The BusinessWeek Online feature article gets straight to the point of the article, which isn't the concept of animation as more than mere entertainment, but rather, that for creating anime, "It's a lot of work," Satoshi Yamaguchi, Chief Executive of Yumeta Co. commented, and of course, according to Yamaguchi, "that's how we do it in Japan."
Japanese animation is an important aspect of Japan's $100 billion entertainment industry, and represents an area of interest where directors, writers, and professional artists can come together to construct a vision in a medium capable of reaching hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. According to the article, "Box-office receipts and DVD sales from anime films are expected to reach $5.2 billion globally this year, according to trade group Nasscom. And games, toys, and the myriad marketing tie-ins to anime characters and films represented some $18.5 billion in Japan alone, according to Digital Contents White Book, an industry guide."
"[Japanese animation] has the potential to be Japan's next big export," Todd Miller, managing director for Asia at Sony Pictures Television, commented. And many other executives of the west's leading entertainment groups agree. Most agreements to which are obviously centered on how fiscally responsible it might be for a company to cash in on the outstanding popularity of an award-winning director or studio. Due to the 2004-year carrying Japan debuted anime films from the anime industry's top writer/directors--Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Oshii, and Hayao Miyazaki-- and due to the 2004-year simply carrying over several other incredibly popular animated television programs, it's no wonder why the feature article claims that, "today anime is at the center of Japan's entertainment industry."
And, what would anime be without their issue-comic book and/or compilation-graphic novel counterparts? Because Japanese animation has such a massive link to comics, and because animation is already a popular form of entertainment, the Japanese comic book market often thrives. "Japan's best-selling manga weekly, Shonen Jump, sells 3 million copies per issue -- roughly what Marvel sells in a month," the article notes. Here in the west, Several Japanese comics, manga, are released every month from some of the most confident publishers and distributors; and while there are many bookworms out there that often question the uniqueness of the comics, day by day, more and more librarians and bookstore staffers are finding the value of manga.