Q: I've found myself falling in love with more and more anime even though the one time I watch it is during CN's Adult Swim saturday night Block.
I was wondering what you thought about the treatment of Anime on Cartoon Network? It seems like Cartoon Network just isn't that good anymore and I feel that Cartoon Network is digging themselves a deeper grave by slowly leaving Anime in the Dust. I missed the Good old days of Sailor Moon on Toonami!
So what do you think? Will Anime ever show on Cartoon Network again? (Not like Pok閙on) Or is it a foregone conclusion that Anime will never be shown on Cartoon Network ever again?
A: Cartoon Network actually has a few good shows - Chowder and Flapjack are pretty great, and they're making a series out of Pendleton Ward's terrific Adventure Time. And Adult Swim usually pulls out at least one or two entertaining new shows every season. Their live-action stuff bothers me, actually it kind of infuriates me, but whatever. When Hannah Montana and High School Musical and Jonas Brothers are the only things that kids watch on TV, executives are eager to mimic that success.
As the former author of The Click, I can assure you that nothing saddens me more than the complete, unjustified absence of anime on television. Cartoon Network, specifically - they were the first and, thus far, ONLY network to take anime and package it as quality, enjoyable programming - not as some strange cultural import marketed solely to curious nerds. And it worked, which is the shocking thing. If you package a cool show like Cowboy Bebop and make it seem like a cool show to watch, and put it at a time that people can conceivably watch it, people WILL watch it and think it's cool. I know, it's crazy.
But, yeah, no. You're not gonna see anime on TV again anytime soon, if ever. The demographics have shifted, anime is back to its status as a curious novelty rather than a viable entertainment option, and, most importantly, network TV is dying. YouTube and its streaming-video progenitors have slowly made TV networks question their traditional business models, which have stood unchallenged for the past three decades or so. People suddenly have the option of watching whatever they want while they're at home, rather than judging on good faith that the networks will have something that will entertain them. They are running scared, like headless chickens in expensive suits, trying desperately to keep their fossilized ad-revenue-based networks afloat as places like Hulu thrive and grow.
And that's it, really. Streaming video is the place where anime currently thrives, or at the very least, manages to stave off irrelevance. Companies that used to have long-standing relationships with Cartoon Network and other broadcasters - Funimation, Bandai, et cetera - are far less concerned about pitching shows to the networks when they know they have a dedicated slot and a built-in audience if they simply stream it online, rather than have Adult Swim buy it, sit on it for months and months, and finally dump it in a terrible timeslot with no promotion or marketing.
Toonami is dead, and it won't ever come back. And that's, sadly, all there really is to say about it.
aku rasa graf tu ada kepincangan...sepatutnya derang bahagi kpd kodomo, shonen/shojo dan seinen/josei! nak tgk sebanyak mana bahan2 H tu...
apapun pembikin anime harus merenung bayangan diri di cermin dr menuding jari kpd fansubbers dan sbgnya. rasanya kena belajar dr amerika, eropah dan china camaner nak uruskan bisnes. x pun, kaji anime2 lama...jgn pandang teknik animasi lama, perhatikan cerita2 yg menarik yg harus dicontohi.
peminat anime plak jgn taksub dgn anime sampai asyik nak gratis jer...ataupun sukar nak menerima kelemahan anime...kalau nampak kelemahan tu sila telunjukkan.
