Though in all seriousness I don’t think the comparison is a fair one since Kyoto Animation is many years too young to be competing with an institution like Sunrise on equal footing. Maybe once they’ve defined a few genres, branched out beyond the moe demographic, are capable of pointing at a demographic/genre and saying “I want that” and then taking a successful profit and new audience from the endeavour, are capable of directly exerting pressure and influence on the Western hemisphere’s market (they are currently reliant on Sunrise’s parent company Bandai for this)….maybe then the comparison on a full scale will be a fair one.

Anyway you’ve also illustrated why I have such a tenacious desire to support Sunrise and to condemn Kyoani beyond the simple fact that the former always seems to be making shows that I really enjoy (and has been consistently for about 30 years) while the latter is about 3 for 14 in only 5 or so years. The former has always struck me as the epitome of clever, smart and resourceful with a desire to win and win big (I value all of these traits highly) in any field that they can exert influence on while the latter keeps up as a repeat offender on how to appear ambition-less and how to limit oneself by placing needless caps on their own ability to expand and make a name for themselves beyond a niche market of anime.

And yet the latter for some reason is often looked at as a huge defining force that does everything right all the time, to which I regularly say “no not really” in my own infamous way. The bigger picture…it’s always important, so thanks for providing it. Though I would still kill for a direct look at the statistics if there is some easier way to get at them.

@hashi: “This does give me more respect for KyoAni, since it seems willing to lose money by keeping more production in-house, in order to keep quality up. But can it continue like this when costs for Korean or Chinese animators are so much lower (if they are)?”

Hmm…I don’t know, Sunrise works regularly look quite fantastic and a cut above many other studio’s productions even though they do a lot of outsourcing, they’re shows are typically planned as 2 to 4 cour versus 1, and they are doing a lot more work per season than almost anybody but Toei. To me it perhaps even gives me a little less respect for Kyoto Animation since that many people are often coming up par (or at least not a class above) versus smaller teams of animators under separate management that are operating out of entirely different countries. If the improvement isn’t defining then that just seems a little…well stupid as a business model.

@omo: It’s not like comparing apples and oranges, because I am comparing Sunrise, the animation company, and not any of its affiliated sister corporations.

@kransom: Yes.

@hashi: Elineas is correct. In addition, I think there was a bit of drama about Little Busters!, which is why Key decided to produce (what I assume) is more or less the same show under a different title and use a different animation house.

@Cosign: Very valid criticism. Perhaps I was unclear or outright wrong in my article, but I think that we can look at Kyoto Animation and Sunrise as case studies. As you say, we should be carefully when drawing generalizations with such a measly number of data points. At the same time, I still believe that this case study is a valid and useful endeavour.

@AC: Sunrise is wily. It also has a lot more money than KyoAni could ever muster. Naturally, they’re not going anywhere.

@Shadowmage: It’s all about business practices.

@Elineas: The post is more or less my post, with a few omissions. The gist is the same. And yes, Sunrise does have more capital and greater market power than KyoAni, substantially more.

@RF: The issue is not age, but rather, capital. I think the ability to feed and farm in-house writers is pretty important in lowering costs in the long run, for reasons stated in the article (licensing fees being the big one). In addition, I believe you are correct in your identification of the root cause of Kyoto Animation’s perceived rise, namely, that we commentators often focus on the late-night anime block. I personally do not believe Kyoto Animation will ever overtake Sunrise in terms of market power or revenue, to be honest. Regarding your point about PA Works, I will discuss original anime works in a future post, so look out for that.

@Sorrow-Kun:
Let’s not forget that Sunrise also dabbles in niche-y shows. Yakitate Japan, Code Geass, anyone? (Well, an argument can be made for calling Geass a mecha show, I guess…)

@gaguri:
Work sucks.

HEAPS of worker-bees as well as supervisors are required to finish a project within ‘cramming period’ (it’s always never enough people), but that amount of work force are most of the time not needed, even during early stages of a project. A company can end up paying full salaries to many permanent employees, who are mostly useful only during those really needed period. So I can definitely see the advantages of Sunrise having 1/10th of in-house compared to Kyoani, because you’d only need a relatively small amount of people who are talented/resourceful/experienced to work on the project at conceptual and planning level, and seek external workforce when you need them.

I think relentlessflame’s hit the nail on something. KyoAni can try to expand and become the new incumbent ala Sunrise but that won’t necessarily go well with niche viewers and KyoAni purists. Expanding may involve what Sunrise’s business model is like (having Korean/freelance animators and such) and this may change KyoAni’s original flair.

You also mention about having in-house writers, and pitched that as a sort of advantage that comes with age. That’s not entirely the issue; it’s part of their business model. Sunrise’s business model is, basically, to either create new media franchises or to extend Bandai’s toy franchises into media. Kyoto Animation’s business model is, for the most part, to be hired to adapt existing third-party franchises for animation. Each studio has the staff they do because it follows their business objectives. Perhaps in time Kyoto Animation will want to expand and change that business model, but for now they seem perfectly able to find work doing what they’re good at. Hashi mentioned about P.A.Works being chosen for Angel Beats; their business proposition seems to be to pursue anime-original projects instead of adaptations, while still putting a lot of care into the art/animation of the works they produce. So in that case it may be just a matter of picking the right contractor for the job, and letting Kyoto Animation continue to focus on adapting existing works.

And incidentally, even when looking at DVD sales for late-night anime, those aren’t published or distributed by the anime studios anyway. How much of that revenue goes back to the studio depends on contracts and involvement in the production committee. So I guess it all sort of goes to show that individual data points do mean something, but it’s much more complicated than most people generally bother to figure out (or, really, can easily figure out from the outside).

And can anyone give me a quick summary of the post in the final link?

@hashi
That doesn’t really seem like the right line of reasoning for why Angel Beats was given to PA Works. KyoAni’s adaptations have been very highly regarded (or at least that’s the impression I get) and to sacrifice that consistency for a different studio that doesn’t have that background with Key VNs might result in backlash. I suspect it might be more of a problem with season conflicts; KyoAni signed up K-on season 2 first and thus couldn’t fit it into their schedule, so Key went elsewhere.

I’m not horribly surprised that Sunrise makes more money than Kyoani since they’ve been around the block longer, but what I find unusual is that this difference is so much larger than I expected.