The good old days: Comic Book Speculation

Trading will open up heavy.

So DC comics is either genuinely full of people who don’t know what they’re doing, or they are very calculating. Either way, they’ve pulled off a major comic PR coup with the All Star Batman and Robin #10.

For those of you who don’t know, there is a 2 page story in this issue where there is plenty of Batgirl profanity. Now in comics, the way to censor that is to black it out so you can tell there’s a word under there, but can’t see the actual word. Yes, for the first time DC has realistically portrayed the type of things that would be said by some drug dealing thug who just got his ass kicked be a smoldering hot giant boobed red head with a bat fetish (yes we get the “C-word”). You can read the news story here.

Unsurprisingly, this has created a frenzy of speculation the likes of which haven’t been seen since X-Force issue 1. Unsurprisingly, I dived right in. And unsurprisingly, there were plenty of opportunities to buy these books at comic retailers who have to worry about paying rent this month and can’t wait for DC to come back 2 weeks from now with a book they’ll probably sell less of (thanks Forbidden Planet). DC can bully the major distros into pulping a lot of these things, but not the shrewd retailers here in a city where commerce and money rule with an iron fist (even when the DC offices are right down the street here).

Collectibility and a market for it have always seems to develop together in some form or another for almost as long as fandom has existed. However, this is where fandom of culture and imagination meet the harsh realities of supply and demand. One of the more immune fandoms to the growth of collectability as a function of pure economics, is anime. With the exception of genuine original artwork, there are no real strong areas of anime collectibility save for those which more imitate American constructs. There are the few items like those UCC coffee cans and the old Viz color issues of Ranma and Inu Yasha from back in the 1990’s.



So with that in mind, I have some of these Batman issues and if anyone wants one, they’re $75 ea. You’ll see Batgirl say “Fuck” and what not.

OTAKON 2008, Artist's Alley, Commercialism, and Life after Weaboos:

Another Otakon has come and gone.

I’ve finally been able to reach a point where I believe I can give you an Otakon report that is only interesting because you, dear reader have already gourged on Otakon recaps to the point where you are looking for any last morsels of media to stuff in your face before the sugar rush wears off and you cant take another bite.

This year was markedly free of the type of licensing industry presence that had been seen at Otakons that had recently come before. This particular development was something that should be understood as inevitable regardless of the health of the industry. When one realizes that the presence of such corporate booths do nothing to recoup their high costs at a fan-event, as the dealers room of Otakon shall forever remain only a retail space and not a place to take major industrial steps forward. As happens at non-business conventions like Otakon and in the whole media industry itself, the major labels have passed on the burden of shouldering the costs of the home media market to the retailers because they have to. Even the big boys such as Funimation, and Bandai had retail partners there, handling product sales. The upshot of which, was that there were serious deals to be had, such as Funimation box sets for $30 (I picked up Tenchi and Shinchan), all of Cowboy Bebop for $40, and talking down the non-descript table people selling ADV titles to let the platinum Evangelion set go for $45 if you asked nicely.

I didn’t bother taking many photos. You wanna see photos? Go watch this.

Moving on to another phenomena of Otakon which is the Artist’s Alley; it is interesting to note that the dealers room has become slightly less of a hotbed of contention. The debate focuses around a point which seems to universally exist in the balance between the fandom and the people who create anime itself ...I mean make actual anime/manga for real, not you at home working on your flash for NG or you over there with the bloated deviant art account and drive full of crappy fanfics (that’s all of them). Billed as the “convention of the Otaku generation” sadly most of that actual generation no longer attends and the event has been overrun with “the weaboo generation.” If there is anything that is endemic of the latter, it is an unmistakable cone of ignorance they carry of how the world works, stemming from a terrible combination of youth and social maladjustment. Nowhere is the juxtaposition of these two groups more easily observed than in the Otakon Artist’s Alley. The weaboo misconception is that that this is going to be like comiket and the internet level of lax rules of intellectual property where it’s ok so long as a C&D doesn’t get sent apply, and there is plenty of modest profiting from sales of art made by people who are copying the work and designs of other people. The idiocy of the younger (and less talented) generation’s argument that their wholesale offerings of character goods which earn creators no royalties is ok to do at Otakon because it’s legal in Japan, can be summed up by this following example of “what’s legal in Japan”: In Japan I can bang a 16 year old schoolgirl and her twin sister in the family TV room while chowing down on dolphin meat and wiping my forehead with used panties from a vending machine, then spend the rest of the night at a cockfight drinking beer in public (also from a vending machine).

