Detailed introduction to the Japanese cartoon industry 2

Sense of Japanese cartoon industry investigation

Shanghai Zhangjiang Culture, Science and Technology Creative Industry Development Co. In order to learn from Japan's advanced experience in developing animation industry and to clear up the idea of developing animation industry in "Shanghai Culture, Science and Technology Creative Industry Base" (hereinafter referred to as "the Base"), Mr. Lu Fangzhou, Deputy General Manager of Zhangjiang Group, led a 10-member delegation of the Japanese animation industry, consisting of personnel from the Zhangjiang Group, Wenhui Xinmin Joint Newspaper Group, Zhangjiang Culture, Science and Technology Creative Industry Development Co. During the 11 days in Japan, the delegation visited "2005 Tokyo International Comic and Animation Exhibition", visited Japan Animation Association, publishing houses, animation/game production companies, derivative product developers and other related enterprises***13 customers, and in the last few days of the investigation, the delegation also visited Tokyo Disneyland and Aichi Expo. World Expo.

Tokyo International Anime Expo 2005 brings together all of Japan's animation industry, where all of the latest animation TV and movies are exposed first, with 197 exhibitors, including animation production companies, broadcast TV stations, copyright companies, animation-related product manufacturers and auxiliary industry, animation colleges/universities, etc. It can be said to be the most important event in the whole of Japan, and it is a great opportunity for the whole of Japan's animation industry to meet. Among them were animation production companies, broadcasting and TV stations, copyright companies, manufacturers of animation-related products and auxiliary industries, animation colleges/universities, and so on. Through the two-day exhibition on April 2 and 3, the delegation had a macro and intuitive understanding of the mature development of the Japanese animation industry.

The 13 enterprises visited later also covered all aspects of the animation industry chain, which pushed the delegation's understanding and knowledge of the Japanese animation industry to a deeper level.

General characteristics of the development of Japan's animation industry

1. Highly developed animation industry

After more than 50 years of development, today's Japanese animation industry has reached a scale of 3 trillion yen per year, with a complete industry chain created by freelancers, individual studios, publishing houses, TV stations, animation production companies, industry associations, toy developers, game developers, and educational institutions. The complete industry chain created by freelance publishers, individual studios, TV stations, animation production companies, industry associations, toy developers, game developers, educational institutions and each other covers a wide range of fields such as comic book publishing, animation, TV and movie production, derivatives development, video game development, vocational education, and value-added cell phone services.

In Japan, the circulation of manga magazines and one-shot books accounts for 45% of the total circulation of magazines and books, and covers a wide range of subjects such as science fiction, adventure, politics, economics, anecdotes, romance, sports, history, science, religion, humor, fiction, and documentary reportage.

There are about 80 animated films released in movie theaters in a year, and about 75 animated films (episodes) broadcasted by TV stations every week, about 3900 animated films (episodes) in a year; moreover, Japanese animated films occupy an important share of the international market, with 60% of animated films broadcasted globally coming from Japan, and 80% of this proportion reached in Europe.

2. The age range of animation consumers is large, and the market is highly segmented

During the 11 days in Japan, we y felt that this is a country where all the people read cartoons. Whether it's children going to school, commuters taking the subway in the morning and evening, or even truck drivers waiting for the red light, all of them are reading comics. In convenience stores, the most eye-catching items are the colorful manga magazines and books. The newly launched 3G cell phone platform for downloading manga is also highly sought after and anticipated by the market. All of this is enough to reflect the wide range of consumer groups in the Japanese animation industry.

But this does not mean that a comic book in Japan can be suitable for both young and old, on the contrary, the market segmentation of Japanese animation industry is very high. Not to mention the fact that there are different age groups, even manga magazines for teenagers are divided into boys' and girls' editions.

At the same time, the Japanese anime industry has become an important carrier of pornographic and violent culture, not to mention restricted works, even in works without restrictions, pornographic and violent elements can be found everywhere. This is also the result of excessive competition in the Japanese animation industry, a saturated market, and a lack of government intervention.

3. A complete and mature copyright-based animation industry chain

The traditional Japanese animation industry chain is illustrated as follows:

The core of this industry chain is the creative intellectual property rights, or copyright, which exists in different forms in different links of the industry chain, and is given different values while being exploited to different degrees.

