Japan Today - Features - Tokyo Int'l Ainme Fair returns with global interest in Japanese animation soaring

TOKYO — When the fifth annual Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) is held March 25-26 at Tokyo Big Sight, nearly 100,000 attendees will be in a mood to celebrate. And why not? Their subculture, weaned on the likes of "Doraemon" and "Mach Go Go Go," finds itself revitalized by recent hits such as "Futari wa Pretty Cure" and the films of Hayao Miyazaki.

More anime is being shown on TV here than ever before, and a new "otaku" (geek) playground called the Tokyo Anime Center has just opened in Akihabara. But perhaps the most encouraging news from this year’s TAF may be what’s happening away from the prying eyes of preteen "Pokemon" hordes and their "Sailor Moon" cosplay cousins.

On Thursday and Friday, industry insiders will gather behind closed doors for the business portion of TAF. Included among their number will be hundreds of foreign trade reps looking for ways to feed a growing global appetite for all things Japanese. Faced with a slumping market at home, Japan’s domestic anime producers are leaping onto the world stage — and thrusting TAF into the role of industry savior.

Anime and manga remain big business in Japan, though recent figures suggest that it’s a business in decline. According to a report by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), the 191 billion yen in sales generated by the industry during 2003 was a full 10% less than the record 213 billion yen of the previous year. DVD and video sales fell more than 5% between 2003 and 2004, and the number of movie releases (and the revenues from those films) is slipping as well. These numbers coincide with a slumping manga industry, which has dropped off by 20% since 1994.

The grim situation would cause greater alarm were it not for a surge in one crucial area: revenue from foreign markets, especially the US. Much like the ’60s, when cheap Japanese electronics proved irresistible to Western consumers, or the ’80s, when fuel-efficient Hondas and Toyotas displaced GM’s clunky tanks, Americans are giving a lift to a crucial segment of the Japanese economy. This time around, though, there’s no grousing from protectionists decrying the Japanese onslaught and lost American jobs. "Scooby Dooby Doo," where are you? In the remainder bin, unmourned.

For local anime producers, the news from abroad could hardly be better. What was once a niche market dominated by U.S. college-age males is now driven by tweeners and adolescents of both sexes — a group with scads of allowance money to spend, and one with a bright consumerist future.

So far, their appetite has proven formidable. Dubbed versions of hit Japanese series like "Neon Genesis Evangelion" are in heavy rotation, while Miyazaki marathons air on major networks. Dozens of titles of English-language "shojo manga" (serial graphic books aimed at girls) fill the racks at major bookstores, and even traditional publishers are getting into the swing: Cosmo Girl, an offshoot of the celebrated fashion magazine, runs a manga strip showing the life of a female high school student, which they proudly bill as created by esteemed LA-based publishers Tokyopop.

What’s more, American consumers are proving to be unusually accommodating to the Japanese product. Unlike South Korea, which formerly devoured Japanese anime but which now produces more than a third for its own audiences, the U.S. market is satisfied with nothing short of the real thing.

"North American fans prefer their anime exactly the way it is in Japan," says Christopher MacDonald, the editor of Anime News Network, a leading industry website. "They like the Japanese-ness and don't want it taken out."

Toward that end, Tokyo-based publisher Shogakukan last year tied up with San Francisco's Viz to release "Shojo Beat," a monthly English-language anthology of Japanese manga. Viz is also responsible for bringing to America the English version of "Naruto," the ultra-popular manga centered around a teenage ninja, which has reached bestseller lists in the U.S.

What impresses some observers about the U.S. market is not only the enthusiasm of the fans, but their interactivity. "There is a community that supports and sustains the anime industry," says Chris Oarr, a spokesman for AD Vision Films, the No. 1 anime distributor in the U.S. "It's organic, it's grassroots, and it happens whether we support it or not."

Oarr points to the 85 anime-themed conventions in the U.S. that draw at least 2,000 people each, and to the surging number of fan clubs nationwide. His own company helps keep fans connected to the latest anime news from Japan in the form of its monthly magazine Newtype, which, according to an industry profile in the November issue of Fortune magazine, outsells all other entertainment-related 'zines. The same article put the total market value of anime in the U.S. at $625 million.

And all this, says MacDonald, is thanks to a misshapen yellow monster. "Pokemon did more sales annually than all other titles combined," he says of the Pikachu gang that stormed children's TV in the late '90s. "Kids who got into the show in 1998 are now the 14-16-year-olds who are watching 'Full Metal Alchemist.'" As the fans mature, so does the content — "Adult Swim," a nightly block of anime aimed at older viewers, is a fixture of leading broadcaster Cartoon Network.

For Japanese studios and artists, the timing is welcome. "The reason that the Japanese market has rebounded so much is because of overseas," MacDonald says, referring to a slump that began in 2001. "Fifteen years ago, all money that was made in the anime industry came from Japan. Now if producers break even in the domestic market, they think, 'Great!'"