Now if you are one of the 3 people who read this blog and have never been to the Otakon Artist’s Alley, it is quite large and the space it occupies is bigger than most convention dealer’s rooms and in some cases bigger than entire conventions themselves. Their ability to compete with the dealer’s room is a genuine concern of actual retailers, who are held to higher standards when it comes to the legal status of what they sell to the public, and who pay a lot more for a table ta'boot. Vendors have a valid concern when it comes for arguing for fair play against a room full of other people selling character goods for a cheaper price at tables which are a fraction of the cost of dealer space. And herein doth approach the grey area of enormous magnitude, contained within the simple question “what is art” or in this case “what is fan-art, and can is it ok for it to be a commercial product?”

I always spend more in Artist’s Alley than the dealer’s room, but I spend it on original art, not works of commercial characters that the artist didn’t create on their own. To buy unlicensed character goods assumes that the industry and original artists are in such good economic shape, that this kind of sub-market can exist without hurting the whole system, which is simply not the case. Art is art, but just because you drew a great picture of a character you have nothing to do with (other than you like it) is not valid entitlement to sell that as a commercial product. The right to create is not the right to sell. It’s great to be a fan and want to own things of the characters you identify with (or think are hot) but to sell such items on any scale other than single commissions, is like a cosplayer asking for a dollar for every photo taken of them, and that dear readers is a dick move.

There are many who disagree with this and think that all should be fair game in this situation and if the artists want to sell home made unlicensed commercial products at the highest possible turnover then they should be allowed that because not only is that allowed in Japan, but as true fans, their love for the anime and the characters makes what they do more genuine. That is not true, since nothing says “love” like a royalty check, just ask an actual manga-ka, or seiyuu, or director, or producer, animator, studio, composer, HR director at an anime company, or a cashier at the Osaka Animate store.

And that’s how we solved the mystery of the butthurt weaboos.

Other things that happened at Otakon was that the Ninja Consultants had their wits about them enough to have the great idea of recording the mother of all anime podcast episodes in their convention hotel room at 1am Sat/Sun, with a rouges gallery of podcast people who’s names I can’t really remember completely, but it went something like 2 thirds of AWO, the big guy from Fast Karate, the guy who sounds like a chick from R5central, MT, some teenager, and I think I was there. There was also a guy outside who went to a wedding but then got hit for no reason and the police came. FYI when you listen to that please keep in mind that some tequila was involved. Pics or it didn’t happen? Here’s the string-bean saying something I am sure he thinks is important.

This year didn’t seem to have as much of a swell of energy to it. It didn’t seem to have the energy of growth to it, and that may be in no small part a result of the former major players in the game all falling out of the picture. Say what you will and my previous post not withstanding, ADV is probably outta here. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing but it actually seems that there were slightly less cosplayers as well.

In addition Otakon once again showed that it really is run by fans for fans, as the press office failed to deliver on just about everything we were after, and I became aware of this lack of competence quite a bit too late, so あ!PoN will not be having any episodes filmed at Otakon, even though we went down with a full set of gear. Fear not however, since we did have a long sit-down with director Satoshi Kon (preview here), and we’ll be talking to plenty of people at the (better run but more commercial) NYAF. Next year we’ll also be at the Tokyo Anime Fair so look forward to that also.