First stage: magazine serialization

This is the stage of copyright formation. No matter how good a comic work is, it has no market value before it is published, and the reason why magazine serialization can become the front-end of the industry chain is that it has a lower barrier to entry. After the serialization and publication, a manga work is endowed with copyright value. At this stage, the value of copyright is still relatively low.

Stage 2: Single-volume publishing

This is the stage where the value of copyright continues to develop. There are many manga magazines in Japan, and the number of works that are serialized is hard to count. However, only a small number of these works can be released in the form of a single volume, and only those works that have been recognized and sought after by readers and have been selected by the market can be released as a single volume. At this stage, the value of copyrights increased, and the intangible assets of the cartoonists themselves began to have a market value.

Stage 3: TV animation production and broadcasting

This is the stage where the copyright value is greatly increased. As the most powerful form of mass media nowadays, the influence of TV is incomparable to that of paper media, and the fact that a work has been made into a TV cartoon means that its copyright value has been increased by leaps and bounds; at the same time, the high production cost and long cost recovery cycle of TV cartoons have also greatly increased the market risk. Therefore, the transformation from "comic" to "animation" is essentially a process of market screening of works, and only works proven to be truly outstanding by the market will be produced into animated TV programs. At this stage, the value of copyright reaches its peak.

Stage 4: Derivative Development

Unlike the previous stages of filtered advancement, going from TV animation to derivative development is almost a foregone conclusion. Because of the high cost of television animated films, the television station to acquire the price of broadcasting can only recover 60% -70% of the cost, derivative development is an indispensable way to recover costs and achieve profitability. At this stage, the value of copyright is being developed in multiple forms and ways to be released.

With the continuous development and maturity of the Japanese animation industry, a new industry chain model has emerged in the modern Japanese animation industry.

The diagram is as follows:

The several links of the industrial chain no longer develop in a linear order, but show a diversified development. Publishers no longer dominate the front end of the industrial development, any link in the chain can act as the front end, and then into the radioactive development. For example, the world-famous "Pikachu" is first a video game, followed by a comic strip; Tecmo's many game products have also been adapted into TV and movie productions; and Bandai's "Dim Sum Panda", which was designed specifically for the Chinese market, even started from a derivative product. Bandai's "Dim Sum Panda" designed for the Chinese market even started as a derivative product, and then developed anime works to match the sales of dim sum. In this new industry chain, the core of the flow is still copyright, but the process of copyright value formation is no longer purely dependent on the publisher, but as the only means of mass communication, the broadcasting of animated films on TV still plays an important role in enhancing the value of copyright.

The very mature Japanese animation industry model is still evolving and changing, and the development of 3G cell phone technology will become one of the important driving forces of this change. In Japan, there are technologies that allow cell phones to download comics to browse, download the comics on the cell phone is basically similar to the print publication of the comics, but according to the characteristics of the cell phone to add a simple sound and vibration effects, it can be said that the boundary between the comics and animation in a cartoon of a new form of comics. Currently, there are 80 million cellular phones in Japan, all of which are 3G phones, but only 1 million of them support manga downloads, and it is expected that the number will reach 10-20 million next year. It is believed that in the near future, cell phone value-added services will become an important part of the Japanese animation industry chain.

4. Let the market discover and cultivate the mechanism of talents

Looking at the industry chain of the modern animation industry, the originality is the soul of the copyright value, and each link of the industry chain is just to carry out various forms of expression and commercial development of the originality, and the source of originality is the talents.

During our visit, we found that the mechanism of discovering and cultivating original talents in the Japanese animation industry is very worthy of our reference and study. With many domestic institutions scrambling to start animation cartoon professional situation, the Japanese animation industry has such a **** knowledge: cartoonists are not trained out of school, look at today's famous Japanese cartoonist's curriculum vitae, there is no one is graduated from the college animation program. In the animation industry is so developed in Japan, animation creation training is actually mainly vocational training institutions, academic education is the emergence of the last few years, and in the training of talents in the role of the publisher is far from the role of the publisher.

