Anime is a hot commodity in the U.S., right? Sure it is. At least that’s what the media has been telling us. If we need further proof, we have just been given 1 billion+ reasons by way of Sony’s deal with Crunchybase.
If you haven’t heard the news yet, Sony proposed taking over Crunchybase in 2020. They have finally completed the deal at a cost of $1.175 billion. Yes, you read that number correctly. Sony paid more than $1 billion for a dedicated anime streaming platform.
Was it worth it? That’s for Sony to decide. But according to Yahoo! Finance, Crunchyroll currently boasts some 120 million users in more than 200 countries. If each one of those users spends just $15 on Crunchyroll streaming within the next year, total revenues will easily exceed what Sony paid for the platform.
Not a New Medium
It is difficult to truly wrap one’s brain around just how popular anime is. Making its meteoric rise more impressive is the fact that it has withstood the test of time. Despite what you might believe, anime is by no means a recent phenomenon. It is actually quite old.
Anime’s roots date back to turn-of-the-20th-century Japan. The first commercial Japanese animations were released somewhere between 1915 and 1920. They bore very little resemblance to what is considered modern anime. That didn’t come about until the late 1930s and early 40s.
What eventually became modern anime was Japan’s answer to Disney animation. Japanese animators appreciated what Disney was doing technologically, but they didn’t like all the sappy storylines and happy endings. They also didn’t like the distorted features of Western animated characters. They wanted their characters and stories to reflect reality more accurately
Everybody Loves Anime
Anime made it to the U.S. in earnest in the 1970s. However, it didn’t catch on as quickly as American media companies wanted it to. Twenty years later, things started to change. Anime TV series and films began striking a chord with the Gen Y demographic. That is when anime really took off. Now everybody loves it.
Anime is so popular that it seems like everyone is trying to get in on the act. The Sony deal is but one example. Content distributors are no longer satisfied with feature-length films and series made for cable TV. Now they want to dominate the streaming market. Yet it doesn’t end there.
Marketers representing companies that have nothing to do with anime or Japanese artwork are still leaning on the genre for advertising purposes. At the time this post was written, Taco Bell was in the midst of a new marketing campaign targeting millennials and Gen Z with anime commercials.
Even apparel brands are getting in on the act. Umai Clothing is but one example. They sell T-shirts, hoodies, and hats decorated with original anime artwork. They even sell anime phone cases and posters. They are not alone, either. Anime-focused brands are popping up everywhere. Even more traditional brands are adding anime lines to their inventories.
A Risk Worth Taking
The Sony deal represents 1 billion+ ways to know that anime is a hot commodity right now. They spent a lot of money to acquire Crunchybase, and that’s after spending $149 million to purchase Funimation in 2017. They obviously think they can make a tremendous amount of money from anime.
To them, spending in excess of $1 billion is a risk worth taking. They probably would not have spent that much if they seriously doubted their ability to make profit. So yes, the deal is pretty solid proof of just how popular anime is.
