For instance, the article discussed how in the face of falling wages – that are expected to continue to decline in the foreseeable future – the casual consumers (aka normal, sane people) have largely stopped buying anime, and now it’s mostly just otaku who still do it. This would be a key reason why anime studios have increasingly focused on making cheap garbage that do little more than pander to otaku fetishes. Which of course does nothing to win back normal consumers, so it becomes a vicious cycle where the Japanese audience can only decrease over time, and foreign revenue isn’t enough to compensate for the dying Japanese market.

And then there’s the not entirely insignificant matter of how much actual animation work is outsourced to other countries, and what this means for the training of new animators. They would have practiced and mastered their craft doing all the things that foreigners now do instead, so a very important step in their training is all but gone. And all this while the current generations of Japanese animators rapidly burn themselves out, grinding away for pitiful wages. In other words, unless things change, the Japanese animation industry cannot possibly survive, at least not in any worthwhile shape or form.

Or something like that. Anyway, that was his prediction back then, based on various such factors. I have no idea how much of this information is still accurate, but going by this article I would assume that it is, and so Anno is probably right. The actual time frame would be anyone’s guess, but as it is, it’s really hard to see how the Japanese anime industry can survive in the long run.

I’d like to read SiliconNooB’s and Lusipurrs opinions on this.