There's a gap growing in the fortunes of Japan's anime studios, @mattschley.com writes. A く (ku) shaped economy, he calls it. An excellent metaphor.
I'm quoted a couple times in this excellent article with my thoughts on some of the financial pressures that anime studios face.
![Email snapshot with the subject "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)", dated September 16, 2026, at 1:35 p.m. Body of the email reads, "Hello [redacted], We're writing to let you know that the group you tried to contact (PRAnimeFutureForum) may not exist, or you may not have permission to post messages to the group. A few more details on why you weren't able to post: * You might have spelled or formatted the group name incorrectly. * The owner of the group may have removed this group. * You may need to join the group before receiving permission to post. * This group may not be open to posting. If you have questions related to this or any other Google Group, visit the Help Center at https://support.google.com/a/crunchyroll.com/bin/topic.py?topic=25838. Thanks, crunchyroll.com admins"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lyykxvja6foa664pcfsw7mkx/bafkreif3ucf2timcsqwj5htxo2vgesruxwrxjzdnkm42jrwhx4xyr3hpgu)
![Japanese-language excerpt from the December 2025 issue of Nikkei Entertainment! magazine. Highlighted is a passage from the excerpt: "齋藤優一郎プロデューサーの本作の目標は前作を上回る興行、そして「おすかー」だ。" This passage translates to "Producer Yuichiro Saito's goal for this film [Scarlet] is to surpass the box office success of the previous film [Belle] and to win an Oscar."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lyykxvja6foa664pcfsw7mkx/bafkreidofxumgsdvf5hfbxgxq3bjd5jyuyuwylngge5mghnj7gn6s66dey)
![Crunchyroll Manga also offers a legitimate way for burgeoning anime fans to read source material. Suehira says 15 of the top 20 internet piracy sites include anime and manga, and that manga represents 70% of global publishing piracy. “We want [Crunchyroll Manga] to be a solution to the privacy market and really contribute to the ecosystem in Japan,” Suehira says, adding that the app includes features the prevent screenshots and screen recording.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lyykxvja6foa664pcfsw7mkx/bafkreifx2aeagclqx3tcubq2dpplduccegcbqnaqxpx5sg4bwnd5lbv5re)
![Two paragraphs from Perschon's paper about Captain Nemo's identity:
"Nemo’s little known Indian heritage, and even less known revolutionary involvement in the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, amounts to the literary equivalent of a political conspiracy, beginning with Verne’s first imaginings of the character. It has been well documented how Hetzel refused Verne’s first iteration of Nemo, given France’s political ties with Russia:
“[Verne’s] first draft was influenced by the 1863 Polish uprising against Tsarist Russia. Poland was quashed with a bestial savagery that appalled not just Verne but all Europe. As first conceived, the novel’s protagonist, Captain Nemo, was a Polish aristocrat whose parents, wife, and children were brutally slaughtered by Russian troops.” (Miller xvi)
Verne acquiesced to Hetzel’s suggestion, by leaving “the identity of Nemo and of his great oppressor as something of a mystery, at least in 20,000 Leagues” (xvi). But Hetzel’s censoring only delayed Verne’s intent for Nemo’s origins. By the time Verne wrote The Mysterious Island, he was positioned to refuse any censorship, and able to present an arguably more radical genesis for the Captain, as the leader of infamous Sepoy Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny of 1857: “Indian in his heart, Indian in his longing for revenge, Indian in his dreams of reclaiming his native land, driving out the invaders, and inaugurating a new era of independence” (Island 584-85)."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:k22gmtescwgkac5kk5k35t5s/bafkreibarwkps7ig2pz4ecvyoxgtgcgrqyncgbnkntswi3xqel5bg7oijy)
![A paragraph from Perschon's paper about Nemo's identity:
"Nemo has been portrayed as an Indian only three times, and played by an Indian only once, by Naseeruddin Shah in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG). The identity of Nemo as Indian outside Europe remains to this day largely unknown, so that one reviewer of LXG commented: “I didn't even know [Nemo] was Indian in the books; I thought the choice of Shah was innovative casting” (Heroine Content). It might be assumed that Walt Disney is largely responsible for the accidental Occidentalizing of Nemo, given the popularity of Disney’s film version in 1954. However, even the earlier audiences of the 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues were told that Nemo’s Indian heritage as seen in the film was not of Verne’s invention, with reviewers assuming “it was the invention of the filmmakers” (Taves 209). Even so, the blame for the cover-up cannot be laid solely at the feet of Richard Fleischer, Stuart Paton, or any other film director. Instead, we must look earlier, to the first English translations of The Mysterious Island. Miller and Walter identify culprit of the greatest translation misrepresentation of Nemo as “British boys’ author,” W.H.G. Kingston:
“Unfortunately, Kingston’s rendering of Nemo’s biography is not at all faithful to Verne: the Englishman rewrites, cuts, and just plain fabricates, all in an effort to bring this crucial passage into line with the official British propaganda of his day” (389)."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:k22gmtescwgkac5kk5k35t5s/bafkreid6eoqqst3viwhxkd5az2wz2r3bkmotq6zi46ufcu7aeytfrnekji)