Originally posted by cluesan at 30/3/2009 10:11 PM
haha.... lagi satu, yg membuat org malas nak beli yang original, subtitle yg tah hape2. suma nama da jadik nama chinese, dan inaccurate subtitle.
well..tuh sebab yg tuh versi bootleg ..bukan original se original original nye..
kat malaysia nih jgn harap la nak jumpe ade betul2 original ...sume ciplak je ...kecuali ...kinokuniya ade jual kot ...hmmm
tahulah budaya mesia ni...susah nak terima kandungan kebanyakan anime camtuh...jd pasaran x gitu luas, x berbaloi nak lesen-lesen tu sumer.
berbincang psl budaya, saya tgh menghayati bagaimana beberapa buah syarikat pengedar animasi terbesar dr Amerika (terutamanya disney, turner) berusaha mendekati audiens sedunia. kebelakangan ni mrk memberi penekanan pd pembikinan kandungan yg "universal" dan merentas budaya. adakalanya sesetgh citer kena remake cam lilo dan stitch dan powerpuff girls dijepunkan, hsm dibikin semula kat mexico dan argentina dsb...
jepun plak mementingkan budaya sendiri dlm pembikinan anime, terutamanya anime sekarang...mungkin serasi dgn budaya sesetengah negara tp bercanggah dgn budaya negara2 lain. cthnya doraemon - kita mudah menganggapnya sbg kartun mesia tp amerika sgt sukar menerima apa yg ditayangkan dlm manga dan animenya. tp kan...seingat aku anime zaman dulu yg sampai kat mesia lebih "universal", unsur budaya unik jepun yg "janggal" xlah ketara sgt
Cultural differences and limited niche appeal have virtually killed off Japanese animation on our screens. Time to head online to get your Neon Genesis Evangelion fix
Nearly two decades ago, the release of the movie adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's intense, apocalyptic, epic manga Akira became for many English-speaking audiences their first experience of Japanese animation, or anime. But despite Akira's impact, anime today seems absent from our TV channels, despite being a massive and diverse billion-dollar industry producing countless TV series and movies.
At most, the big channels touch on the popular anime shows every few years, usually during a Japan season like the BBC's recent Hidden Japan. Cinemas, ironically, are perhaps the best source of regular anime TV programming: the Barbican last year showcased some of the TV work of legendary manga creator Osamu Tezuka. When you find anime on the main channels, it is usually films from Studio Ghibli, who were behind Hayao Miyazaki's 2003 Oscar-winning Spirited Away. Meanwhile, the vast swath of anime television series available in English are ignored.
Jonathan Ross is perhaps the UK's highest-profile anime fan, showcasing it on his Japanorama documentaries. But there is no support from the big broadcasters. There are the digital channels - but audiences lost the only provider of regular anime to the UK when the Anime Central channel shut down last August. Now its content is squeezed into a graveyard morning slot on Showcase TV. Other digital channels that once showed anime like CNX have likewise bitten the dust.
Anime shows like Pok閙on do air on the Jetix digital channel, but are aimed squarely at children. Anime can be much broader, and certainly much more adult. It is more than capable of dealing with deeper issues like alienation, tech noir and teen angst. Still, quality adult fare like the hugely popular Neon Genesis Evangelion can today only be seen legally here by forking out for English-language version DVD box sets.
Jonathan Clements, author of Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade, a compendium of insider writing about the industry, agrees that forays into broadcasting anime in the UK have been spotty. A lack of demand or financial issues with parent companies sinks many channels. "You may go looking for anime on mainstream television," he said, "but anime's profile on mainstream UK television has always been relatively low
TV Tokyo's Iwata Discusses Anime's 'Road to Survival'
Post Last Edit by cmf_scorpio_mmi at 5-7-2009 13:16
Notes decline at home & abroad, points to net releases as partial cause & solution
Keisuke Iwata, the executive in charge of TV Tokyo's AT-X animation channel and its animation division, predictedin a Wednesday lecture that "the global marketplace for Japanese animation will shrink from 2010 onward." Iwata spoke at the "Anime Business Forum + 2009" event at Digital Hollywood's University of Digital Content in Tokyo.
In Iwata's view, there is no room for growth since Japanese animation has reached the saturation point in the global marketplace. Due to the worldwide recession and illegal net distribution, Iwata concluded that the North American marketplace is battered, the European marketplace is in grave condition, and the Japanese companies cannot rely on the Middle East, Asia, and other regions as potential new marketplaces. He added, "as it stands, we may have to go back to theway it was in the past - back to selling Japanese animation only to the Japanese marketplace." In order to survive in the current adverse climate, TV Tokyo is proceeding with new initiatives that include animation on American video-distribution sites.
