Overview 1976 to 1980

(1) Shrinking Markets
In this period, the attendance further reduced from approx. 171 millions to 164 millions (approx. 15% of the peak).
In response to the shrinkage, the major companies (except for Nikkatsu) reduced the number of productions per year, reduced the number of staff, and increased the number of co-production with other companies which might share the risk.

The yearly total number of Japanese movies produced in this period were in the range of approx. 320 to 350.
The majority of them were porno movies. The number of non-porno movies reduced from approx. 170 to 140, which was the result of the decrease of the major companies' productions.
Especially, the number of Toho productions fell to less than 10 in 1979 even including co-productions (in 1980, only 4). 

(2) Newcomers
As described above, the major companies obviously tended to avoid risk (i.e., to shift its main business from production to distribution). Thus, it was necessary that newcomers daring to take a risk might enter the movie production business, in order to put a brake on the decline of Japanese movie industry.

Several newcomers tried and some of them made success and continued movie production business.
The successful newcomers in this period included publishing companies, and movie distribution companies having distributed foreign movies so far.
The publishing companies, in many cases, produced movies based on a novel, and advertised, on a large scale, the movie as well as the novel and its novelist (the most successful example of this business model was "Kadokawa Haruki Office" ("Inugami Clan" in 1976)).

The entry of the foreign movie distributors into the Japanese movie production business was encouraged by the rise of popularity of foreign movies from around 1970.
In addition, the foreign movie distributors had the advantage that they already had established its own distribution network that has been always a major obstacle for newcomers.