Postmortem: A Bad Investment: Animator Comments on Nichijou, Others

Article Title:  A Bad Investment: Animator Comments on Nichijou, Others  

Run Date: 10/2/2011

Man, this one takes me back! This is from a totally different life for Anime Herald, when I was trying to carve a name out for the organization, while finding ways to stand out against some of the dominant sites of the era. 

But first, let's set the stage on this one. It's October 2011. Anime News Network was (as it still is) king of the anime news world, Shonen Jump was still in print, and Chris Beveridge had recently set out on his own with Fandom Post. The western industry was still feeling the effects of the recent bubble burst, though things were beginning to pick up steam. There was an air of cautious (very cautious) optimism 

Now that I think about it, I was still working at Anime Dream at the time!

Well... kind of. We were experiencing the final groaning slowdowns of a dying publication at the time. We had seen zero activity between 9/12/2011 ("GKids Acquires Theatrical Rights to 13 Ghibli Titles") and 10/16/2011 ("Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos Film to Hit Over 100 Screens"). 

So, yeah... remember how I said "I started Anime Herald because I didn't want to stop writing about anime?" This is one of those initial articles that came from that overall drive.

During my years as Anime Dream's news editor, I kind of began to make it a habit to live somewhere within the news flow throughout the day. I began to always make it a point to keep tabs open with my go-to news sources which, at the time were:

• ANN
• Hachima Kiko
• Anime! Anime!
• Comic Natalie
• 2ch

In retrospect, it's a pretty tiny beat compared to today (I think I'm up to... 19? publications & sources that I keep open at all times nowadays?)

But, anyway... I digress.

This story came through my news feeds while doing a lunch-break news check. This story caught my eye, mostly because, well... it’s Nichijou! Nichijou was a darling of the fan community at the time. The show quickly gained fans in the west thanks to a combination of quirky humor, pithy writing, and incredible animation. Seriously - some of the sakuga found in the series is incredible.

Aniwho... that brings us to October 2, 2011, when I put out the article. For many, this series seemed like it would be a surefire hit. It was a slice-of-life show by Kyoto Animation, which was widely accepted to be the company's wheelhouse, and the series had a strong fan following behind both the anime and the manga. Moreover, there was the long-standing "KyoAni Myth", where many felt that everything the company the touched would turn to gold.

That idea came crashing down on its face when animation director Shunji Suzuki (Evangelion, Nadia - The Secret of Blue Water) took to Twitter. In a single tweet, he stated "The decline in sales of Kadokawa shows from July (April air) that came to light is astounding. Nichijou hasn't broken even at all. The KyoAni myth collapsed. [Agent Aika] R-15 too. Itsu-Ten. That said, a certain magical girl thing that they had doubts on ultimately became a success in the spring."

The big story in this one, for me, was Nichijou. R-15 was widely expected to under-perform, as was Itsu-Ten. But Nichijou? This had more than a few eyebrows raising in the fan community. 

I mean, it was a KyoAni show! KyoAni shows did. Not. Fail. EVER.

I first caught the news on ANN. And, upon reading it, felt that there had to be more to the story. I began to dig deeper into the issue, looking into Japanese message boards, to see what I could dig up in regards to a "why." 

And, really, the posters on 2ch were broadcasting their reasons as clear as day. There were numerous complaints about the show's price (7,000-8,000 yen per two-episode DVD), which was far higher than the typical anime DVD price at the time. For reference, the typical asking price was about 5,000-6,000-ish yen per two-episode disc at that point.

For some, this would be a reasonable enough reason for the generally lackluster sales. That said, though, there seemed to be something "off" about the easy explanation. Looking into the prices, I noticed that several "big" titles, like Madoka Magica, K-On!, and Lucky Star were clearing their inventories at the exact same price point. 

Nichijou carried a similar price tag to Madoka Magica when it hit Japanese DVD/BD.

So, this created a bit of a conundrum. Why can these shows sell, where Nichijou can't?

I started to dive deeper into the message boards, reading through what I could, and grabbing sentiments from the general grumbling public. Bit by bit, the picture began to come clear. And, really, it turned out that people just weren't that into Nichijou. 

It didn't have the same hooks as K-On! or Lucky Star that could smooth over the show's rougher patches, and people were generally turned off by Nichijou's characters and gags. Some found the visual style a repellant, others wanted "a real KyoAni show" after it. Others still said "my friends were bored by it," or "I just didn't enjoy it."

Man, I wish I saved screenshots of these posts nowadays. I just have my notes to go by now, which kind of sucks, because I just have a few translated quotes from my notes, here. 

Yes, I keep notes. Lots of notes.

But anyway... this felt more like a real reason, a real explanation as to why the title failed at market. With this in hand, I began to write. At the time, I was trying to go with the general "business blogger" tone - because, again, I was looking for my voice at the time. I was trying new approaches and styles, to find stuff that sticks. 

And, really, that was an interesting time in my writing career that I'll discuss some other time. I've already gone on way too long, here.

Funny enough, I kind of fell back into a format I was super familiar with after about a year, but I think we've gotten a bit distracted by random thoughts in this italics section.

So, I ended up writing the article up (plus a few typos - I often write late at night, and WordPress didn't have a spell-checker early on), and publishing just before midnight.

As they say, the more things change...

But, joking aside, this became one of the biggest pieces in the Herald's history. Even today, it gets some attention whenever questions of a Nichijou sequel pop up on sites like Reddit or the like.

Is it my favorite piece? Eh, not really. I know that I could have done much better, looking back at it. I could have included screenshots of comments, given more detailed descriptions on the situation, and linked to quotes to better sell my point.

That said, I'm super glad I wrote it, as it was a step toward my growth both as a writer and as a journalist.

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