U.S. anime fans struggle to secure official merchandise
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What is the main issue U.S. anime fans face with official merchandise?
Time for our daily tech and business report. Japanese anime, big business here in the US, but its fans, known as Otaku, can't seem to get their hands on enough officially licensed merchandise. For more, we turn to the KCBS Ring Central newsline and speak with Bloomberg's Cecilia D'Anastasio. Cecilia, thanks for the time. Thank you for having me. So why is it so hard to get um anime merch here in the US? Is it is it because We can't get it from Japan.
You know, I've been dealing this personally for decades as an anime fan and it's interesting because
Why is producing and distributing anime merchandise such a complicated process?
Producing an anime is done actually by a committee. There are a lot of stakeholders. It's not just the story porters and the animators and the publisher of the original manga or comic book. There's a whole group of people getting together to create merchandise for anime and distribute it. And what we found in our report is that um this very complicated orchestra actually has created a lot of challenges when it comes to producing and distributing the anime merchandise to the US fans who love it so much. It sounds like too many cooks. It's a lot of cooks. But it's a thirteen billion dollar market right now for anime merchandise and it's predicted to grow to twenty four billion dollars by two thousand thirty three.
How large is the U.S. anime‑merch market and what growth is expected by 2033?
How did it get to be so popular b but yet kind of under the radar?
Yeah, I mean when I was growing up we used to have to go to video stores and find, you know, um VHS types that people brought over from Japan and now you can watch anime on Netflix and actually today half of Netflix subscribers have seen anime. A lot of it was popularized um when I was growing up through Cartoon Network, through a program called Toonami. All of us loved watching Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon. Many of us watched Pokemon, for example, and actually merchandise for these really popular shows was not so difficult to come by, but as more anime uh began to get produced and watched by consumers in the US, it's become harder and harder for fans to find um toys, T shirts, et cetera, for these less popular shows.
And and it sounds like there's more of a demand too, because like you pointed out, things that people grew up watching, now we have a generation more accepting of this kind of merch.
Absolutely. And what we found in our report is that Japanese trading firms have seen this as an opportunity and they're really moving in to try and solve some of these um production and distribution problems.
Why is merch for classic series like Dragon Ball Z easier to find than for newer shows?
So we're seeing Mitsubishi and some of these other storied trading firms um really step up to the challenge to fulfill this demand.
Really interesting what you mentioned about Netflix and and how people get interested in it. Because, like, if they didn't grow up watching it, they kind of went, you know, what is this? Is this is this Hello Kitty?
It's mainstream now. It's funny. Many of us were made fun of for anime love growing up in the nineties and even two thousands. And now if you haven't seen Demon Slayer or One Piece and, you know, your Gen Z or Jenna Alpha, it's, you know, maybe a little bit strange.
How do you get caught up on it though?
How are Japanese trading firms stepping in to solve U.S. anime merch shortages?
Because a lot of people might have seen some of this stuff, but they're finding their kids are way into it.
Yeah. There's I mean, anime is so accessible now. People watch it on Netflix and Hulu. You can get a subscription to Crunchyroll, which is owned by Sony, um, which is an anime distribution network. And um, you know, some anime a hundred episodes, two hundred episodes, difficult to catch up on, but uh there are some real gems out there with just ten or twenty that I think adults might have more time for.
Do you think that it is just cultural? That's just the process of how they create anime merchandise, or is there any way to really streamline it and not have so many cooks in the boardroom?
It's hard to say so much is changing about the anime industry.
Is the merch shortage caused by cultural factors or by the way the industry is organized?
In fact, a lot of anime right now isn't even made just by people in Japan. Some of it is outsourced to animation studios in Korea or China. Netflix has taken a really international approach to producing anime, even pulling in animators from France and the US and stories that are based in countries outside of Japan.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main issue U.S. anime fans face with official merchandise?
0:00–0:38
2
Why is producing and distributing anime merchandise such a complicated process?
0:38–1:20
3
How large is the U.S. anime‑merch market and what growth is expected by 2033?
1:20–2:26
4
Why is merch for classic series like Dragon Ball Z easier to find than for newer shows?
2:26–3:02
5
How are Japanese trading firms stepping in to solve U.S. anime merch shortages?
3:02–3:47
6
Is the merch shortage caused by cultural factors or by the way the industry is organized?
3:47–4:27
Speakers
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