http://members.shaw.ca/ru.igarashi/Surveys/fans/fan0709/highlights.html
Sorry it took so long to release the results. The actual number crunching was very quick. It was the sifting through comments and trying to write the highlights that took the time. That was exacerbated by a less than optimal health. Anyway,...
This survey ran much more smoothly than last year's. No glitches were reported. Yay! I added some JavaScript code and cookies this year, and they seem to have done their jobs, or at least not stopped the works cold. Most folks seemed to support their use, so those features will remain in subsequent surveys, and I'll be expanding their use (e.g. more question skipping).
Anyway, this year the survey got 776 returns, down from last year's 798. Darn. I was hoping to exceed last years count. The fraction of folks who have not participated in this survey is down from 80% to 74%, so I'm thinking this is about the limit, even if this year I had two major web sites announcing the survey. I also suspect anime fandom has been in a downturn. How long people have been an anime fan has seen a noticeable drop in the "5 years and under" demographic to 27%, which is nearly 10% less than last year, and nearly 20% from 2004. There is a commensurate increase in the older demographic.
On the otherhand, the Usenet contingent doubled from the previous two surveys. Yow, I wasn't expecting that. And folks say that Usenet is dead. Pfft. Down, yes, dead, not.
This year, the survey got fewer responses from Africa, Central America, and South America than last year. Nuts.
Regardless, many thanks to the responders. Some of you found it fun despite the length, so I hope you do it again next year and still find it fun.
Here are the main links associated with this survey.
The index to all results is at
http://members.shaw.ca/ru.igarashi/Surveys/fans/results.html
The total tallies can be found at
http://members.shaw.ca/ru.igarashi/Surveys/fans/fan0709/results.html
The Usenet-based tallies can be found at
http://members.shaw.ca/ru.igarashi/Surveys/fans/fan0709/results_raa.html
The Usenet vs Web comparison results can be found at
http://members.shaw.ca/ru.igarashi/Surveys/fans/fan0709/results_raa_vs_w.html
Some trend analyses can be found at
http://members.shaw.ca/ru.igarashi/Surveys/fans/trends.html
And finally, the main survey page, with links to past survey results can be found at
http://members.shaw.ca/ru.igarashi/Surveys/fans/
On the DVD format uncertainty, despite more folks wishing they could collect anime in HD (up from 40% to 55%), acquisitions of standard DVD still went up by 10% (from 65%). However, HD DVD players are on the increase (from 5% to 15%). For those wondering if this scenario parallels the LD vs DVD, I don't think so. HD DVD is already higher on the wish list than LDs were and we are in the early days of software releases, which are very low still. I think we'll have a better view in a year. If in three years, HD doesn't surpass LD in collections, then we may have a parallel.
On the subject of purchases, purchases of video by order (e.g. online orders) has gone up significantly.
There's an interesting shift in the acceptability of fansubs. Fansubs of LICENSED titles saw a large upswing in the number of people who consider this piracy, 23% to 35%, and significant downturns in the acceptability. That's a welcome change, and hopefully a continuing trend.
On a related issue, it's not surprising that a lot of what fans watch is fansubs, and again it looks like half the fans attribute at least half of their licensed acqusitions to having watched non-licensed versions. Also, it looks like last years results on the amount fansubs comprise of total anime viewed was a fluctuation, as this year's results are quite in line with results further back.
On the issue of trading music, in contrast to the level of disapproval of fansubs of licensed video, and of purchases of bootlegged anime-related products (60%, and 75% in favor of conventions disallowing bootlegs), most folks think trading music is OK. Obviously, folks think about music and other anime products differently. I have to wonder why.
An unhappy trend for me is a significant drop in the purchases of anime-related products. The only products to see a growth are books (but not manga!), figures and toys. I suppose Its possible that some of the manga are being confused for the books category. This year I added a bunch of apparel items, so we'll see how those track. I got a fair number of suggestions of "cel phone straps", so I'll probably add that next year. I'm also going to try to remember to break the products lists into 4 categories: printed/published, office/home/desk, apparel, and artwork. You'll see what I mean next year... if I remember.
It looks to me that face-to-face togetherness in fandom is still a necessity in this age of cyber-interaction. The maximum category has slid continuously in the past few years. The others have held steady, suggesting a shrinkage in size in general, but for the most part the sizes seem to remain healthy.
Oh, on the subject of "togetherness", I'm going to try to remember to add a a "Do you singalong with your friends?" question and similar "Do you dance to dance scenes/segments?" questions next year.
This year I added a sub-genres question. OK, don't ask me why "magical girls" wasn't on the subgenres list. I know I was going to put it on the list. I think when I put "mahou shoujo" on the Japanese genres list, I overlooked the Western list. I may have even thought it was redundant... well, I don't think it is now. We'll see what happens next year. Conversely, don't ask me why I used "mecha" in the sub-genres when I should have used "giant robots". I was happily surprised to see that one of my favourite sub-genres, "slice-of-life" got a high response. Actually, I think it got the highest response in this question!? Apart from that, there were not surprises. I'm going to have to add the qualifier "Western" to this question, as many suggestions belonged in the Japanese categorization question.
I added the episode format question, and gee, "fully involved story arc" got the highest response.
I'm not a manga reader so the issue of how fans accept anime revisions of the manga basis didn't strike me until the question came up during setting up for this survey. Not surprisingly over half of the manga readers don't really care or are quite please when the producers add a few extra stories, but I was half-expecting this percentage to be higher because you often hear folks wishing for stories that fill in details, or to see what happened to someone after some event. A quarter are generally not pleased. The displeasure rises to over half when the producers go in a different direction than the manga, again not surprising.
I have no idea what is going on with the video game questions. The responses from last year and this year are totally different.
I got quite a few more responses from folk purportedly in the anime industry. Don't ask me who they are, I don't know, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. And folks (you fans), be nice to these people. They try to take opportunities to interact with fans, and for a lot of they time those interactions encourage them, and that means we get better product, which etc.
OK, lastly, it's time for me to stand on the soapbox for what we (internet savvy) fans would like the industry to do (or not do). So to the INDUSTRY FOLKS, here's what we say.
By a wide margin:
Here are the options we prefer (i.e. not as strong results):
Haruhi must be pretty popular because on the bonuses question, Haruhi was mentioned by name way, way, WAY more than any other show or character. As for most popular suggestion, jewelry; don't ask me why that wasn't on the list... stupidity can be the only answer.
On the subject of items that I really should have known to list, cell phone straps. I've seen a lot of these, so again don't ask me why I didn't list this.
Someone must have put out a bunch of poorly made artboxes recently because on the top requirement for artboxes question, there was a steady stream of "sturdy" or "sturdiness". I personally can only count on one hand the number of weak boxes I've gotten, but something has to have tweaked these fans.
If you have any other comments or questions regarding this survey e-mail me at 'ru dot igarashi at usask dot ca'.
Copyright © 2007 Ru Igarashi