This year, the sentiments of Japanese anime fans can actually earn 500 million box office. What about next year?

Except for the theatrical version of Detective Conan, all Japanese movies introduced to the Chinese market this year have already been released - basically, they are the 10 movies in the table below (as a Conan fan for 20 years, ACGx expressed strong dissatisfaction). These 10 Japanese movies have already created nearly 400 million RMB box office in China. With the addition of One Piece: Golden City to be released on Double 11 and Your Name, which has just been scheduled and ranked first in Japan's box office this year, it should not be difficult to break 500 million or even 600 million.

Compared with the total box office revenue of tens of millions of Japanese films imported in previous years, this year's performance can be regarded as a great leap forward. It seems that the import of Japanese films has found the right path and will continue to flourish. However, can everything really stay this way?

Fan-oriented Japanese film has an early success in China

Let’s take a look at the details of these 10 Japanese movies introduced this year:

Japanese movies released in China in 2016

The table reveals two characteristics:

1. The imported movies are all animation-oriented, but the quality of the films varies

In previous years, only a handful of Japanese films were introduced to China each year. Although they were all excellent films, such as "The Ten Promises of a Dog" and "Sinking of Japan", the slow pace of Japanese dramas was completely inferior to the excitement of American commercial blockbusters for Chinese audiences, and the box office was naturally unsuccessful. This year, except for "Girlfriend", "Parasyte" and "Your Name.", the other 7 films were all theatrical versions of classic Japanese anime. For many people born in the 1980s and 1990s in China, these classic Japanese anime IPs are full of their growing up memories.

In Japan, national animation IPs such as Naruto, Doraemon, and Crayon Shin-chan have a theatrical version every year. However, it is difficult for Japanese anime theatrical versions produced on a very mature animation production line to maintain a stable level.

For example, the box office of Conan theatrical version, which has been introduced to China several times, has been rising all the way, but it is still inevitable that Chinese and Japanese audiences will complain. The main reason is that the quality of the theatrical version has deteriorated since the director was replaced by Shizuno Kobun, so that every year there are incidents of Japanese Conan fans asking for a change of director. However, this year's Conan theatrical version, which has been criticized, still won the highest box office of Conan theatrical version in 20 years. (Please forgive the author for using Conan as an example again)

There have been 24 theatrical versions of "Crayon Shin-chan". Regardless of whether they were good or bad, the box office has remained between 1 billion and 2 billion yen. The 2015 "Crayon Shin-chan: My Moving Story ~Cactus Attack~" earned 2.3 billion yen at the box office and is the only theatrical version to have broken the 2 billion yen box office.

"Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary" was called the ugliest theatrical version ever by the audience, and it only earned 200 million yen at the box office in Japan. In fact, this theatrical version was created to promote Bandai's new Saint Seiya toys.

Whether it is for IP derivatives or to make money, the Japanese anime movies released at a fixed time every year have cultivated a fixed audience group. No matter how bad they are, Japanese fans will still go to the cinema to watch them. The sudden influx of authentic Japanese anime movies into China has also satisfied the long-standing wish of Chinese fans of "when can I watch the movie in the cinema", so they are naturally flocking to it.

Although the other three are not Japanese national anime IPs, they all have their own selling points: "Gal" was pirated and flowed into China earlier. After it was broadcast on the Internet, its inspirational plot was sought after by a large number of young netizens; "Parasyte" was adapted from a well-known manga and is a live-action movie for 18+ comics; "Your Name." is the hottest Japanese animated film this year.

2. The time interval between introductions is getting shorter and shorter, which should be considered a good phenomenon

Of the 10 Japanese films imported this year, the first seven were released in Japan between 2014 and 2015, while the last three were released this year. The price of buying a batch of films will be affected by several factors: the release time, the older the film, the cheaper the copyright; the quality of the film, although "Crayon Shin-chan" and "Your Name." are both released this year, the copyright fee of the latter is obviously much more expensive.

The Weibo post announcing the release date of "Your Name." was forwarded 96,000 times on the official Weibo account alone

Based on the above two points, the Japanese movies introduced to China this year are mainly Japanese anime movies that already have a fixed fan base. The box office results of 500 million to 600 million RMB also prove the correctness of this approach, and this model will definitely continue next year. The next question is, this year is the first year of the introduction of Japanese anime movies, and the audience is excited. However, after the excitement, how can domestic film purchasing companies ensure that more fans will go to the theater to watch these movies next year?

From pirated products to genuine products, what audiences really need is happiness

Although Japanese animated films have been introduced before, the negligible domestic box office has prevented these animated films from making a splash in the film market. On the other hand, Chinese audiences of Japanese anime have also been accustomed to downloading pirated resources on the Internet for more than a decade.

LeTV has introduced all of Shinkai Makoto's animations, and has obtained the rights to release The Garden of Words on the same day as the film was released in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Although the film is only 46 minutes long, the cost of introducing it is not too high. However, LeTV is ahead of other video websites in introducing genuine Japanese anime films.

Pirated copies of The Garden of Words appeared on the day of its simultaneous release

However, on the day of the release, a "mysterious link" of the 1080P high-definition version appeared on the Internet, while LeTV only introduced 720P. In addition, according to netizens on the forum, the subtitles provided by LeTV's "The Garden of Words" are still inferior to the subtitles of pirated resources, and the pirated resources also "thoughtfully" provide three embedded subtitles in Chinese, Japanese and English.

