A company that takes Japanese games and customizes them for the U.S. is looking to do the same for DVDs.
Santa Ana’s NIS America Inc., part of Japan’s Nippon Ichi Software Inc., plans to license and sell Japanese animation films and TV shows in North America.
It’s not a huge departure for NIS America, which was started in 2003 by Nippon Ichi to localize and market its niche video games in the U.S.
“We have specialized in bringing Japanese culture from Japan to America for years,” said Mitsu Hiraoka, vice president at NIS America. “The distribution of Japanese animation is only another element of our business.”
By midyear, NIS America expects to start selling DVDs, starting with four anime titles.
NIS America’s strategy is low risk. The movies and shows will have subtitles but won’t be dubbed in English, which is more expensive. Sales will be done by NIS online.
“To avoid any negative risk, we are concentrating on releasing them through the Internet as opposed to any brick-and-mortar stores,” Hiraoka said.
The company hasn’t ruled out the possibility of releasing titles as Blu-ray discs or selling them through online sources such as Los Gatos-based Netflix Inc. and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Network.
Giveaways
NIS America is known for adding posters or statues to its video games to drive sales among collectors. It’s likely to do the same with DVDs to cater to hardcore anime fans.
The move comes at a time when Japanese anime has waned in popularity and sales. A lot of sellers have shut down in the past several years as the market has cooled.
The anime-related market in North America was at its peak in 2003, when it stood at $5 billion, according to the Japan External Trade Organization, a group backed by the Japanese government. The 2009 figure was about half as much.
Several of the largest players have fallen into bankruptcy, including Houston-based A.D. Vision, the parent company of ADV Films. At one point, A.D. Vision was the largest distributor of anime in the U.S. It shut down operations after transferring assets to several other companies in 2009.
Another large distributor, Long Beach-based Geneon Entertainment USA Inc., part of Japanese advertising company Dentsu Inc., closed in 2007.
Texas-based Funimation Productions Ltd., Cypress-based Bandai Entertainment Inc. and San Francisco-based VIZ Media LLC are among the few of the surviving companies with high-profile titles, including “Dragon Ball Z” and “Fullmetal Alchemist.”
There still is demand for quality niche titles, according to NIS America.
“We wanted to pursue some of the smaller titles that would otherwise never find an English language distributor,” Hiraoka said. “We see the anime market rebounding especially with high-quality titles.”
Niche video games are set to remain as NIS America’s bread and butter.
The company shipped “Last Rebellion,” its first game for the PlayStation 3 video game console, earlier this year. The game was done by NIS America’s parent and Japan’s Hitmakers Inc. NIS America also plans to release “Sakura Wars” for PlayStation and Nintendo Co.’s Wii console.
The company’s parent has had a tough 2009.
Nippon posted an operating loss of $3.3 million, off from an original expectation of about $333,000 in operating profit.
The company had sales of $14 million, down 15% from a year earlier.
Nippon plans to come out with eight games this year, with a majority of them set for U.S. release.
It plans to focus on North American sales of its most popular title, “Disgaea,” a role-playing game that has sold 1.6 million copies.
A new version of the game is due later this year.
