Anime production process & links with original material

[Okami]

JC Staff has no plans of continuining Index/Railgun as far as I know. Sadly.

 

But I can give you a possible reason why there won't be one.

Index's novels sold like hotcakes. And to give you some numbers.

It was the 5th best selling LN in Japan in 2010, beating popular series like Shakugan no Shana and Suzumiya Haruhi.

It was the number 1 best selling in Dengeki Bunko.

Misaka Mikoto was even voted best LN character 5 times in a row in a magazine, something never achieved by any other character, ever.

The series has also been licensed in english and it's selling worldwide and it's incredibly popular.

The New Testament LNs are one of the most popular on going LNs of nowadays. It's ranked 15 on MAL even.

 

Now what does this mean? Well why do people make anime? To make the original material more popular and thus sell more of it.

 

But the original material is already selling a lot. So why would they make an anime if the novels are already selling very well? They would most likely lose more in producing the anime because people are already buying a ton of novels so the anime would not increase their profit by much if at all.

 

Hence why there probably will not be a new Index anime for a looong time, if ever.

 

It's sad but it's reality.

 

That is a case only with short Anime (3-5min) or 1,2 eps stand alone OVA's. The cost of making a full 25min 12-24 eps Anime is too big to be used only to increase sales for original material. I have no idea where from did people get that crazy idea.

[Nosebleed]

That is a case only with short Anime (3-5min) or 1,2 eps stand alone OVA's. The cost of making a full 25min 12-24 eps Anime is too big to be used only to increase sales for original material. I have no idea where from did people get that crazy idea.

It's not a crazy idea. Anime is used to promote the source material. Sorry if this is a shocker but it's like that.

 

Of course they use it to profit themselves as well, but JC Staff wouldn't gain much in adapting Index again given that people who are interested are already way ahead and reading the LNs

 

But hey I just gave a possible explanation, not saying it's the real one, I don't know the real one after all.

[Down]

 

Well why do people make anime? To make the original material more popular and thus sell more of it.

That holds true for some (a lot of, actually) anime, but all the Index/Railgun series are 10k+ sellers (Railgun 1 is, like, top 40 best seller ever or something). They're profitable by themselves.

 

Railgun S2 was only last year. The manga is still ongoing. There was also an Index movie last year. And there's infinite material to adapt from the Index LN. Heck, we might even see an adaptation of that Accelerator spin-off manga that was talked about a few months ago.

 

I'm not saying there will be new Index/Railgun anime, but the chances aren't that slim.

 

 

That is a case only with short Anime (3-5min) or 1,2 eps stand alone OVA's. The cost of making a full 25min 12-24 eps Anime is too big to be used only to increase sales for original material. I have no idea where from did people get that crazy idea.

 

Actually, it does work that way. Most anime don't really make lots of profit by themselves, but a cheap (or even a good) adaptation can easily boost the sales of a manga/LN and make the whole process extremely profitable for the production comity.

[Nosebleed]

That holds true for some (a lot of, actually) anime, but all the Index/Railgun series are 10k+ sellers (Railgun 1 is, like, top 40 best seller ever or something). They're profitable by themselves.

 

Railgun S2 was only last year. The manga is still ongoing. There was also an Index movie last year. And there's infinite material to adapt from the Index LN. Heck, we might even see an adaptation of that Accelerator spin-off manga that was talked about a few months ago.

 

I'm not saying there will be new Index/Railgun anime, but the chances aren't that slim.

Didn't know the figures of the anime.

Interesting.. Well this does increase the possibility of an anime if the anime is already being a top seller itself so they wouldn't lose profit I guess. Though I didn't know Index the anime was that popular. I know Railgun was but Index doesn't seem to be that high in the popularity ranking, at least in the places I visit, hence my theory.

 

We can only wait and see I guess. 

[Okami]

It's not a crazy idea. Anime is used to promote the source material. Sorry if this is a shocker but it's like that.

 

Of course they use it to profit themselves as well, but JC Staff wouldn't gain much in adapting Index again given that people who are interested are already way ahead and reading the LNs

 

But hey I just gave a possible explanation, not saying it's the real one, I don't know the real one after all.