According to Iwata, the global spread of Japanese animation expanded widely and rapidly due to 1996's Neon Genesis Evangelion. Until then, the global marketplace had been mostly consuming so-called "border-less animation" such as Kinpatsu no Jeanie, Moomin, and other titles that are set in overseas locales. However, Iwata asserted that Evangelion expanded the global marketplace's willingness to accept animation that is distinctly Japanese in one broad stroke. Around 1997, Pocket Monsters became a major commercial phenomenon worldwide. Yu-Gi-Oh!expanded the marketplace further, and Japanese animation became a seller's market. Starting in 2002, Naruto also became a worldwide hit and captured the interests of overseas teenagers and the otaku generation.
However, Iwata said that the marketplace has already reached the saturation point. Iwata added, "It is easy to imagine the global marketplace shrinking from 2010 onward." The market saturation, the worldwide recession, various circumstances in each country, illegal distribution on video-submission sites, and the rising yen all had a deep impact on the declining anime export business.
In addition to the severe economic conditions, the ratings for Japanese animation on broadcast television stagnated or fell. 4Kids Entertainment, an American company that deals with the distribution of Japanese animation, withdrew its animation programming from the Fox television channel. Even the Cartoon Network in America withdrew Japanese animation almost across-the-board during prime time. Cartoon Network restored some anime on the Adult Swim programming block for otaku 14 years old or older, but reportedly no longer anticipates another hit on the level of Pokemon or Naruto. The DVD marketplace also became more difficult as some titles sold less than 400 copies nationwide.
According to a 2008 Association of Japanese Animations survey (which was also quotedby a government report this month), the Japanese animation industry peaked at 2006 with 258.8 billion yen (US$2.9 billion), only to fall to239.6 billion yen (US$2.7 billion) in the following year. Of the 127 companiesin the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan, about40% or 55 companies were operating in the red in the fiscal period ending in September 2008. Due to falling ratings, many anime can no longer broadcast in "golden time" slots in key stations. However, the number of avenues to release anime have grown, thanks to the BS and CS satellite channels, digital television broadcasts, net distribution,mobile phone distribution and video game consoles with video distribution capabilities.
TV Tokyo began putting its "strongest media content" such as Naruto and Gintama on the Crunchyrollvideo-sharing website in America within one hour of the Japanese broadcast. For that early viewing service, the site has signed up over10,000 subscribers at about US$7 a month in about a month. By comparison, it took TV Tokyo's AT-X channel a decade to reach 10,000 subscribers. A Naruto episode receives an average of 160,000 accesses on three sites when it streamsfor free, a week after the Japanese broadcast. According to Iwata, the main purposes of the services are not just the revenues from fees and advertising, but also the counterweight it provides against unauthorized fansub distribution.
Can government action lead to a cure for the ailing Japanese animation industry?
NEWS that the Japanese animation industry held its first ever state-of-the-industry symposium in May in Tokyo is as welcome as it is disturbing. Welcome, of course, because healthy organisms generally try to keep one finger on the pulse of their welfare. And disturbing because, after 60-plus years of activity, this was the anime animal’s first voluntary checkup – and the diagnoses are predictably bad.
Anime News Network,the largest English-language anime news website, notes that the pre-symposium survey received responses from at least 700 anime producers and directors. The results?
Anime employees in their 20s earn an average annual salary of 1.1mil yen (RM40,000) while those in their 30s get 2.14mil yen (RM80,000). Worse, veteran artists in their 40s and 50s survive on roughly 3mil yen (RM100,000) per year. And most of them live and work in Tokyo – one of the most expensive cities in the world.
How’s that for soft-power glamour?
Nearly 50% of the respondents are working on spec (without contracts), and nearly 40% have no healthcare coverage whatsoever.
