>>1495602>Anime with serious tonesArea 88
If you want serious anime topics, then you are wishing for the days when anime videos sold as many as 500,000 units for some of the most popular titles. That was before the age of piracy and the age of streaming when hard copy videos were sold in both laserdisc and DVD format. As internet piracy and P2P and digital copying developed, video sales dropped precipitiously as free AVI format pirate videos became the main way videos propagated outside of copied VHS and SVHS tapes.
As a result, the content of anime videos changed. Stories now supported both licensing and merchandise sales as that was basically where almost all the profit was made. The production committee would ensure that characters wore certain types of clothing or even ate certain foods so that a licensor could have a tie-in promotion.