So is this going to be the very start of the sucking sound made the vacuum created by the rapid departure of the weaboo flood that will soon find something else to gravitate to now that the anime industry is going to have a hard time “giving the people what they want?” Honestly it is possible, but what is also (more) possible is the sustaining of at least a higher plateau, and as Katrina 2 gets ready to kick New Orleans in the still-sore nads, and we’re about a week from having Sarah Palin’s fake pregnancy explode all over CNN, one must continuously remind themselves that Executive management in just about any field has an unlimited potential to bumble their way into an unending forest of epic fail.

See you next Otakon.

So obnoxious as other people's luck

I know how this crap gets made, but that doesn't mean I am any less frustrated.

So it is now apparent that history repeats itself on the macro and micro level, and we are all in store for another rollercoaster ride. A ride not so much a rollercoarster, but a twisted funhouse wherein everything that had a strong influence in growing Asian pop-culture into something of a staple of entertainment and cultural identity of the generations who have no idea what a dos prompt is, is turned on its head. As if run by the same idiots at the U.S. Mint that get their panties in such a bunch when told they must design a functional dollar coin and then do just the opposite out of nothing but spite, so too has mainstream American entertainment media finally admitted that the Japanese beat the crap out of them when it came to the battle for the hearts and minds of a generation that’s aware enough to see that the Boomers in charge have lost their minds and have refused to adapt formulas that no longer work. The kids in the fandom take it personally, and then in turn, so do the baby boomers running the show.

So what happens? Well if you have ever read Japan Inc, you’ll have a pretty good idea that we are in the “too little too late” phase of the death march of this market as we know it. Case in point; the new polygonal abomination that is the DC vs Mortal Kombat offering.
Gameplay is irrelevant: They can make an awesome fight engine for anything these days and have it look cool.
Platform is irrelevant: There are very few games that can spur noticeable increases in sales (especially when not combined with other hardware pricing promotions). This game will not be one of them.
Marketing is irrelevant: With 2 brands that such a long embedded history, people have already made up their minds. The pitiful e3 demo recently shown, where Superman ends a match with Sub Zero by pushing him down with a single punch, was either a tremendous marketing blunder or a symptom of a fatal abundance of "fail" in the game that they wish to prolong the exposure of as long as they can.

This game is an attempt to take Marvel vs. Capcom, and make what would hopefully be a modestly profitable franchise out of such a similar pairing. There are a great many things that are being done wrong here, but to keep the bullet points going:
Too Little: In this case, it’s a situation where too much in the easy parts (the “bling” of the game) and not where it belongs. The result is a game that’s going to be old in 5 minutes.
Too Late: Camcom vs. Marvel was first released last century, and like begrudged losers, the old guard is finally realizing that there is no reverse (or standing still) in the world of entertainment (although we have seen a lot of “reincarnation” however).
WTF?: The most glairing problem here is the inability to reconcile the boy-scout image of DC characters (even Lobo never actually attained true bad-ass status that wasn’t at the level of some sort of nicktoons joke), with the bloodthirsty realism of the Mortal Kombat game series, which has been putting ants in the pants of the likes of Captain Kangaroo, Jack Thompson, and Hillary Clinton. With 2 diametrically opposed psychologies, one of them is going to lose.

The sad truth is that by overemphasizing the technical capacities of the game, while at the same time having those technical achievements show an unfolding series of events and game play that are disingenuous to what the market is going to expect, effectively re-alienates an audience like a second Bush term. The minor steps forward in entertainment media searingly branded with the “we’re still in charge” message of the old guard, will send the new generation right back to their p2p fansubs, Japanese imports, and set the bar even higher for when a truly good piece of domestic work is made.

Now when starting with “video games” one loses a part of an audience, so in an attempt to lose the part of that audience which stayed on up to this point, I shall now bring up the same topic, different example. That example of course is Avatar. It has its faults, the sometimes seemingly arbitrary sprinklings of Asian culture here and there, the campy “feel-good” message of a GI Joe episode or Voltron Dub where hastily out-of-place lie is shoehorned into end dialog to falsify the notion that “nobody died,” or the character development that resembles the real-time action of a shrinky-dink (remember those?). For all those faults however, no mistake should be made that this program is perhaps one of the best examples of the new for of entertainment that newer and smarter generations of consumers expect and deserve… and that’s not saying much. The sad fact is that Avatar actually pushed the envelope in the eyes of the old guard, and may have pushed to far for their timid senses, while at the same time it showed the other end of the equation just how chicken-shit the powers that be still are, when it comes to accepting the inevitable.

