Is The Anime Industry In Crisis?

So it finally happened! Geneon called it quits in November of 2007, citing declining sales as the primary reason for shutting down its operations. And ADV, the largest of the North American anime distributors, has adopted some cost-cutting measures like ceasing publication of Newtype USA (they plan to start publishing their own anime/pop culture magazine at a reduced price) and severely curtailing mailouts of promotional items to anime clubs.

But do these actions suggest that the anime industry in North America is in trouble? Before I can answer that, perhaps it would be best to give an overview of the availability of anime here over the past 45 years.

Americans' first exposure to anime came in 1963 when NBC first broadcast an English-dubbed version of the Japanese animated show Tetsuwan Atom but rechristened Astro Boy. This show was soon to be followed by the likes of Gigantor, Speed Racer, and Battle of the Planets. Most Americans didn't even know the Japanese origins of these shows or didn't even care.

Japanese animation presented in America was few and far between during the 60s and 70s. The next wave of anime broadcasted on American television wouldn't come about until the mid-80s when Robotech and Voltron hit TV screens on weekday afternoons. But by this time, comic book and science fiction conventions started showing more Japanese animation in their video screening rooms, along with other eclectic fare from here in the States as well as from other parts of the world. Also at this time, some of the vendors in the dealer's rooms of said conventions were selling homemade videotapes (VCR were becoming more commonplace around this time) of raw Japanese animation ("raw" meaning no subtitles of any kind, including English). I suppose these were made by fanatics who taped from the original Japanese broadcast and shipped them over to the States. But seeing I was more into comic books at the time, I really had no interest, especially if I could not understand the language, not to mention price tags of no less than 30 dollars a tape. My family didn't have a VCR back then anyway.