Note that the United States, Britain, and Australia aren’t even in the list. (Japan isn’t listed, because Japanese otaku would search using Japanese characters.)

Search by city, and a few American cities show up, but are still dwarfed by Pacific and South American cities.

This tells me that America is far from the largest potential overseas market for anime. Now, the average American surely has more spending money than the average Chilean, so that’s a factor. But as countries like Chile, Peru, and the Philippines rise in economic power, and American fans buy fewer and fewer discs of anime, I can see Japan looking elsewhere for money and increasingly ignoring America.

Maybe.

Welcome! I’m Brent, and I run this site, which is dedicated to intelligent analysis of anime, manga, and their industries. Here’s my latest video (more on YouTube); more blog stuff below.

Haruhi Suzumiya (c) KyoAni, etc.

From a fascinating article on AnimeNews.biz, about the $499 retail price for Aniplex’s Fate/Zero Blu-Ray box set:

Aniplex USA is importing the Japanese set as a limited run…importing the Japanese sets at a 20% discount is preferable to sublicensing the series and taking an 80% haircut on profits because of lower pricing on home video here. It’s getting to the point where Japanese fans are pitching fits about what we pay compared to them and Japanese companies don’t want to risk losing those fans to cheaper imports.

So that’s important: cheap anime for us means protests from Japanese fans, who still account for most anime sales. Japanese companies literally can’t afford to annoy Japanese fans, but they can afford to annoy us (the Western fanbase), because we don’t buy much anime anyway.

Again, this isn’t so much about fairness, as about the fact that we aren’t buying enough anime for the Japanese companies to care about us. Any number of Gaia posts about how much Westerners love anime won’t keep the studios in business.

This also explains–as the quoted article mentions further down–odd delays in Western releases: the companies are waiting for Japanese sales to taper off. If the companies released shows in the West shortly after the shows’ broadcast, the Japanese fans would just buy the discs off Amazon.com at the US $40 per show we demand, undercutting the Japanese discs’ higher prices.

Why are those prices so high? Because that’s where Japanese companies make their money.

That’s one tough thing: anime can be cheap for us, because we’re an after-market. Until recently, by the time a show came to America, it had already made its money in Japan. Thus, Japanese companies had no reason to demand high fees from American distributors like ADV or Funimation. Western  money was gravy, so Western distributors could keep prices down.

Now, it’s a lot more complex. Westerners see shows as they’re released in Japan, and want their discs immediately and cheaply. But somebody has to make money off these things, and traditionally, the Japanese companies did it with high-quality Japanese box sets that were expensive to produce and expensive to purchase.

Our demand for cheap anime quickly is now driving a race to the bottom, and it’s the Japanese companies producing the anime we love that suffer. Now we see the alternative: we’ll all pay Japanese prices.

© Sunrise, Bandai

I feel uncomfortable watching Gundam AGE. Seven episodes in, and I feel caught in a world of conflicting contrasts.

On the one hand, AGE begins by killing the protagonist’s mother in front of him, in a dark sequence similar to a key scene in Barefoot Gen. Referencing Hiroshima makes a strong statement about the writers’ intention for drama. And even this early in the show’s plot, one “good guy” has already suffered a tragic death.

The retro character designs seem to be a point of confusion. The characters are not young children; Flit is 14 years old. They are quickly thrust into conflict and lose everything except each other.

On the other hand, AGE is a brightly-colored show that features a number of upbeat characters. Flit, Emily, and Dique may furrow their brows during most of these episodes, but they have none of the rage or babe-in-the-woods characteristics of most young teens thrust into a Gundam plot. They feel like characters from a show aimed at a younger audience. Even the AGE System smells like a convenient process to introduce a new toy every few episodes.

Meanwhile, the show has already introduced many familiar Gundam elements: the arrogant pilot, the awesome old commander, and the battleship that takes the Gundam everywhere. We’ve even seen several characters that seem plucked straight out of other series: the purple-haired girl Yurin could be a younger Tifa Adil from Gundam X, and the devil child Decil could be the son of 00‘s Ribbons Almark.

All of this is told in a completely unfamiliar story. Never before have Gundam heroes tried to save a colony by removing part of it; they’ve never tried to save colonies besides preventing their destruction. Never before was the protagonist also the Gundam’s chief engineer. Indeed, never before has the protagonist wanted to pilot the Gundam this badly (except, perhaps, Seed Destiny’s Shinn).

