Anime is Rare in Japan

Japan may be host to the world’s most vibrant visual culture complex, but all areas do not share equally in this bounty. In fact, outside the likes of Tokyo and Osaka, there are vast areas of the country where anime begins and ends with Doraemon and Naruto.

2ch analyses the subject in the ranking you see below:

Remarks:

• These are the late night anime being broadcast on regional terrestrial stations in April; in total there are 25 new titles.
• There are some additional titles only aired on satellite.
• Only newly airing titles are included – no repeats.
• These are late night anime titles only. The likes of Naruto is broadcast nationally almost without exception.

23: Chiba & Saitama
22: Kanagawa & Osaka
21: Tokyo
17: Aichi
16: Hyogo & Tokushima
14: Kyoto
13; Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi
12: Mie
11: Nara, Wakayama, Gifu, Fukuoka, Saga
10: Shiga & Hokkaido
6: Okuyama & Kagawa
3: Miyagi
2: Niigata, Kumamoto, Shizuoka
1: Fukushima & Ehime
0: Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Yamanashi, Okinawa, Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Yamagata, Kochi, Nagano, Nagasaki, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Yamaguchi, Tottori, Shimane

Although the top prefectures are amongst the most populous, this still indicates that in much of Japan anime fans are in the same boat as their international counterparts, and are reliant on DVD sales and unauthorised online distribution if they are to keep up with the latest series.

Sometimes series can end up airing to a tiny minority of the TV watching public as a result of all this.

The quality of these offerings varies widely too, with some being extremely high quality broadcasts without censorship, and others being bowdlerised and broadcast with cheap equipment.

When it comes to anime as a whole, outside the major conurbations it can be as obscure as it is overseas.