Otaku, No Video

I was playing around with ReSearch.ly (a social media analysis tool) today, and during my research on anime, I came across the chart below. It shows what Americans–at least, those Americans engaged with social media over the past seven days–think of the term “anime.”

Sums up the situation nicely.

© Eiichiro Oda, Shueisha, Toei Animation

ANN reports that One Piece has sold 32.34 million copies of its 60 volumes in 2010.

For comparison, the top 500 trade paperbacks in America in 2009, across all publishers (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, etc.), sold a combined 25.8 million copies. Heck, Marvel and DC sold about 33 million issues in 2009. ^(source)

In other words, a single Japanese series sold 20% more trade paperback volumes this year as the two largest comic companies in America combined sold all of their trade paperbacks last year.

That’s how much Japan buys manga.

Thanks to Ed Sizemore of Comics Worth Reading for the conversation that inspired this article.

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Thought experiment:

Let’s imagine that all the scanlation sites shut down tomorrow. No new ones started up.

(Yes, I know, scanlation sites will always exist. That’s why this is a thought experiment, not a prediction.)

If you then heard about an interesting manga, would you go to a store and look through it, to buy it?

I ask because I don’t read manga online. Oh, I’ve read a few pages here and there, but I can think of only one series that I read more than a few pages of online. So I don’t know how the average reader approaches it.

Is online manga reading a separate market? E.g., if you couldn’t read it online, would you just not read it at all?

"El Alma del Ebro." Photo by Paulo Brandão on Flickr, sculpture by Jaume Plensa

Alex Leavitt recently added a fascinating post to his Department of Alchemy: “Conceptualizing the Academic Anime Review.” He’s applying academic principles to anime blogging. I will refrain from snarky comments about the quality of anime blogging.

One of his ideas: normal anime reviews (like the ones at Ogiue Maniax or Reverse Thieves) usually don’t refer to other anime reviews, except to say that other reviewers have covered an issue so thoroughly as to need no further discussion.

But, as he points out, why not? Why don’t we refer to other reviews? Why don’t we build off them? This is what academics do: take existing research and build on it.

It’s a great point, and an approach easily attempted: when starting a review, search for other reviews of the same work. Read them. Reference them in your review, and add to their observations.

I’m going to take my draft reviews and rework them this way, and approach my future reviews the same way.

Let’s do this.

Recently, Toshio Suzuki mentioned during a press conference that he was toying with the idea of reducing Studio Ghibli to a skeleton staff of five employees if The Borrowers Arrietty hadn’t worked out. While I suspect he was only half-serious, his comment piqued my curiosity.

Just how well is Studio Ghibli doing?

Let’s look at their films over the past decade or so. I pulled the following data from IMDb where possible; other reasonably reputable sites where necessary. Numbers may not be exactly accurate, due to yen-to-dollar conversion rates over time. I welcome corrections.

Overall, they seem to be doing just fine. When you consider the fact that most films released in Japan make only a few million U.S. dollars in their opening weekend (Avatar only made $6.6 million), Ghibli’s actually done better over the past few years than it was doing around the turn of the millennium.

I am shocked to see the difference in total gross incoming between a Hayao Miyazaki movie and everything else. I know he brings in a larger audience than the other directors at Ghibli, but an order of magnitude more? Wow.

No wonder Suzuki keeps needling Miyazaki to make more films for Ghibli.

Thanks as usual to chartfag for this impressive chart of the anime to be released in Japan over the next few months:

Thanks to chartfag

I’m most intrigued by Yasuga no Sora and Super Robot Taisen: The Inspector., myself.

What do you most want to check out? Let me know in the comments!

In watching the new anime coming out this summer, I realized that every series has a high animation budget. (Well, except for Tono no Issho.) Of course, “high” is a relative term, but there’s no doubt today’s shows have a higher sheet count than the standard established for the past decade or so. Every summer 2010 show–at least when comparing first episodes–has a higher sheet count than, say, Aoi Hana, Genshiken, or ef.

So, big companies must be willing to put money into anime again. I wonder if this is due to the runaway success of Kyoto Animation’s oeuvre, from dating sim adaptations like Air and Clannad to otaku-oriented shows like Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star. Certainly, mass fan visits to major Lucky Star sites have made the news; perhaps that turned a few heads in the financial backing world.

Now, these same shows could be burning their entire animation budget on the first episode. But high-budgeted initial episodes has been a trend for many years, and even there, this season’s first episodes are better animated than previous seasons’.

It’s a very, very good thing.

I’ve been watching Rurouni Kenshin TV lately.  For those who don’t know, Kenshin was a popular anime TV series that ran for three seasons in the late 1990′s, based on a hugely popular manga series. It tells the story of Kenshin Himura, an ex-assassin living in a peaceful age, who has pledged to give up killing but is pursued by many old and new rivals.

I just finished the first season (of three), and the show’s in setup mode.  The main characters are interacting and growing used to each other. The spunky boy faces some serious consequences and grows up a bit. It’s one of the things I like about the show: unlike most shonen series, the characters grow noticeably and quickly.

Villains usually pose one of the biggest problems in any shonen series. Villains usually fall into one of two categories: the Trickster and the Doomsday Villain.  The trickster uses some strange trick to fight — in a recent episode of Kenshin, one used invisibly thin wires to restrain his opponent — and the hero must figure out the trick. The doomsday villain seems impossibly powerful, swatting away the hero’s attacks with ease, until the hero finds that last reserve of strength and overpowers the villain.

Kenshin has its share of these. Fortunately, they’re presented in entertaining ways: Either the character itself has a distinctive personality, or the structure of the overall story keeps the episode interesting (such as a mystery story).

© Nobihiro Watsuki

Then Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star shows up.

In episode 19, a boy seeks a master to teach him swordsmanship, and stumbles on a rough-and-tumble type named Raijuta who looks suspiciously like Kenshiro.

Now, on the one hand, it’s easy to laugh at this. It’s easy to assume that Watsuki ran out of character ideas.

But…

For one thing, Raijuta and Ken do not share the same personality. They’re both quiet and stoic, but Ken’s a tragic, somewhat morbid character (from what little I’ve seen of him), while Raijuta is more forward-looking, and not nearly as over-the-top as Ken. Raijuta doesn’t scream his attacks.

For another, c’mon, it is fun to see a character “cross over” into another anime. What’s so wrong with that?

Thirdly, and I think this is the most important thing: Raijuta serves a specific purpose in Kenshin.  This isn’t like a tournament show, where he’d just be another powerful bad guy for the protagonist to fight. Raijuta is woven into a story about trust, betrayal, and pursuing dark goals. Indeed, when Raijuta and Kenshin first formally meet, Raijuta respectfully asks Kenshin to join him, in deference to Kenshin’s experience.

So.  Trickster villains and doomsday villains can work in a shonen title, just as long as they further the story.