Anime. Everybody knows somebody in their lives who loves it, watches it, lives it, eats it, and breathes it! The consumers of this medium used to be the victims of bullying and ridicule back in the days of middle and high school, but now it is among the ranks of mainstream and has become widely accepted all across the globe. So out of all of the genres that your average otaku consumes on a daily basis, what is it about the Isekai genre?

Every new anime season; there has been an influx of anime titles from this genre. Some of them are strong contenders of being ‘Fan Favorites’ like That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, while others were trying something new but might have made a misstep somewhere. Out of all the anime genres the Isekai genre is…the most saturated. Like every genre before it there is some history as to why it became what it is today, and don’t think you’re outta the woods America; cuz’ we’ve been on the ‘isekai’ train with our own fairytales. (Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, The Wizard of Oz, does that ring a bell?)

For any history buffs out there; the concept of this genre came from ancient Japanese Literature, and the story of Urashima Taro – who saved a turtle and was brought to an undersea kingdom. (I wonder if that’s the story that inspired The Little Mermaid and Aquaman…?) Five days later he returned to his village; 300 years into the future. That story was adapted into one of the FIRST anime isekai films in 1918 by Seitaro Kitayama, but if we’re talking about modern isekai stories; there’s Warrior From Another World (1976), Aura Battler Dunbine (1983), Fushigi Yugi (1992), El-Hazard (1995), need we go on?

In simple terms; Isekai has had its foot in the anime game for a long time, and Miazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) was one of the most well-known and popular isekai anime movies of its time. (In fact, there are still fans who cosplay as that ‘spirit’ thing to this very day. We forgot its name so don’t @ us!) Also happening in the 2000’s was the popularized isekai anime title; The Familiar of Zero (2004), which popularized isekai through light novel and web novel media. This of course led to Familiar of Zero fan fiction becoming so popular on the website “Let’s Become Novelists”, that it spawned a genre of original isekai novels on that site; which led up to the creation of Re:Zero (2012) by Tappei Nagatsuki.

You guys may be hating on it now, but in 2012 Sword Art Online took isekai’s popularity to the next level. (We know Progressive is gonna fix that, but at the time it came out people couldn’t stop talking about it!) This was also the year that the term “isekai” was coined, and as anime titles like SAO became popular, it led to more web novels being written on ‘Naro’ (Let’s Become Novelists); like Mushoku Tensei (which became an anime), Saga of Tanya The Evil (which also became an anime), and TONS of others that all came afterwards. The Isekai genre got SO popular in the early/mid part of the 2010’s that fans…in both Japan and the West (i.e. the U.S.)…were SICK of it! Why do you think there’s a ‘brand new’ isekai title…EVERY! DAMN! YEAR?!

This genre got so annoying, that there was a blanket ban placed on it in 2016 due to it overcrowding the anime and manga market. Fans to this day are wondering ‘How long are they gonna milk this genre?!’, but if you ask Kadokawa (manga publisher) in 2017, they ended up banning all isekai stories in their own contest. You know this genre is oversaturated when big-name manga publishers, and isekai-churning web novel websites start banning it from any contests they host. All because of a fisherman who saved a turtle…

No matter how sick of it we are, isekai is still a popular genre in both anime, and manga. Throughout every anime season there is gonna be at least 2-3 isekai titles that will be subbed, dubbed, and dropped by fans. It’s become the genre you love to hate; which might explain why Konosuba got created. The Isekai genre has become so saturated that it’s now the butt of many jokes; even to the point where parody anime titles (like Konosuba) are made.

Something so small as a man saving a turtle and being transported to another world, has allowed this genre to ascend to a level of popularity; that it has achieved meme status in that same aspect. Isekai has gained a cult following over the years, but for some fans – at the cost of its own self-respect. Its the one genre that is both hated and loved at the same time; from its copy-and-paste storylines, to its half-assed character development. However, there have been some titles that have managed escaped this ‘curse-like’ cliché, so when some one says “Not another damn isekai!”, just know that the fisherman and the turtle started it.

Until next post, stay nerdy. 

If you’ve been an anime fan since the 90’s (or even the 80’s) then you’re already familiar with how it became so popular today. The art style, the direction, the animation, the complex stories, and the character development all encompass what the foundation of anime is for many fans of the genre. Many fans who are products of the 80’s and 90’s remember an era where it was rather expensive to buy dubbed episodes of your favorite titles of that time. In fact; if you wanted to get the first dubbed season of Dragon Ball, you had to by a set of 12 bricks (VHS tapes for Gen Z’ers who don’t know what ‘bricks’ are) that only had 2 or 3 episodes on each for $150. 2000’s kids will never have to do that now; for that exact same price, and possibly even less (maybe a third), you can get every dubbed and subbed season of Dragon Ball Z (or Kai if you want the 100% ‘true-to-the-manga’ version).