 

I don't know about Index title, but saying that a main purpose of making Anime in general is to promote source material and only secondly to profit from it is pretty crazy, it is actually pretty much the opposite way. The money involved in making Anime and the profit they gain from it if they do it right is a lot higher than money & profit involved in VNs, Manga, LNs.

[Nosebleed]

I don't know about Index title, but saying that a main purpose of making Anime in general is to promote source material and only secondly to profit from it is pretty crazy, it is actually pretty much the opposite way. The money involved in making Anime and the profit they gain from it if they do it right is a lot higher than money & profit involved in VNs, Manga, LNs.

You have your facts reversed. Of course the company that decides to adapt the anime wants to profit, I never denied that and that should be obvious, but they wouldn't be able to adapt it if the manga/LNs didn't gain something out of it. It needs to go both ways in order for the production team to profit overall.

 

Of course this does not hold true for original anime. But in most cases anime is made to make the original source more popular. This is a fact not a theory.

 

And the Index LNs sold over 10 million copies, this was announced in 2010, therefore right now the number is even higher.

That's millions of dollars. I don't believe the anime reached those figures in sales.

The Railgun manga also sold 2.5 million volumes.

[Yukiru]

I don't know about Index title, but saying that a main purpose of making Anime in general is to promote source material and only secondly to profit from it is pretty crazy, it is actually pretty much the opposite way. The money involved in making Anime and the profit they gain from it if they do it right is a lot higher than money & profit involved in VNs, Manga, LNs.

Not really, anime needs more production, so they may or may not be at loss. It's not that crazy there are a lot of read-the-manga anime- I can think of Kaminomi, Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, Index, Suzumiya Haruhi, Kokoro Connect, Rosario Vampire to name a few.

 

Index also has the feat of being the most sold in the past ten years, or something along those lines.

[Okami]

You have your facts reversed. Of course the company that decides to adapt the anime wants to profit, I never denied that and that should be obvious, but they wouldn't be able to adapt it if the manga/LNs didn't gain something out of it. It needs to go both ways in order for the production team to profit overall.

 

Of course this does not hold true for original anime. But in most cases anime is made to make the original source more popular. This is a fact not a theory.

 

And the Index LNs sold over 10 million copies, this was announced in 2010, therefore right now the number is even higher.

That's millions of dollars. I don't believe the anime reached those figures in sales.

The Railgun manga also sold 2.5 million volumes.

 

I would say that it is a opposite way, there are some anime that are maid mostly for making original source more popular but most are to profit more than they could with their original source.

 

It's the same as in west with movies that are made from books like HP and LOTR, saying that they are made to increase sales of books would be crazy, true, it might be one of their purposes, it is definitely not the main one.

 

But if we want to continue this discussion, we should open another thread.

[SilverLi]

It's not a crazy idea. Anime is used to promote the source material. Sorry if this is a shocker but it's like that.

 

Of course they use it to profit themselves as well, but JC Staff wouldn't gain much in adapting Index again given that people who are interested are already way ahead and reading the LNs

 

But hey I just gave a possible explanation, not saying it's the real one, I don't know the real one after all.

But in that case Naruto, One Piece and Fairy Tail going against what you say. I know they make a ton of money out of the biggest animes. But they are still producing episodes almost weekly. But I think it is a difference comparing Naruto to Railgun/Index. I know that.

 

I know the LN is ongoing (last time I checked) and I know the second season was aired last spring to autumn. But the fanbase is huge and in my opinion a well made anime. They are probably going to continue the anime but in a year or two maybe. No need to rush it.

 

But I see your point and it seems reasonable. I also agree with Okami to some extent.

[Down]

 

But if we want to continue this discussion, we should open another thread.

Did the split.

 

 

I would say that it is a opposite way, there are some anime that are maid mostly for making original source more popular but most are to profit more than they could with their original source.

I'd like to have a concrete example for a small series, but getting manga sales for manga that is not well known is a pain.

If you look at Shingeki no Kyojin, the manga went from 2 mo overall sales in 2012 to 7 mo in 2014, with the anime airing in 2013, for example.

 

Basically, anime sales come from a very restricted commercial target. Salarymen and OL in their 20s/30s with a good disposable income. For manga/LN the public is much wider, adolescents, students, people with less income. 

