Happy New Year to everyone! Have you made any resolutions? Well, whether you have or not, the new year is a time to reflect back on what’s happened and think about what is to come. So today, let’s analyze what some of the biggest news stories in the anime and manga industry in 2018 and what we can expect from 2019.
2018: A Look Back
There’s little doubt what was the theme and big news of 2018. The media conglomerates are starting to draw lines in the sand, and the ending of the Funimation and Crunchyroll partnership has been the most significant for anime fans. Sentai Filmworks seemed to be doing well with HIDIVE (partially thanks to its discounted introductory rate), but I bet they’re happier to have a partner instead of having to survive on their own with the fall of Anime Strike.
Overall, it’s safe to say many fans will miss Crunchyroll’s domination as Funimation, Netflix, and others ramp up their anime licensing and franchising, but that’s happening in all the streaming markets. (See: Disney leaving Netflix.) With all the different channels and platforms launching, it seems like even the people who cut the cord will be paying as much as those of us still on cable and satellite.
Other major themes of the year:
- Life after Toys R Us.
- Barnes & Noble continues to struggle.
- Companies and ventures learn the importance of good communication.
- As will be discussed next week, Shonen Jump overhauls their subscription plans to fight pirates.
2019: A Look Forward
2017 was the year of live action announcements, but 2019 is going to feature two big ones: Alita: Battle Angel and Detective Pikachu. Alita will probably be of significant importance, as it has a budget somewhere between $150 and $200 million. Using the minimum formula of studios needing to bring in twice its budget, that means Alita needs to make at least $300 million to break even. Considering its development hell and the fact that it’s a foreign franchise, it might need to make $450 million or more. Based on 2018’s figures, if you use the $300 million figure for worldwide gross to turn a profit, Alita would probably need to be in the top 25 movies of 2019 to be profitable (top 15 or so for $450 million).
There are definitely some heavy hitters coming this year, and Disney is almost assuredly going to dominate the top spots thanks to Captain Marvel, Toy Story, Frozen 2, The Lion King, Aladdin, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: Episode IX, and more. Other movies that could prove to be popular in 2019 include sequels to The Lego Movie, It, and Jumanji, reboots/spin-offs to Men in Black and Pet Semetary, and even British hit Downton Abbey.
As for Detective Pikachu, I didn’t find any estimates as to its production budget, and even though it requires a lot of CG effects to make the Pokemon, I’m sure it’s less than Alita. It also has comes from a popular, recognizable franchise, so that should help its sales.
So it will be interesting to see how well these movies perform. Even if the box office sales are low for one or the other, I don’t think the live action boom for anime shows will dry up. I just think they’ll reconsider putting them on the silver screen. Netflix’s Death Note was met with heavy criticism across the anime community, but the numbers must have been good enough for Netflix in order to greenlight a sequel.
Other 2019 predictions:
I think Barnes & Noble is going to have another rough holiday. Probably will mean more experiments from them, but hopefully not any more mass firings or closures.
Kodansha Comics has mentioned that collector’s editions and box sets seem to be doing well. So while they’ve essentially confirmed they’re going to continue with those, hopefully others will give some new and old titles the deluxe treatment. I mean, I’d love to see, say, Yu-Gi-Oh!‘s full color release, Chihayafuru in 2- or 3-in-1s, the aizouban/kazenban deluxe releases of manga like Saint Seiya or Please Save My Earth, or even box sets for long-running manga like Black Butler. Just hopefully they won’t be cancelled like the omnibuses for Oh, My Goddess! or put into production hell like The Rose of Versailles and Sugar Sugar Rune.
The streaming landscape will probably continue to change, but I’m not sure exactly what will happen. I would have guessed that Sony would have created a platform with Funimation included, but that’s unlikely right now with the Hulu deal. Maybe more channels like TMS Anime?
Finally, I expect bigger divides between the PC gaming crowd and the console gaming crowd. A lot of risqué games are already being edited for the PS4 and Switch, and more and more Japanese games will probably be translated just for a Steam release even though they may have been a PS4/Switch/Vita game originally. Since the Vita is on its last breaths, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a mass migration for some of those Vita games onto PC.