On March 15
th, the California-based organization known as the
Flying Colors Foundation launched their 2018 Anime Census. Their goal is to get a better understanding of the western anime fanbase for the overseas Japanese Anime Industry to target their distant viewers. In doing this, they hope to create a stronger bridge between the two groups with understanding each other.
The need for a census is in the numbers. According to the
Anime Industry Report 2017 from the
AJA (Association of Japanese Animations) the anime market has been growing for seven consecutive years, 38% of anime revenue was made from overseas, and a record number of anime (356) series have been produced in 2016. The anime industry is continuing to grow overseas, and sending the international data to the industry will help bridge the gap between the viewers and creators.
This isn’t the first time Flying Colors worked on a poll of this size, in 2017 they worked with anime YouTuber, Joey the Anime Man to find out the
“Top 100 Anime of All Time” based on western fans votes. The poll had around 132,000 participants with over 500 anime recommendations ranging from movies like
Ghost in the Shell (1995) and
Wolf Children to TV shows such as
Cowboy Bebop and
One Punch Man. You can check out the video release from The Anime Man below:
The “Top 100 Anime of All Time” poll is currently the most extensive survey in anime, and Flying Colors hopes to break that record again. To get the word out, they are working with anime YouTubers such as
Akidearest,
Glass Reflection,
Digibro,
Mother’s Basement,
Gigguk, and
The Anime Man to gain more attention on the project.
The census as nine parts such as how the participant got into anime, their interests and activated, viewing habits, thoughts on the anime industry and Japan as a whole, and how anime has affected their lives. Flying Colors hopes to reach over fifty thousand global participants along with a million plus online views. You can take the census by following the link below:
Flying Colors 2018 Anime Census