As Tokyo-based American author and blogger Matt Alt points out, “the problems aren’t going to be fixed until the real issues with the current state of domestic market flooding, subcontracting, and sponsorship are addressed”.
In this column, I’ve frequently voiced the challenges for the Japanese pop industry when confronting the international market: rising interest and interactivity amid slipping DVD sales and poor or nonexistent marketing. But what’s happening in Japan?
Plenty. The declining birthrate and rising legions of techno phile Japanese youth mean that anime and manga are nolonger selling as hard commercial products to Japan’s next generation.They may be downloaded for free, just as they are on personal computers abroad, and glimpsed briefly on tiny cellphone screens. But there’s little profit in that.
The industry is focusing its efforts on the dwindling and ever more effete demographic of 40-something (or arafo, “around forty”) otaku – mostly single males who are seeking a kind of sexual-romantic therapy via so-called moe, or soft-core porn, titles. Producers create 10 or 13 episodes of soft-core cartoons for late-night TV to hook their lonely johns, then release a box set of additional scenarios on DVD for obsessive completists.
Problems are legion. By producing erotic anime, the industry is abandoning titles for children and sophisticated adultconsumers. And the erotic titles don’t easily export – partly because cartoon porn doesn’t have the same appeal in Peoria or Kent, where live-action porn is just a mouse-click away, and partly because the government and the more “official” arms of Japanese export trading giants like Itochu and Mitsubishi are less likely to feel comfortable pushing schoolgirl bondage and domination than promoting Doraemon.
So now the Japanese government is stepping in, as they’ve been threatening to do at least since the 2002 publication of Doug McGray’s essay“Japan’s Gross National Cool” in the US political journal Foreign Policy.Governments around the world are blithely intruding upon private sectors in an attempt to stem the slide of the global economy, but Japan’s national interest in soft-power propaganda was well underway prior to Wall Street’s collapse and Detroit’s demise.
But what does or can government action amount to?
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, an avowed manga fan, pledged his support to the industry three years ago, in a speech at Digital Animation, a school for animators based in Yoyogi, Tokyo. Now he’s talking about walking the walk: pouring money into a new anime museum in Tokyo.
It will cost 11.7bil yen (RM420mil). One trek to Akihabara is a visit to an anime museum, sans cover charge.
Meanwhile,in the United States, VIZ Media founder Seiji Horibuchi will unveil his“New People” Japanese pop centre at the ground zero of a newly revived Japantown in San Francisco. Isn’t that a better locale for promoting Japan – not to mention a better buy for your dollar, euro or yen, if you want to sell soft power? – The Daily Yomiuri / Asia News Network
What do you think about this situation? E-mail us your thoughts at otaku@thestar.com.my.
Roland Kelts writes the column ‘Soft Power Hard Truths’ for Japan’s ‘The Daily Yomiuri’. He is a Tokyo University lecturer who divides his time between Tokyo and New York, and is the author of ‘Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S.’.
A reader has incidentally touched on a subject that is closely related to this week’s OtakuZone main feature.
I AM quite distraught over what has become of the Japanese anime industry. Its products have become less family-friendly of late.
The industry is increasingly skewed towards adult-oriented, late-night stuff with limited appeal. The anime are worked upon by meagrely-paid animators in a terribly fragmented industry of over 300 studios and production companies. I think it is unhealthy if an animation industry does not sustain itself with enough family-friendly fare like the ones we know from the 1990s.
Although Dragon Ball Z was kind of gory and Sailor Moon a bit suggestive at times, parents found the heroic values promoted by Goku, Usagi and their fellow warriors to be positive for their kids. These warriors remain unmatched by most recent anime fighters.
Worse, some regional anime licensees have resorted to airing adult-oriented anime in daytime cartoon slots (targeted at children) to expand the existing anime fanbase, not mindful of the relatively conservative mainstream mindset.
