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Do you think the anime's decline in Japan will stop?

SinnohBoi

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Ratings are arguable these days. It's likely not as important as it once was, but that doesn't change the fact that Pokemon 2019 is the first Pokemon series to date that didn't make it into the top 10 ranking. This has never happened before. Moreover, the ratings from the first two episodes are likely twice as small as Sun and Moon (perhaps even smaller)? Now I might be mistaken here, but this does not seem like good news. The TV landscape has not changed that much in the last 3 years to result in this. If precure can find a sizable audience, then why can't Pokemon? It was far more popular than precure for many years.

Right now, it seems like the new experiment has been a failure. Both in the west and in Japan. How do you think the anime will recover?
 
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Are you referring to early SM in this comparison? That was well before the shift to the Sunday slot, so yes, there was some change in between. Maybe that specific change did more harm than good, which has nothing to do with the content.

It seems the anime has become a show that kids prefer to binge watch on Netflix or whatever rather than live at a specific time. Without streaming or merchandise data, this repeated discussion won't get us very far.
 
Are you referring to early SM in this comparison? That was well before the shift to the Sunday slot, so yes, there was some change in between. Maybe that specific change did more harm than good, which has nothing to do with the content.

It seems the anime has become a show that kids prefer to binge watch on Netflix or whatever rather than live at a specific time. Without streaming or merchandise data, this repeated discussion won't get us very far.

The time slot change is the biggest factor in this. Pokemon 2019 is also a direct response to this timeslot change as well. There is a reason why the anime's story is condensed into 1 episode arcs now and why each of the region visits are only for 1 episode. The anime's staff acknowledge that their timeslot requires this (they even stated this in a recent article). So not only has this time slot resulted in a substantial ratings decrease, however, it's affected the anime as well. Remind me again why this was a good move? How can yokai watch (a series that Japan has forgotten) have an uncontested Friday night timeslot while Pokemon is up against the biggest shows in Japan?

You do realize that the Pokemon anime is literally Top 3 in TV Tokyo's earners, right? Top 2 if you consider Naruto and Boruto as a single entity.

Where did you asspull this from?

I wasn't talking about revenue, rather I was talking about total viewers. There are less people watching Pokemon in Japan than ever before. And that is not a good thing. No matter how you spin it. Likewise, you simply cannot contest this because it is the truth (unless you're able to find something that tells me that more people are watching Pokemon 2019 than the previous series?).
 
That's not true. Both XY and SM failed to appear in top 10 lists many times. Not to mention they literally uploaded all Pokemon 2019 episodes into Youtube.

That's not where I was getting at.
XY's debut episode rated a 5.3 and it ranked 7th on its debut episode.
It's follow up episodes were: 5.1, 4.6.
Sun and Moon's debut episode rated a 4.4 (ranked 9th) and it's follow up episodes rated a 3.8 and a 3.6.
Pokemon 2019's debut episode ranked so low that it failed register in the top 10. It's ratings are likely around 2.2 (sun and Moon's final episode) which would be the best case scenario for it. But it's still a 50% drop in 3 years. It's follow up episodes likely rated even worse. Like I said again, Pokemon anime is declining in Japan. This is fact. However, can it be stopped?
 
But it's still a 50% drop in 3 years. It's follow up episodes likely rated even worse. Like I said again, Pokemon anime is declining in Japan. This is fact. However, can it be stopped?

It is amazing how you completely ignore the time slot change. SM ratings were not that different from XYZ's ratings prior to the change. Pokemon moving to Sunday nights and going up against Chibi-Maruko chan (which is one of the most popular animes in Japan) is the reason for the decline, not the actually content.
 
It is amazing how you completely ignore the time slot change. SM ratings were not that different from XYZ's ratings prior to the change. Pokemon moving to Sunday nights and going up against Chibi-Maruko chan (which is one of the most popular animes in Japan) is the reason for the decline, not the actually content.

No I didn't. I cited it as the biggest reason as to why the ratings have declined so much. Refer to my above post to see this.
 
No I didn't. I cited it as the biggest reason as to why the ratings have declined so much. Refer to my above post to see this.

The thing is they don't care so much about ratings.

Now, ratings don't even prove how much people in Japan see the anime. I mean, the episodes of Pokemon new season are put in youtube (for Japan) after its release in TV.

TV Tokyo measures the success of Pokemon through the revenue it has from the anime. Pokemon is pretty succesful for them.
 
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AGAIN with these threads, you have made a bunch of these already, ratings for type of animes like Pokemon, Naruto/Boruto, Black Clover, Yu-Gi-Oh, Duel Masters, Bakugan, Beyblade, etc, etc... DON'T MATTER, don't you get it? and people already explained a lot of time why ratings fell, the schedule change.
 
I'm pretty sure they care about Ratings. That's the reason why the First Episode exists according to the Interview, It was a Marketing Episode for it to Trend of Social Media and get people invested into the series... but that sure flopped. But since the Ratings isn't doing well they've tried to make things more accessible by putting the Episodes on YouTube and their Official Website by having an excuse to say people are still watching. Of course the show is in no danger of cancellation (It's Pokemon) and the merch will still sell but the Business Practice is still questionable. This was also the reason why The Twitter Account was opened, to make the News Widespread that a New Series, just not a New Series but one that will feature all regions will start.
 
