The propreitor of my favourite retail outlet posted a curious revelation (via):

No news here. Anime sales in the US have dropped probably 70-75% across the board since the peak in 2005. DVD, Manga, Merchandise, everything. Excluding Disney, the Anime DVD market alone in 2005 was around $350 Million. Last year if you exclude Disney it was maybe around what, $80-$85 Million? That's Funi, Viz, Section 23, MB, and all the other little ones put together. Anime is a 'micro' market again.

With everything that's been written on this over the last couple of years, this should be no surprise to anyone. All of us in the biz know this all too well, its just no one likes to talk about it because it reflects poorly on the potential valuation of someone's company. There are insiders still around in the R1 industry that put a lot of money and effort into the Anime biz, and are now bitterly lamenting that they clearly bet on the wrong horse. I've never felt like that though, I was always surprised that it ever got as big as it did a few years ago. My philosophy is that you just gotta make the best out of what you have, whatever that is.

It's a brutal market out there.

Note that he did not use the opportunity to lash out at this customers as he used to. Still, I'm not going to be sorry for buying that Cat Shit One DVD, as promised, at least not just yet.