01. The richest two-spined salamander in the valley circle
ACGN is a special hobby that makes people feel "painful and happy".
Fictional settings and characters are often able to tell stories that are difficult to achieve in reality, and the audience can enjoy unusual spiritual satisfaction, and in many cases, the "pain" caused by ACGN can be embodied in the form of peripherals.
Among ACGN enthusiasts, there is a special circle, they are keen to collect a large number of character peripherals, and through a neat and beautiful arrangement to form a certain formation, either simply displayed, or hung in the bag for decoration.
Therefore, in the vicinity of some ACGN-related concerts and event venues, you can always see that many A-house will rarely show their "social cow" attributes, wearing "battle armor" and walking on the street, without the slightest regard for the surprised eyes of passers-by;
On a character's birthday or special anniversary, the housemates will also generously move out their own pressure box bottom goods to make a corner of the room... Oh no, a wall for everyone to witness their richest moment;
Of course, the pendulum should also pay attention to the occasion and timing, after all, it is decided whether you are a social cow or a social death, or the uncle's eyes that stare like a brass bell;
Although "a wall of millet, a suite in Beijing and Shanghai", not everyone has enough economic strength to buy a large amount of millet; for more a house, simple is the truth, spend a little careful thought, small props to decorate the surroundings, but also a way to express love;
In the eyes of outsiders, the high price of the surrounding area has long been famous, but the behavior of the A-house people to express their fanaticism with the surroundings of the character is still incomprehensible.
What kind of charm can a badge, plastic board, and paper skin printed with cartoon patterns have that can attract enthusiasts to buy dozens or hundreds of them repeatedly, and spend a lot of effort to decorate these practical gadgets?
Of course, perhaps people are more interested in the question of "whether the value of these peripherals really matches their price", such a pragmatic question.
Before answering these questions, let's start with the birth of these peripherals.
02. Animation and peripherals
As a derivative of ACGN's works, the birth of the surrounding area is naturally closely related to the development of the industry.
Since Osamu Tezuka ushered in a new era of manga and then established a new system of animation production, the Japanese animation industry, led by manga animation, ushered in an era of blossoming flowers. With the continuous influx of outstanding talents into the industry, the creative model and business model of Japanese animation are also quietly changing.
In the 1970s, the industry gave birth to a large number of excellent robot animations such as "Demon God Z", "Mobile Suit Gundam", "Chrono Fortress" and so on. At this time, the animation production company controlled the copyright in the playback of the work and the production of derivatives, and by selling the copyright, the animation production company was able to make a profit.
The sophisticated painting and complex robot settings in these animations have attracted the attention of many young people. In order to meet the consumer demand of the audience and the profitability of the producer, the animation company grants the production right of derivatives to the toy manufacturer, which naturally derives a series of model peripherals, and most of the consumption objects are mainly men.
At this time, although there is no shortage of manga and animation works specifically for women such as "Versailles Rose", "Poetry of Wind and Wood", and "Running to earth", due to the narrow channels for the development of derivatives and the lack of women's consumption power at this time, there are not many women in circulation in the market.
Then, with the boom of the videotape market and the boom of the bubble economy, the animation industry also ushered in a false boom, more talents poured into animation production companies, and more intimate videotapes provided storage media and sales channels for more niche content that was difficult to broadcast on TV, and the industry gave birth to the animation model of OVA.
Popular aesthetic, positive content is broadcast on television and collects royalties from television stations and toy manufacturers; niche content is disseminated and monetized through OVA. The two-pronged animation production company naturally got enough funds to operate and produce more excellent animations.
However, this boom did not last long, and in the late 1980s, japan's bubble economy burst, and almost all industries were hit hard, including television stations and toy manufacturers, and animation production companies that mainly relied on the profitability of these two industries also cut off revenue sources.
In order to raise funds, the industry began to promote the "production committee system", which was jointly funded by companies in different industries to form a production committee, and the production committee then drew part of the funds as funds to the animation production company, thereby producing animation. At this time, the animation production company was reduced to a "working boy", and the copyright of the animation belonged to the production committee.
Investors who have obtained derivative production rights can naturally flexibly produce peripherals according to market demand, and in the past few decades of animation development, the market demand has also undergone earth-shaking changes.
