welcome datacomp

Does Nabeshin do any work these days, or does he just sell doujin about his afro? (I bought one.)
In either case, please use these to imagine your own convention.

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Source: Nensyu Labo, compiled by them via publicly available securities reports and documents submitted for 2008.

Average yearly salary, in tens of thousands of yen. (100,000 JPY = roughly $1100)

1. Toei: 864
2. Toho: 837
3. Shochiku: 735
4. Tokyo Rakutenchi: 710
5. Gonzo: 654
6. Toei Animation: 651
7. TYO Productions: 620
8. OS: 620
9. Tokyo Theatres: 619
10. Subaru Enterprise: 615
11. Kokusai Hoei: 607
12. Aoi Advertising Promotion Inc.: 605
13. Tohokushinsha: 604
14. Flight System Consulting: 571
15. Marvelous Entertainment: 534
16. Sotsu: 518
17. Shizukatsu: 512
18. IG Port: 501
19. Omega Project Holdings: 490
20. TMS Entertainment: 485
21. We’ve: 483
22. Kin-ei: 444
23. Nakanihon Kogyo: 435
24. Musashino Kogyo: 430
25. Tokyu Recreation: 383

Sales Rankings, in hundreds of million of yen (100,000,000 yen = roughly 1.1 million USD). Number in () after studio name is rank in above list of average employee salary.

1. Toho (2): 2134
2. Toei (1): 1076
3. Shochiku (3): 949
4. Tohokushinsha (13) : 681
5. TYO Productions (7): 311
6. Tokyu Recreation (25): 277
7. Tokyo Theatres (9): 232
8. Toei Animation (6): 217
9. Aoi Advertising Promotion Inc (12): 167
10. Sotsu (16): 159
11. TMS Entertainment (20): 141
12. Marvelous Entertainment (15): 101
13. IG Port (18): 71
14. OS (8): 65
15. Gonzo (5): 63
16. Tokyo Rakuenchi (4): 37
17. Kin-ei (22): 37
18. Nakanihon Kogyo (23): 37
19. Kokusai Hoei (11): 34
20. Flight System Consulting (14): 30
21. Omega Project Holdings (19): 30
22. We’ve (21): 30
23. Subaru Kogyo (10): 24
24. Musashino Kogyo (24): 20
25. Shizukatsu (17): 11

JAniCA has just posted a press release announcing the four companies out of the sixteen that applied who will be given 38 million yen each in order to create a 23-minute original animation primarily utilizing young animators as detailed in my earlier post on this project.

They are as follows:

Company: Ascension
Director: Hongo Mitsuru (Dir. Spirit of Wonder, Outlaw Star, Reideen (2007), various Crayon Shinchan incl. 5 films)
Producer: Mogi Hitoshi (Prod. 7+ Crayon Shinchan films, Summer Days with Coo)
Provisional Title: Kizuna Ichigeki

Company: Telecom Animation Film (Also a wholly-owned subsidiary of TMS Entertainment)
Director: Takiguchi Teiichi (Dir., Anim. Dir., Kara no Kyoukai movie 4, Key Anim., The Cat Returns, Tekkonkinkreet, Whisper of the Heart)
Producer: Takeuchi Koji (Prod. Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy, Ramen Fighter Miki)
Provisional Title: Ojiisan no Lamp

Company: P.A. Works
Director: Yoshihara Masayuki (Asst. Dir., Eden of the East, Moribito, Key Anim., Ghost in the Shell series)
Producer: Horikawa Kenji (Prod. true tears, CANAAN, Angel Beats!, Series Comp., Popolocrois Monogatari)
Provisional Title: Bannou Yasai Ninninman

Company: Production I.G.
Director: Kise Kazuchika (Anim. Dir., Patlabor the Movie, Patlabor the Movie 2, Bungaku Shoujo, Evangelion 1.0, Ghost in the Shell, Key Anim., Evangelion 1.0/2.0, Ghost in the Shell, Rojin Z, SPT Layzner)
Producer: Terakawa Hidekazu (Prod., IGPX, Jin-Roh, One Piece: Defeat the Pirate Ganzak!, various game animation work by I.G.)
Provisional Title: Tansu Warashi

If you’re a follower of anime and manga news online, you might notice that a couple of times a year, articles are posted here and there announcing the winners of major manga prizes/awards like the Kodansha Award, the Shogakukan Award, the Japan Cartoonists Association Award, The Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and so on. As some of you know (especially with the release of Bakuman), magazines also run newcomers’ awards in order to discover and encourage talented creators. These generally (and rather understandably) escape the notice of most people. With the apparent increase in English-language manga fans interested in what may have once been esoterica for fans over here like what magazine a given series ran in (I bet the majority of you could tell me what magazine Yotsubato! runs in!), I thought that folks might find some information on some of these awards to be interesting or useful.

For no reason other than the fact that I’ve seen its name pop up a lot recently while browsing the web, I’ve decided to start with the Afternoon Four Seasons Award, also known as the Shiki Award or Shiki-shō. Unsurprisingly, the Afternoon Four Seasons Award is awarded four times a year by Kodansha’s monthly seinen manga magazine Afternoon. The award was announced in the very first issue (the 1987/2 edition) of Afternoon, published in December of 1986.

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More 2ch copypaste since I’m bored and can’t turn on my lights to read manga since that’ll attract bugs. This is probably already reproduced somewhere on animesuki, but oh well. “Source is 2ch”, though I bet if you checked on the Oricon site or went to the diet library and took a look at Oricon Biz that you’d find numbers that agree with this! “Discs sold” is the number of discs listed as sold for the highest-selling single volume released of a given series.