For all of the steps that it seems we have made, in reality there’s only been one that has been indelibly taken up to this point, and that is the shaking of the taboo in animated TV that episodes can’t connect to each other to form an intelligent and entertaining storyline. The rest of these lessons, things that the audience takes for granted because we’ve gotten so used to them it’s like second nature, will all perhaps never be learned by the old guard, as they take them down with them to the dog-track in Daytona on their motorized chairs with their legs wrapped in airport blankets.

Their exit will not be the final hurdle to intelligent and well made entertainment, because as they have forced their will onto the creative minds of these programs, those creative minds have learned to take the path of least resistance; self-censorship. The notion of “don’t put that in the story, they’d never let us get away with it,” all too quickly leads to such an unbreakable mindset, that the potential illumination out of the animated dark ages that the next generation had in it’s luggage, was tossed off into a storeroom like a shampoo bottle by the TSA, while the rest of the passengers continue to fly on foreign airlines.

Now that the end of licensing as we know it has made the need for domestic creations a reality, the most difficult task in evolving animated entertainment into the thing that caused the great shift in the first place, will fall not to the old guard (they’ll go down screaming that “we’re doing it wrong” and take as many ships down with them as they can), but to the ones that take their place. The ones that spent a disproportional long time underneath aging company superiors who wouldn’t let go, and who by that time, will have to fight a serious battle within themselves against that “self censorship” which was so embedded into the industry, by a generation that in their own eyes “just couldn’t be wrong.”

HELP ME INTERNETS!

So I keep hearing these rumblings of the Evangelikon UCC coffee cans being worth something if they are the originals from 1997 and unopened. Anyone know where I can find out?

UCC Evangelion original coffee cans from the 1990's. Unopened.

PS; that "Dirty Pair: A Plague of Angels" back there is signed.
PPS; Bonus points if you can name all the books there.

Return of the King: Google buys youtube

In case anyone out there was wondering, the reason for the previous prolonged absence is one simply of technology. In short, my home computer had a little motherboard issue, and while I wait for the 4th attempt at a replacement taking over a month (let’s just say I’m glad I’m a fedora-sporting Bluetooth-wearing Amex-using douche, otherwise I’d have been f-ed over by some unscrupulous internet sellers passing off OEM parts as new), I decided to pick up a notebook computer to use. No, I’m not that kind of money stuffed jerk who can just “do that”, but rather I am preparing on finishing up the graduate degree in a far away place and will need something more portable in the near future. Besides, with B&H right here, how can you not?

Some updated information:
-If anyone has tried to e-mail me via the e-mail listed on this site, chances are I haven’t seen it because by simply putting that e-mail address out there, it’s getting spammed like crazy. Don’t call me I’ll call you.
-I will now be resuming regular postings.
-I will be at Otakon.
-I got Invited to Sitacon, but am not sure if I can make it.
-No computer means no i-pod updates so I haven’t listened to any other podcasts since about early May.

That’s all for the basic info. …well here are some things you maybe didn’t know:
-I’ve eaten kaiten sushi at 2 different places in the past 2 days.
-My next door neighbor is a senior exec at Kodansha.
-I can’t drink diet soda because of an allergy.
-Harmony Gold still hasn’t sent me a copy of the DVD where I interview Tommy Yune.
-I think the Litepanels Micro is the best on-cam light ever.
-We interviewed TM Revolution for あ!PoN, but... there’s an issue about that which is gonna hold that up.
-I got all teary-eyed at the end of Maison Ikkoku.
-I recently had some nice conversations with actress Kato Ai and her boyfriend the F1 Driver. They declined appearing on あ!PoN.


Now to begin the speculation into anime business, or; Why we’ll win in the end, but that’s a long way off.

