anime fans all over the world and many anime-related companies overseas, production systems are confined to within Japan. Even if titles become hits, their scale of success is dwarfed by major titles like Hollywood movies.
⑤ Ownership of various rights for titles and their accessibility is highly limited, resulting in companies or individuals who are interested in utilizing such rights having a hard time.
The companies that provide the 300 million yen are valuable and important existences for the production of anime. Additionally, the successful business of these companies has been an important requirement for establishing production committee systems.
Of course, businesses shouldn’t be renounced. People pay for what they think is worthwhile, what makes them feel compassion, and what moves them. The act of creating something that leaves an impact on people’s hearts is not something to be denied.
However, we are in a situation where productions are created from a strictly business-centered point of view. This situation was made only to establish production committee systems. It can even be said a drastic change has taken place in the relationship between fans and creators, diverting from its proper state.
We are at an age where a lot of time has passed since information from all over the world began to be shared through the Internet. The transference of values is also accelerating with the appearance of blockchains. We, the Otaku Coin Committee, believe that it is possible to gather the money necessary for producing anime by collecting it from fans all over the world, despite national boundaries that divide us, using the characteristics of blockchains.
If there was a way to gather money required for producing anime from fans all over the world…
What would happen?
That’s right. Anime could return to its original form.