But first, some pie charts:

from a Kadokawa booth at some convention or event or another.
Red = (light) novels
Green = manga
Purple = original
Blue = game
Yellow = other

I need a drink. As posters note, at least we’ll be able to count on Angel Beats! Hm, maybe two drinks.

1. **,*** means all volumes failed to chart. [↩]
2. chart does not include remakes and kids shows [↩]
3. ﾌﾋﾋ、サーセン [↩]

From a copypaste floating around 2ch (post 45). No source listed, but I bet that if you did what a lot of data posters do and went to the diet library and looked at an expensive book like the 2010 Publishing Index by the Research Institute for Publications that you’d find very similar numbers!

1. compared to vol1 [↩]
2. no volumes printed in 2008 [↩]

…in condensed bullet point form of because there’s no way i’m completely translating a 39 page technical PDF just for fun, even if the project is really interesting.

Anyway, this project was announced earlier this month and the initial announcement about the basic form of the project (4 23-minute original animations to be produced with a 38 million yen budget each, with production focusing on the training of young animators) was picked up by the usual suspects. However, the general reaction on the comments sections seemed to be on the negative side, which was a little baffling to me. I have a lot of trust and respect for JAniCA, as they’ve been one of the most staunch supporters of animators (see translations here, here, and just about every substantial report over the last few years about animator salaries) and so the endless comments of “what is government doing???? just give money to the animators!!” were a little disheartening. These complaints seemed especially silly since the government funding is only coming in at around $2 million US, which in my admittedly rather business-ignorant mind isn’t going to do a whole lot if they just threw it towards wages. (Though if they took the proposed $130 million LDP budget for the manga library and gave that cash to animators, then maybe it’d be a different story…)

Anyway, I got to looking at the detailed application sheet that JAniCA put out a few days later, and wouldn’t you know it, it looks like a very well-meaning, intelligently drafted, and fast-acting plan! Anyway, here are your bullet points, as promised earlier. I’m doing this on a bit more of a rush than normal for me, so goyaku gomen. Please leave comments if you have any corrections/questions.

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Some of my friends noted that I had sent ANN’s Answerman a thing in 2007 and he never published it, so I cussed him out on the ANN forums. Thanks to Gmail here it is. It’s kind of hilariously obvious trolling, and I guess he just didn’t take the bait, but I thought you might to read it anyway. Just skip this if you don’t care. Read the rest of this entry »

I guess I’ve watched more than 3 episodes of some of these, but I have no idea what a schedule is and forgot to write this. Oh well…

Working!!
A 4koma anime that feels like a 4koma anime, produced by A-1 Pictures channeling J.C. Staff. It has some nice character ideas, but the execution is a bit too straightforward, so it’s a little boring – still watchable, but I don’t love it. I wish it was by SHAFT somehow, even though I was very bored with Arakawa (dropped at 2 episodes).
The opening doesn’t really know what it’s doing – half of it is new and interesting, and half of it seems to be shots copied from Azumanga Daioh. My notes say “ed is stupid”, but I can’t remember anything about it, so let’s leave it at that.
I hear the later episodes are more solid and that there’s a new character with hime cut. Watching.

Giant Killing
A soccer anime by Studio DEEN with actual money. I thought it was really interesting that a DEEN show with a budget has better drawings and movement, but still has horrible washed-out coloring choices for everything. Actually, I thought that was more interesting than the show – I’ve never seen a sports anime before, so it’s kind of cool, but the early part is just the coach making up magic quirky strategies for everything instead of something more realistic.
I’ll have to look ahead and see if it goes anywhere, otherwise dropped at 3 episodes.

Sarai-ya Goyou / House of Five Leaves
A samurai show made by manglobe that’s REALLY BORING!
Nothing has happened in 3 episodes except for one swordfight, so it doesn’t matter how good the art is (it’s good). Dropped.

Senkou no Night Raid
Psychic superpower action series by A-1 Pictures channeling Bones. I’m watching this untranslated, and the fake Chinese politics sort of goes over my head, so without that it’s just a watchable but slow action drama – a lot of things happen, but not in a really interesting way. I’d rather finish Darker than Black, really. I’ve heard some other people say it was “awful”, but I can’t really tell what’s annoying them. Watching halfheartedly.

The OP is a really complicated animation that looks cool and doesn’t match the actual show at all.

They make it sound like the psychics are an important national secret, but then in episode 3 they’re teleporting bombs out of buildings all over the place. Won’t someone notice?

Now that I think about it, the only things I’ve seen in the last few weeks were Angel Beats! and K-ON!!. More about that later.

Taken from a 2ch copypaste that’s making the rounds today

Gundam: That story where Amuro and Char fight

Eva: Pachinko

Macross: Singing

Geass: Never heard of it

Votoms: Follows a main character named Chirico Cuvie (Kiriko Kyuubi), a former special forces Armored Trooper pilot and former member of the Red Shoulder Battalion, an elite mecha force used by the Gilgamesh Confederation in its war against the Balarant Union—both interstellar nations within the distant Astragius Galaxy. Gilgamesh and Balarant had until recently been locked in a century-old galactic war whose cause was long ago forgotten. Now, the war is ending and an uneasy truce has settled. Chirico Cuvie is suddenly transferred to a unit engaged in a suspicious mission, unaware that he is aiding to steal secrets from what appears to be his own side. Chirico is betrayed and left behind to die, but he survives, is arrested by the Gilgamesh military as a traitor, and tortured for information on their homeworld. He escapes—triggering a pursuit extending across the entire series, with Chirico hunted by the army and criminals alike as he seeks the truth behind the operation. He is driven to discover the truth of one of the objects he was assigned to retrieve in that operation: A mysterious and beautiful woman who would become his sole clue to unraveling the galactic conspiracy.¹

1. The original post copy/pastes the first section of the Japanese wiki summary of the series so I’ve done likewise with English here. [↩]