Therefore, although LeTV's charging model at the time was only 5 yuan for 48 hours of viewing (the official iTunes paid viewing of "The Garden of Words" 720P version is 2,500 yen), a large number of Japanese anime fans were still reluctant to watch on LeTV. Anime fans are not interested in genuine works, and pirated works with better effects are also leaked at the same time, so the final result is not difficult to imagine.

If this incident happened in 2016, I believe that the simultaneous release of The Garden of Words on LeTV's online platform would have attracted much more attention from anime fans. After all, the treatment of genuine products is much better now, both from the perspective of copyright holders and users. So for current anime users, what other reasons should there be for the existence of genuine products, besides a certain degree of copyright awareness?

From the public's common understanding of piracy, the reason why anime fans choose to pirate is that the genuine version requires payment, while the pirated version is free. In fact, the real reason is that they cannot get more pleasure from watching the genuine version than watching the pirated version.

Subtitles always bring various surprises

The first advantage of pirated resources is that they are fast. When a new episode is broadcast on Japanese TV the night before, Chinese pirated websites can upload the torrent with Chinese subtitles at midnight. Secondly, the subtitle groups are more professional. Some "loving" subtitle groups will even replace important Japanese newspapers and books in the film with Chinese. There are also multiple versions with different resolutions such as 720P and 1080P and different file formats such as MKV and RMVB for you to choose from. Which genuine company can provide such considerate service?

Let me give you an obvious example. In the past two years, major video websites have bought a large number of new Japanese episodes. The non-exclusive episodes of Tokyo TV are updated simultaneously on the four video platforms in China. However, the genuine new episodes provided by the four platforms have opening advertisements, some videos are not smooth enough, some videos are not clear enough, and some bullet comments are of poor quality. The audience who choose the genuine ones can only choose the tallest one among the short ones. In addition, there are occasional "dark priests" and "holy light" (coded), so many viewers still prefer to go to the online disk to find uncensored resources.

In the final analysis, genuine products can provide the services that genuine products should provide, which can easily convince the vast majority of potential audiences to support genuine products. If the corresponding viewing atmosphere can be provided to anime fans during the viewing, even if pirated products have appeared on the Internet, more anime fans will buy tickets to the theater to support their feelings.

When Warcraft was released in China, Wanda and Tencent provided excellent promotion and viewing services, not only holding multiple viewing events and creating special viewing halls, but also the audience spontaneously wore Warcraft-related costumes to watch the film. Although it is also a film that sells feelings, it has far surpassed the 10 Japanese films introduced to China this year in terms of publicity and promotion.

How should we continue to sell our feelings?

Some people would attribute the reason for the introduction of many Japanese animated films this year to the popularity of "Stand by Me Doraemon" in China last year. However, upon closer examination, the situation is not that simple.

In fact, except for Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, which had a preview and a Chinese trailer before its release, and also promoted Tencent's official licensed mobile game, the other nine movies basically had no decent promotion. Doraemon: Nobita's Birth of Japan, which was only confirmed to be released in China in mid-June this year, was not scheduled until one week before its release on July 22.

Not only Doraemon: Nobita's Birth of Japan, but also Parasyte, Chibi Maruko-chan: A Boy from Italy, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection of F, and Crayon Shin-chan: Dream World Assault, all confirmed their introduction two or three months in advance, but the release date was set no more than two weeks before the release date. It is difficult to do a good job of film marketing in such a short time. Apart from seeing their PVs in the cinema, we have basically not seen the marketing of these animated films anywhere else.

The success of "Stand by Me Doraemon" in China has certain special features

The film quality of "Stand by Me Doraemon" and its large-scale marketing in China have affected not only Doraemon fans but also the general public, which is not comparable to these Japanese films this year.

Low-key introduction and hasty release date, these two factors will result in only the die-hard fans of the animation being able to learn about the movie releases through the Internet and spread the information in their small fan circles, while non-die-hard fans will hardly pay attention to the releases of these movies, so the audience size of the movies is limited.

As for the fact that the importing party did not conduct a certain scale of publicity, we can think that perhaps there was not enough time. We can also think that this Japanese comic IP was introduced to the Chinese big screen for the first time, and the final box office revenue is unknown. The original cost of purchasing the film was not high, so it is better to see how much box office revenue loyal fans can retain by rashly investing in publicity expenses.

However, at least one thing is certain: the 500 million to 600 million RMB box office revenue of Japanese movies this year is the money paid for by sentiment. There will always be a time when this sentiment is overdrawn, but it will definitely not be this year. The ups and downs of the box office of these 10 movies are not due to the gradual dissipation of sentiment, but are related to the overall environment of the Chinese film market during the release period, the popularity of IP in China, and the marketing strength of the film.

Detective Conan: Sunflowers of Inferno has the highest box office in the series in China

In fact, the "Detective Conan Movie" that was once introduced into China had box office revenues of three theatrical versions in three years, increasing from 9.37 million for the first part to 27.7 million for the second part, and then to 81.61 million for the third part. In addition to mutual promotion among fans, the introducing party also significantly increased its promotion efforts year by year.

Japanese anime movies in China, like in their own country, have a group of loyal fans who will definitely contribute to the box office. Introducing more theatrical versions, increasing publicity investment, and providing better viewing services are the best ways to get these loyal fans to bring their friends to the cinema to buy a ticket and watch the Japanese anime movies they may have watched online.

After all, the Japanese anime film market in China looks good this year, and the film copyrights will surely rise in price. For Chinese Japanese anime fans, it is reasonable to pay once or twice for these youthful sentiments that have accompanied them for a long time during their growth, but if they keep doing it, they will give up one day.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.