I'm pretty sure they care about Ratings. That's the reason why the First Episode exists according to the Interview, It was a Marketing Episode for it to Trend of Social Media and get people invested into the series... but that sure flopped. But since the Ratings isn't doing well they've tried to make things more accessible by putting the Episodes on YouTube and their Official Website by having an excuse to say people are still watching. Of course the show is in no danger of cancellation (It's Pokemon) and the merch will still sell but the Business Practice is still questionable. This was also the reason why The Twitter Account was opened, to make the News Widespread that a New Series, just not a New Series but one that will feature all regions will start.

They care that people see the anime, since the anime exists to promote other things.

They don't care so much about the ratings, which is only about people who see the anime in TV at a specific time.


According to the interview, they want people to speak about Episode 1 and use Pikachu's popularity for that, so even who don't see the Episode 1 in TV will be interested in future episodes.

I don't know how that proves they are so interested in ratings. On the contrary, that proves that they don't think all fans watch TV episodes at a specific time.


PS: Why do you think their plan flop? Why do you think it is related to the episodes in Youtube?
 
The Pichu episode was going to be on YouTube no matter what. Streaming services exist, too.

I wouldn't say that ratings are irrelevant as there are commercials during each episode, but this is a pretty tired discussion. I'm pretty sure that kids aren't pining for the DP days if that's the implication here.
 
In Japan, fans have the following ways to watch new episodes of Pocket Monsters:

  • Watching it live on TV-Tokyo
  • official YouTube uploads
  • Hulu
  • Amazon Prime

(there are also rental DVDs, though for the sake of this thread they're largely irrelevant)

Now, unless you have the viewing numbers for all four of those (controlling for fans who watch episodes multiple times, of course) you don't actually know that "there are less people watching Pokemon in Japan than ever before."

Live TV ratings have never mattered less.
 
In Japan, fans have the following ways to watch new episodes of Pocket Monsters:

  • Watching it live on TV-Tokyo
  • official YouTube uploads
  • Hulu
  • Amazon Prime

(there are also rental DVDs, though for the sake of this thread they're largely irrelevant)

Now, unless you have the viewing numbers for all four of those (controlling for fans who watch episodes multiple times, of course) you don't actually know that "there are less people watching Pokemon in Japan than ever before."

Live TV ratings have never mattered less.
Explain to me why one of the anime's head staff is on record saying that Pokemon 2019 is a response to their viewing figures. He says that the timeslot affords them little opportunity to create arcs in the series, therefore most episodes will only carry through a single episode. This direction alone tells us that they are, in fact, concerned by the viewing figures if they would go through such a change. Moreover, official uploads of the anime has only just begun on youtube after the timeslot change and the spiral of ratings. To honestly say Live TV ratings have never mattered less is a complete fallacy. Yes, they are not the be all end all, however, The Pokemon Company do take notice of the ratings (and these changes back this up)
 
Explain to me why one of the anime's head staff is on record saying that Pokemon 2019 is a response to their viewing figures. He says that the timeslot affords them little opportunity to create arcs in the series, therefore most episodes will only carry through a single episode. This direction alone tells us that they are, in fact, concerned by the viewing figures if they would go through such a change. Moreover, official uploads of the anime has only just begun on youtube after the timeslot change and the spiral of ratings. To honestly say Live TV ratings have never mattered less is a complete fallacy. Yes, they are not the be all end all, however, The Pokemon Company do take notice of the ratings (and these changes back this up)

You're twisting that interview to suit your argument. Negisihi said their approach to Pokemon 2019 was in response to viewing habits, not viewing figures. He said there'd be fewer two-parters and arcs because people don't have time on a Sunday to keep up with a weekly show, and he wants to make it so they can jump in on any episode without being too lost. They are basically admitting that they know people aren't going to tune in every week, so they have to tailor the show to suit these habits. If they were concerned about numbers, they'd be taking the opposite approach. Pulling good numbers means making a show people want, or feel the need to, tune in to every week while positioning it in a good time slot. Pokemon 2019 clearly does not fulfil these conditions and they're rolling with it rather than fighting it.

If live TV ratings mattered, why did they decide to change the show's timeslot to Sunday, where the competition was even stiffer than it was on a Thursday? To me, that's not a decision you make to put a show in front of more eyes. You do that because you know people are going to watch the show regardless and you're comfortable with viewers skipping episodes because you can watch it on-demand on Youtube, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. From a business viewpoint, TVTokyo will be happy having big cash cow shows on a Sunday while leaving other timeslots open for shows with higher potential for growth i.e. the "next" Pokemon or Naruto/Boruto. These shows are very unlikely to have explosive audience growth, whereas a new show always has that possibility.

As for the Youtube thing, it makes more sense to put episode one of a new series on a new platform than it does putting episode 140-something on that platform.
 
Looking at DVR ratings on Japan, people are still watching the new series.

The above link is for DVR ratings.

Comparison of SM and SS equivalent weeks:
First Week: SM (--) vs SS(--)
Second Week: SM (41.4) vs SS(70.4)
Third Week: SM (54.0) vs SS(64.7)

The above numbers are based on percentages of the most popular show in each category, so any rise or fall in number of people would not matter.

Of course, keep in mind that more people watch recordings nowadays due to the timeslot change.
 
SinnohBoi said:
Moreover, official uploads of the anime has only just begun on youtube after the timeslot change and the spiral of ratings.

Official YouTube uploads have started after the timeslot change, sure, but both Hulu and Amazon Prime have been uploading the newest episodes every week since the XY days.
 
Please note: The thread is from 4 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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