In Japan, the top three publishers engaged in the publication of comics for the Jiji Press, elementary school museums and Kodansha, the largest circulation of comics magazine "Junior JUMP" (Jiji Press) average circulation of 3 million copies, the price of only 250 yen, the price of this price in Japan and two bottles of mineral water on the sale price. The manga business has long been an important business section and source of income for Japan's leading publishing houses. Founded in 1922, the elementary school library, is Japan's largest comprehensive publishing house, the average annual sales of 160 billion yen, accounting for 8% of the total sales of the Japanese publishing industry, ranking in the top 3. Since 1959, when Shogakukan founded the juvenile manga magazine Junior SUNDAY, it has published children's manga, girls' manga, and youth/adult manga magazines, which have now reached 19 titles, and the annual sales volume of manga one-shots has reached as high as 100 million copies, of which many manga works such as Doraemon, Detective Conan, and Chaos Horse 1/2, etc., have been turned into animated films, which have been well received both domestically and internationally.

The developed manga print publishing industry has assumed an important role in discovering and cultivating professional talents while cultivating consumer groups for the entire Japanese animation industry. In Japan, the growth course of a cartoonist is roughly like this: free creation or entering the studio of a famous cartoonist to work at a low level to accumulate experience, then submitting articles to cartoon magazines or participating in various cartoon competitions to strive for the publication of serialized works in cartoon magazines, and in the process of serialization, getting further training and guidance from the editor of the publishing house, and then growing into a real cartoonist. The reason why publishers can play such an important role in talent discovery and cultivation lies in the fact that they provide a low-threshold channel for young creators to give their creative ideas copyright value and cultivate the copyright value according to the market response.

5. Benefit*** Enjoyment and Risk*** Sharing Mechanism for Producing TV Animation Films

As mentioned earlier, the link of TV animation films plays an important role in the industry chain to enhance the value of copyrights, but the high cost and long cost recovery cycle also greatly increase the risk. In today's Japan, the average production cost of TV cartoons for 500,000 yen / minute, to an average of 22 minutes per episode, the cost of an episode of cartoons for an average of 11 million yen, while the TV station's acquisition price but at most can only realize 60% -70% of the cost recovery: in the price of the highest price of 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. of the prime-time broadcast is only an average of 8 million yen / episode On the other hand, the TV station's purchase price can only realize 60%-70% cost recovery at most: the average purchase price is only 8 million yen/episode for prime time broadcasting from 7:00pm to 8:00pm when the price is the highest, and the purchase price is usually halved or even free for broadcasting in the morning or late at night when it is closed. The rest of the cost recovery depends on the development of derivative products and sales to overseas markets.

Such a high level of risk is not conducive to the development of the industry if it is borne by the animation company alone, and in Japan we have seen a mechanism whereby the animation company, the developer of the spin-off product, and the TV station **** the risk.

Derivative product developers share the risk by intervening in advance. From the traditional animation industry chain model, derivative product developers are waiting for the copyright value to be raised, that is, after the TV animation film broadcast before intervening in the industry chain, but in practice, derivative product developers often take early intervention, in the copyright value has not been raised before the advance payment of derivative product development authorization, and even become one of the investors in the production of animated TV films. This kind of early intervention makes the derivative product developers get the development authorization at a lower price at the same time, but also helps the TV animation producer to share the risk. In recent years, the Japanese animation industry, derivative product developers directly develop original products, as the front end of the industry chain of examples is not uncommon.

The mechanism of broadcasting animated films on Japanese TV stations is also fully adapted to the needs of the whole industry chain. Unlike the usual daily episodes in China, Japanese TV stations usually broadcast animated films on a weekly basis, and the broadcasting cycle of a work is usually yearly, i.e. 52 episodes, and the TV station usually signs a broadcasting contract with the production company for 26 episodes. There are two main advantages of this broadcasting method: the first advantage is that it gives the TV station and the production company room to make adjustments according to the market response. The TV station's broadcasting time slot for an animation is dynamically adjusted, and a work with lower-than-expected market response may be adjusted to a worse time slot or even not renewed after the six-month contract is over, while a work that is gradually accepted by the market may be adjusted to a better time slot; and the production company usually adopts the method of producing while broadcasting, with the basic unit of 13 episodes, that is, one season, so that the production company can adjust the time slot according to the market's response and demand. This allows the production company to make dynamic adjustments to its production guidelines based on market response and demand. Another advantage is that by lengthening the broadcasting cycle of a production, the market impact and the market value and lifespan of derivative products are increased. As mentioned earlier, the development of derivative products is an important way for TV animation to recover costs and realize profitability. In this sense, TV animation can be said to be an advertisement for derivative products, and the difference between the effect of one year of advertisement broadcasting and two months of advertisement broadcasting is self-evident.