For this reason, the order of magnitude of the boost in sales that an anime can make happen is easily around 50k volumes for a series with a scale smaller than Index or SnK. Even if selling a copy of LN makes 10 times less money than selling a bluray copy, compare 10k times 6 discs to 50k times times 10 volumes, that's about the same kind of money you make here. And that's IF you're selling 10k copies. Most of the anime we're talking about here are happy to sell 5k.

 

Promotion of the original material is really one of the major income of the global profit that an anime makes.

 

 

But in that case Naruto, One Piece and Fairy Tail going against what you say. I know they make a ton of money out of the biggest animes. But they are still producing episodes almost weekly. But I think it is a difference comparing Naruto to Railgun/Index. I know that.

Yeah, it's completely different. Those are anime aimed at kids, they make profit out of TV audience and toy selling.

[Okami]

Did the split.

 

I'd like to have a concrete example for a small series, but getting manga sales for manga that is not well known is a pain.

If you look at Shingeki no Kyojin, the manga went from 2 mo overall sales in 2012 to 7 mo in 2014, with the anime airing in 2013, for example.

 

Basically, anime sales come from a very restricted commercial target. Salarymen and OL in their 20s/30s with a good disposable income. For manga/LN the public is much wider, adolescents, students, people with less income. 

For this reason, the order of magnitude of the boost in sales that an anime can make happen is easily around 50k volumes for a series with a scale smaller than Index or SnK. Even if selling a copy of LN makes 10 times less money than selling a bluray copy, compare 10k times 6 discs to 50k times times 10 volumes, that's about the same kind of money you make here. And that's IF you're selling 10k copies. Most of the anime we're talking about here are happy to sell 5k.

 

Promotion of the original material is really one of the major income of the global profit that an anime makes.

 

Yeah, it's completely different. Those are anime aimed at kids, they make profit out of TV audience and toy selling.

 

And how much do you think Anime it self made? Just opening CD of Shinkeki No Kyojin sold 129,000 copies in just the first week and that's coming from a reliable source.

 

I am not denying that promoting source material is one of the goals of making Anime, however it is not a main one.

[Down]

 

And how much do you think Anime it self made? Just opening CD of Shinkeki No Kyojin sold 129,000 copies in just the first week and that's coming from a reliable source.

 

I am not denying that promoting source material is one of the goals of making Anime, however it is not a main one.

SnK is a bad example, I know that, it's out of the scope of the kind of series I was talking about.

As I said it's not easy to get your hands on reliable figures for middle-selling manga, but it's for those series that the sales boosts are significant - and for those series that promoting the original material is the main goal. Because bluray sells won't cover the production expanses.

[Mr. Meogii]

What nosebleed makes sense to an extent but I do believe that if there was no money in producing anime in the first place it would not be done. If the demand for an anime is High enough it will be produced regardless of whether or not it's manga counter part is selling well. However it would be entirely impossible for there to be anime adaptation if the manga doesn't sell well to begin with.

[Darklord Rooke]

If anime were created primarily to further the popularity of the source material, I would throw my hands up and despair. I am HOPING this isn't the case, because it's utterly stupid.

[Down]

If anime were created primarily to further the popularity of the source material, I would throw my hands up and despair. I am HOPING this isn't the case, because it's utterly stupid.

I'm not making any general declaration here. Just that for a certain type of anime, it's the case. I'm thinking about a lot of those 13-episode LN or manga adaptations that don't stand out too much.

 

And this doesn't necessarily hinder the potential artistic or cultural value of said anime. It's just how it came to be. Most anime are made by production committees that reason entirely in terms of profit (for most of their members), but in the end the people making the adaptation are the studio members.

 

By the way, to anyone interested in this subject, I suggest you read this page, as it has lots of useful information about the way anime are produced and what disc sales mean. (You can also find about all the data you want about anime DVD/BR sales there)

[InvertMouse]

I'm not in the the trenches producing anime so I have no right to talk about the specifics. All I know is that it'd be no surprise if the discussion we're having is indeed true; that some anime are produced solely to boost the source material. It's a transmedia generation we live in now.

 

As Down said, the people producing the anime are still the studio members, so I'll continue to enjoy them .