Close-up of a child holding up both hands covered in colorful paint in front of their face, peering through their fingers.
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Marketing Seed 119: Modification for Selling (Part 2)

Close-up of a child holding up both hands covered in colorful paint in front of their face, peering through their fingers.

Part 2: To Reach Children, “Readability” is Essential

For an anime to succeed, it is essential to adjust the expression to fit who you are delivering it to—that is, the target audience. In particular, the complex themes and cruel depictions lurking in the original work are difficult to handle as content for children.

For example:

  • The original Moomin depicts Nordic loneliness and a view of nature, but the anime emphasizes a heartwarming sense of daily life.

  • Kitaro was content criticizing human society through concepts of yokai and death, but the anime adopted a “Hero defeats Evil” composition.

  • Devilman also depicts an apocalyptic end in the original, but the TV version was changed to a clear story of rewarding good and punishing evil.

Through these alterations, the works were accepted by a broader demographic and were able to achieve commercial success.

📊 In fact, these anime broadcast in the 1970s and 80s all recorded viewer ratings of over 10% and deployed numerous related products.

Reference Article: Video Research “Animation Movie High Viewership Rate Ranking” (in Japanese)

Of course, there is a risk of damaging the spirit of the original. However, if it doesn’t reach the audience in the first place, it will never be evaluated. Establishing both “expanding the work” and “protecting the essence” at the same time is indeed a difficult theme.

(To be continued)

From the Marketing Seed Series: How about this article? →Seeds of Marketing 29: On Location and Weather – Battling the Unpredictable Forces of Nature