Speaking of whom, Flit is the most normal, kid-next-door protagonist in Gundam. Shiro’s too noble, Al’s too curious, and Kira’s too long-suffering compared to Flit. His only flaw is his myopia about the Gundam, though such focus is common for a young teen boy. Flit’s just trying to finish a project, and is sucked into a strange, selfish adult world. The adults’ motivations make no sense to him. While Flit is prone to outbursts more common in Kamille and Amuro, Flit has none of those characters’ Aspergers-like insularity.

While I’m at it: thank you, writers of AGE, for Emily’s fire. She acts. She lacks resources and skills, so her attempts to act haven’t shown results yet, but she’s a clear contrast to ”good Japanese girls” like Frau Bow and Tifa. Granted, most modern Gundam hero’s girlfriends have been active, from Relena Peacecraft and Lacus Clyne to Sochie Heim and Diana Soreil.

Which reminds me: I felt the same disconnect when I first watched Turn-A: familiarity combined with the unique, to a far more extreme degree than I’d seen in other Gundam series.

Interesting. My love for Turn-A reassures me about AGE.

© Naoko Takeuchi

Artist/Writer: Naoko Takeuchi

Published in: 1993–1997 (Japan), 2011 (America)

American Publisher: Random House/Kodansha USA

Genres: shoujo, magical girl

Premise: A lively 13-year-old girl is given the power to transform into a magical girl and fight crime

Volumes: 2 (Japan), 1 so far (America)

Availability: Easily available on sites like Amazon and RightStuf.

Codename: Sailor V is both surprising and dull.

It’s the precursor to Sailor Moon, as well as its inspiration. Apparently, Sailor V was picked up for an anime adaptation, at which point the anime studio sat down with V‘s manga-ka Naoko Takeuchi to re-work Sailor V for the anime adaptation. The result was Sailor Moon. Takeuchi then began working references to Moon into V.

V is very much not Sailor Moon. It’s a traditional magical girl story containing only one 13-year-old magical girl, with a much lighter, goofier tone than Moon. It’s fundamentally a sitcom. Indeed, the heroine spends most of her time fighting crime rather than a long-form antagonist. While life lessons are dispensed, most of the story focuses on comedic misunderstandings and the protagonist’s silliness. There’s almost no larger story arc.

The art works; neither crowded nor sparse, it stays out of the way. Takeuchi’s characters do have a slightly elongated style common to shoujo.

Ed Sizemore pointed out that the artwork focuses on the clothing to an almost fetishistic level (my words, not his). While there is a lot of attention paid to this, it’s no worse than I’ve found in other shoujo works like Card Captor Sakura, and I chalk it up to many girls’ almost fetishistic attention to fashion.

So, the manga has a problematic dual problem. If you come looking for Sailor Moon, you’ll find instead a traditional magical girl comedy. If you prepare yourself for a magical girl story, you’ll find a very traditional magical girl comedy, with little to recommend itself beyond that.

Strike Witches © Gonzo

Pardon me while I rant for a moment.

I’m tired of people replying to negative feedback with the ”Well, everything is just my opinion” defense.

To illustrate my point, let’s look at three variations of opinion:

1. “I don’t like element Z of show X, for the following reasons.”
2. “Show X doesn’t work for me, for the following reasons.”
3. “Show X doesn’t work, for the following reasons.”

The closer a writer’s comments veer towards #3, the shakier that writer’s argument, and the more evidence is needed to support it. Argument #3 states an opinion about the show’s ability to work for its audience. Now, that is a personal opinion, but it’s a very different opinion than a statement about how well the show works for the writer.

Does that make sense? I can state that Manos: The Hands of Fate doesn’t work as a movie, because there are dozens of reviews to back that up, and I could apply plenty of well-established rules of film criticism to prove that it doesn’t work. However, if I were to state that Strikes Witches or K-ON! don’t work, that flies in the face of many positive reviews and an established fan base. These shows clearly work for someone.

Moreover, reality isn’t completely subjective. The name of a manga’s author is a fact. When a review states that a series is “hugely popular,” I should hope that’s based on some kind of evidence. Similarly, a description of the show’s premise (“a girl falls out of the sky into a boy’s arms”) is not opinion.

So, reviews contain quite a lot of non-fiction. Since that’s so, it’s vital for authors to clearly separate opinion from fact in an article, and be clear about their opinions’ scope.

Thank you.

(c) Nobuaki Tadano

Artist/Writer: Nobuaki Tadano

Published in: 2008–2010 (Japan), 2010–2011 (America)

American Publisher: Vertical

Genres: Slice-of-life, action, adolescence

Premise: A girl is inhabited by a sentient alien creature, which is itself seeking a xenocidal creature that can take any human’s form.

