Understanding the Backer Motivations for Japanese Anime Crowdfunding Campaigns

Abstract

In the Japanese animation industry, TV stations and film companies generally take the lead in setting up joint ventures called production committees to raise funds. Although there are cases where an animation studio takes the lead in starting a project, it is often difficult for the studio to form a production committee depending on the content of the project and the career of the director. In recent years, crowdfunding has attracted attention as a way of raising funds for production from general consumers. While some projects can raise more than their goals through crowdfunding, many others do not. This study, therefore, attempts to identify what anime crowdfunding backers value in pledging their support. A total of 6,596 comments from backers of three Japanese anime projects funded on the U.S. crowdfunding website Kickstarter were analyzed using a text-mining method. The results showed that most crowdfunding backers placed importance on the rewards and that crowdfunding success is likely to be related to past achievements of the work and its creators, as well as the credibility of the studio. Compared to overseas backers, Japanese backers were found to express their support for the creators more than for the rewards.