Recently, the largest juggernauts of the media and software business world have been rocked back and forth with some major news about this that or the other seriously negative economic development.

Case in point Google’s recent admission that Youtube was basically the largest “impulse buy” in the history of money. Lots of people realized that their plan looked suspiciously like some underpants gnomes we all know;

Step 1: Buy You Tube
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

At one point or another, every business that has failed has someone within the power structure pop their head up and say “Hey, what’s step 2?” It is usually at such a point where the stockholders make an assessment and then pull the plug on an otherwise unprofitable quagmire. It remains to be seen whether Google will take that oft trodden path or be second only to the Bush administration in moving forward into a world of epic fail with no discernible “step 2.”

Now those in the business world were not surprised at this development, but what was felt was a profound sense of disappointment. Google had defied the odds up to this point, and now it’s all going to come crashing down as something unsustainable in some horrible Enron-esque scenario which involves global warming and killer butterflies.

What does this have to do with anime? Well if you look at what happened to Geneon, you’re looking at a picture perfect example of the underpants gnomes business plan at work. Although what’s most tragic is that “step 2” in this case was known on the Japanese end, but what they didn’t know was that it wouldn’t work:

Step 1: Buy your way into the U.S. home media market.
Step 2: It will be Just like the Japanese home media market in security, but a massive bonanza because Americans buy everything.
Step 3: Profit!

Now look closely at Step 1-2. Notice the term “home media market” and not “anime market.” This is important, since the “anime market” encompasses everything from animation production to merchandise licensing. But that’s not where Geneon put its chips down. They put them solely down on home media, which was the worst possible place to put them.

The rest of this is wrote. Dominoes fall, and soon the only players left in the anime on dvd game will be those who can treat it as a loss leader, such as Bandai, 4Kids, Funimation, Manga, and who knows maybe a broadcaster will get into the mix. Time and time again the industry will blame fansubbers, and time and time again the industry will be right. But I’ve mentioned that all before.

So now anime is in a state where it can no longer count on the vast American market, full of people who love anime, to even support basic licenses that they could once count on for revenue.

What will they do? They’ll adapt of course. Anime is once again leading the way in terms of media development. We’ll see a long dry spell for sure, helped by general economic downturns in both regions at the same time (not something that has ever really happened before), but entertainment and the people’s need for it will always be there. As long as that need is there, someone will be there to fill it, and someone will make a buck off of that… which is good because this anime stuff is pretty expensive to make.




NEXT TIME: I'll try to sound like less of a broken record.


yeh

Go (away) Speed Racer, Go.

Yes, "Lost in Translation" really was terrible.

Much like the way they’ve taken total control of this country’s political process, the “old guard” of baby boomers who insist on doing things their antiquated way, will not let go of the entertainment empires that some of them so desperately hold on to in an attempt to convince themselves that they’re still relevant (or the notion that somehow they still don’t have enough money). At the same time in order to garner even a small modicum of success, younger players in the game are forced to play follow the leader and present creative empty calories as true cinematic work, either out of fear or greed (In Sophia's case however, she is just bad at it).

There’s a lot the American movie mechanism doesn’t know about Japan for that previously stated reason, they’re basically still stuck in decades past when it comes to what they think. Herein is a conundrum I am having then with reconciling the Speed Racer movie. Is it a blunt over-hyped Hollywood special effects blundering remake of a classic American TV show? Or is it actually a blunt over-hyped Hollywood special effects blundering remake of a Japanese Anime? Don’t kid yourself, because the answer to this question will only be known in the long term, as that long term will also be where the effects of said answer will be felt. “Anime” as a part of modern culture which has finally entrenched itself in American life, may just bee seen as only a tiny blip in cultural evolution by 2012, with Speed Racer part of the centerpiece of epic fail that destroyed its fragile foothold. Then again, this celluloid turd might not harm anime much and just go take its place in the ever growing group of shitty Hollywood remakes of TV shows (those shows were never really the way anyone remembers them, and the aforementioned old guard just likes to make them because it helps them feel relevant again, and hold on to their money by minimizing risk on something that's actually new. Could you imagine if someone today had tried to make the movie Alien in today's Hollywood? It would have been sidelined so fast by studio execs anxious to get Sigourney cast as Jane in a remake of The Jetsons alongside Will Ferrell as George and Lindsay Lohan as Judy, featuring cgi Scooby Doo as that stupid talking dog).

