If you’ve ever managed to sit through the opening or ending credits of your favorite anime you may have noticed a committee title among the staff credits, such as The Project Neverland Committee, or even a cutesy name like Dragon Life Improvement Committee. So what are these titles, and what do they have to do with your favorite anime’s production staff? To put it simply, they’re several companies with a controlling interest in the production of an anime. Production committees were first seen with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and AKIRA and then became commonplace after the formation of Evangelion’s famous committee, Project EVA. They can be made up of any number of companies, with each company having something to gain from the anime’s production.
For example, Dr. Stone’s anime production committee is made up of three companies: Toho, the anime’s distribution company, TMS, the anime’s production studio, and Shueisha, the series’ manga publisher. Just from knowing who’s involved in the anime production committee, we can see why these companies are involved in the anime’s production. However, with some animes, it’s not so cut and dry.
The popular new anime Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? has nine reported companies on its committee. While some of these include obvious companies, such as its distributor Aniplex and the light novel publisher Kadokawa, the committee is also split between a number of other relevant companies as well.
One reason is that animating a single season of anime can be costly and even if you’re a major company such as Tokyo TV or Toei, it’s almost unheard of to fund the production of an anime within a single company. Companies must weigh the risks of producing a season of anime against the rewards, and if the risk is considered high, then the risk is spread out between multiple companies in case of failure. However, some companies tend to assume more risk than others. The first few companies listed in a production company both contribute more to funding and gain more revenue back if a project is a success.
Another reason for production committees to have so many members is to help with specialized areas of production. Those unnamed companies that are a part of Do You Love Your Mom’s… committee? They’re companies brought on to help with the production of the anime. KLab is a mobile game and smartphone app company, Q-Tec is a post-production company, and Contents Seed and Tora no Ana run merchandising franchises. They help with the continued success of the anime through the creation of merchandise and tie-in apps, which then helps bring in revenue to help create another season of the anime.
It’s all part of the wonderful anime cycle of life. And though that cycle can occasionally lead to failure, it just makes room for even more anime productions to grow and thrive. There’s even an anime about an anime production company and their committee! But what do you think about anime production committees? Are they a viable way of producing anime, or do you believe they’re skewed towards anime that can only be produced with the backing of a large company? What anime’s do you want to see produced? Let us know on Twitter!
Source: KonifarPod, Sakuga Blog, Reddit
