SckizoBoy said:
Could I get a precis of it?
Just to let you know, I'm not going to watch, hell I've got anime to watch. Suffice to say, you're going to get misconceptions of it regardless of how long the west is going to be exposed to it so... see you after Hyouka ep15.
He's explaining how the mass market and mainstream audiences view anime and how their misconceptions helped shape the anime market.
He starts out talking about how Osamu Tezuka started the trend of limited animation, and how shows like Kimba the White Lion launched the early days of anime. Limited animation, family friendly, japanese language and culture edited or censored out to appeal for foreign markets.
Moves onto 1980s anime, with the rise of the teen market, where anime became recognized as a japanese item rather than covering up the origins. Violence, sex, and how films like Akira and Legend of the Overfiend colored anime as perverse cartoons meant to turn people into serial rapists and violent freaks.
the split at 1997, when Pokemon rocketed onto the scene, and the major shift of viewing 90s anime as violent carnage to another form of kids media. Shows scenes from the Simpsons and South Park showing the bizarre ideas foreign people had about Japan, and how anime's view changed to a kids thing.
Studio Ghibli and Disney. Miyazaki threatens Disney to make sure they don't edit his films after the "Warriors of the Wind" Naussicaa clusterfuck. Spirited Away wins an Oscar.
Oscar win makes markets think that all anime is Oscar material, leading to the massive influx of new shows around the early 2000s, as distribution companies bought up every single title they could get their hands on in the hopes of making another mega success like Studio Ghibli without realizing how specific Ghibli is.
Talks about how Tarantino's Kill Bill anime sequence created a throwback to the 80s ultraviolence shlock titles, bringing about more adult content after the Pokemon kid boom.
Ends talking about how the massive buying of distribution rights started to bite people in the ass, since not everything was selling thousands of copies anymore. While something might be extremely popular in Japan, it is only focusing on a niche audience, buying at ridiculously inflated prices, it doesn't get the same appeal outside the country, selling at lower prices. So Otakus buying something for $700 and selling 700 copies is good in Japan, but selling only 700 copies for $30.99 outside Japan is a disaster.
The ever increasing niche markets, lack of sales for mainstream shows thanks to streaming sites relying on ad revenue like Crunchyroll, and the price of animation going up instead of down might lead to a market crash in a few years.
All in all, it was a very interesting sit.