For example, in Gundam 00, aired on Saturday mornings on Ntv7, the protagonist’s outspoken atheism remained intact in the Bahasa Malaysia dub. And this in a country where people strive for their kids’ religious piety?
I understand that Japan’s aging demographic is a contributing factor to the increasingly mature content of today’s anime, but let’s look at Europe which is also experiencing a low birth rate but looks toward the world market to build a vibrant animation scene.
I am not against adult animation. Yet, I do remember that in most countries people think cartoons are for kids. However, I believe parents are becoming more aware of animated content which may be inappropriate, such as violence, suggestive scenes, etc. And they can check online to assess if the anime are appropriate for the young.
The folks in the Japanese animation industry will devour themselves gradually. So stop blaming illegal downloads all the time.
As for Malaysian TV, it’s time to make more local cartoons which suit our culture, such as Upin & Ipin. Majulah animasi untuk negara (Develop animation for the country).
Parent company GDH may be delisted from Tokyo Stock Exchange
Two months ago on May 30, GDH, the parent company of the Gonzo anime studio and the GONZO Rosso Online game studio, announced a loss of 3.752 billion yen (at the time, about US $35.44 million) on 6.853 billion yen (US $64.45 million), for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2008.
Now according to the Anime News Network, the Tokyo Stock Exchange has put the company into a one-year grace period, informing investors that if GDH doesn't improve its financial situation it could be delisted from the Exchange. The company has been determined to be insolvent during the fiscal period that ended on March 31. (Being insolvent means that GDH's financial liabilities were greater than its financial assets.) The one year grace period was retroactively set to begin April 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year, meaning that the delisting could occur at the end of March 2009.
Apparently the Exchange's listing regulations require these measures when a company is judged to be in the position in which GDH now finds itself.
This doesn't mean that GDH will
immediately go bankrupt or disappear; in fact, it's possible for a company to continue operating even after it's been delisted, although that can be very difficult. It remains to be seen what measures GDH will take in the coming ten months as it tries to build its financial position back to solvency, but in the meantime, the company and its two subsidiaries continue their operations.
For Gonzo, these include its ongoing work on S.A., Strike Witches, Rosario + Vampire Capu2, Linebarrels of Iron, and The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk. Indeed, as previously speculated when Gonzo announced that Strike Witches would be running on its YouTube channel as well as on Crunchyroll.com, it has now been announced by BOST-TV that the series will stream there as well. So the normal activities go on, at least for now. But browsing down the Anime News Network's listings of anime with which both Gonzo and GDH have been involved, it becomes clear just how many favorite series could be in jeopardy.
An animator with insider knowledge reports that troubled anime studio Gonzo is considering turning to ero-anime (as in hentai, rather than merely ecchi) to rescue itself, with sacking a quarter of its staff and reducing anime output by half apparently not sufficient to restore it to profitability.
The animator revealed the plan on his Mixi diary, apparently based on his conversation with a Gonzo employee:
Apparently, there are even problems paying employees? We also hear:
“If it’s Gonzo doing an ero-anime then the quality could be pretty good, right?”
“Only the worst, most useless staff are left…”
So a Gonzo produced H-anime may not be as great as one might hope.
It must be noted that this is otherwise unconfirmed, and so should be taken sceptically.
Observers point out that ero-anime titles such as eroge-adapted “Sora no Iro, Mizuiro”, with two OVA volumes, look to have strong sales, with those titles looking to manage some 20,000 in total.
In comparison, Gonzo has only two titles to have broken through the critical 10,000 copies sold milestone, those being Vandread and Strike Witches. Thus Gonzo might be lured into creating adult titles, which is considered something of a last resort in the industry.
Their other titles have managed only moderate sales of 5,000-7,500, and some have done much worse.
Below you can see the rather unimpressive sales data for Gonzo’s top sellers, showing week 1 sales for various first volume DVD releases (first number is the rank at the time, followed by first week sales and weekly period sales, with the number of weeks after):
Aussies, Americans and Europeans flock to anime conventions dressed up as their favourite characters. (Reuters: Michael Caronna)
Anime - Japan's distinctive animation and cartoon style, celebrated overseas for its minimalist visuals and complex storylines - is in crisis at home.
