>From the Walkman and PlayStation to Spider-Man’s box office records, Sony Group has shown a knack for shaping global pop culture hits. Now in the midst of a strategic transition, the company is pouring time and money into a homegrown genre with the potential to power growth for decades to come: anime.After turning “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” into a global phenomenon, the company is working to seed or acquire the next anime blockbuster. Some 80 years into its history, Sony is determined to create franchises that will last about as long.>The $28 billion anime industry is one of the fastest growing genres of entertainment globally. For Sony, it’s a key part of a broader shift away from relying on physical hardware like the PlayStation console and toward intellectual property and content.>Much as with beloved game characters transcending their original format, hit anime franchises become gold mines not only for viewership but also for merchandise, music and live experiences.>“With Demon Slayer, it is our intent to make this last 10 or 20, if not 50 to 100 years,” Atsuhiro Iwakami, president of Sony Music Entertainment Japan and chairman of Aniplex, Sony’s anime production company, said in an interview.>He points to “Dragon Ball” and “One Piece,” stories that have survived long enough to pass from parents to children and which Sony has rights to stream internationally. “We want to make sure we’re part of creating the type of franchise that can withstand decades.”We should have gatekept anime harder
Dragon Ball was kept alive because so many people would've been fired had they let it end when Toriyama INTENDED for it to end back in the 80s. It's a zombie IP that kept the whole manga industry from having to cut jobs. Oda is in the same situation except smaller scale, if Wan Piss ends then the publisher goes under since they've got nothing else. It's nothing to do with gaijin, it's always been about the japanese industry not wanting to cut jobs.
Imagine putting demon slayer on your backlog in 100 years and you have to watch like literally 2,000 episodes just to "catch up"
>With Demon Slayer, it is our intent to make this last 10 or 20, if not 50 to 100 yearsBoomers are so niggerbrained, everyone has already moved on to the next FOTM
>>292209068How in the fuck do they intend to extend Demon Slayer beyond the movies? On second though, dont answer that.
>>292208856sony bet on live service games lol
>>292209747They can either tell tales of the past with the first Hashira fighting Muzan hundred of years ago or go full reincarnation slop with the modern AU characters either having SoL adventure or fighting a new demom antag
>>292208856>“With Demon Slayer, it is our intent to make this last 10 or 20, if not 50 to 100 years,” Atsuhiro Iwakami, president of Sony Music Entertainment Japan and chairman of Aniplex, Sony’s anime production company, said in an interview.That's not going to happen, because Demon Slayer is a finite story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It's shorter than most other series in its genre, its world is smaller in scale (you can only tell so many stories about Japan) and the cast is too small to make an expanded universe about them. The reason Dragon Ball and One Piece works as an expanded universe is because their worlds are larger in scale and they have an ensemble thus you can tell stories about any character in any place, in any time. You can even see people are moving on from it and are only watching Infinity Castle to see how the anime ends. Once the anime ends, this franchise effectively ends too.>>292210618You can't make an expanded universe about a series that's too small in scope and with a cast that's just as small. The story also made it a point that the Demon Slayer Corps hasn't killed a single Upper Moon for a century until Tanjiro came along, then they finally made progression and were on a winning streak. And the reincarnation ending more or less guarantees there won't be any sequels and spin-offs of any kind. Demon Slayer is a one-and-done series, once you've experienced the full story, there's not much else to explore and you move on. Hell, it's very telling that many people have already moved on from Demon Slayer and are onoy really watching Infinity Castle because they want to see how the anime ends and Aniplex left the anime stuck in theater jail to intentionally squeeze out the last bit of money they can get before the well runs dry. Sony are just delusional and thinks every franchise can become the next Dragon Ball/One Piece that will last 50 or 100 years after its life cycle ends.
>>292208856>fuel decades of future growthYou mean run it into the ground.
>>292208856>>“With Demon Slayer, it is our intent to make this last 10 or 20, if not 50 to 100 years,” Atsuhiro Iwakami, president of Sony Music Entertainment Japan and chairman of Aniplex, Sony’s anime production company, said in an interview.Only a suit could say something so soulless. Not even the hardcore Demon Slayer fans wanted this slop.Plus he is delusional if he thinks Demon Slayer is on the same level than DB or OP.
>>292208856All of this is just the typical delusional PR bullshit. Executives routinely pitch investors on "100 year IP" pipe dreams, yet almost every modern anime hit eventually cools off once its main story ends. The Japanese tried to do the same shit with Yo-Kai Watch and Attack on Titan. The former, they aggressively marketed it as the next Pokémon (a multi-generational evergreen franchise). For about 3 years, it was a massive cultural phenomenon in Japan, dominating toys, games, and box office charts. But once the initial fad burned out and the studio tried to reinvent the formula to keep it going, the audience vanished almost overnight.With the latter, Attack on Titan was the biggest anime that blew up in modern anime history. But the series relied heavily on shocking twists and uncovering the truth about the Titans. Once the ending aired and the secrets were out, much of the watercooler hype and weekly fan theorizing naturally disappeared. The anime also dragged out its final arc over several years, with mainstream attention moving on.>>292211875>Plus he is delusional if he thinks Demon Slayer is on the same level than DB or OP.He's delusional, and Demon Slayer is not anywhere close to DB or OP's level, yeah. But his job as chairman of Aniplex and president of Sony Music Japan is to sell Sony's growth story to Wall Street and shareholders. Saying shit "We will milk this for 50 to 100 years" sounds much better on an investor call than "We have two more movies left before we have to scramble to find the next big hit."
