Sino-Japanese soft power war part 2

Recently, Premier Wu Jiabao complained about lack of quality Chinese anime and kid series to counter the pervasive and odious influence from Land of Rising Sun. Apparently he was watching tv with his grandkid and much to his patriotic dismay, there is no quality Chinese cartoon or anime to entertain, instead he has to settle to watch Japanese tainted Ultraman. After the complaint, citizens of China rise up and in chorus agreed with him. They start online campaigning (same method on how Moot was chosen as Time's Most Influential Person) with fiery slogans like "Destroy Japanese Anime!" or other appropriate socialist inspired Chinese battlecry.

Chinese may outproduced Japan in terms of quantity (duh) but even the citizens of Motherland has to settle with foreigner goods for consumption as there is a lot of room for improvement for Chinese produced shows. Ironically, the premier wondered where does all talented Chinese go when this is the country that regularly suppressed free expression at the same time. Go figure.



Another irony is, Taro Aso trying to use anime as bridging tool for diplomacy at the same time.

Central Park Media shuts down

Central Park Media, one of the early pioneer of USA anime scene rolling up and close shop for good today. The organization responsible introducing titles like Legend of Overfiend, Patlabor and Record of Lodoss War to American audience but also known for feeding garbage like M.D Geist and Harmageddon. One of the new casualty of current economic malaise, I wonder if broken but not dead yet ADV USA is going to follow suit too? Already Geneon USA shuts down distribution and BANDAI also withdraws from US market with closure of Animevillage.

Cheers.

Source

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.