Is the licensing community gearing up to shine a brighter spotlight on anime?

As with other forms of content that may have been limited to niche status in earlier times, the community of anime producers is benefitting by the relatively easy access to its programming afforded by the advent of streaming services, YouTube channels, and other web-based outposts. Streaming services that feature anime include Amazon Strike, Netflix, Crunchyroll and Funimation Now, among others.

Series that once may have occupied niches of niches now have more of a chance to find an audience of both viewers and merchandise purchasers. For example, Mappa Co.’s “Yuri!! On Ice” — a 12-episode sports series about the lives of a pair of gay figure skaters — debuted in the U.S. last fall on Crunchyroll. Since then it has landed a six-month exclusive at Hot Topic for Bioworld-supplied t-shirts, wallets and headwear.

Hot Topic also is carrying merchandise related to “RWBY”, a rare anime series developed by a U.S.-based studio (Rooster Teeth Productions). Jazwares is both toy licensee and agent for the property; other licensees it has signed up include Trends International (posters), Calendar Holdings (calendars) and Bioworld (apparel and accessories).

“Several years ago we thought we would never be able to sell anime, didn’t believe in it and didn’t see any commercial value,” says GB eye’s Max Arguile, whose company now has 23 anime licenses, double the number from a year ago. “These days everyone has a screen — whether it’s a computer, phone, tablet or TV — and the children, teens and adults into their twenties are consuming this content voraciously.”

There’s a new generation of fans. Those anime aficionados that were drawn to the manga and TV series during the last boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s, are now in their twenties. At the same time, a younger audience is emerging for more widely available content.

There’s also a lot of testing going on. “Anime is an evergreen category… so there is not the urgency of having to get something out [on a schedule] the way there is with movies” that are keyed to release dates, says Trends International Paul Beck, whose company frequently tests anime properties in the poster racks it manages for mass U.S. retailers. “So it gives you more leeway in bringing something to market and seeing if it works and resonates. It is still a little bit of wading into the waters and feeling things out.”

Among the strategies being deployed to both attract new consumers and retain the dedicated fans:

• Toei’s Beyblade has traditionally appealed to 6-11-year-olds. But Sunrights, which represents the property for licensing and merchandising, is developing a dedicated style guide for its college age fans, many of whom were drawn to the property when they were much younger. That audience is looking for trendier t-shirts, such as those featuring Japanese calligraphy, says Sunrights’ Shana Small. “We were seeing some nostalgia from the older fans” via a variety of social media outlets, says Small, so we felt it was time for a separate licensing program.” Beyblades Burst, the most recent installment of a series that debuted on TV in Japan in 2001, launched on Disney XD in the U.S. in December.
• Licensees are creating a broader portfolio of anime-related products than in the past. In addition to posters, Trends International is adding journals, pens, stationery and other items. And Bioworld, best known for its apparel, has added wallets, socks and headwear for each of its multiple anime licenses. “We are interested in having all the categories so we can tell a complete story,” says Bioworld’s Jennifer Staley. “Having a piece of it doesn’t accomplish that goal.”
• Funimation and Crunchyroll not only produce content, but also have merchandising rights for some properties in the U.S. And the companies struck an agreement last September to jointly deliver streaming content. Crunchyroll simulcasts some anime titles in the U.S. with subtitles on the same day they are released in Japan. Funimation takes the same content and dubs it in English, a process that takes 1-2 weeks. Funimation also is seeking to add staff to its licensing department, while Crunchyroll’s efforts are being headed by Commerce and Licensing Manager Michael Melby. Crunchyroll, which makes anime available in eight languages, is among the largest of the U.S. anime services with more than a million subscribers paying $7-$12 per month for access to 15,000 titles. (It’s been on a growth spurt, up from 750,000 late last year.)
• With the rising popularity of “Attack on Titan,” Funimation, which has the licensing rights for the title in the U.S., has seen its licensees land apparel in the young men’s departments of many retailers including Old Navy, JC Penney’s, Kohl’s and others. Walmart also tested it in the boy’s section, says Funimation’s Laura Bowers.
• Overall visibility is rising. At a Hot Topic store in Danbury, CT, about eight feet of space is dedicated to anime with licensed products – wallets, socks, wrist bands, key chains, t-shirts – stacked floor-to-ceiling.  Meanwhile, GameStop is setting up a display featuring Hasbro’s Beyblade Burst toy line along with instructions in how to play the battling game, says Small.

For anime to get an even stronger foothold at retail, multi-brand displays are needed, something that Viz Media is weighing developing. Such a display would feature not only Viz Media’s properties (One Punch Man, Naruto, Bleach), but also those of other licensors, says Viz Media’s Brad Woods.

“It is better to have a 10-brand statement that celebrates anime because then you have a reason for the display since it is not tied to one particular property and instead is tied to a genre,” says Viz Media’s Brad Woods. “This would help retailers mitigate the risk because they aren’t taking a bet on [a single] property.  They are making a bet on the popularity of anime and it is always better to have an assortment.”

While fans of a broad-based movie or TV series may be more interested in replicating the experience, many anime followers want to emulate a title through its inside humor and jokes, say industry executives.

“There is that unspoken factor that resonates with your audience that drives a deeper [engagement] where you share the attributes of that character whether it be heroism, sarcasm or humor,” says Woods.

As with any area of licensing, a majority of the business is done on a limited number of properties. For example, Funimation has a library of more than 400 anime series. But the top 7 titles, including “Attack on Titans,” “Dragon Ball Z,” “My Hero Academia,” “Tokyo Ghoul” and “Fairy Tales” — generate the bulk of the licensing business, says Bowers.

“The consumer voice is very present with anime and they are very active” on social media and “easy to communicate with,” which simplifies the process of deciding which titles to license, says Staley.

Even with the inroads that anime has made in licensing and a growing number of titles to choose from, some categories remain untapped, say industry executives.  Among these is cosplay where a property’s fans seek to portray a title’s characters typically in premium costumes, says Woods. The cosplay is accompanied by the need for customized apparel, says Woods. (Anyone visiting next week’s Comic-Con in San Diego will see ample numbers of showgoers in anime-inspired costumes – some licensed but a large percentage cobbled together by the fans themselves.

“We are still a year away from having a consistent robust program that could live year-in, year-out,” says Woods.

While there remain gaps in anime licensing programs, licensees appear willing to fill them.

“We believe in anime for the long term and there is a lot energy behind brand development, engaging with consumers and deciding which products will show up at retail,” says Staley.

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