Makoto Kimura, one of MAPPA's former senior executives and the lead producer of Chainsaw Man, revealed the anime had a significant impact on the studio as well as its future operations and strategies. What is the company's future like?
Kimura, who left the company earlier this year to form new production company BLUE RIGHTS, explained the importance of Chainsaw Man in a lecture with Cool Japan Fund Inc. Most animation studios work as contractors for production commissions (broadcasters, film distributors, film producers, etc.), who allocate production budgets to pay for studio services. “In some ways, these companies are lucky to continue to receive requests and accept creative challenges, but at the same time, I think it's very difficult to escape word of mouth,” Kimura said. with such structure. If the pandemic and other unexpected problems arise and the broadcast date is pushed back, these companies will not be able to produce a complete product within the assigned production budget. This is a big risk for these companies.” Jujutsu Kaisen 0 animation director Nishii Terumi explained that the incompetence of animators is also a big risk, predicting that more anime studios will go bankrupt in the near future.
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MAPPA wants to invest 100% in Chainsaw Man
One of the big downsides to being a contract studio is that they largely don't capture highly lucrative secondary income like streaming rights, merchandise, or box office revenue in the case of theatrical releases. “It is difficult to pursue new businesses and grow as a company in such a situation,” Kimura said. “MAPPA has taken several approaches to change this environment and drafted growth strategies. One approach is to acquire the rights to the anime through investment, and the other is to produce a popular anime. The third approach is to pursue projects related to popular anime (sales, events, etc.). With Chainsaw Man, we were determined to try our hand at all three methods with a 100% investment. We will create, distribute and sell the products ourselves. Some problems still exist, but it was a financial success. I hope we can apply this success to the next update.”
Kimura explained in a recent interview why he left MAPPA, and shared how he transformed MAPPA's copyright department. This allowed the studio to secure overseas streaming rights to titles like Oblivion Battery and the highly lucrative Jujutsu Kaisen — currently the world's most popular anime and the world's most in-demand television series gender in any medium or genre.
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Producer Ex-MAPPA explains how MAPPA secured 100% anime adaptation rights
Kimura gave an interesting analysis of how certain rights are secured for popular adaptations, and in the case of Chainsaw Man and Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill, owns 100% of the relevant rights to anime. Some studios receive large loans from banks, such as Studio Pierrot, whose president says banks could confiscate some of the studio's intellectual property if it cannot repay its debt. Others rely on presale agreements, in which a distribution company funds a production before production is complete and, in some cases, before it begins in earnest. This is based on their previous performance and the expected success of the series. Similarly, MAPPA relied on bridge financing, where instead of a distributor, financing company Cool Japan Fund stepped in based on MAPPA's previous and expected success. Kimura believes that with the impact of Chainsaw Man, “the need for JCF and other forms of bridging financing will increase in the future.” His establishment of GREEN RIGHTS will help solve these problems.
Chainsaw Man streams on Crunchyroll, where every view contributes directly to making MAPPA, hopefully, a more sustainable company. The series is described: “Denji is a boy who works as a Demon Hunter alongside the “Chainsaw Demon” Pochita. One day, while living a miserable life trying to repay the debt he inherited from his parents, he was betrayed. and was killed. While unconscious, he made a deal with Pochita and was revived as 'Chainsaw Man': the owner of the Devil's heart.”
Chainsaw man
After being betrayed, a neglected young man is reincarnated as a powerful demon-human hybrid after merging with his pet devil and is soon inducted into an organization dedicated to demon hunting. When his father passed away, Denji was stuck with a huge debt and had no way to pay it off.
Release date October 11, 2022
Cast Kikunosuke Toya, Ryan Colt Levy, Tomori Kusunoki, Suzie Yeung
Seasons 1
Studio MAP
Creator Tatsuki Fujimoto
Protagonist Denji, Makima, Pochita, Sức mạnh, Himeno, Kishibe
Episodes 12
Network Crunchyroll
Source: Cool Japan Foundation – CJ Insights