America's Greatest Otaku

Wikipedia defines otaku as “a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, or video games.”

In continuing the conversation from last week about anime and manga in American media, there is actually a new documentary series, called “America’s Greatest Otaku”, that will be shown on Hulu, beginning on February 24, 2011.

Here is the trailer:

According to Anime News Network,

“Each of the eight episodes will follow TOKYOPOP founder, entrepreneur, and filmmaker Stu Levy and his apprentices, the Otaku Six (six college students that are self-proclaimed die-hard otaku) as they travel across the country, searching for the one person who personifies what it means to be an otaku. The twenty-city nationwide search covers, in order of travel, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, Kansas City, Albuquerque, Phoenix, San Diego, Oklahoma, Nashville, Baltimore, Washington D.C., New York City, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Louisville, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Chicago.

During the nationwide search for America's Greatest Otaku contenders, Levy and the Otaku Six visit over thirty "Otaku Spots"--locations that are rich with otaku style and appeal. Included in these Spots are: an innovative "maid café"; a hotel inspired by Japanese pop culture; a recreation of a 17th century Japanese house and garden; a ninja-themed restaurant; a bento box specialty shop; an Alice in Wonderland themed café; and many, many more.”

In an interview with Stu Levy by Deb Aoki, Levy says that for the show, the definition of otaku is “somebody who's really into it and that means they also have ways of expressing themselves. So that means they can be creating their own cosplay, drawing manga, singing karaoke or writing. We delve into creative activity, as well as just loving the culture and being a huge fan. There have been a couple people out there with amazing collections but these people also tend to be designers. It's kind of amazing that the more otaku somebody is, the more they actually do things in the field, too.”

What I like the idea about this show is that even though in the U.S., otakus are seen in the negative connotation, as weirdoes who waste all of their time watching anime and reading manga, Levy wants this show to not be "Hey, let's find embarrassing people and put them on display," but rather, "Let's find people who are amazing and talented and intelligent and let's show off that this is what otaku culture is all about."

For the show to be able to display “Otaku spots” and otakus is evidence that there is a high attraction of Japanese culture/anime/manga in the U.S., or at least a big enough market of interest for TokyoPop, an American manga publishing company, to produce the show. If this show is successful in reaching Levy's goals of showing off "amazing and talented and intelligent" otakus, it may increase knowledge on anime, and through that may increase public interest in anime.

American Movie Adaptations of Manga and Anime

Strangely, American film and Japanese manga/anime have been developing a close relationship.

In 2009, Dragonball Evolution, based off of Dragon Ball, came out. Reviews for the movie had been mostly negative; however, Fox did make a profit off of it.

Recently, Warner Bros. plans to produce an American live action Death Note film, as it has signed Shane Black to direct the movie, which is not surprising as Warner Bros. Pictures Japan had successfully released three Death Note films in Japan.

 

Warner Bros. also plans to release a live action film of Akira. The script had already been written.

However, it’s not just U.S. companies remaking Japanese manga/anime into films. Warner Bros. Japan is producing an anime adaptation of the CW TV show, Supernatural. The anime will be made available in three installments on February 23^rd, March 9^th, and June 4^th.

Here is the trailer:

American companies must believe that there is a market for anime/manga live action film adaptations for them to make these adaptations. However, who are they marketing to? Dragonball and Death Note both have supernatural elements to them, as Dragonball is about how in gathering all of the Dragonballs, a dragon will be summoned and will grant one wish. Death Note is about a young man who finds a black book that was originally owned by a Death God. Whenever someone’s name is written in the book, that person will die of natural means.

These movies do not really fall in the normal genre of action in American filmography. Do these entertainment industries find that there are enough anime fans in the U.S. for the adaptation projects to be worthwhile? I don’t think so. 

Maybe the reasons fall into the same line of thinking as to why there are so many comic book adaptations being made, such as Watchmen, Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man, etc. They just make good, entertaining movies. In general, manga/anime have a vast variety of genres and really good storylines, which is why they have such a large following in Japan and the U.S.
With the popularity of anime-based Japanese films and comic-based American films, entertainment companies may hope that anime-based American films will have a large market.

Digital Formats of Manga. Something old and new?

