Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Japan to face challenges from foreign animation

March 25, 2006 on 10:42 pm | In Media coverage | Comments Off on Japan to face challenges from foreign animation

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about the anime industry’s saturation, and infers that Japan will soon be facing competition in the world market.

While Al-khadra has a point about the fact that some people don’t care where the product is from as long as it’s dubbed, I think that the existing fan market won’t be penetrated that strongly simply due to the intense elitism of its members.

Judgement can’t really be passed on this sort of product because we haven’t really seen any of it. That, however, does not stop me from thinking that I wouldn’t be that interested: what could possibly be offered? If anything, the article implies that the work will both be derivative of anime and aimed primarily at children.
This makes it seem a cynical attempt to cash in by emulation, like so much of the stuff that you might see on Jetix. Of course I’m not saying the Japanese market itself isn’t driven by cynicism – hell, look at the amount of onsen boob ninja robot panties we’ve got at the moment – but industries should invent their own system of cynicism rather than slavishly copying another.

Finally, my traditional complaints: the article refers to fans as “geeks” and also it jumps straight from “Hello Kitty” to “sex and violence” as the two kinds of anime. Nothing much can be done about this, and I don’t think anything ever will be.

That link may expire soon, at which point I will reproduce the article in its entirety.