Interview: Japanamerica author Roland Kelts
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This past December, Geneon USA (formerly Pioneer Entertainment) shuttered its’ doors, leaving a significant number of anime titles without distribution in America. Fellow anime distributor ADV, which pulled out of a deal with Geneon shortly before their implosion, reportedly suffered issues of its own and rumors swelled that high-expectation titles like Devil May Cry would be pulled from their release slate. Two months later, Newtype Magazine - perhaps the highest-profile anime publication on the US market - ceased publication, citing the cost of licensing the Newtype brand from Japanese publisher Kadokawa Shoten.
As bad as these events are, they only serve to highlight a growing downward trend in the anime industry. The clouds have been on the horizon for some time. Media watchdog site ICv2 recently claimed that sales of anime DVD’s have slid as much as 20% per year since 2006. The cause of this decline has been ascribed to everything from an aging Japanese populace to digital piracy.
And yet, Japanese animation is more popular in the U.S. than at any time in its history. Anime cons in the U.S. like Anime Expo draw upwards of 40,000 attendees per year, while American production companies regularly turn to Japanese animation houses for inspiration or input. And to further cement the ‘anime alliance’ between the U.S. and Japan, animation powerhouse Disney recently entered into a highly-publicised production deal with some of the best animation studios in Japan, including Madhouse and Toei Animation.
So what’s the deal? Is anime going the way of the dodo - another pop-culture trend doomed to the wastebasket of history? Or is it a vibrant, fan-driven industry in the midst of tremendous growing pains? To answer some of these questions, we turned to cultural observer / lecturer / writer Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S.
Mr. Kelts graciously took time out of his schedule to conduct a brief interview over the past week.
Yellow Menace: First off - thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us!
Roland Kelts: Thanks for finding me out here on the road.
YM: Given recent events (the disintigration of Geneon US, the cancellation of Newtype USA, and the distribution issues affecting ADV), could you give us your rough estimate of the state of the anime industry in the U.S.?
RK: Dickensian: The best and worst of times. The largest and most relevant consumer audience for anime in the US is young or youthful; many of the movers and shakers in the upper echelons of the Japanese industry are nearly ossified. They hardly move, let alone shake. Japan’s hierarchical corporate model means that older men usually have the final word at Japan’s anime studios. Some of them don’t even use the Internet. Naturally, their expectations were forged when they were younger: Make a successful product for domestic TV or possibly cinema, then sell it domestically as a DVD set or single disc for approximately $50 per disc, then eventually dub and sub it for the international market eight months to a year later. Sell it at a lower price overseas ($30 or so), because that’s what the international market will bear.
It’s pretty easy to see the train wreck of this model in the 21st century. The Internet means that those domestic titles are available for free via fansites and/or BitTorrent with acceptable fansubs or dubs up to a day after their Japanese release date. Americans won’t pay $50 per disc, and young Americans can’t or won’t pay $30..
The Japanese retain their paranoia over ‘reverse imports’–cheaper US product released simultaneously and being shipped back and sold to the Japanese.
So they sit on their releases for a year or more. But if young American fans won’t pay $30, they definitely won’t pay that much after an eight to twelve-month wait.
Here’s the choice the young American fan faces: (1) Learn about your latest favorite anime release on the Internet, wait up to a year for its official North American release date, and, depending on the your age, badger mom, dad or an older sibling for a ride to the mall to drop $30 for a product your friends viewed, discussed and cast aside so long ago they don’t even remember it.
Or (2) stream it now, download it now, discuss it now, and move forward with everyone else—at NO cost.
North American anime fans are not malicious, they’re just practical. But the inevitable result is nicely packaged DVDs of original anime released into the US market with a massive fan base that has no need to buy them.
The Internet is largely responsible for record-breaking crowds at Anime conventions nationwide, taking place every weekend in markets as disparate as Anaheim and Anchorage. Anime continues to proliferate on US TV, cable and network, with no end in sight.
At the same time, the Internet is making anime DVD sales tank faster than the US dollar, from $550 million in ‘03 to $350 million last year. A $200 million loss over four years is a kick in the proverbial b—s of any entertainment market.
YM: Has fansubbing had a deleterious effect on anime, as some have asserted?
RK: Again, per my first answer: fansubbing is entirely salutary if the industry understands its virtues. Fansubbing, scanlations, downloads, bittorrents–they all help spread the wealth and the word with real passion. It’s essentially free advertising of the finest kind: individuals who are so passionate about the product they are willing to sacrifice hours and days to translate and disseminate it for no profit.Who could ask for better PR?
But if you don’t partner with your viral marketers, it’s suicide. They don’t necessarily need the profit because they’re not expending overhead producing the stuff. But the anime studios do need the profit to survive. And they’re not getting it.
Funimation is starting to stream high-quality, subbed anime via their web site a week after original Japan release dates. TokyoPop is scrambling to improve its web presence and web communities. Others better do the same. Fast.
YM: On a related note - piracy is an ongoing concern, particularly with the advent of the internet. Do you envision an RIAA-style lawsuit sweep (like the one being waged by Singaporean anime-distributor Odex) being levied against U.S. anime fans who share their favorite shows illegally?
RK: No, I don’t–mainly because I don’t think the Japanese industry and its US distributors have their act together to administer such draconian responses, but also because I think most such legal actions have proved Quixotic and self-destructive To me, this is the “Times Select” lesson. When the New York Times suddenly decided to charge its readers for access to selected content—its columnists—readers were disgusted and simply ignored the columnists. It didn’t last long.
On a more positive note, I think most in the industry on both sides of the Pacific understand the value of fan involvement and interaction. In Japan, so-called doujinshi (fan artists) have been an integral part of the industry for at least two decades. One of the many attractions of anime and manga is their interactive natures. A lawsuit sweep such as the one you describe in Singapore will only dampen the mutual affection and respect between artists, producers and fans–and the courts are so far behind today’s technologies, the attempt to enforce such sweeps (as we saw with the music industry) are good for no one.
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