I believe that one of the reasons why manga became so popular in the U.S. is due to the widespread availability of free translated scanlations on the web. AnimeBlog has a post about how digital versions of comics are becoming a huge part of the industry, and publishers, such as Viz, are beginning to make digital versions of their comics available for formats like the iPad.

The reason for conversion to digital formats is because the drop of manga sales according to this article written in October 7, 2010,

where manga sales “declined 9% in the first half of 2010, with an estimated 20% overall drop in 2010, making it likely that this will be the third bad year for manga sales in a row. If current trends continue, manga will drop 50% over three years.” However, digital comics are expanding “from a $500,000 market in 2009 to an estimated $6 to 8 million dollars in 2010, a more than ten-fold increase.” 

However, in conversions to digital formats, the manga industry will be competing against online manga scanlating groups. These groups are organized with translators, typesetters, and cleaners, all with the purpose of speeding up the process of releasing manga.

When manga was first published by American companies, the releases were painfully slow, where popular manga books were released one volume every month. However, these manga titles already had over 100 chapters released in Japan, with 1 new chapter released every week. One manga volume contained about 6 chapters. The American translations of manga were far behind the releases in Japan.  For manga fans, waiting for the American release of manga was a terrible ordeal, as manga storylines were continuous, and every chapter usually left the reader at a cliffhanger.

To solve this problem, scanlating groups began to form, where people who were fluent in Japanese (or Chinese or Korean and whatever language the manga was already released in) began to translate the manga, scan the manga into a digital format, type the translations in the speech bubbles, and post the manga online.

Programs were also created in order to read the picture files efficiently, since the pages had to be read in sequential order. One popular program was CDisplay. 

The scanlating groups did a good job of putting out manga. As more and more groups formed, the releases became faster and in better quality.

Pretty clear, but could be cleaned better.

To really clean and clear.

Popular manga (usually from Shonen Jump), would be put out every week after the chapter was released in Japan (because Shonen Jump comes out once a week in Japan, and there is one chapter from each manga in one issue of Shonen Jump).

Some publishers have noticed the talent in the scanlating groups. Digital Manga Guild is a group of publishers that is willing to pay online translators, typesetters, and editors for their work in producing manga. This work is also legal, as publishers agree to allow their manga be translated in this format. However, most of the manga in this guild are not mainstream. This may become an issue, as scanlating groups desire to translate manga they want to read and share. That is the reason for their existence in the first place.  

If publishers release digital formats of manga, will the fans buy it?  Personally, as an avid fan of One Piece, I love buying One Piece merchandise, and I wouldn’t mind buying the chapters as they come out in order to support the mangaka. However, I still enjoy the massive amounts of manga available to me for free. I can pick any manga up and try it, and if I don’t like it, I can just move on to another manga.

Differences Between Anime and American Animation

In order to figure out why anime is so popular in the U.S., we must figure out what makes anime and American cartoons different. What niche does anime fill that can't be found in American cartoons?

I found some really interesting information on the history of anime in Gilles Poitras essay "Contemporary Anime in Japanese Pop Culture", which gave much insight on how the development of Japanese animation over the decades was really different from that of American animation. His essay could be found in the book Japanese Visual Culture.

According to Poitras, anime is usually made up of a single story rather than a series of disconnected episodes, and even anime that have separate stories in each episode usually have some sort of subplot for the entire season.
Many examples of this can be seen in anime, such as Gundam Wing. On the contrary, anime like Kaasan – Mom’s Life do not seem to contain a single storyline, since the anime is about the daily life of a mom. Yet each episode does relate to the rest, where a single event in one episode will have a lasting effect on the rest of the episodes. 

Anime normally last for three months to a year. Multiyear programs are unusual, and these programs are regularly based on manga that are very long, such as Naruto or Gintama. 

In comparison, American cartoons, such as the Simpsons or the Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy, tend to last over a year, and episodes do not relate to one another.
I think that since anime is made up of a continuous storyline, the shorter length may help hold the audience's attention for the entire series. 

Poitras also points out that anime has emotional content, where it contain elements of suffering, death, love, adventure, pain, and joy. Much emphasis is placed on the characters' feelings, in order to move the audience. This relates to how animation qualities between anime and American cartoons are different. The visual qualities in anime enhance the emotional effect. "Shadows exist and move on faces, bodies, and objects. Vehicles may move under the shade of trees and out into the sunlight, and clouds may case shadows on a field or even a cityscape. Hair movement is noticeable, unlike many animated works, where hair is more like a helmet; at the right dramatic moment a lock may fall or a hand will move to push hair back from the face" (Poitras, 62).

