How the Japanese Anime Industry Intentionally Fails Fans and Their Expectations for Manga and Novels.
We’ve all experienced it. We’ve all watched a series only to crave more and search endlessly for news of its continuation. Internet forums speculate about it, influencers debate what could come next, and the die hard fans even move on to different adaptions to get ahead of the story. Then comes the inevitable waiting game. We wait and we wait and we wait. Months turn to years and eventually it dawns on you that there’s no more coming.
You have experienced the internet myth, or the unspoken secret amongst fans, that some anime only exists to bait and lure fans into buying manga and light novels. That first season you loved was nothing more than a glorified advertisement and the story is never going to continue in its anime format. It’s frustrating and makes you feel a bit like this:
The truth is even if the Japanese entertainment industry doesn’t admit it the manga and light novel industry is growing by leaps and bounds. A lot of that is due to adaptions being dubbed and exported to other nations. Western nations such as America eat up anime and sub-markets in nations like India are emerging as big audience markets as well. Manga alone brings in over $4.61 billion dollars a year and the entire market is seeing profit growth. Although the Japanese, at least millennials and younger who grew up with it, enjoy anime; Japan itself also receives a lot of tourism and international attention due to anime.
It’s not a stretch to see that anime has become the world’s gateway to Japan. It introduces other nations to Japan’s language, it’s culture, it’s foods, it’s national products, it’s secular and religious beliefs, and it’s history as well. Even businesses are getting in on the action, and why not? It’s proven highly successful and it’s worked wonders for them. That’s where our point comes into play. Anime is also used to feed lesser known publications such as manga and light novels to drive their sales.
I read an article on Anime News Network recently (although it dates back to 2019) titled: “Does Manga Need An Anime Adaptation To Hit In The West?“. In this article it’s argued that Western nations such as America do not value and promote literary works as much as Japan does and as much as the Japanese consume them. For that reason a manga or a light novel can be successful without any adaption but here in America without an anime adaption we would likely never even hear of the publication. That means if companies want to gain international readers they must first hook them with an anime.
Not every series is worth big bucks. Not every series is going to bring in merchandise and movie adaptions like Naruto, or Danmachi, or even Overlord. Fans are not cosplaying characters from these shows even if they found the shows enjoyable and want more. Of course, as a physical Blu-ray collector it kills me when companies cannot even be bothered to release an adaption on physical media or worse won’t even dub it in the English language. These are the shows we often do not get second season from and it’s a shame.
Of course, every once in a while we are surprised when things do continue on. Some good recent examples are the Apothecary Diaries and Ascendance of a Bookworm. Both are from light novels adapted to anime and have cult followings (myself included). There was no guarantee either of these would continue but it seems the anime God’s have blessed us.
Anyways. Here’s to all the great anime series that we as fans were screwed out of because the industry didn’t care, only wanted to sell books, and the expectations of fans didn’t matter. Perhaps, there’s a good article to be made on that! I’ll think about it. – K.
