Basaku wrote:TheMikado wrote:
Sure, I actually did some research and followed various links.
But you didn't check the actual reports, including the overseas film division mirroring the big spikes of 16/17. We've already seen how the "DB franchise" business operates raiding purely on the cocktails of game licenses or even Z nostalgia - it doesn't move much. Kai didn't help, neither did Heroes on its own etc. What is happening now is primarly due to presence of a new main weekly 'product', not the existance of various games.
I did check the reports, I always give my analysis after each report release. And well there's a combination of several factors and it's never just "simple".
You need marketing and you need product.
Kai is a perfect example of why automakers do a refresh every few years. There's no incentive for customers to purchase new merchandise if it looks the same as the previous product.
At the same time if automakers changed their product every year it would cost money in production and they would never recoup the costs.
Toei tried to slap paint on an old model to move units and it didn't work. They created a frequent model change in the form of a weekly anime which consequentially costs money too. I used the Mustang example for a reason. It's a common tactic to get people in to look at a new model car. They may see sales increases but that does not mean 100% or even half of the increase is directly from that new model. In some cases car producers make a model solely for brand recognition to get customers in the door and buy other models.
It's no different in this case. Super is a marketing tool, an expensive one. It's profitability in and off itself is questionable, however it has helped the entire franchise and selling product which is not "Super" branded. There is not argument that it isn't a contributor. The question is is a weekly anime necessary to sell new product or will new movies with new forms be sufficient. As shown they had very few products to sell at all during their lowest points. When they had engaging product they were able to sell even without an anime.
The best of both worlds would be a cheap/inexpensive marketing tool with compelling product to sell. You can clearly see their profitability and operating costs are a concern from the report.
In the image production and sales business, sales increased by 7.2%, to 7,667 million yen, but operating profit decreased by 36.0% to 1.0 billion yen.
Further they talk about improving work schedules and environment to increase productivity:
■ Improve production environment and promote daytime work
A high level of profit is likely to be invested in future business development, improvement of production environment and technology.
Following "Corrective Cad" in cooperation with Amazon Prime in the project, the production of "Knights of the Zodiac (Tentative)" for Netflix is proceeding. "Movie version Mazinger Z / INFINITY" will be published in Italy and France as a title for overseas.
In the production system, rebuilding of Oizumi Studio was completed in August. Start full-scale operation from January 18. Improvement of production environment and improvement of productivity can be expected with the latest equipment.
In addition to hardware, the reform of software aspect also advances. Promote shifts in daytime work in the animation industry, which is said to have a lot of nighttime work. In this, we aim to maintain and improve quality and productivity.
The outcome of these investments is expected to be medium to long term rather than short-term. In recent years, however, the result of such efforts will depend on whether Toei animation which grows rapidly grows further.
Their financials are very clearly focused on profit maximization while reducing workloads and staffing costs. Just the theatrical drop in revenue is a huge hit and more than eclipses the revenue they are making in their TV animation growth. Again I do not know all the ins and outs but distilling everything down to "Super" is disingenuous, if Super branding were that revenue critical then it wouldn't make sense, however it appears they feel confidence that the "Super" brand itself is not the sole driver of revenue. Otherwise they would either continue or have something else immediately ready.
Whatever their balance sheets are telling them its that the on-going series "Super" is not necessary at this point to meet their financial goals. I've got no idea what data they are looking at, but what data they have released says that Super is a contributor, rather than sole driver of revenue.
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