 

Time of Eve Trailer

Lastly, the anime industry has a large number of genres that are age, gender, and niche-specific.  In the 1980's the OVA (Original Video Animation) format of straight-to-video anime allowed for companies to target specialized markets, since the anime did not have to be released on TV or in theaters. This allowed innovation into new concepts, as OVA titles that proved to be popular could made into TV or movie versions.New genres also came out of this.

Tsubasa Chronicles (Fantasy, mostly aimed at young female audience)

One Piece (Adventure, mostly aimed at young male audience)

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (Science Fiction)

Eyeshield 21 (Sports)

20th Century Boys (Mystery, Drama)

In the end, anime is very different from American animation. The vast variety of genres that engage audiences of different age groups and interests, as well as the complex visual quality of anime, anime may be appealing to a large number of people in the U.S.

Anime Culture Explained in 10 minutes

Here is a website that gives a brief explanation of 'anime culture':
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~jleek/anime/culture.html

I do not know if all the explanations are true, though, as I do not have a very thorough knowledge of Japanese culture. For example, I do not know if the statement, "The Japanese view of the universe is that it is inherently amoral, unlike the American view, which is that the universe should be fair", is true, as that seems to be a strong statement. Yet if the writer knows a lot about Japanese culture, it may be true.

Anyway, I believe the website to gives pretty good explanations on most things, except that "super-deformed style" is usually called 'chibi style'. I also believe that anime is made for all audiences, rather than just teenagers and adults, as there are many many children anime.

Interestingly enough, this website makes me realize that I learn a lot about Japanese culture from reading manga. I know the types of food Japanese people eat, the types of vacations they take, even the TV channels they watch, and a little bit of the religion and the history. When I went to Japan, I was really excited about all the familiar things I got to see. The trip was like watching Disney movies and then finally being able to go to Disney World and experience everything in the movies... but even better!

Why is anime so popular in the U.S.?

Japanese anime is very much a Japanese thing. It is full of Japanese cultural references, and thus created solely for Japanese audiences. Heck, when I went to Osaka one summer, I felt like I was thrown into an anime.

Gantz

Street in Osaka

Osaka

In many animes, the setting is in Japan, explaining the familiarity I felt in Osaka. In animes, there are many cultural references made (from Japanese history, traditions, geography), and certain jokes that use puns. These references and jokes cannot be translated into English, yet American anime fans try to understand these references and jokes. People even spend free time scanning manga into their computers, translating and editing the scanlations, and then posting them up on a website or making them available for download. There are even websites dedicated to hosting manga, such as Manga Reader, so that fans can read them. Why do American fans put in all this effort in order to obtain something that is not from their culture? There aren't groups and websites dedicated to the translation of Japanese books (though there are groups that spend time translating Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese TV shows). What gives anime/manga an irresistibly not found in American cartoons?

I grew up with the increasing popularity of anime. My first introduction to anime was in 3rd grade (in 1998) when Sailor Moon first aired on Cartoon Network. My friends and I loved it, and we would pretend we were the sailor scouts. We wanted to know everything about the Sailor Moon world, but the movies extending the Sailor Moon storyline were not available; therefore, we read the synopses of all the movies on the Internet. After the popularity of Sailor Moon, Cartoon Network began to air other anime, such as Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing, in their afternoon programming block called Toonami.

However, the number of anime released were still limited, so my friends and I read the synopses of different anime online.

Nowadays, with the extensive use of the Internet, obtaining anime and manga is much easier. Websites are dedicated to stream anime with English subtitles, usually for free (Crunchyroll). Different groups translate and post manga online, even before the American publishing companies translate and print the manga for American bookstores. These groups that post translated manga online have posted hundreds of titles on different websites, such as Mangareader.

I am constantly surprised with the number of newly translated anime/manga titles that are coming out all the time. For the massive amount of translated anime and manga available online, as well as in bookstores and the occasional anime merchandise store, there must be a demand in the U.S.

Therefore, this leads back to the original question of why Japanese anime/manga, a media form made specifically for Japanese audiences, full of Japanese cultural references, is so popular in the U.S.