6. Japan's animation industry is facing a bottleneck

After more than 50 years of development, Japan's animation industry has reached a bottleneck in the development of a highly developed at the same time, the bottleneck is manifested in the production of the excess power and the convergence of the original subject matter of the same two aspects, in other words, today's Japan's animation industry needs to go out and also needs to be brought in.

In the face of excessive competition in the domestic market, Japanese animation companies have focused on developing overseas markets. For example, Japanese toy development giant Bandai (Bandai) 79% of the existing business from the local market, and the future goal is to increase the overseas market share of the company's business to 50%.

In the process of developing overseas markets, due to the face of policy barriers, Japanese companies can not enter the cultural background is closer to the market potential is more enormous in China, but in Europe and the United States market has achieved greater results. Taking Bandai as an example, among the 21% of the company's total business in overseas markets, the United States accounted for 10%, Europe accounted for 8%, and only 3% in Asia. We learned from the Animation Association of Japan (AJA), the same information, a number of AJA member companies have tried to cooperate with China, but so far there has not been a successful case. The reason for the lack of success is not only the high wall of policy, but also the different understanding of the animation industry, resulting in constant friction between the two sides of the cooperation between China and Japan, as well as the imperfect protection of intellectual property rights in the country, making the piracy of the proliferation of piracy.

Although the Japanese animation market is highly competitive, it is not without space. Last year, the first Korean animated film was broadcast in Japan, which is a strong indication that the Japanese market is open to fresh ideas and themes from overseas. Traditional Chinese culture has always been linked to Japanese culture, and if it can be expressed in modern animation language, it is not impossible for Chinese themes and works to enter the Japanese market.

In comparison with Japan's animation industry, China's animation industry is facing the disadvantages of the status quo

1. The industry chain is incomplete

At present, most of China's animation industry is in the periphery of the animation industry chain, mainly in the processing and production. These animation production companies, toy processing factories, etc. are still engaged in order-based, labor-intensive work, does not produce copyright value, and therefore can not get a high economic return, but also can not really promote the development of China's animation industry.

The local original attempts often do not respect the law of industrial development, and artificially cut off the industrial chain. Domestic original often skipped the graphic publication of cartoon links, directly into the production of television animation, works without any market foundation, more difficult to target the real needs of the market, resulting in poor market response, the value of the copyright is reduced, and the derivatives of the development can not be talked about.

2. The mechanism of discovering and cultivating talents is not perfect

As the animation industry is getting more and more attention in our country, many colleges and universities across the country have set up animation majors, which of course will provide talents for the development of China's animation industry, but relying on the educational institutions to discover and cultivate talents is far from being enough.

As mentioned earlier, from the experience of Japan's animation industry development, cartoonists are not trained by schools, and in terms of discovering and cultivating talents, comic magazines play an indispensable role. On the contrary, our country, comic magazines do not play a due role in this regard, and most of the poor management. To summarize, there are three reasons:

1) Relatively low level of editing

In Japan, the core competitiveness of a successful manga magazine is the ability of the editor. A good editor not only has the discerning eye to spot good talent and good works, but also can offer valuable advice to manga writers based on his or her rich experience in the field, prompting a young manga writer to grow and turn a brilliant but immature idea into a work with a good market response. A good manga editor is not trained in a school, but rather is trained by "passing on, helping, and leading" in the style of masters and apprentices. Japan's Shinchosha was founded more than 100 years ago, the oldest publishing house in Japan began to get involved in comic book publishing only five years ago, and now the revenue from the comic book business has accounted for 10% of the company's revenue. The fact that the company has been able to achieve good results in the manga industry so quickly is due to the fact that they have been able to poach senior manga editors from other publishers five years ago at great expense. This shows that the experience and level of the editor is very important to the success of a comic magazine.