Young Australians, Americans and Europeans flock to anime conventions dressed up as their favourite characters, giving the air of an enormous popular boom.
"But the amount of money those kids are actually paying for the product being produced in Japan is quite small," said Roland Kelts, a lecturer at Tokyo University and author of Japanamerica - a book about Japanese pop culture and how it has spread around the world.
He told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program: "It's also because of the nature of digital media. The fact is, no-one has figured out how to monetise products over the internet. The product is being posted and downloaded and uploaded by fans [for free]."
Anime workers were furious when Prime Minister Taro Aso recently announced a multi-million dollar anime museum would be built in Tokyo.
They say they cannot make a decent living and see their industry in decline.
Kelts says the anime industry in Japan is "very much a mum and pop operation."
"They almost run like little families, and a lot of the work on a specific title is accomplished at a variety of different tiny studios," he said.
"In fact it's almost a misnomer to call it the 'anime industry', with some studios tucked behind noodle shops and the like. It's like a lot of anime cottages."
According to Kelts, within those studios there is a traditional, strict hierarchy. Young and talented animators have very little power.
"They can foresee that it's going to take 20 years before they might be able to do their own original work," Kelts said.
"In other words, they will be ... sketching 'in-betweener' movements, as they call it in the industry, for 20 years.
"Animators in their 20s make roughly $US11,000 a year - and they are living in Tokyo, which is the most expensive city in the world."
Kelts says to survive financially, anime producers have started outsourcing work to China. That means the next generation of Japanese animators are not being trained.
They have also had to divert time and energy into making erotic stories, which sell largely to a market of middle-aged men in Japan.
"The problem there is that most of them are virtually undistinguishable from one another and they are just made to titillate," Kelts said.
"They cannot really reach a market beyond those men and they are not easily exportable, partly because the foreign market does not go for a cartoon porn as the Japanese have for years."
Recession reality bites Japan's anime industry
By Morgan Neill - CNN
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Given the magnitude of Japan'srecession, it should perhaps come as little surprise that thefantasy-obsessed animation industry has gotten a hard dose of reality.
Yasuo Yamaguchi, executive director of the Association of JapaneseAnimators, said the industry has been rocked by the country's deepestrecession since World War II.
"The spread of free Internet downloading is having a deadly effect," he said.
Japanese animation is roughly a $2 billion a year industry. Revenuespeaked in 2006 but have since fallen off, as lower advertising revenueslead to fewer new programs.
Yamaguchi said the animationindustry is important to Japan's economy and that the government shouldbe helping it through these tough times with subsidies.
Unlike some big screen animated features from the United States that rely almost completely on computer animation, in Japan, almost all features are drawn by hand -- a labor-intensive craft practiced by thousands of young artists each year.
For the last six years, Nobuki Mitani, has been working as an"in-between" animator -- filling in the cells between "key" animations.It is one of the lowest paid positions in the animation hierarchy.
Many of these entry-level jobs have been outsourced to the Philippines and South Korea in recent years.
Mitani, 27, said the hours are long, and the pay is low -- about $800 a month.
"Every day I work about 10 to 12 hours," he said. "Often, we work on Saturday, and if it's busy, we work Sunday, too."
In Tokyo,the world's most expensive city, that means living in crampedconditions. Mitani lives in a tiny one-room apartment with no airconditioning.
In summer, the room is sweltering.
"Itry not to drink water," he said, "to control the sweating." He has ashared sink at the end of the hall where he can wash his hands andface, but to bathe he has to go to a public bath.
At the TokyoAnimation Institute, the classrooms are filled with students honing thecraft, faces close to their sheets of paper, the only sound a hum fromthe electric pencil sharpener.