>>292210941They could try to get the original mangaka back after they finish all these moviesThough I don't know how the manga ends so maybe continuing isn't much of an option
>>292208856Why don't they just adapt the entirety of FGO, events included, if they're looking for an eternal franchise to milk?
>>292210618>go full reincarnation slop with the modern AU characters either having SoL adventure or fighting a new demom antagThey'll probably do this when the author dies not going to lie
>>292213154Noone care about FateslopWorse than Naruto
>>29221315490% of FGO is shit and the remaining 10% that's actually good is probably dogshit in a format that isn't VN
>>292213154Because it wouldn't be particularly profitable. They've tried and will eventually try again with middling results.FGO prints out money from an entirely different medium, whereas Demon Slayer is already a known hit on the animation front.
>>292210618Adapt the Gaidens, Rengoku one shot and light novels and maybe the academy spin off but after that they can fuck off. These things dont ever end well>>292212399Already happening with them dragging Kishi back to shit out more Naruto after the failure that was Samurai 8 and Boruto.
>>292208856>>292209007>>292212243Shueisha doesn't even want to continue dragon ball really. They got a 1000 episodes of anime out of Toriyama when he was still living but they sure as fuck want to move on now. Doesn't matter how much iyoku flails.
>>292213558They really should try poking the Dragon Quest nest then or Blue Dragon. Surely there's someone else out there that can write a decent Dragon Quest manga/anime besides Dai.
>100 year IPLiterally the only way to get something like this is to adapt chink IPs that somehow have thousands of chapters at 5k+ words per chapter.But China is already trying to kickstart their own animation industry so they'll never let go of those IPs.There's a couple of okayish Korean IPs that could get lengthy adaptations but as long as they're pandering to the lowest common denominator with trash like slop leveling they're absolutely fucked.The Japanese (and westerners) simply don't have the drive to commit to insane series lengths like the chinks do. Even the eternally running light novels are filled with prose and scene setting that, once put to screen really doesn't amount to much in terms of content (and that's to say nothing of the actual literary quality of the LN.)Match that with the often 'too much' pop-culture referential material that shit like Isekai relies on (i.e. game mechanics, guilds) that has no long-running history relatable to the real world and you're fucked. No way you'll get the mass appeal.There's a reason retellings of old myths work so well; it's because a lot of culture is built on those old myths so even if you don't understand shit about King Arthur, Warring States or the Sengoku period, a lot of European, Chinese and Japanese culture references those famous stories and times so the knowledge isn't completely limited to a single fictional universe.
IPs are a good thing, but there should be limits.Let's say 20 years. Enough time to make a load of money, but then be forced to let go and create something new, while allowing anyone to also have a go at this piece of media that is now part of the collective culture.Isn't that what they do with medication?Then again, grander works of art like The Lord of the Rings, which were a lifetime on the making, could suffer and be suffocated by the bootlegs.There is no solution that is both fair and healthy for the market.
>>292214368The main issue is the current trend of ignoring trends and consumer feedback and cashing in on IP goodwill.Look at Star Wars. The IP itself sold gangbusters through two failed trilogies and multiple attempted spin-offs, but even that is getting to the point now where having your media attached to the "Star Wars" brand is becoming less and less of a selling point and more an indication of low quality, mass-produced slop.It's similar to how most of /a/ views trends like battle harems, high-school romcoms and isekai.They took those genres and started green-lighting anything within those genres.I have a saying that is "You can fault me for anything except my basic pattern recognition" and I stand by it here. This is just the natural process of adjustment."Finding out" is just the universe's natural response to the "fucking around" that preceded it.