What the anime market doesn’t need right now are Hollywood remakes like this, and the disastrous results that they may bring. As with many things that come out of Hollywood, there is a right way and a wrong way to treat a property, but it is also important to remember that this difference between right and wrong rarely has any bearing on profitability, since the brain dead Uwe Boll is still out there making more money. It is hoped that the scenario of shitty movies being able to bring in any kind of profit will finally be behind us one day far in the future, BUT the anime market as it is now can not afford this to tarnish an already weak position, forcing anime back out of the American market back into obscurity. This scenario would make the entire scope of anime fandom in America just an asterisk in VH1’s undoubtedly already planned “I love the 00’s.”

We’ll have to hope for a few things if we really want to keep this market from shrinking back to the size it was at the beginning. The Speed Racer movie has to come and go, and the word “anime” should be distanced from it as much as possible. More importantly, we must hope that this does not usher in some morbid parade of the carcasses of truly good anime as remake after remake, starting with Voltron and going all the way through Lupan III and Ninja Scroll ending with a cinematic abortion that would be Michael Bay Presents: Ghost in the Shell. In the heyday of Anime as a consumer good, surviving such an onslaught might have been possible, but in these days of an anime market devalued by digital fansubs, it’s an economic execution with far reaching effects (no Michael, not those kind of “effects”).


-TAO

Failed Experiments.

Will VIZ lead us out of that dark night to a new era of anime?


Or are we in for another roller coaster ride down into a media famine? Well, I love this video. Aside from the obvious cuteness factor and art imitating life intelligence of this video, there’s a specific point which the video almost perfectly (and completely unintentionally) illustrates a point that I’ve made quite often and hopefully does it in a way that even the most hard core anti-business anime otaku out there. The case of the hard work that went into getting the little ball, became a wasted investment when the big ball was brought to the scene first. In the case of anime, the actual commercial licensed product is the little ball, made totally worthless by the larger more proliferated digital fansubs which are always first to the party. The license has to have value in order for anime to be a commercial success, and anime has to be a commercial success if more is going to be made. And I shall say once again, sans massive explanation why, that watching fansubs is NOT the same as being a TV audience, and fansubs are NOT simply stepping in to fill a gap left by an absence of anime on American television networks.

The reaction by the industry was at first the same as our little pigtailed preschooler with the political ambitions... to kill it. Kill the big blue ball and then your problems will go away. Well if killing it were at all possible then that might seem like the correct course, at least in some sort of blunt mathematical sense. But as surely as Anonymous has taught Scientology that which is born of the internet can not be killed by anything (other than its own inward desire to die), the big blue ball of digital fansubs delivered on the internet can not be stopped through confrontation but only by changing the environment to make them useless. Personally, I like having high quality video, with correct translations and not losing an entire collection should I have a hard drive failure. Sadly, your average 13 year old weebo not only doesn’t have the money that I have, but they also have no ability to comprehend how their sense of free entitlement and consumption habits are hurting an industry who’s product is very expensive to produce. Oranges grow on trees and you don’t get them for free most of the time, so anime is definitely going to have to fall under that same law of economics.

So this big blue ball won’t die, and the obvious way to keep the business alive, was for simultaneous delivery in both markets, which would make licenses commercially viable again and make broadcast of those anime programs truly profitable since there’d be no fansub out 6 months out before airing. Obvious tho’ this solution was, it was and remains not well loved. In addition what was no so obvious but essential, was how to figure out how to do any of that in a cost effective and sustainable way. Well VIZ has decided to take the first baby step, and considering who’s left in the schoolyard, if they had not started doing this, no one was going to.

