>>6835828Note that the US makes up roughly 20% of overseas sales, which would put it about equal in terms of dollar sales with Japan... while only licensing a fraction of what's released in Japan.
>If anything your view is skewed by anime bombing in your country, but I don't really see any major changes in Japan's way of doing things other than stopping their co-productions that weren't really something that common back then either.Shows like Samurai Champloo, Wolf's Rain, Kino's Journey, etc were made thanks to the US market. Specifically, various animes were made with the western market in mind so it could be shown on Sci Fi Network or Cartoon Network. This isn't something i can easily source, since I'm mostly going by what producers and execs were saying at SDCC, in commentary/interviews or just credits found on the DVDs. With shows like Kino's Journey, that was partially funded by ADV, so it was more than various Production IG shows that got co-produced by western companies.
Again, Japan isn't as insular as you seem to believe. They did take notice of how much money was being spent by just Americans. Nevermind Canada, UK, etc. And various studios tried to capitalized on it just like any business would.
Which brings us back to sales of merch, which did and does hurt everyone who sold goods to in these bankrupt stores going out of business. It's tens of thousands of units being sold every quarter, if not hundreds of thousands. This is a significant source of revenue that a loss could and did put collector toy companies out of business.
Companies who survived did so by changing what they produced, like various Japanese companies did.