Anime home video is thriving. Blu-ray and DvDs are great collectibles — and fans never have to worry about their favorites (like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon, or Dragon Ball) disappearing from streaming platforms.
At the time of writing this, the anime film Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero sits above the blockbuster Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and the smash hit Top Gun: Maverick for most popular Blu-ray releases on Amazon. It all points to a larger phenomenon: In 2023, as so many studios and companies have pivoted to streaming services, home video releases of anime, namely DVD, Blu-ray, and box sets, are thriving.
It’s not hard to see why so many companies have pivoted to the streaming model. In the last decade, streaming service subscriptions have seen massive growth. Meanwhile, home video sales have steadily dropped — DVD and Blu-ray purchases declined almost 20% from 2020 to 2021. Even shows with massive fan bases that seem ripe for collectors, like The Mandalorian, remain disc-less in the United States. But anime home video appears to be bucking this trend, as fans and avid collectors still seem intent on taking home hard copies of their favorites.
Calculating anime home video sales is complicated. The market for it in Japan has been declining almost yearly for the past decade — coinciding with the worldwide move to digital platforms — but specific releases, like the first Demon Slayer film, can inspire greater interest. That movie has both the highest box office in Japanese history, and sold over a million copies on Blu-ray and DVD within the first three days of its release. To put that kind of success in perspective, only three American blockbuster films in 2022 sold more than a million copies throughout the entire year.
But the hunger for anime has only grown in the U.S., to the extent that in August 2022, Sony acquired Right Stuf Anime, a distributor established in 1987 that expanded into selling anime, live-action releases, toys, manga, and all manner of collectibles. (Sony also owns Crunchyroll, an anime streaming service.) In an era where anime home video was far from ubiquitous — one might find an ad in the back of a magazine here, a vendor with a massive collection at a convention there, and a smattering of opportunities among message boards — Right Stuf’s mission was to give the anime consumer “everything in one place” and a trusted system of delivering it to them. It was a fruitful operation. At this point, Right Stuf says it’s the largest online seller of anime in North America.
Over the years, Right Stuf co-founder Shawne Kleckner has watched anime home video rise in popularity: “It started out as more of an enthusiast, tape-trading, underground thing in the ’80s, to being a full-fledged industry today.