The short of it is that VIZ is going to begin publishing manga in 2 languages at once in two markets (although I'd reccomed prepairing to ship gobs of the new English mag over to the E.U. and U.K. as well, with such a strong GBP and Euro that could really help keep the ship up). Should this work, we may see some interest in VIZ’s Japanese parent co. in delivering animation to both markets the same way and reaping the benefits directly by collecting the advertising revenue and not just selling a broadcast license (better to own the goose than a single golden egg). By the way if anyone from VIZ is reading this, I have over 12 years experience as an executive in consumer media, distribution, and licensing, I speak Japanese and I love to travel.

As someone who currently has the task of representing several series here in the U.S. (one of them is even from Production IG), I can tell you that it’s not an easy sell anymore. There is an immense cost and large amount of time needed to get something out there that will please American media distribution (notice I didn’t say the fans. You have to make a distributor be it home media or a TV company, want it first before you get a chance to make the fans want it). Time and money are things media companies that try to make a sustainable business out of Japanese animation simply do not have when it comes to competing with free fansubs. Manga being print media seems to have avoided the kind of fatal blow that scanlations could have been and may be a very good place to start this new world order of anime business. Because if anime stops being a business, then pretty soon all titles will be thought of as “old school.”

ニューヨーク IS ゴー！

The New York Comic Con

In the spirit of getting stuff out there, I do feel obliged to write a bit about the New York Comic Con, and what the developments that we see at this event may mean for the fandom.

When looking at the fandom, we must remember that it’s a business. Try as they might, the “true otaku” who have such love for anime, manga, music, and art, never seem to be able to out-reason the fact that what they love live and breathe is a essentially a consumer product, and so for more to be made business has to get done. The NYCC is a place for those business interests to show off their creation to the ever growing crowd of people who are interested in buying them. But enough of me sounding like a broken record, let’s talk about the con.

There was a serious amount of anime at this show, and Stan Lee announcing the fruit of his labor with VIZ, and TM Revolution a part of the headline programming, it was a bit difficult to tell if anime itself had arrived as one of three legs that keep up mainstream commercial American popculture. What those three legs are in fact is entirely debatable, so I’m not going to try to define them here.

Anime news consisted of some serious announcements from Viz and Yen Press. But conspicuously absent was the soon to be dead ADVision or Media Blasters, and now that CPM is just a ghost while AnimEigo stays cryogenically frozen next to the dead carcass of Geneon, there are few of the old guard left to represent the home media market. Home media used to be the only dependable anime could make some decent money in international markets, but no more. The new generation who think of fansubs an some sort of indelible “right” have made sure that the Japanese companies that work so hard to make the anime that they love, won’t make a dime in the international market. So the first to fall are of course the home media companies that have no big parents to lean on, or no other divisions bringing in sales to the point where DVD can be looked at as a loss leader (which in anime, that’s all it can be).


One of the major things to avoid this from happening to them in the publishing world, Viz is going to publish Shonen Jump in English and Japanese to avoid the dreaded “lag time” in which crappy scanlations are made by people who honestly and mistakenly think they know enough Japanese to accurately get the point across as good as a professional translator, with an editorial staff. Will this work? Probably not. The age of the target is such that it may be hard to get them to regularly buy something that doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup. The trick will be to get the thing out on time, every time, and not quit after the first 18 months of sales are abysmal. Then there’s the price point, which will have to hit the bull’s-eye right off the bat. Too high and even a price drop won’t get readers to pick it up again, and too low will have your sales numbers in a nice place, while revenue is nonexistent. Let’s not kid ourselves, Viz is a Japanese company and the old notion of the Japanese doing things for the long haul will need to come into play here or we’re looking at epic fail.

Of course Stan Lee was there with Viz to talk about Ultimo, their new collab with an American creativity but done in the much nicer and more appealing manga style that younger readers almost demand when looking for new illustrated media. I'm pretty sure I was in the room when the idea for this thing came about back in 2004 during the TAF Preview show in LA where Stan was a major guest and schmoozed the room talking to people. Funny how sometimes you know what's going to happen but circumstances (or one idiot in particular) keep you outside looking in.

