Anime bubble burst, Japan's softpower under threat?

From my friend and Sankaku, apparently the thing I have been fearing has happened; the burst of anime bubble which peaked at 2006 (The year of Haruhi Suzumiya). These 2 focused on moe retardation responsible for stagnation of anime storytelling, making anime genre becoming stale as too many predictable and generic animes (Akikan? Asu no Yoichi? Sekirei?) There is only so much harem school girl moe anime one can take before become jaded with the genre. To some extent but not all malaise of anime industry today can be attributed to this.



One just have to look at Kannagi which recently concluded and we can see how moe has distorted and blocked proper storytelling. One sacred rule of moe is purity of essence aka virginity. Woe on those who break this rule, unreasonable fans will rage and punish an otherwise well told story. How to blame studios not to deviate from this formula then? It takes 2 to clap. Kannagi is an interesting example of what I think is good story tries to combine with moe appeal but ends up paying the price since these 2 are incompatible concepts to go along. I know this is a rather controversial view but this is how I see it.

My friend put this as case of point:

"And you can also see this trend with well established titles such as the Sunrise’s Gundam franchise or Tatsunoko’s Macross. Macross Frontier was for me a crappy attempt to cash in on the Macross fame, whereas the old one was an epic space opera followed by hard hitting drama (Zero). Frontier was generic shounen shit with only good soundtrack saving it from being the most shittiest franchise ever created (thankfully for Frontier Macross already had 7 to take that title). Gundam was always the same since Turn A, with only Wing and the first season of Double O having a storyline that can be considered to be able to stand by itself."

Amen to that, brother.

Asahi Shimbun, leading newspaper of Japan also points out that digital fansubbing hurt the industry bad especially overseas. The recent initiative by TV Tokyo and GONZO for example to have simulcast in US and Japan is a backhand acknowledgment on success of fansubbers denting their profit, before this they couldn't give a damn about fansubbers. This have generated positive results, the studios are more aware and move quickly to broadcast quality episodes using streaming etc to combat fansubbing. However is this too late?


Statistically, 308 series were churned out in 2006 represents the peak to 288 in 2008. In same time period 1st quarter of 2009 have 30 series out as compared to 60 in 2006. It is grim situation as more and more studios feel the pinch of economy gloom. One case example is Vallkyria Chornicles animation quality is not so stellar as compared to Tales of Abyss despite being funded by SEGA (they in trouble too). It is symptom of what I believe is lack of $$$ to pay for animation due to current economy pressures.

Cheers.

The way of the future is here now.

Utterly amazing demonstration of MIT Sixth Sense, presented by Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry 1 month ago. To summarize it, you can do the Tom Cruise thing in futuristic sci fi thriller, Minority Report.

In 5 - 10 years time, this will be our daily routine. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the lack of privacy too, for starters.

I am still in awe. Wow.

Bungaku Shoujo / 文学少女

For some reason this title caught my eye for interesting premise. The story sets in modern day Japan talks about burnt out (more like emo to me) young novelist Kanoha Inoue who won prestigious award at 14 years old who vowed not to write again when he felt his literary talent was not properly recognized.

In school literary club, he is a member with another girl Amano Touko who known as "bungaku shoujo" who eats up works of literature voraciously. The sullen novelist write short stories for her to "eat" everyday but the true story begins when she decided to put a drop box for anyone with problem.

What so special about this? Apparently the light novels have won few awards in 2007-2008 period for many categories and anime series were announced for it. Studio I.G will be responsible for the production.

Taken from a site:
8th place in このライトノベルがすごい! 2007 Best Series
3rd place in このライトノベルがすごい! 2008 Best Series
1st place in このライトノベルがすごい! 2009 Best Series
1st place in このライトノベルがすごい! 2009 Best Illustration
1st place in このライトノベルがすごい! 2009 Best Female Character (Amano Tooko)
4th place in このライトノベルがすごい! 2009 Best Female Character (Kotobuki Nanase)
5th place in このライトノベルがすごい! 2009 Best Male Character (Inoue Konoha)

With such impressive credentials, it is matter of time before it got anime adaptation.

Death Note and Warner Bros

Another film adaptation from anime/manga news here that is Warner Brothers will make an America adaptation of successful Death Note. I am not shitting here, as this link will tell you. Japan already made 3 live action adaptation of but I guess the Americans also wanted to have piece of action on their own. The American versions will be produced by Roy Lee (impressive credentials), Doug Davison, Dan Lin and Brian Witten. All these names are noted for their adaptation works of Asian media into Americanized end product, the first 2 were involved in production of "Departed" which adaptation of Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs.

How is this news going to be received by anime fans is hard to gauge. Personally I haven't read the manga or watch the anime, so I am quite neutral on this. But looking at the Hollywood names, it does seem like a big project. It is interesting to see where this leads to.

Perhaps it is time for me to read the manga.

Manga as tool of political propoganda

The rise of Japanese manga as political commentary medium advancing sets of political beliefs that bears some reminiscent to Yukio Mishima's attempt to indoctrinate post war Japan into old Imperial mold of rightist thinking again using his literature power (which he failed and commits a very public suicide in Japanese Self Defense Force HQ). This time though, mangas like Spirit of the Sun (the author here appealing to Japanese youth to have pride to be Japanese again in national crisis), Rideback (this manga talks about fears of globalization destroying local political culture specifically Japan) and even seemingly every seinen manga published by Kodansha which I can recall, don't have much socialist or left wing slanted titles.

Most famous political manga in Japan is Silent Service which even got debated in Japanese Diet (parliament). This remarkable manga which still in top 10 of best seinen manga in Japan readership (2006) talks about a rogue Japanese submarine XO who hijack the submarine and declared his ship as independent neutral entity "Yamato" despite it is built as joint US-Japanese SSBN (nuclear submarine). 2.2 million copies were sold by 1992 and still enjoys massive popularity even today in Japan. In the end, he sailed to UN HQ in New York to appeal to the world that everyone should dismantle their nuclear arsenal or to be destroyed. Predictably, the US Navy is the baddies here, they tried to stop the Yamato from accomplishing the objective. To many readers it seems very naive politically but as ideologue on pacifism, it is remarkable poster boy in backhand manner.

However a discussion of politcal manga cannot be complete without talking about controversial Yoshinori Kobayashi. Famous for his Gomanism Shingen / ゴーマニズム宣言 and his more infamous statements were like for example, total veneration of Kamikaze Corps, denial of Nanking Massacre and comfort women issue is a fabrication of anti Japanese propaganda. He is the darling of Japanese media and often appear in morning shows to give opinions on current events. His rise to international fame is when 2 major liberal newspapers known in Western world; NY Times and Le Monde wrote a scathing article on him for his neo fascist stand. To the end, he still defiant and his latest manga "On Taiwan" is published outside of Japan despite angry retorts from Chinese.

Stay tuned for more later, as I will discuss what I think of Eagle, a manga of Japanese-American become US President advocating pacifism.

Shogakukan Inc fighting manga piracy

Manga piracy is just as big as anime digital piracy, just less known. Shogakukan, one of the big player in Japanese manga industry declared war on piracy. They releasing manga chapters concurrently in Japan and USA at the same time to take away greatest weapon of pirates, waiting time for translation. One of the work got this benefit is Kyokai no Rinne, latest work of Rumiko Takahashi.

It remains to be seen if their plan will be successful or not. With the manga export market value of 12 billion yen (2005) which equals to 1.2 billion USD, it is no joke.

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