Black Lagoon author: “I saw a foreigner jumping the gun and saying ‘There might be a new anime for Black Lagoon soon,’ but my response is the usual: ‘If there are various sales figures, the people who fund the anime will feel motivated to put up the money, so please buy the merchandise and manga.’”

Among the largest economies, South Korea and Germany are on the extreme end of the scale. But Japan, for example, has 22% of its GDP made up of exports, compared to say, China which is around 20%--and China is frequently held up as an export-reliant economy (which it is).

AMong G8 nations, Japan trails only Germany as a % of its economy devoted to exports.

To say Japan is a heavily export reliant economy, among the most reliant among major economies of the world, is entirely accurate.

Generally speaking, Japanese companies (particularly profitable ones) tend to be very slow to make changes. Companies like Shueisha have been extremely profitable the last 15-20 years thanks to booming overseas business while requiring relatively minimal investment on their part (selling off their IP to US companies that did all the work in setting up a distribution platform).

Japanese companeis tend to like low-risk proftability, where as setting up their own distribution channels and hiring translators and licenses tends to be quite expensive.

With the main stream success of Demon Slayer and such, I think Japanese companies are recognizing that there's been a shift in how Western audeinces engage with Japanese IPs compared to even 10 years ago, as a whole generation of anime fans who were kids 10-15 years ago are now in their 30s with lots more disposable income (and kids who want merch).

But this is all very quickly developing and Japanese corportations operate very differently from a lot of AMerican corporations. Whereas American companies tend to go all in and are all about engaging with risk to maximize profits, Japanese large corporations tend to be a lot more conservative about risk, traditionally speaking.

Japanese companies (and nationalists) value stability to an extreme, it's a religion. Americans tend to value experimentation and risk-taking. Recent Chinese companies have pushed this even further, prioritizing speed and risk tolerance above all else. Japanese companies, by contrast, almost never take chances. That said, IMO, Kadokawa (Re:Zero, Oshi no Ko, Alya, Delicious in Dungeon) and Kodansha (Attack on Titan, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Blue Lock, Shangri-La Frontier) are somewhat more flexible than most.

You can see this difference clearly in how decisions get made. A Chinese company would sign a million-dollar contract after only brief consideration. A Japanese company will “take the idea back to the company,” put it on the table, discuss it for half a year, then require an official seal of approval (yes, a literal seal) from a boss, who then needs approval from their boss, and their boss’s boss, all the way up the chain. The entire process can easily take two or three years.

In that kind of environment, once you gain status inside a Japanese company, you’re not punished for failing to innovate or for missing major opportunities. Success is often measured by how effectively you avoided failure, not by how much you achieved. The result is a system where playing it safe is consistently rewarded.

That risk-averse culture is a big part of why It took nearly twenty years for major publishers and their manga divisions to get it across their heads that digital manga platforms could be hugely profitable. Twenty years before they were willing to loosen their dependence on bookstores and layers of distributors, including higher-level distributors that function like dead weight. The distribution system is propped up by obligation and personal ties, keeping effectively obsolete middlemen shambling along in a modern market that no longer needs them. During that time, piracy exploded and Amazon dominated.

Japan is highly hierarchical, almost like the military. You don’t question your boss. You don’t challenge the system. You do things the safe way, even if that means falling behind. The system can feel like something out of Psycho-Pass.

It's because they had the PriConne debacle to contend with. They released KR and TW (traditional Chinese) versions through third parties pretty much right away, to mixed success.

I got Cygames targeted ads in the entire interim about various roles they had. My read is they were trying to grow their org to handle global publishing themselves. I think you underestimate what huge orgs Western publishing companies are, and how seemingly only the Chinese can match their growth. The fact that Cygames went through such a rocky road for what is essentially their baby and STILL persisted after 3-4 years of failure after failure should actually be celebrated.

KanColle is still THE shipgirl franchise in Japan. Because it ties in better with the naval history scene there.

As someone who plays both, I say Azur Lane took the throne from KanColle (A throne they never expect to have) and threw it away just based on how they treat their characters these few years.

This statement made it clear.

KanColle is about shipgirls.

AL is about ship(Optional)-girls.

Kancolle afaik is still the big boat franchise in japan and unlike the other games that don't release outside of japan bc japanese exec doesn't understand western people, didn't release bc the creators expressly dont want it to.

So yeah it being non existent out of japan is a deliberate choice.

Good on you for trying to help someone!!