2) Increased costs due to poor distribution channels

3) Insufficient financial strength

3. High-risk, low-reward TV cartoon production

Unlike the Japanese mechanism of producing animated cartoons while broadcasting them, according to the regulations of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), the production of an animated cartoon has to be completed before it can be approved by the SARFT and a license can be applied for broadcast. In other words, an animated film can only be approved by the SARFT for a broadcasting license after the production is completed. In other words, there is no guarantee that an animated film can be broadcast before it is completed, which results in the entire risk being borne by the producer of the animated film alone.

The price of the acquisition of animated cartoons by our TV stations is even lower, even the highest price of CCTV and SMG on the acquisition of domestic animated cartoons is less than 3,000 yuan / episode, the acquisition price of county-level TV stations is even less than 1,000 FLASH pretends to be animation, to depress the cost.

4. Ineffective Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

In the contact with Japanese animation enterprises, we learned that although the Japanese animation industry is salivating over the Chinese market, it is often deterred by the rampant piracy problem. The impact of piracy on the animation industry, which is centered on the value of copyrights, can be said to be fatal. When the core of the industry chain loses its value, the industry chain naturally ceases to exist.

Bleak outlook for Japan's animation industry

Japanese cartoons used to be always ridiculed as a novelty culture that could only attract children and cartoon fans in the West. But in recent years, the anime market has found a wider audience and become one of Japan's most valuable exports. According to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, sales of Japanese cartoons in the United States amounted to $4.36 billion in 2002, more than three times the value of Japanese steel products imported into the United States.

But just as the animation industry seems to have entered a golden age, Japanese animation producers, government officials and analysts are warning that the industry's long-term prospects are bleak. Japan's young people no longer want to work in animation because of meager pay and poor working conditions. Meanwhile, as demand for anime has soared, there are fears that production quality has declined.

If an anime film is a hit, the profits are shared by the production committee that invested in the film's production, including television stations, advertising agencies and other organizations, while the studio that created the film is often excluded from that committee.

"Also, the biggest structural problem in the Japanese anime industry is that it is not the same company that produces anime and invests in the production of anime," said Studio Ghibli's Mr. Suzuki, adding, "Studio Ghibli has been successful mainly because we invest in our own productions and do not The main reason Studio Ghibli is successful is that we invest in our own productions and don't give up any rights to these self-made works," he says. Many smaller production companies either do not have the financial resources to make such investments or do not have the means to raise funds independently. As a result, as an official from the METI's Media and Content Industry Bureau puts it, "animation workers are having trouble surviving financially. It has become a big problem."

Another trend has heightened concerns about Japan's animation industry: the highly labor-intensive work is going to low-cost Asian countries such as China and the Philippines. An estimated 70 percent of Japan's animation production business has already gone to other parts of Asia, and there are warnings that Japan's animation industry is being gutted.

Today, the Japanese government has responded with measures aimed at helping anime creators get decent pay. Private investors have also emerged to enable anime companies to fund themselves.

Teens like Japanese animation Beijing animation industry slowed down a few beat

One progress will be the door, we saw a row of cartoon characters without a face cardboard standing, from time to time there are boys and girls rushed over, "lending" them a youthful face, next to the camera! "Click" ringing straight ...... This is yesterday's reporter in the seventh Beijing animation conference to see the scene. The conference since July 29th opening, a four-day.

■Teens: like Japanese anime

In the Agricultural Exhibition Center of the General Assembly site, the reporter met a Yang sophomore girl, an English major, she especially like the anime convention in the national Cosplay star main show. The reporter found that the star show attracted a lot of teenagers, but the organizers chose no domestic works of anime, is Japan's "Naruto", "Fruits Basket" and "Inuyasha" and so on. And when interviewed, young people, the main force attending the anime fair, overwhelmingly said they liked Japanese anime works, with Yang saying Japanese anime works appealed to her in terms of storyline and drawing style. Another senior girl surnamed Liu agreed with her that Japanese anime works are "well-drawn and have good plots".

■Organizers: Beijing's animation industry is lagging behind

The seventh animation conference was a bustling scene, but it did not make the organizers of the representative of the Beijing Cartoon editor-in-chief Ms. Yan Baohua happy. "Beijing, as the cultural center of the country, is slower than Shanghai, Guangzhou and Changsha in the development of the animation industry." Witnessed the development of China's animation ten years, she is worried.

