It's easy to describe the way the projected to make tens of billions in the next decade.

However, tackling the industry's changes isn't something to be taken lightly. The uptick in demand has urged the Japanese government to conduct an inquiry into work conditions, and even the UN is concerned about the anime industry. Many are also concerned about the market shifting toward more profitable enterprises as anime becomes a domain controlled by multinational conglomerates. But a little better concealed are also examples of a resistance, however tenuous and marginal, to those changes—which just might project a more optimistic future for anime.

OK, Anime Is Changing: What's The Big Picture?

Changes In Consumption And Audience Impact The Industry As A Whole

Two events in the last several years have precipitated major industry shifts: the COVID-19 pandemic and streaming availability. Stay-at-home orders and the suspension of institutional obligations like university led to a lot of people picking up existing anime offerings on streaming services like Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Hulu. Growth in anime interest also led to major services taking anime more seriously.

Anime has developed into a medium that is marketed to casual viewers of a wider demographic. In the process, services like Netflix have taken over specialist services like Crunchyroll. By extension, marketing has come to emphasize casual viewers over enthusiasts; at the same time, streaming services are putting more effort into making enthusiasts out of casual anime fans. This runs in tandem with two other developments.

First: in of release format, it has emphasized a shift away from weekly releases (based around the rigid structure of television schedules) toward seasonal block releases, emphasizing adherence to self-contained arcs and faithful adaptation. While this might sound like a good thing, it's important to that series like Naruto are identified with and beloved, in part, for their filler.

Second: in of the international politics of anime, Asian companies are trying to find inroads into Western anime markets. Meanwhile, Western companies are trying to take advantage of the boom by developing anime based off homegrown IP: think the Rick and Morty anime. The international field of anime is changing as the Western market becomes a predominant force in the anime industry.

Anime Changes Are Unintuitively Promising For The Industry's Creativity

Weirdly Enough, Profit Might Drive Some Really Cool Ideas

At the heart of all of this, there's one easy equation: profit equals revenue minus cost. While creatives and fans might devote their heart and soul to animanga, there's no skirting around the fact that the profit function yields a number with a plus or minus sign. Maximization of profit is the name of the game: deciding what gets made, on what timetable, by whom, and for whom.

This is nothing new, but anime's boom has taken it to its logical extremes. Intuition might say that anime's growth would blunt creativity or encourage "cash grabs". However, the reality is that artistic value was never a part of the equation. One of the most beloved, endlessly analyzed, philosophically dense anime of all time, Cowboy Bebop, exists to market spaceship toys long since taken off the market. "Cash grabs" is just a moralization of what companies do by design: grab for cash. Claiming the sanctity of a pure, unencumbered-by-profit artistry rests in the balance actually hurts more than it helps.

Claiming the sanctity of a pure, unencumbered-by-profit artistry rests in the balance actually hurts more than it helps.

The received wisdom has been that anime exists for marketing. Historically, that's because the media/merchandise they market are known quantities from studios working with limited capital pools. For better or worse, the greater capital reserve of today's anime industry makes it possible to take bigger risks with original ideas.

There are incentives to do so, too. Consider Dandadan, which Crunchyroll seemingly avoided marketing due to their inability to procure an exclusivity contract. On the one hand, this move is a petty reaction to a lack of exclusivity over existing IP; however, it also speaks to a need for companies to produce new, popular IP to call their own.

The Unfortunate Side Of The Anime Boom Brings Some Troubling Questions

Overwork In Anime Isn't New, It's Just Finally Being Challenged

Recent original efforts like Zenshu (MAPPA) show that desire for solid original franchises. Being about an animator who dies from severe overwork, it also illuminates another very real, very well-known material effect: the human cost of the anime boom. Recent deaths like Berserk mangaka Kentaro Miura or the negative press around MAPPA's excruciating work regimen are the lens through which a much broader problem is being identified.

While there's a stereotype that Japanese work culture is vicious, the problem is particularly concentrated in certain industries. In the animanga industy's case, there's something understated: there was a time when anime was made on very limited budgets, with very constrained timetables, and with even fewer hands on deck than the present labor shortage in the anime industry would indicate. Practices which existed to for a dearth of time, money, and (consequently) manpower are now being carried over.

The anime boom has urged the industry's parasitic practices toward an event horizon where crunch is unprofitable and a primary ingredient for negative press. For example, MAPPA's culture of overwork had a quality impact on the superstar franchise Jujutsu Kaisen. The owners of popular IP are starting to realize that their work is in better hands with more ethical studios, or at the very least, studios with less on their hands. Smaller studios are being handed opportunities like Kagurabachi's hotly-anticipated adaptation because they can devote the necessary attention.

Various veteran studios are also starting to counteract crunch and overwork. The aforementioned MAPPA has been forced to acknowledge and revise their unethical work-life balance demands, while others like Studio Deen try to get ahead of the curve with necessary changes for the long-term survival of animation studios.

The conventional logic has been that animators and mangaka know what they're getting into and do so anyway out of ion. While that's true, it's evident that ion alone isn't enough to carry the industry forward—nor should it be. Long-time problems are starting to surface thanks to the new demand and its pressure on the industry.

Consumers have a delicate tightrope to walk: fans should absolutely strong stances from studios and artists, but should also be mindful of the fact that those artists generally endure their careers out of ion. Even if a certain studio has egregious practices, a political detachment from those works (however well-meaning) has the double-edge of disregarding the ion and pains of the staff behind them. Navigating this will be a central challenge as the industry changes in response to growth.

What Does The Anime Boom Signal For The Industry?

Although The Future Can't Be Predicted, It's Bright For Anime (As Of Now)

The animanga boom has brought to light many human problems in the industry. These problems are neither new nor localizable to individual "bad" firms; they're endemic to the industry's structure. It's also precisely the structure of the industry that anime's growth is changing. The growing visibility of these glaring issues might lead to the development of workers' rights protections and unionization among animators, who generally lack formal contracts. Moreover, the shift to seasonal releases might loosen up the industry's tendency toward crunch, although that's speculative at this point.

As a creative medium—to the extent to which one can detach a creative work from the circumstances of its production—anime is in better shape than ever when it comes to bold original ideas. While it's easy to assume remakes are cynical, the new capital also allows for series like Rurouni Kenshin to get a new lease on life with the resources they should have had the first time around. It's easy to doomsay whenever things start to change. However, while there are road-bumps now, the pressure for better labor conditions and the new possibilities for original content mean the years ahead are exciting for anime.