Unlike most web-based technological trends, which start in the West, adult animé really blossoms from Japan. Adult animation is considered a vital staple for the "otaku" culture. (Otaku is Japanese for "techno-geek" or "nerd.")
Another difference between the animé phenomena and other niches of adult content is that in Japan, half of the animé fans are women. "Fandom is more diverse than ever," said Japanese animé expert Lawrence Eng. The fact that women will purchase animé and not other forms of adult entertainment makes entry into this market more tempting.
One reason why adult webmasters in America shy away from the Japanese animé scene is the total lack of moral standards found in the graphical images. For example, a subculture within the animé scene is "Lolicon." Lolicon is an acronym for "Lolita" and "complex." This branch of animé features very young animated girls doing things that would be totally illegal in the world of the '2257 regulations that protect minors.
In the United States, the PROTECT act of 2003 strictly prohibits the use of "Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children," including, "a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture or painting." Luckily in 2006 for the animé enthusiast, the Supreme Court struck down portions of the law that dealt with animated images; ruling that laws against child pornography were designed to protect real children and not images.
The controversy over Lolicon animé is still raging. Sellers of this type of toon have stooped so low as to show images of real 8-year old girls on the DVD covers of their wares. Countries such as Canada and Sweden have actually criminalized this pedophilic form of graphics. Even UNICEF, in the name of child protection, has urged Japan to curb this form of animated child pornography.
Getting Cool Toon Content
If the above controversies don't sway you away from the animé scene, the good news for the adult webmaster is that there is a great deal of animé content for purchase. Sites like ExlusiveContent.com are geared toward webmasters who are looking for animated content to boost traffic. With this artificial entertainment one can build an adult animé fan-base.
One important note though for the shopper of anime: Usually porn animé content is more costly than traditional multimedia images of live models. The reason being is that production time is longer and more costly for complex graphical cartoons. Graphic artists in Japan that are talented in creating animé will often enjoy large six-figure incomes.
ExclusiveContent.com offers convenient daily feeds for different categories of animé that you can subscribe to if you are looking for changing new images on your website to attract customers. Along with real-time comic feeds, the adult webmaster can also purchase animé which is formatted for Macromedia Flash presentations.
The license that you are offered by ExlusiveContent.com for the animé content is good for up to three domains and five sites per domain. Of course you can't resell their toons, but you can display 10 percent of the images to boost your own marketing efforts.
Don't let the higher price of animé content dissuade you from considering this medium. In Japan, animé accounts for more than $5 billion in revenues; with worldwide animé revenues estimated at over $20 billion. Animé has even broken into the American mainstream — appearing in films like Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." If animé ever becomes even remotely as popular in the West as it is currently in Japan, the current $20 billion figure will seem small.
If you want to enter the world of animé as an affiliate, portals like animecornstore.com offer simple banner programs that allow you to link to different types of adult animé and toon content.
High-Tech Fantasy Graphics
For some of us techie types, the real interest in animé goes beyond just another way to entertain online customers and sell a few DVDs. The real challenge of animé is the high-tech graphics and illustration software needed to produce toons. Today there is software available that allows any competent graphical artist to create their own toons.
One such product, Animé Studio, sells for a reasonable $49.99 and offers the tools that allow you to create timelines for your toons and a unique bone-rigging system, which speeds up development time. Instead of recreating each image in your animation frames, with bone-rigging you can map out a character's moves quickly, leaving the software to later approximate their movements and fill in the details.
Body angles and more complex facial expressions are handled by Animé Studio through the use of layering. With this method you can overlay a series of facial expressions through time, thus giving your characters a more sincere and authentic look as they copulate through each frame.
Once you are finished with a project in Animé Studio, the toons can be presented to your customers in either AVI or MOV formats.
For more sophisticated 3D animé or even virtual reality content creation, daz3d.com offer Aiko 3.0, another animation software package. This software comes with more detailed artistic widgets for creating each individual animé character. The modules of this package shoot for as real as possible animations, even offering built-in Dynamic Hair and 3D landscaping tools.
If you want to seriously begin the creation and production of adult anime, this package offers many detailed rendering features and sells for $99. With Aiko, details like facial expressions, body and breast shape, and even jewelry can be specified from templates when building each character. With this product you can also purchase add-on graphics, called accessories, which are designed in Japan by popular animé artists.
Animé Posers — Real World Models
One way to capitalize on the subculture of Animé without having anything to do with it, is to simply to dress live models in animé-like outfits doing the same lusty things toon characters do. Sites like LiveAnime.com offer exactly this and charge a hefty monthly subscription rate. LiveAnime.com specializes in Sentai Rangers (Power Rangers) themes, thus leaving many huge animé niches left for the adult webmaster to exploit, given they are willing to spend the extra time and money dressing their models in animé-like outfits.
Similarly, LiveAnime.net offers another revenue scheme to capitalize on the animé craze. Most adult animé websites simply sell DVD's and other items like Amazon.com would. At LiveAnime.net, the customer is entertained online with toons through a subscription model. The beauty of this business plan is that an adult webmaster becomes more than just a retailer of animé; but a portal with live content that can be broadcast through a database to multiple online users.
Even if you are a purist adult webmaster and frown on the animé scene, it pays to keep up with this new fad. The fact that animé is popular with women should give the webmaster pause; since traditional online sex is not. Animé, thus, can open up a huge new market of people that would never be interested in traditional online fun. Models beware — animé is here to stay.