Not long ago, the General Administration of Press and Publication decided to build a network game animation industry development base in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, with the industrial base as the basis for radiation in neighboring areas, driving the development of regional industries, promoting talent training, technological innovation and product development, so that China's network game publishing industry bigger and stronger. But in recent years, the development of Beijing's animation industry has not been much to write home about.

The development of the national animation industry lags behind Europe, the United States and Japan by a large margin, and in 2004, the global output value of games and animation-related derivatives was more than 500 billion U.S. dollars. It is understood that the annual output value of Britain's digital entertainment industry accounts for 7.9% of GDP, becoming the country's first major industry. This year, the box office and DVD revenues of Japanese animation in the world will reach 5.2 billion U.S. dollars. It is reported that the export value of Japanese animation products is much higher than that of steel exports. According to the China Animation Association, the total output value of China's animation industry in 2004 was only 11.7 billion yuan. 2005, China's animation industry is estimated to have an output value of 18 billion yuan.

■Appeal: policy support is very important

Industry insiders pointed out that China's animation industry is underdeveloped in four aspects: lack of originality, as a popular art to promote to the public's life has not been successful, the animation is still just a "niche" art; social awareness of the impact of the big, not only the old! The influence of social consciousness is large, not only the old animation as an educational tool, but also limited to the creation of young people; piracy is serious, which affects the enthusiasm of creation; the competition mechanism is imperfect, and the ability of market action is large. To summarize in one sentence, China's animation industry has "first-rate drawing skills, second-rate storytelling, and third-rate action capabilities." Based on this, from July 29, "China's original animation industry development seminar", the reporter learned that the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Press and Publication led by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio and Television Bureau is discussing the "Beijing Municipal 2005-2008 animation game industry base construction program.

Yan Baohua hopes that Beijing in China's animation industry to play a "lead, demonstration" role. To realize this, government support is essential. It is understood that China's animation talent gap is large, last year there were media reports that "China's animation talent shortage of 150,000 people". To reverse this situation, government departments should give the animation industry policy, funding and talent training and other aspects of support.

Japan's animation industry: exports exceeded the steel animated film penetration of the world

May Golden Week, Tokyo, large and small movie theaters are busy: Hibiya cinema wall replaced the new American blockbuster "Breed 3" ads, while some small theaters near the supermarket, "the conspiracy of the horizontal line" (animated film "Conan, the famous detective" series of the latest episode) has recruited a lot of primary school students. Many elementary school students.

On the light rail to the city center, most passengers are reading something besides texting, mostly manga. At the station's kiosk, the manga is organized by gender and age, so people can always find the manga that suits them best.

Japan has been known as the "Kingdom of Animation", is the world's largest animation production and exporting countries, the current global broadcast of animation works in more than 60% from Japan, in Europe this proportion is higher, reaching more than 80%. In Japan, a variety of cultural industries, in the cinema, television broadcasting all kinds of animation programs are particularly eye-catching, a variety of animation characters filled with the street, has long exceeded the scope of magazines and television, penetrating into all corners of Japanese society.

Seeing that Hollywood movies can penetrate the world more and more widely than American products, Japan has also begun to pursue their position in international culture, and anime is highly favored by the Japanese government.

The animation industry provides a new bright spot for Japan's economic development

Japanese nationals are very fond of comics, and the comic culture is very developed. According to a survey by the Mitsubishi Research Institute in Japan, 87% of the people in Japan like comics, and 84% of the people have items related to the image of comics characters. There are more than 430 animation production companies in Japan***, with a number of international top-level manga masters and animation directors as well as a large number of dedicated animation drawers working on the front line. The popularization and development of television and network media, and the continuous improvement of the means of communication have laid a good foundation for the development and growth of Japan's animation market, so that the Japanese animation works in the cultural market has become more and more influential and popular all over the world.

