(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.)
There are two types of popularity in America.
First, you have well-known popular things. Think Taylor Swift, the NFL, KPop Demon Hunters or A Minecraft Movie. Even if you don’t watch, listen to, or interact with said thing, you know what it is, and people who love it.
On the other hand, with the rise of the internet and the decline of the “monoculture”, some folks would have us believe that certain things are wildly popular, but many folks have never heard of them. Lots of influencers fall into this category. These are creators who have “millions” of “views”, but 90% of Americans couldn’t pick them out of a line-up.
What explains wildly popular people/things we’ve never heard of? I have a few theories…
- With the rise of global distribution, some things (be they celebrities, films, songs, what have you) are popular globally, but not that popular, relatively, in America.
- We have our own individual media silos now. Believe it or not, most folks in America still don’t use TikTok. But if you’re on TikTok, the current thing blowing up on that platform makes it seem like “everyone” is talking about it.
- Some of the numbers might be, let’s say, “over-hyped”. (Remember all those fake Facebook video views?)
- Something is popular, just it’s popular with those darn young’uns.
I thought of this while reading some recent headlines about anime. Anime is, according to some headlines, wildly popular globally, and, some argue, also wildly popular in America. And yet…many Americans haven’t watched a minute of it. I regularly read analysts advocating that anime presents a unique opportunity for Hollywood, and I’m not certain the data supports that.
Indeed, the latest big hit in theaters, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, seems like the perfect test case study for this phenomenon. It managed to gross $70 million in its opening weekend in America, and still, most folks have never heard of it.
So here’s what I am going to do today: write the un-hyped anime article. I’m going to look at the data and tell you what it actually says, good and bad. I’m going to debunk the bad surveys hyping anime, look at the theatrical box office to quantify the actual upside, and, crucially, how I think Hollywood should approach this important genre strategically.
I want to write the most accurate analysis of anime today, not the article that will go the most viral (especially with anime superfans).
Ready? Let’s go!
The “Hype”
Here are some examples of the hype that imply that anime is crushing it in America and globally:
- HubResearch cited Polygon data that 42% of Gen Z in America watches anime regularly.
- Even better, Netflix says that half of their subscribers have watched anime.
- Japanese marketing firm Dentsu said that 36% of Americans watch anime weekly.
- Axios ran a chart that said we’re an “animation nation”.
- Crunchyroll has 18 million global subscribers.
And that’s not to mention the latest superstar example, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. That film has grossed $600 million globally.
In all, those surveys and data points tend to imply, if not outright state, that anime is super popular. But they’re all incredibly easy to debunk.
Debunking This Hype: Beware The Missing Comparison…
Let’s start with three surveys: one from Dentsu, one from Parrot Analytics, and one from Polygon. Starting with Dentsu, here are their survey results:
In Japan, 40% of Japanese consumers watch anime weekly. In America, it’s 36%, so only ten percent less than Japan. Given America’s 330 million people to Japan’s 125 million, that means, if you trust this survey, more Americans consume anime weekly than Japan.
Do you think that’s actually true?
Or take Parrot Analytics, whose data was cited by Axios to show the huge demand for animated content. Here’s the chart, which does show growth since 2020:
In this case, it’s just a “check the Y-axis” test. Look at the ceiling of this chart: 3.5%. Is that a huge number for Parrot Analytics? I can’t imagine “3.5%” is frankly that big, especially if it implies the demand for non-animated content is 96.5% of the global market.
As for Polygon, interestingly, their website no longer actually hosts their survey data. The original link now just directs to their anime page. I’m not sure why they took it down. But you can find copies online:
In this case, sure, the data seems more reasonable, but it’s still crucially missing one key thing that keeps it from being “data” and makes it a mere anecdote:
A comparison to anything!!!
Data is only useful to show how given things change over time. If you don’t have that, you don’t have data but merely a statistic, an anecdote.
So the question for Polygon and Dentsu and Parrot Analytics is…what is the comparison here? None of those data points are wrong, per se, but they all strike me as “datecdotes”, a piece of data without any context.
This also applies to Netflix. Netflix told us that half of their subscribers had watched anime. But over what time period? Does that mean regularly watch anime or just one-off programs? While half of Netflix customers have watched anime, how does that compare to kids animation? Or horror films? Or romance TV series? Since we don’t have context, the number sounds big, but we don’t actually know what it means.
(Not to mention, Netflix provided this datecdote at a big conference for anime sales, so they’re a bit incentivized to tell the best story, not necessarily the most accurate one, to secure said sales; they’re not going to tell the sellers that it isn’t popular on their platform!)
To say it again:
Data without comparisons (or over time) is almost meaningless.
When it comes to “hype”, one-off data points that sound impressive and sell the hype, but sober data analysis often crushes your dreams. And when I read articles about anime, I see much more of the former than the latter.
But what about the latest massive hit at the US box office, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle?
Demon Slayer IS The Taylor Swift Data Fallacy
We’re just getting started with this article, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out…
- …how Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is another example of the Taylor Swift Data Fallacy at work…
- …what anime’s actual theatrical track record looks like…
- …the brutal streaming ratings data…
- …how Hollywood studios should actually approach anime…
- …and a lot more…
…please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