This may come as a shock to those who don’t know this, but…dubs are EXPENSIVE! Now, if you didn’t think that came as a surprise, then allow us to give you an even greater FYI. Anime…is EXPENSIVE to make! Yeah, how’s that for a surprise?

Ever heard of the phrase ‘You get out what you put in?’, yeah, that goes for Hollywood movies and Anime production. Creating Manga is one thing, but producing an anime adaptation based on its source material (the manga), is a whole other monster. The process that goes into adapting your favorite titles into anime form is more layered than you think. (Contrary to popular belief, there are those within the social media world that believe it is ‘easy’ to produce anime. To that we say…try making your own Sourdough bread and get back to us with your results!)

For this post; we’ll be going over how much it costs to produce one episode of your favorite anime title, the overall cost to make a season, and the phases that need to happen. (We’ll be going by the U.S. equivalent of Yen, so feel free to translate how much it costs in Japan.)

The Cost of 60 Seconds of 2D Animation

For anybody that’s taken animation courses, the animation part of the overall process is done in frames to simulate an action (or actions) that are taking place. This is also the part where the animators can get the most creative. If you’ve heard the word ‘FPS’ (no, not First Person Shooter) then you may have seen it whenever you render videos for Youtube. For anime in this case; it’s rendered between 24 and 30 frames per second, but for this post we’re gonna say 30 frames per second. There are 60 seconds in a minute, and with an FPS of 30, its 30 x 60 = 1800 frames per minute.

What about the cost you ask? For just 60 seconds of video, the average cost is $6000. We’re not making that up; it actually COSTS $6000 to make just ONE minute of anime! If you divide 6000 by 60, it costs $100 to make 30 frames of animation – and we haven’t even factored in the time it takes to do this! (We’ll get to that soon enough.)

The Overall Cost Of One Anime Season

So 1800 frames of a 60-second animation costs an average of $6000 (depending on the studio), so how much does it cost to produce a 23-24 minute episode? Take that $6000 and multiply it by 24, and you’re looking at $144,000; or if you multiply it by 23 you’ll get $138,000. Depending on the studio you’re looking at between $100,000-$300,000 per episode. For every 43,200 frames of animation, it costs $144,000. (Or $138,000 for 41,400 frames of animation.) You want 12 episodes? That’ll be between $1.6 Million-$1.7 Million, and in some cases up to $3.6 Million if the season is 24 episodes; the equivalent of two 12-episode runs. We’re surprised your wallet hasn’t killed you yet! XP

That number is double or triple if you’re producing an anime movie between 90-150 minutes long.

The Production Phases

Ok, we covered the money…but what about the time? Well there’s phases in the production process that have to happen before the money for said production can even be kicked out. First is the Concept Phase. You need a base or a foundation for the characters, right? Well it all starts here. The artists will create character concepts of what they want the character to look like, move like, and what their mood will be like. They then go through testing animations to get an overall feel of the character before they do a ‘final draft’ design. Sad thing about this phase is; it’s where most projects end…but not all the time.

Survived the first phase? Then the Storyboard Phase is next! This is where the ‘action’ happens as the cuts and story composition as a reference for every animation. You know all the backgrounds for all the action, rom-com, isekai, and fantasy anime titles you like? Well, this is the phase where it all comes together.

Now onto Phase 3; the Animation Phase. This. Is. The. Phase. That. Takes. The. Most. Time! Most fans get annoyed when other ‘fans’ complain about the animation of a series, but their response to that is ‘If you think it’s so easy, why don’t you try it!’ The lead artists will create the keyframes; then with the missing gaps in between, the animators will draw in the frames leading into the next keyframe the main artists have set. (Don’t forget the lip flaps, because those have to be animated too.)

Finally comes Phase 4; the Cutting Phase. All of the scenes are cut together with the colors corrected, the music produced, and the voice actors with their lines already recorded. We haven’t even factored in the cost of music and voice acting; especially if you want professionals, but this is the phases of the process in a nutshell. As for the time this process takes, you’re looking at between a couple of weeks to a few months. (A lot of studios have deadlines, so you also gotta factor that in too!)

So Big Spender, you can’t say making anime is easy, can ya? This is just the cost of producing the anime you love so much, and we haven’t even gotten into the promotional and advertisement costs, IP copyright laws and protections, overseas distribution, English-dubbing, musical composition royalties, ADR, broadcast streaming and home video release rights. ALL of this goes into the process of creating the anime that you love, and how are they able to recoup the cost? You basically BUY THEIR PRODUCTS! (Prints, Blu-Rays, DVDs, anime figures, apparel, official art books, etc.)

The next time some troll on the interweebs tells you that they think its ‘easy’ to make anime, direct them to this post and tell them to make their own Sourdough bread and post the results. Anime’s expensive, but with such a high demand for it worldwide, we don’t see it dying off anytime soon – no matter how expensive it is to make.

That will do it for this post, so until next time, stay nerdy! 😉