[kcexn]

Presumably the company translating and subtitling anime is licensing the show, not producing it. So subtitling and translation costs for a business like Crunchyroll would be most of their production budget (assuming licensing fees are not egregious).

[numpad0]

idk but I think it's possible that baseline licensing fees are/were way lower than imagined. The entire rest of the world except Japan, in many anime type contexts in Japan, are still considered the singular entity as "the kaigai". Export sales are just coin rooms.

Or, this could be reflection of that "the kaigai" mindset rapidly changing causing prices to skyrocket. Anime is exclusively made in Japan(with outsource efforts from all over East Asia, but always concentrated back into Japan), so there's no competition. Zero competition over nonzero demand -> +Inf price.

Either ways, it does feel that licensing model could be key to understanding this.