>>292212399How? The author took the money and fucked off. They didn't want to continue any more, and even planned for Demon Slayer to be a short stort right from the start. One Piece is an adventure engine built around exploring endless islands, and Dragon Ball escalates into new universes and deities. Demon Slayer is a single-objective revenge and cure mission. Once Muzan dies and Nezuko is human, the premise ceases to exist. The author even deliberately sealed the timeline; the modern reincarnation epilogue closes the future, while the 113-year Upper Moon stalemate and Muzan's post-Yoriichi hiding seals the past. Any prequel is forced into a low-stakes or predetermined tragic ending, which isn't what Jump aims for (their motto is "Friendship, Effort, Victory").>>292213455That's the thing, though. The people who cares about Demon Slayer, cares about the main manga exclusively and most people ignores the side content. Gaiden had a massive 2.37 million sales run but that was entirely fueled by the Mugen Train theatrical phenomenon and the release of Vol 23. Once the movie left theaters, sales flatlined almost overnight. Kimetsu Gakuen ran for 3 years after the main manga ended, yet it failed to crack annual Oricon charts. Without the main story's theatrical spectacle driving hype, casual fans tuned out. There's a reason why they put the final arc in theater jail; they're intentionally maximizing profits and squeezing out the fans of every bit of money they have before the well runs dry. That's why they demand higher ticket prices, capitalizing premium formats (IMAX, 4DX, Dolby Cinema, etc) and relied on repeat superfan viewings.Mappa tried doing the same thing with Attack on Titan's finale and it proved that even a generational modern phenomenon loses mainstream momentum when its finale is dragged out over years, and once the credits roll, pop culture quickly moves on to the next big thing.
>>292213742If you read the article, Sony/Aniplex makes it clear they want to own Dragon Ball, One Piece and Naruto so they can do a theme park. Theme parks are the gold standard for turning entertainment properties into 50-to-100-year revenue engines. They generate high margin ticket sales, merchandise, and experiential spending long after a show's original run ends. See the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Super Nintendo World and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.But Iwakami says at the same article that you cannot sink billions into physical attractions if another company controls the characters and licensing terms. Right now, Universal Studios Japan already holds major theme park partnerships for My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen and Frieren while Dragon Ball's first dedicated theme park is being built in Saudi Arabia while Naruto's is being built in France through Toei (DB)/Pierrot (Naruto)/Shueisha's licensing leaving Sony completely on the sidelines of physical attractions.The article even stresses that one hit isn't enough. Even if Sony somehow bought the master rights to Demon Slayer (not going to happen), a single finished 23-volume series cannot anchor an entire theme park on its own. To build a true "Anime Disneyland," you need multiple generational pillars with massive, recognizable worlds like Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Naruto that appeal to parents, kids, and international tourists simultaneously. And while Aniplex owns massive hits like Fate/Grand Order, Sword Art Online, Madoka Magica, and Bocchi the Rock, those skew heavily toward core anime fans rather than the broad family friendly crowds required to sustain a theme park.
>>292214599This is a common phenomenon in entertainment: you can milk indecent amounts of money from a famous IP, but only if you destroy its legacy.The reason why the Japanese industry has survived for so long is because they don't put all of their eggs in the same basket, they always train the next generation of editors and mangaka, sacrificing immediate profit in exchange for long-term stability.But Sony's announcement is: we will profitmax and crash this industry, with no survivors.
>>292215112>>292216053I hate what the world has become.
>>292213154fgo doesn't translate to anime well, especially with their male protagonist
>>292208856>With Demon Slayer, it is our intent to make this last 10 or 20, if not 50 to 100 years
How is Sony staying afloat with all the constant shooting of their own feet?
>>292214748They clearly dont care about who exactly went to see the movie and why. They saw big dick movie numbers and now have dollar signs in their eyes. They want to be in on the next big thing before their fantasy 20 year plus multimillion dollar franchise really takes off.
>>292208856500 episodes of Boku no hero sequels.
>>292208856Its over
>>292208856>entire thread and 90% of posts made by the Anti KnY immigrant trannykek, based SONYlooking forward to 100 years of demon slayerDemon slayer >>> One Piece slop and Dragon ball and Naruto
>>292221102>Jumpshit >>> Jumpshit and Jumpshit and Jumpshit Huh??
>>292221102Demon slayer needs a lot more sequels for that to happen.
>>292221102>cheering for Snoy to milk out a finite story once its life cycle ends out of a petty autistic feudPathetic. Also, if you read the article, Aniplex/Sony says they want to buy Dragon Ball, One Piece and Naruto because they WANT to make their own Anime Disneyland that can bring generations in and Demon Slayer alone cannot do that (they also don't own Demon Slayer to do that, Shueisha owns it and they won't give it away which is why they bought Kadokawa).
>>292221453The best course would be gaidens for the rest of the Hashira and light novel adaptations but it feels too late at this point. People in the west arent going to appreciate anything that isnt a WWE match and Japan wont appreciate anything not written exclusively by Wani.
I honestly don't understand why some of you even bother to get outraged or enthusiastic over such PR talk, every fucking entertainment company hopes to have something like this, but it shows up every two or three decades and usually they have no fucking idea from where it will come from.
>>292221744But why isn't there a JUMP land? Should have made one in the 80-90s with Dragon Ball leading it and adding on One Piece, Slam Dunk and other big Jump titles through the years. Wasted opportunity.
>>292208856KnY doesn´t have the potential to become timeless or iconic, not in the way stuff like DB, Evangelion, FMA, Macross, Gundam or GITS have. I don´t think it can even achieve the status of stuff like Naruto or Bleach and become the anime of it´s generation.
