Japan’s animation mainland has repeatedly lost ＂Your Name＂ and it can’t change the reality.

Your name is released.

Special feature of 1905 film network When the news that the film will be released in China on December 2nd came out, the mood of the whole animation circle in China was bursting. Although it has been three months since the film was released in Japan, the high reputation and the performance that the local box office is expected to exceed 20 billion yen still make mainland animation fans look forward to it. "Your Name" also lived up to expectations. On the day of its release in the mainland, it broke the annual zero-point field and the annual 2D pre-sale record. At present, the box office of the film has exceeded 140 million yuan, which shows its popularity.

2016 is undoubtedly a big year for Japanese animated films in China.

2016 is undoubtedly a big year for Japanese animated films in China. A total of nine Japanese cartoons including Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name, Your Name This is largely due to the introduction of animated films in Japan last year, which made a staggering gain of more than 500 million yuan at the box office in the Mainland.

However, the box office performance of these Japanese cartoons in the Mainland this year is not satisfactory, as in previous years. The box office of Naruto Theater Edition: Biography, Doraemon: The Birth of a New Hero in Japan, and Huang Jincheng the Navigator barely exceeded 100 million, and other films were even more terrible. This is obviously sorry for these monster-level IP, and it also fully reflects the embarrassing situation of Japanese super popular animated films after they were introduced into China.

Even the phenomenal "Your Name" can’t change the fact that Japanese animation is weak in the mainland! You know, this movie scored as high as 9.5 points in the mainland, and the box office in Japan even exceeded 1.2 billion yuan, but how high can it reach in the mainland? Although in Zhihu, many mainland anime fans predicted that the film could exceed 500 million yuan, and some even predicted 1 billion yuan. The release of Your Name in the mainland two days before its release did go against the sky, reaching 51%. However, the introduction of animation in Japan has been criticized for its lack of stamina. In addition, with the release of 10 films on December 9, your name will be greatly reduced. If you want to make history with Doraemon: Walk with me, it is quite difficult to hope that the box office will reach 400 million in two weeks.

Then, in China, which has a large number of Japanese fans, why are Japanese animated films always defeated in the mainland, and they can’t be compared with Japanese box office at all?

Dragon Ball Z was introduced after a year and a half.

Dominant reason: the release time is too late, and mainland fans always "watch the movie in advance"

As we all know, the animation imported from Japan has never been released at the same time. It is rare for a movie like Your Name to land in the mainland market after only three months. Most Japanese animations need to be delayed for six months to meet the domestic audience, and it was introduced after a lapse of one and a half years (the film was released in Japan on April 18, 2015 and in China on October 21, 2016). In the end, this big IP only won a dismal box office of less than 11 million yuan in the mainland, ranking at the bottom of all Japanese animated films introduced this year, which is enough to prove that an "expired" film, even if its quality is higher and IP is bigger, is difficult to attract audiences.

In the face of a long delay in the release, anime fans will naturally try their best to "watch the movie in advance." In fact, as early as September this year, it was reported that Your Name would be introduced. However, due to the rampant piracy on the Internet, the introduction plan of the film was once stopped. The whistleblower said that the pirated source of Your Name was not a remake or illegal recording in the cinema, but a DVD for trial was copied. The truth of the above-mentioned revelations is still unknown, but a large number of pirated HD versions of Your Name did appear on the domestic network.

Many netizens said that "this is a good work, but I have already seen it" and "although I want to go to the cinema, I still can’t help but watch the pirated version first". The rampant piracy has caused the embarrassing situation of Japanese animated films in China. It is worth mentioning that a large number of anime fans have become dependent on piracy, and the lag in the introduction of films has invisibly given time and possibility for piracy to brew, which has led to a vicious circle and is one of the important reasons why Japanese animation has repeatedly failed in China.

Spirited Away is undoubtedly a classic.

Implicit reason: animated movies are not bloody blockbusters, and fans have not developed the habit of watching movies.

As the largest animation country in the world, the annual output value of Japanese animation is as high as 230 trillion yen (about 15 trillion RMB), accounting for 10% of Japan’s GDP, and it is also the third largest industry in Japan. At present, 60% of the animation works in the world come from Japan.

Among the top five works in the box office list of Japanese domestic films, four are animated films, namely (30.4 billion yen, about 2 billion yuan), (19.6 billion yen, about 1.3 billion yuan), (19.4 billion yen, about 1.99 billion yuan) and (15.5 billion yen, about 1.03 billion yuan), among which Spirited Away is the highest box office record in Japanese film history.

Anime fans in China have not yet developed the habit of watching movies.

In China, we also have a large number of anime fans. According to preliminary statistics, there are more than 200 million anime fans in China at present, far exceeding the total population of 127 million in Japan. If calculated according to this number, even if each movie ticket costs only 10 yuan, an imported Japanese anime film can easily get a super-high box office of 2 billion yuan. According to the statistics of a domestic video website with the genuine copyright of Voyager, the total number of hits of this animation has reached 4.3 billion, which easily kills all kinds of so-called explosive videos. So why are these animated films unable to continue writing myths after landing on the big screen in China? In addition to the delay in the release time, it is also an important reason that China anime fans have not developed the habit of watching movies.

"Cherry Maruko" and "Crayon Shinchan" are not high at the box office in China.

As we all know, it is difficult for most Japanese anime to use TV as the media in China. Most anime fans choose to get it through the Internet, some of them chase dramas, and some browse anime information. The Internet has become the biggest window for China anime fans to get in touch with Japanese anime. Every year, China will launch new cartoons in January, April, July and October, with a maximum of 50 cartoons at a time. That is to say, nearly 200 cartoons will appear on the major animation platforms in every year for China fans to choose at will. The huge number of cartoons can make every anime fan in the mode of chasing dramas all year.

However, in the long run, anime fans in China have developed the habit of watching Japanese cartoons on the Internet, and even animated films are "naturally" watched through the Internet, and there are fewer and fewer cases where they really want to go to the big screen and spend money to watch Japanese cartoons again.

Conclusion:

If Japanese animation films want to make a difference in China market, how to overcome the above two factors is the most important, and at the same time, we should pay attention to strengthening marketing propaganda. This time, "Your Name" has done a great job in word-of-mouth marketing and interactive marketing. A series of slogans such as "Perfect Score, Japan’s annual box office champion" have appeared in all kinds of publicity platforms, and a "Your Name" filter has been launched, which has accumulated a lot of popularity for the film.

In the end, the pre-sale box office of Your Name set a new record, and the first day’s box office was as high as 70 million yuan, even stepping on it. However, we will wait and see whether the film will go high and low like Huang Jincheng the Navigator, and will go down all the way after the core day, or whether it will go out of a wave of upward curve with word of mouth.