>Kadokawa reports sharp decline in publishing, anime business falls into deficit due to a lack of popular sequels
https://archive.ph/h722D
<According to GameBiz, the company reported a year-on-year decline in profits across its publishing (manga, print, e-books) and video game segments, while its anime business slipped into the red and posted a net loss.
<In publishing, revenue actually grew overseas, especially in the US and Asia, but overall segment profit fell 90.2% compared to the previous year. Kadokawa attributed the drop primarily to lower revenue per title in Japan, as well as higher personnel expenses that further narrowed profit margins.
<The publisher’s game business saw profit down 7% year-on-year, but Kadokawa notes that this is largely the result of exceptional sales of Elden Ring’s base game and Shadow of the Erdtree expansion in the previous fiscal year (implying that this fiscal year is seeing more “normal” performance by comparison). Meanwhile, Elden Ring Nightreign, which released in the current fiscal year, continues to “perform well both domestically and internationally.”
<On the other hand, when it comes to anime and films, Kadokawa posted a net loss of 940 million yen, or about $6.13 million USD. The company says this is a result of a big chunk of its lineup being made up of first-time anime adaptations (as opposed to sequels to established, popular series), leading to lower revenue per title.
>The self-indulgent need to impress, rather than entertain, is what’s holding back some manga authors, Shonen Jump contest panel says
https://archive.ph/SLct6
<Jump Manga Award’s official X account has an open Q&A box where aspiring authors can freely seek advice on manga creation or ask questions about the industry. Recently, the account went viral after offering an unexpectedly blunt answer to the question, “What does it truly mean to face your audience?”
<“You need to draw while thinking of the readers,” “Your work is not facing the audience” are some of the advice aspiring mangaka often get when making their submission, the anonymous inquirer explains. However, while it’s natural to, for example, not feature explicit content in a manga that’s meant for young boys, as in knowing your target audience, the idea of “truly facing your audience” is perhaps difficult to grasp for someone who’s just starting out as a mangaka.
<“We believe the difference lies in whether the author is drawing ‘simply’ for their own self-indulgence, or with the intention of entertaining the readers burned into their minds.” As the Jump Mangasho editorial team notes, on social media, you sometimes see authors and aspiring mangaka with sets of values that are fundamentally detached from the idea of “entertaining the readers” and are closer to the desire to “be viewed as an amazing mangaka” by the readers. “You could say it’s like being obsessed with ‘being unpredictable’ while completely making light of ‘not disappointing your readers’,” Jump writes.
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<“However, if that self-indulgence goes out of control, with an overbearing ‘Just you watch!’ mentality – a twist that’s never been done before and surprises the readers (in a negative way), sadly boils down to your work not being on the same page as the audience The ideal is to overcome both the readers’ predictions and expectations, but from the perspective of manga being a commercial work, we get the impression that ‘If you’re going to betray readers’ expectations, at least don’t be unpredictable’ is something you hear very often. But this is only a personal opinion, and other people may have a different understanding of this.”