The school's director, Yosuke Shimizu, said he knows many of his graduates will quit their first jobs after just months.
"Within half a year, some will take freelance jobs, some will take akey drawing job, and some will become sketch directors. Those who aregood enough never complain about how hard the job is," he said.
At Toei Animation Studios, conditions are better for the animators thanin smaller studios. Toei has produced countless successes over theyears, including the "Dragonball" series and the ongoing favorite "OnePiece."
But even here animation is an intense, demanding job.Naotoshi Shida has been working at Toei for 25 years. He said it takesmuch more than just a love of drawing to succeed.
"If someone is thinking of doing this just because they love drawing,that's called a hobby. They'd better think of doing something else."
Sunday July 26, 2009 Changing times and tastes
Expressway
I WRITE in response to Tomei’s letter in Xpressway (Unhealthy Practice, July 5). In her letter, she (I’m assuming) says that anime are becoming less “family-friendly” and that, combined with the terrible conditions in the current Japanese animation industry, this is a bad thing for all involved. Personally, I believe this is so far from the truth you couldn’t catch the slightest glimpse of it with the Hubble telescope.
For example, although Tomei makes the correct distinction that past anime protagonists are somehow “purer” than modern ones, she doesn’t seem to realise that the children who watched these anime have grown up.
We live in times where the classic definition of “hero” as a St George-like figure of knightly virtue just doesn’t cut it anymore. Look at recent successful and popular movies and anime: the Batman movies, Death Note, Code Geass – all do not have particularly “heroic” figures but have antiheroes instead.
Like it or not, the current majority of anime viewers are not going to fall for the black-and-white morality of yesteryear.
Tomei also expresses her reservations about showing anime with certain themes at certain hours to children. To which I say: take away the remote, or change the channel. It is a poor caretaker indeed who has to rely on the television to babysit a child.
Also, what’s wrong with a child learning about atheism, as long as a parent is around? Children are going to grow up and see the world some day. It’s no use burying your head in the sand and singing loudly whenever something you don’t like comes up – otherwise all you’ll be doing is making forbidden fruit out of something the child would otherwise pay minimal attention to.
Tomei also mentions that Europe is making more children’s animation and helping to build a more vibrant animation scene. However, what is not taken into account is the fact that the West, not just Europe, does “child-friendly” better than Japan. Also, in Japan it’s culturally acceptable for adults to watch anime or read manga (although otaku and hikikomori – also called “shut-ins” – are held in disdain everywhere), while in the West it’s not. They don’t make kid-friendly stuff not just because it sells but because they have no choice.
Tomei also writes that parents can go online to see which anime is suitable for their children ... so why vent in the first place?
I do agree with her about the state of Japan’s industry, however. Drastic steps, far more than simple “stop piracy” efforts, need to be taken and how better to take those first steps than to market anime to the older crowd? I don’t mean making 9,001 episodes of Sexy Super Tentacle Magical Girl Highschool and broadcasting it 24/7, but having shows with mature themes.
If anything, the current trend of making more “adult-oriented” anime is a step in the right direction. We only need to smooth out the rough edges first.
And as for Malaysian cartoons ... I suppose Tomei’s suggestions are good – if we want to remain nothing more than an animation backwater, with shows only our countrymen and arthouse beatniks would be interested in. But then again, speaking as someone who’s had to deal with these people before, our nation’s strange and uneven application of censorship laws would make widespread international recognition near-impossible, but that’s a letter for another day.
Mvctar Avrelivs, Selangor
Not just about the money
IT disappoints me that after labelling Japan a country of introverts, Roland Kelts is at it again (What’s the Remedy?, OtakuZone, July 5). Just as how Gundam 00’s Setsuna is an avowed atheist, Kelts is more than just an acolyte of an evil religion: he’s one that worships money. If you are really concerned about the anime industry, you shouldn’t just worry about the money-making part.