This situation has not gone unnoticed by the Japanese government, which is ramping up efforts to promote its anime industry abroad. With full faith in the power of Japan Cool — the idea that long-term returns from cultural exports will be just as significant as those from automobiles and televisions — Koizumi and Co are making sure that when you hear the word "Japan," you think of saucer-eyed vixens and hulking sci-fi robots.

Their latest move came last September, when journalists from 10 Asian nations were brought over for a tour of anime industry hotspots. The writers, from such diverse countries as India, Malaysia and the Philippines, met major anime figures and attended talks on Japanese pop culture. Included among their number were representatives from China and South Korea, signaling Japan's willingness to use its newfound cultural cachet to help ease longstanding political tensions.

Further afield, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2004 started work on a scheme to introduce anime to developing nations. Covering Africa, the Middle East and poorer Asian countries, the plan is for the government to acquire rights to Japanese shows with international appeal (think soccer) and to sponsor their broadcasts on local TV networks. The goal, says MacDonald, is twofold: to create understanding of Japanese culture and to open up a market for anime products, even if the payoff is years down the road.

In the nearer-term, Japan is directing its energies toward sustaining the U.S. boom and to assisting its artists at home. Besides the anime center in Akihabara, JETRO last April established a new program at its LA office that helps Japanese animators and producers form partnerships with American distributors. The initiative provides consultation with the Japanese anime companies and assists them in finding legal representation in the U.S.

All these efforts will, it is hoped, maintain Japan's position as the world's leading producer of anime. Though faced with a surging South Korean industry and competition from cut-rate Chinese animators, Japan still produces 60% of animation seen globally. And while there appears to be no real threat to this dominance, Japan's experience with U.S. consumers proves that, even when successfully penetrated, local markets will adapt to Japan's cultural exports in unexpected ways.

MacDonald notes that whereas manga is the force that drives animation in Japan, with fully 90% of anime titles deriving from a printed source, the U.S. market is just the opposite — success on DVD or TV leads to serialization in graphic form. For instance, while many U.S. newspapers now offer manga serials, none feature translations of original Japanese titles. In fact, for U.S. fans, anime is not just a gateway to manga, but to other areas of Japanese culture. Oarr of ADV Films estimates that 80% of U.S. J-Pop fans discovered the music via animation.

Those are numbers that savvy Japanese artists pay attention to. The J-Pop duo Puffy met with scant success in the American market until 2004, when they cast themselves in an anime series aimed at tweeners. The show, "Hey! Hey! Puffy AmiYumi" (the hip-hop mogul formerly known as Puffy threatened a lawsuit if the group used their Japanese name in the U.S.), is a big hit for The Cartoon Network, and the duo are now better-known to American kids as cartoon figures than flesh-and-blood musicians. Which suits them just fine.

Not to be ignored, too, is the fascination that Americans feel for what is still a foreign and exotic entertainment form. Or maybe, as Oarr suggests, U.S. fans are just discovering Japanese animation's universal appeal.

"What you're learning as a child is how to watch anime," he says. "As you develop into an 'otaku' fan, there's a real reward for uncovering and deciphering the content. Anime fans in the U.S. are a self-selecting and self-educated group. In fact, it's not unlike the anime fandom of Japan."

There's nothing wrong with exploiting a product that can help a country in times of less than desirable economic trends, however there's a lot of naivety in 'otokudom'. If you know anything about the rabid anime fan base in the US, you know that they tend to overly romanticize Japan. American otaku believe that women in Japan have more rights than they do in the US. They often see Japan as a perfect utopia without any social ills what-so-ever. It's a strange and curious thing too, considering the amount of manga and anime that have morally questionable content, regardless of your culture or belief system. It's fine to be a fan of the stuff, but it should be tempered with being seriously educated about Japanese culture, and not an ignorant, go over the deep end, the world's a cartoon outlook. Traits that are charming in a child can be quite ugly in a fully grown adult.

If you know anything about the rabid anime fan base in the US, you know that they tend to overly romanticize Japan.

I think he thing they romanticize or envy the most are the depth and breadth of the "otaku" subculture in Japan rather than wider Japanese society - that and, perhaps, submissive infantile females cavorting in skimpy "sailor" suits.

It's fine to be a fan of the stuff, but it should be tempered with being seriously educated about Japanese culture, and not an ignorant, go over the deep end, the world's a cartoon outlook.

But its only natural, I suppose, that a portion of these self-styled "otaku" will develop a curiousity about the people/society that gave rise to the pop culture they devour. Some subset of those will doubtlessly travel to and/or live in Japan. I expect their was a similar boomlet inspired by the success of James Clavel's very popular novel Shogun and the miniseries it inspired in the 70s. But I don't expect such enlightened consumers will become the norm. Americans who travel abroad or otherwise work and/or socialize with foreigners are often amused at the misimpressions they've formed from consumer its pop culture exports. Japan can probably expect the same.

Traits that are charming in a child can be quite ugly in a fully grown adult.

Amen, brother. I think Japan has a fair share of these, too. And, of course, anime isn't the only kind of pop culture that spawns such fan(atic)s so it probably doesn't deserve to singled out.

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