In the 1990s, with the slow recovery of the economy, people's consumption levels continued to increase, and the themes of animation and manga became increasingly diversified, and more and more works for women were born.
Compared with men who pursue entertaining peripherals, women are more keen to collect ornamental peripherals. Therefore, according to the needs of the market, more and more badges, colored paper, standing plates and other peripherals are produced.
Of course, there is no gender in hobbies, and diversified works have also spawned more characters that can be accepted by both male and female audiences, and their derivative commodities are naturally not limited to gender.
For example, the original intention was to create a series of "Beautiful Girls of Light" for young girls, which is deeply loved by many elderly male audiences, and its derivatives of girlish peripheral products have never lacked male consumers; and Gundam, which has always occupied half of the model market, also has many "female glue guys".
Like the ACGN culture, when enthusiasts converge on a certain scale, niche circles are born. In Japan, the related periphery of fictional works is also called "goods", because the word is similar to the pronunciation of "valley" in Chinese, so domestic ACGN enthusiasts will call this niche circle "valley circle" and the related peripheral "valley".
Just as the so-called "state-owned state law, family has family rules", the valley circle is also constantly developing and expanding, forming a set of trading rules and professional terms.
For example, Japanese merchants are good at lottery and blind box business law, in order to be able to smoothly buy their favorite character peripherals, consumers often gather corresponding character enthusiasts before starting to buy goods in groups. Such a consumption pattern is called "group" in the valley circle, the organizer is called "group leader", and the fans of each role become the "group members" of "XX push" / "mommy".
Generally speaking, even if it comes from the same work, the popularity of the characters will be very different, and the surrounding areas of the highly popular characters will naturally be in short supply, and the leader will adjust the price of the millet with more popularity of the character, and will mark the millet with temperature-related adjectives.
The price has risen to dozens of times, and the role valley that is still snapped up by some people is "hot door", and the role valley that cannot be sold at a loss is "cold door". If there are extreme cases, it will also be jokingly called "magma", "absolute zero" and so on by insiders.
In addition, different sales situations also have different terms, buying millet is "eating", can only be sold on site for "vendor", can be mail order is "vendor", sold out is "cut"... In short, with the increasing experience of consumers in the group, the valley circle has formed a fixed set of consumption processes.
In fact, there is no big gap in the production cost between these surrounding and the well-known badges, acrylic plates, and cardboard, but the price of millet is far beyond the cognition of ordinary consumers.
In the era of industrialization, the production cost of these badges is only a few yuan, but after printing the character pattern, the price often doubles dozens of times, and under the contradiction between supply and demand, a badge can even be sold for hundreds of pieces.
Although it is an indisputable fact that "the money of the two-thorn salamander is really good", it is also an indisputable fact that the story in the original work also gives the character a higher cultural value, which is often infinitely magnified in the hearts of lovers, and finally regards the character as a kind of spiritual sustenance.
Therefore, in the eyes of enthusiasts, the derivative product of the role is the medium of communication between them and the character, and the number of millet can not only represent their love for the role, but also support IP commercially; and the purchased millet is sorted according to a certain form, which can maximize the appreciation value of the millet and meet their spiritual needs.
03. Conclusion
Although the "madness" of the valley circle often shocks outsiders, for experienced grain eaters, they never care about the views of the outside world, after all, the valley circle born in the niche culture is different from the public.
It is also true that most millet lovers consume within their own economic affordability, self-deprecating without disturbing public order and violating laws and regulations, and forming their own unique culture.
However, because most of the domestic valley circles are spontaneous transactions between enthusiasts, few third-party platforms can provide stable supervision, and there are often copycat phenomena.
Complex consumption process is also difficult to ensure the rights and interests of every consumer, many grain eaters have encountered insufficient consumption capacity of minors running orders, and even by parents insulted situation, have to bear unnecessary economic losses and mental harm.
Of course, people who eat grain may face the problem or the wear and tear of love, with the passage of time, the end of the work and the various reasons of reality, people's love for something will always be worn out one day, and at that time, these thousands of grains will become ordinary iron, plastic plates, and pieces of paper.
Change hands on them and be reluctant to carry the memories they carry; leave them behind, and there is no place for them. Running in the valley circle is such a contradictory process.
The reason why people who eat grain is probably because they fall in love with the madness of desperately paying for the character.