Out there, in convention centres and on the Internet, people like me express their love for Japan’s soft culture. Even as the income of anime workers dwindles (actually, RM40,000 is good enough), fans of hit anime series – and non-mainstream ones – boom in numbers.
And the emergence of moe (unfortunately labelled soft-core porn by Kelts) anime does not sound the death knell for mainstream titles, which are sold by thousands outside Japan. Other than that, it’s the pirates that have to be blamed for anime employees making less money.
And with the world condemning capitalism and picking up temporary solutions, I wish the industry is a bit more like rock group Panic! at the Disco. They do not mind if they can’t make money from their music. Kelts should abandon his money mentality and realise that it’s not gold, but gusto, that makes the anime world go round.
And with companies outside Japan producing animation that carries hints of Japanese anime styles such as Marathon, I think I should agree with Tomei (Unhealthy Practice, Xpressway, July 5) that we can make animation that suits our culture yet looks like Japanese anime at the same time.
Post Last Edit by cmf_scorpio_mmiv at 27-8-2009 21:11
kalau anda perhatikan senarai penontonan anime kat TV Jepun (Kawasan Kanto) kat laman web www.animenewsnetwork.com, anda mungkin diberi tanggapan bhw langkah memberi tumpuan kpd penonton dewasa nampaknya x begitu bijak....alahai animator jepun.
klik pautan di bawah jadual utk lihat kedudukan minggu2 yg lalu...perhatikan kebanyakan anime ngetop ialah judul2 lama...khususnya jenis ippanmuke (seisi keluarga) dan kanak2 mcm sazaesan, doraemon, chibimaruko-chan, .... anime shonen pun ada db kai, op, conan tp dah kira family entertainment, naruto shippuden pun ada, rasanya anime paling menggerunkan yg bertahan dlm top 10...kalo yg dewasa punya cam fma2 dan noitamina muncul skali-skala.
stesen tv KITA plak JANGAN pilih anime SEMBARANGAN, dapatkan khidmat pakar animanga yg 'bertauliah' , baru2 ni ada rombakan dlm pengedaran anime global, cthnya TV Tokyo tubuhkan jabatan anime utk mengendali dan memantau pengedaran anime sedunia, agaknya lepas ni tv luar ngr kena beli dr derang teruslah ker?
mengikut kajian buatan sendiri saya, rasanya hanya ada dua rangkaian tv swasta di Jepun yg boleh menampung rancangan kanak2 terbaru secara kerap, iaitu tv asahi dan tv tokyo. Rangkaian TBS pula pernah diduduki siri Ultraman, kini hanya menyiarkan anime org dewasa. Rangkaian NTV dan Fuji TV pula menyiarkan dua atau tiga anime kanak2 yg sudah lama tp sekurang2nya tak lapuk; selebihnya anime golongan matang. Rangkaian TV awam pula, NHK, juga menerima anime kanak2 baru, jarang sekali menyiarkan anime golongan matang spt saiunkoku dsb.
Alasannya? Demografi Jepun semakin menua, jumlah warga emas >64 melebihi kanak2 <15. Boleh diterimakah alasan tu? Pehal Eropah yang x kurang menuanya masih mengutamakan pasaran kanak2 utk animasi? Lagipun bilangan kanak2 Jepun masih 2x besarnya bilangan kanak2 mesia...kat mesia pun pasaran kanak2 dikira agak memuaskan (mengikut perhitungan pengedar animasi barat).
Bukannya salah nak buat anime dewasa, tp jgn sampai kanak2 terpinggir, kan?
Author
Post time 5-6-2009 11:09 AM
lagi satu, yg membuat org malas nak beli yang original, subtitle yg tah hape2. suma nama da jadik nama chinese, dan inaccurate subtitle. 
kebelakangan ni mrk memberi penekanan pd pembikinan kandungan yg "universal" dan merentas budaya. adakalanya sesetgh citer kena remake cam lilo dan stitch dan powerpuff girls dijepunkan, hsm dibikin semula kat mexico dan argentina dsb...
