US Fan Site Helps Prop up Ailing Anime Industry
Roland Kelts’ latest column on Japan’s anime industry points out an interesting development in these bleak times: A fan site — namely Crunchyroll.com — went legit this year. Instead of being a hub of illegal downloads and subtitles made on the fly, the site is teaming with Japanese anime producers to legally market the latest titles from Japan.
Anime fans around the world may not realize how little thought anime producers have put into their place in our digital culture. They make wonderful films, but they sound positively 20th century when they are asked about how to market their films overseas and online. Here’s what Roland found:
In September of 2008, I conducted a phone interview with Vu Nguyen, the site’s co-founder and Vice President of Business and Development and strategy. Nguyen recounted for me his team’s trips to Japan at the start of 2008 to obtain digital strategies directly from the front offices of Japan’s anime producers.
The result? They had none.
“So we decided to give them strategies,” Nguyen told me. “Because they’re frustrated, too.”
So a fan site that once was a portal for free and most likely illegal downloads and uploads has joined hands with the anime producers to help them find firm footing in the US market. The age of cooperation is upon us.