Now Japan's most famous animation writer Hayao Miyazaki, with his extraordinary talent to create a series of classic works such as "Valley of the Wind", "City in the Sky", "Princess of the Ghost", "Princess of the Ghost" created by the box office record, it is far more than the U.S. film "Alien E.T.". The film's movie soundtrack CD also set a new record in the history of CD releases. In Japan today, box office receipts from animated films account for more than one-third of the total box office receipts of the Japanese film industry, and the number of animated films in Japan's exported films greatly exceeds the number of films in general.

At present, Japan's animation industry's annual turnover reached 230 trillion yen, has become Japan's third largest industry, broadly speaking, the animation industry has accounted for more than ten percent of Japan's GDP (gross domestic product). According to the data released by the Japan External Trade Organization, the total income of Japanese animation films and related products sold to the United States in 2003 amounted to US$4.359 billion, which is four times the total income of steel exported from Japan to the United States. Cartoons, animation, books, audio-visual products and licensed peripheral products have formed a whole set of "industrial chain" in Japan, promoting the development of the Japanese economy. The famous new system of economists, Aoki Masahiko that Japan is in the Meiji Restoration since another great historical turn, the result is the emergence of Japan's animation, entertainment, and a string of more than the automobile industry to make money industry.

In recent years, the world has also become increasingly concerned about the rise of Japan's cultural industries. Time magazine has published a cover article arguing that Japan is moving from a product-manufacturing powerhouse to a cultural industry exporting powerhouse. When the rest of the world's economies will be a large number of computer technology used in the communications industry, Japan is applied to the manufacture of new cultural products, this side of the spillover slanting out of the trend of the Japanese society up and down the endorsement and the pursuit of the Aoki Masahiko that Japan is using the rise of the new culture industry to try a progressive economic transformation.

Anime brings three major business opportunities

For a long time, Japan has been mainly from the following three aspects of the development and development of the animation industry and animation-related markets.

The first is to vigorously create the broadcasting market of animation films. According to the survey data released by the Japanese authorities, in 2004, about 81 anime films were screened in domestic cinemas, and more than 80 episodes of anime programs were broadcasted by Japanese TV stations every week, and nearly 4000 episodes of anime programs were broadcasted in a year.

The recently released survey data from the Japan Digital Content Association (JDCA) shows that in 2003 (April 2003 to March 2004), Japan's anime market sales (total revenue from anime movie box office, anime movies, and anime TV tapes, TV specialty channels, etc.) amounted to 373.9 billion yen, up 160.4 billion yen over the 213.5 billion yen in 2002, a 75.4 billion yen increase. The total revenue of the Japanese movie industry in the same year amounted to 373.9 billion yen, up 160.4 billion yen from 213.5 billion yen in FY2002, an increase of over 75.1%. In contrast, the revenue of the Japanese movie industry in the same year was only more than 200 billion yen.

Secondly, it is to actively create the market of animation derivatives, and vigorously carry out secondary development and utilization of animation works to enhance the added value of animation works. The characters, stationery, toys, game software and clothing derived from animated cartoons have formed a huge "animation industry chain" around the world. The animated TV series "Mechwarrior" is an example. Japan's largest toy maker Bandai company's total annual sales, about 15% to 17% of the share is the sales revenue of robot toys.

The findings of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) show that the size of Japan's domestic market related to anime has exceeded 2 trillion yen. The development of anime and manga has led to the development of related industries such as music, publishing, advertising, theme parks and tourism, and is constantly creating new business opportunities.

Third, vigorously develop overseas markets, accelerate the Japanese animation film to the world. Japanese animation producers attach great importance to the development of overseas markets. Japan in 1963 broadcast the first animated television series "Iron Arm Astro Boy" eight months after it was exported to the North American market. From the 1970s onwards, Japanese animation producers again turned their attention to Asian countries. Japanese cartoons such as "Ichigo" and "Robot Cat" became household names in China, and in the late 1970s, the Japanese cartoon "Gundam Warrior" began to be broadcast on French television, successfully landing in the European market. Since then, Japanese animation films began to dominate the world animation market. Some were even exported to more than 70 countries to broadcast.

The government vigorously support the cause of animation

In order to expand the anime film in the international market, accelerate and increase the dissemination of Japanese culture overseas and influence, the Japanese government as well as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government are in the implementation of Japan's animation industry to support and foster the policy. The Japanese government has not only regarded anime as an important export industry, but also cultivated it as an independent culture