Apparently, there’s a lot of money to be made in distributing popular anime for streaming sites. First, Sony shelled out $1.2 billion of its hard-earned Kimetsu no Yaiba bucks to acquire Crunchyroll, a company that got its start as an unlicensed streamer before going legit in a way similar to Fakku. Now fans have learned that actual “Disney anime” is coming, as the company begins funding and licensing anime for its Disney+ streaming platform. Is this new development good or bad for the anime industry? Let’s find out!
Disney Licenses Anime. What Happens Next?
The news recently broke that Disney will be funding several anime productions for its Disney+ streaming service inside Japan, presumably with international streaming to follow. The titles include the upcoming Twisted Wonderland, a gothic BL-esque smartphone game popular inside Japan, as well as a Black Rock Shooter reboot. Two additional titles are Summer Time Rendering and Tatami Time Machine, a sequel to Masaaki Yuasa’s Tatami Galaxy.
This development highlights how competitive the Japanese market has become for streamed content, as major players like Amazon Prime and Netflix already compete with domestic streaming platforms like U-Next, J:COM. Hikari TV, and Tsutaya TV. Netflix seems to be especially frustrated at the difficulty in licensing anime content and has taken to making those awful live-action Netflix adaptions fans love to make fun of.
Could Disney Anime be Good for the Industry?
Although anime has become hugely popular around the world, the reality is that anime studios are usually quite impoverished, often receiving only a flat fee for their work and not generally sharing in the profits when an anime is successful. Although they’ve likely increased since this graphic was made, salaries for animators are still frightfully low. If Disney’s throwing its hat into the anime licensing ring increases the salaries and economic prospects of animators and other industry members, I’m willing to support them.
Ever since the commercial failure of Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece Castle of Cagliostro, animation has generally created under the アニメ製作委員会制度 anime seisaku iinkai seido or anime production committee system. Starting with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, anime would be made as a collaboration between several companies, who contribute money to a holding company, perform various tasks to help the anime find financial success, then take out profits if there are any.
A modern anime series might be created by a legal entity with a name like Madoka Quartet or the Hamufura Production Committee, comprised of mammoth anime IP holders like Mages or Kadokawa, smart smaller creators like Nitroplus, TV broadcasters like Tokyo MX, music companies like Pony Canyon, figure makers like Good Smile Company, plus companies to harass YouTubers with takedown notices handle advertising and international licensing like Aniplex. Because animation studios are so poor, they’re often not able to invest money into a new project and thus don’t get a slice of the pie if the show is a runaway hit like Demon Slayer. According to some sources, Makoto Shinkai might have only received $200,000 for his work on Your Name, a film that made at least $400 million.
Personally, anything that helps bring more money to animators and anime studios, hopefully alleviating the current situation, is okay in my book.
Four Things We Want Disney to Avoid
Obviously, we want any Disney-branded anime to be a proper “anime” work, based on the works of talented creators in Japan and across Asia. Fans don’t consider Disney animation and anime to exist under the same cultural umbrella, so the company should tread lightly and make sure they don’t do any harm to their own brand or to anime fandom as a whole. I’d be super happy to see Disney bring great original stories to fans — like the outstanding What if…? series — without pretending that everything that happens to be animated is “anime.”
I’d certainly hope that Disney would take a long, hard look at what Netflix has done right and wrong in its original anime efforts. For every outstanding show that earned a halo for Netflix, such as Violet Evergarden, there are bizarre shows that were less well executed, like the 2020 Japan Sinks.
While a lot of fans are certain that Disney throwing its hat into the anime licensing means massive censorship is a given, I’m pretty sure they won’t be going anywhere near fanservice-heavy titles that air on late-night TV. And that’s probably for the best, both for them and for anime as a whole.
J-List Customers React to the News!
I asked J-List’s awesome customers for their thoughts on the news that Disney had started licensing anime, and here are some of the replies I got!
“They should stay out and keep making animation based on their current IPs.”
“I don’t want Disney’s dirty hands to touch any of the anime we have today or in the future.”
“In the words of Optimus Prime, Disney must be stopped, no matter the cost.”
“I’ll wait and see. It’s not like Disney doesn’t already have experience, having handled distribution of Studio Ghibli films.”
“Disney anime could be good for one thing though… Kingdom Hearts.”
“So this is why they nuked KissAnime… Now it makes sense.”
“I’m sure Disney will approach anime and its artists with the same graceful diplomacy they’ve demonstrated with their other intellectual properties.”
“Many replies show people have short memories. Fox, Warner Bros & Cartoon Network licensing, and CENSORING anime did not bring about an end to shows with nudity, violence, and other decidedly ‘not vanilla’ content being produced or being distributed in other countries.”
“They simply don’t have the nerve to license media that isn’t family-friendly which is extremely limiting. Something like Made in Abyss which is a profound and unique series that showcases grey morality and moments of children in agony would sadly be censored.”
“So long as they don’t interfere with the process of making anime, it doesn’t really matter much. Legally watching anime is still a pain because the shows that interest you could be split between multiple streaming services. The difference now is that Disney’s on that list.”
“We’ll always have La Blue Girl…”
Thanks for reading this blog post exploring the implications of Disney anime becoming a thing. Got any other feedback on this topic? Tell us below, or on Twitter!
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