Where Have All the Ecchi Anime Gone?

New anime focused on more titillating elements are 73% less common than a decade ago.

Ecchi anime used to be among the most likely to make it across the Pacific. Now, they’re getting passed over by the medium’s biggest distributors. But the biggest factor in ecchi’s fall can be found in its native Japan.

We’ll get into it below, but first…

- Miles A.

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Chart of the Week

Recently, Crunchyroll CEO Rahul Purini revealed that 48% of UK fans on the platform stream their anime with subtitles. He added that this is more than anywhere else in the world, meaning that dubbed anime is more viewed than subbed anime in every single territory. At White Box, we’ve been saying for a while that more anime is viewed dubbed, because it allows for multi-tasking. But Crunchyroll’s latest announcement had us wondering: why does the UK watch with subtitles more? In our poll of over 1000 English-speaking anime fans, here’s what we found:

• Anime fans in the UK & Ireland have a higher proportion of fans who can speak Japanese at any level, compared to respondents from all other English-speaking territories.

  • According to internal Duolingo data from 2020, Japanese was the third fastest growing language in the UK. Duolingo may be an imperfect method for learning a language, but this report is notable from a language learning intent perspective. Perhaps, the UK & Ireland do have more folks who have studied the language, and choose to watch subtitled anime to keep their Japanese skills sharp, since watching movies and TV in a language you’re trying to learn is a tried-and-true language-learning method.

• Australian & New Zealander anime fans also have a higher proportion than average of fans who can speak Japanese at any level. According to the Australian Department of Education, Japanese has been the most taught foreign language in Australian schools since the 2000s.

  • With such a high rate of the language being studied, it’s a bit surprising that anime fans in Australia watch anime dubbed more than subbed— but maybe most of them just aren’t watching on Crunchyroll. From our data, only 53% of the Australian & New Zealander audience watched a single episode of anime on Crunchyroll in the previous month.

- Chloe C.

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Entertainment At Large

Separating Art from the Artist Only Works One Way (Cinelinx)

We often have to explain to clients why titles like Rurouni Kenshin have fallen out of favor with western audiences. Although this piece is about the direct link between money spent on the Harry Potter IP and J.K. Rowling helping to pass a law that endangers transgender people in the U.K., it encapsulates the debate around many artists like her.

If you’ve ever struggled to explain this issue to others, or maybe are new to it yourself, my friend Jordan Maison’s piece is a great primer.- Klaudia A.

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Platformization’s Elsewheres: Japanese Convenience Stores and the Platform Economy (Concordia University)

While we mainly talk about fans of Japanese media abroad, Marc Steinberg’s incredibly insightful research paper focuses on a very Japanese cultural product - specifically, Japanese-style convenience stores. When I was in college (too many years ago), one of the most interesting courses I took was about communication through public space, so I loved this analysis.

It gets into the history and current state of the “platform economy,” and the performance of convenience. As western 7/11s try to bring Japanese convenience store favorites abroad, this was a great read. - Klaudia A.

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Ones to Watch

READ: Descending Stories

A former yakuza member listens to a rakugo (traditional Japanese storytelling) performance during his time in prison and decides to do whatever it takes to become the rakugo master's apprentice. Over the course of his journey in the world of rakugo, we come to learn about this traditional art and the competing forces of innovation and tradition. Along the way, we are also exposed to the family dramas of both the present and the past and the perennial struggle between legacy and mortality.

The original manga by Haruko Kumota and the anime series adaptation by Studio Deen are both incredible! -Miguel M.

WATCH: Your Forma

Chloe recommended the Your Forma light novel in an earlier issue, so don’t miss the Your Forma anime! It jumps right into the second volume’s most exciting case. It’s a slow burn, but really picks up in episodes 3-5. If you enjoy Blade Runner, this is the anime for you. - Klaudia A.

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Where have all the ecchi anime gone?

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” It’s a common sentiment in every medium, and every fandom. In some cases, however, the data backs up these feelings – and The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Ecchi is one of them. In the last ten years, the number of new anime series broadcast on Japanese television has stayed mostly the same, but the number of new ecchi anime has fallen 73%. This genre of anime tends to overperform on average across many revenue verticals. So what happened?

What is ecchi?

Before we answer that, we need to define our terms. In the same way anime is a catch-all term in Japan for animated works, ecchi has a meaning unique to international audiences. Derived from the shorthand of “H” from hentai, in English-language and other overseas communities, ecchi generally refers to titillating works of Japanese animation and comics that prominently feature fanservice, while still avoiding outright pornographic elements. Sometimes softcore, frequently not, we’re talking about HBO-level content at its most extreme.

As a result of this semantic shift of ecchi in English, it’s challenging to make definitive statements about the genre’s growth or decline. But using a mix of MyAnimeList and AniList tags, and making some subjective decisions, the trend is quite clear – ecchi are being released in lower numbers.