Volumes: 4

Show x Show: It’s Boogiepop meets Degrassi

What are the themes? The high school girl protagonist has blocked herself off from those around her–for very understandable reasons, it turns out. Because she now is forced to seek out this creature, she is forced to come out of her shell.

The result is a combination of seinen-like slice-of-life drama with shonen action sequences.

How’s the art? Modern and three-dimensional. Characters and backgrounds are rendered in loving detail.

(c) Nobuaki Tadano

Does the art vary from chapter to chapter? Not noticeably. Tadano’s got a strong sense of character design.

How complex are the characters? The protagonist is the most dimensional, and Tadano manages an impressive feat. This is a story about a character’s internal life, which is expressed visually and externally. While there is a fair amount of monologue inside her head, Tadano follows the ”show, don’t tell” maxim closely.

How’s the plot? Pretty evenly balanced between action and quiet drama. The second volume, particularly, is much more about the protagonist’s past.

Can I show it to my Mom? Yep, and this should appeal to adults. It’s about teenagers, but it’s about universal themes.

Can I show it to my kid brother? Sure. He’d probably get a kick out of the action, though the relatively slow, slice-of-life elements might bore him.

Can I show it to a non-manga fan? Absolutely. This is a perfect title to get them into manga, though it doesn’t have the rock-em-sock-em pace of, say, mainstream American comics.

Does it have any memorable moments? Yes.

Availability: Easily available on sites like Amazon and RightStuf.

© Stan Sakai

Okay, so technically Usagi Yojimbo isn’t a manga; it’s an anthro comic drawn in English by a third-generation Japanese-American.

However, it’s extremely Japanese, and uses manga pacing and stories.

Usagi Yojimbo tells the story of a ronin (master-less samurai), Usagi, in a world of anthropomorphic animals, such as rabbits, boars, and pigs. The small animals of this world are reptiles, so scenes are enlivened with 2-foot-tall apatosauruses.

These two volumes are entirely episodic. Other than a few recurring characters and a story that involves Usagi returning to his hometown, each volume contains a few stand-alone stories of Usagi’s adventures.

Usagi is a stereotypical samurai protagonist: pleasant, cautious, extremely skilled with a sword, and quick to moral outrage, with a strong sense of honor. As a result, the stories are more interesting than Usagi himself.

Some stories are comedic, others are serious, and some contain elements of both. Most deal with moral conundrums in some way. They feel very much like traditional samurai stories: ruffians threatening a village, overbearing lords, etc.

I was struck by how many Japanese language elements that Sakai put into the dialogue. Remember, this isn’t translated from Japanese. But the book is full of -sans and -donos. It certainly gives the book a foreign air, though I found it often unnecessary. Sakai does a fine job of getting across respect or familiarity without adding dialectical affectations.

The black-and-white art is clean and cartoony, with lots of round shapes and negative space. It’s a refreshing switch from the intense lines of manga and the crowded panels of American comics.

© Osamu Tezuka, Viz

Author: Osamu Tezuka

Artist: Osamu Tezuka

What’s he done? Astro Boy, Black Jack, Kimba the White Lion, Dororo, and many others

Volume published: 1971–1978 (Japan), 2006 (U.S.)

Genre: SF / drama / philosophical

Premise: Phoenix is Osamu Tezuka’s masterwork, several thousand pages of manga that explore the human condition. Volume 6 is a self-contained story that explores the old “Not If You Were The Last Person On Earth” chestnut.

Show x Show: It’s The Twilight Zone meets Survivor

Length: This volume stands alone

Is there a plot? Oh boy, yeah. The story keeps driving forward–one of Tezuka’s strengths–but remains easy to follow. This is partly thanks to the small cast.

How’s the art? Classic Tezuka, with a minimum of his trademark goofy comedy. Characters rarely jump through panel borders or otherwise break the fourth wall.

Does the art quality vary from chapter to chapter? Nope.

Is it philosophical? Very much so. This is the story of ordinary people forced to make very hard choices, and living with the consequences.

Moreover, it’s not preachy. Characters espouse different philosophies, and others reject or debate, but I never felt that Tezuka was telling me which one was right or wrong.

Can I show it to my Mom? As the characters struggle to survive, there’s a lot of nudity and, well, incest. If your Mom’s cool with that, go for it. It’s certainly good proof that manga is art.

Can I show it to my kid brother? Nah. It’s too heady, really.

Can I show it to a non-manga fan? Yes, though it may be a tough sell, considering Tezuka’s cartoony style. It’s perfect for an intellectual comic fan.

Availability: Readily available used from sites like Amazon.com and RightStuf.