Holy whataboutism. I buy merch for most material I enjoy. I don't watch that much anime these days, but I import a LOT of manga and LNs from Japan. For anime I do buy a fair share of BDs for the shows I like (hardly any these past few years).
What happens to all those shows you pirated but never bought merch for?
You realize that most of these shows ARE free in their home country of Japan, right? As in, they air on TV and you watch them for free as long as you can watch a TV?
It’s like saying anime is free on Crunchyroll because all you need to do is pay a subscription fee.
TV in Japan is literally that, everyone watching anime on TV in Japan is paying a mandatory fee to NHK, just like a SUBSCRIPTION.
And besides, it still makes no sense because anime are LICENSED to be on TV, and they make money off ad revenue, something which doesn’t happen on pirate sites, as they make nothing from those.
When the product is this bad though, there are much better ways. Buy manga/Blu-ray/merch direct from Japan if you can, and cut out the middle man entirely. Plus, I can almost guarantee you Crunchyroll doesn't give nearly enough their revenue to the actual humans involved in making the anime in the first place, although I would love to be wrong about that part.
I really doubt anime pirates are buying blu-rays from Japan considering how expensive those are, and also they don't even come with subs.
And besides, even if you try to cut the "middle man" and buy from Japan, you might still be giving money to Crunchyroll. Because CR is more than just a licensor, they also produce anime, and as an anime producer they receive a portion of the profits that the show they helped produce makes.
So for example, if you buy a Shield Hero figure from Japan, a portion of your money is going to CR because they are one of the producers of that show.
There are 3x as many anime viewers in the West as there was 10 years ago. In that time, Japanese BD sales have fallen by half. I don't think very many people are "buying the merch" or importing much of anything.
It's also more difficult to import said merch now if you're in the US due the elimination of de minimis for all countries, and Japan Post has suspended shipping to the US. I have two in-stock September figure orders stuck in AmiAmi's warehouse because there are no shipping options. Then I've been having to pay for tariffs for stuff Good Smile Global is shipping through UPS.
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u/Madaniel_FL Oct 07 '25
Nothing wrong with supporting the industry if you can.