(More than) a fistful of DVDs

There was a point in the hazy past where it was joked that after a night catching up after an event, if everyone in the industry there got in the same taxi and something happened to it…the industry would be in a sticky spot. OK so not that much has happened to change that really nowadays – just the context for everyone getting together has changed.

A roll off from last week if you will – but now a new problem is facing the industry and to many it may not only bamboozle but seem downright ironic. The UK anime industry may be on track to repeat the mistakes of the past by almost fueling its own demise by over stuffing the market if it isn’t careful.

You would think a larger number of DVDs coming out would be good news – but as always sadly that isn’t really the case. With so many titles coming out – ranging from the fantastic to the weird fans are now spoilt for choice. Therefore those buying anime no longer have a choice between Title Y or Title Z – they really do have upwards of 5-10 choices per month, often not including new series hitting the market more frequently now! One company in the coming month has 3 new releases on the same day, which most people can see – will give a bit of a punch to sales to say the least.

If this were France, Germany or the US I’d push out as far to say as it wouldn’t really be an issue – given larger numbers of purchasers for the quality titles at least you can rest assured each one would receive a fair, if not excellent, selling. However for the UK now it’s increasingly becoming a kind of stepping stone game to make sure nobody falls into the water losing great numbers of sales on their new releases. You may well have noticed at least one company taking drastic steps in an attempt to combat this – with their titles stretching into the hazy distance of 2009 now for a 6 volume series to finish!

A sign fans are all but used to by now it seems, one potential solution to an excessive number of releases…

Arguably this is the wrong way to deal with it but in the end that comes down to marketing strategies though so depends who you ask! One thing is for sure, the amount of volumes coming out each month steadily increases each year. That makes it incredibly simple – either new fans who are willing to pay for their anime fix will step up and support the industry…or a number of things could happen to try and stem any losses prolific releasing may cause.

I’m hardly one to shy away from doom and gloom here but it’s a situation I genuinely feel for one reason or another the industry can and will avoid. Yes, I know, not so fun when it’s not the end of the world or dramatic! The underlying interesting point is how will it happen and also what will be the driving factor? Licensing wise people are leaping into bed with one another so quickly you’d assume we’d swapped scenes for the New York Mayor’s office (up until recently anyway)! So it may be that there’s just a drought of licenses for some and the rest work together to space titles out – or the results could be nastier.

Either way – a total meltdown of the industry due to excess of DVDs is at least hopefully something that will not go down on the tombstone of the UK anime industry. Not this time anyway, although how many health warnings from its doctor it will need before it vows to change is a different question…

Another delayed post, another apology! Only another 2 weeks of this to go I promise…