Also Yen Press is doing something. But I wasn’t paying much attention.

The NYCC is a hybrid of modern entertainment, and the old type of convention, but much more of it is that modern part. The actual comic dealers (you know the ones that give you dirty looks and aren’t nice to talk to and look shady) were thankfully relegated to a small corner of the massive floor, which could be avoided. The thing is that the comic companies (even the smaller ones) were there to promote brands, not sell stock, and that’s what a modern show has become. Not a place where you get some washed up scifi actor to sign an old toy or something, but a place where masses of people would be exposed to sneak peaks of upcoming massive projects. What’s good about this? The younger crowd shows up. And that’s the only way a show is going to survive is if it reaches the younger crowd that wouldn’t be caught dead at an old style “comic convention” in some dank hotel ballroom where you come and go in less than one day.

That’s not to say the little guy was squeezed out of this one. For one thing, there was a podcast area that was free for podcasters if you got in your request fast enough (it was in an unsellable corner of the floor anyway). This gives an air of fan legitimacy to the con by being able to allow for independent perspectives to come in and do their thing unhindered. There was an artist alley that would rival Otakon’s in size, and surpass it a million fold in quality of art, especially original art, which is what an artist’s alley should be in my opinion, and not a stunt double for the dealer’s room where you can order a pencil sketch of gender swapped Harry Potter characters make out with Naruto and Sasuke and half the cast of Fruits Basket or whatever you sick little freaks who have DA accounts do. No, this artist’s alley was actually worth it, as it had a much nicer mix of style and art, being that this was a more general show.

Of course TM Revolution was there. He’s nice, and very friendly. We talked with him a bit, and hopefully SONY Music is going to let us play what we recorded (audio only). They can be guarded about that since TMR is kinda old but he still has to impress teenyboppers, and when we talked he was fine, but he did look like he just crossed half the world on 15 cups of coffee. I really like him tho. He’s not like some rock star full of himself, and to go through all of that and still be in a good mood, there’s a better man than I.

In the end, ticket sales were in a happy place, dealers sold plenty of goods (except for those old comic guys… they must be kicking themselves for going to this thing), I got to see the Shaw Brothers action figures which are coming out soon, and I told the people who make the costumes for Hellboy 2 that it was a crappy first movie and looks like it’s going to be an even more crappy second, “now get the hell out from behind the Ninja Consultant’s booth.” And yeah, I had a golden ticket this time too, but I gave it to a guy from Kodansha I wanted to impress.

Convention Season

For those who have been doing this long enough to remember when “Anime USA” was just a glorified Halloween party, you may remember a time when the “anime convention” was quite a different animal. As has been said before, there is a feeling of nostalgia that many in my situation feel for the “old conventions” which is genuine but also to a large extent more or less fabricated by those of us who look back to a bygone era through rose tinted non-digital photographs.

Obligatory Apollo Smile photo for Daryl Surat

Left to Right: Marvin Gleicher of Manga Ent., Mike Pascuzzi of CPM (later of Media Blasters), Apollo Smile, Scott Mauriello of Anime Crash, and Chris Parente of Anime Crash (owner and senior partner).

You found this blog because you Googled "Apollo Smile" didn't you...

As “con season” approaches, the massive amount of things going on seem to almost overload one’s ability to plan for a fun filled unabashed wallowing in fandom turning thoughts of summer into a “left behind” scenario of pseudo-panic. The old names that have survived have evolved into such teaming masses of attendees, that a theme-park feel (complete with long lines and annoying people from Middle America) has asserted itself as an inescapable pervasive entity firmly entrenched over many years of quite surprising growth. This massive proliferation of mass attendance at conventions with long-standing histories and the appearance of many smaller satellite conventions themselves is almost exclusive to anime. Looking at other events, one sees the same thing twenty years later as they do now with long running shows such as i-con or Big Apple Comic, which seem to operate as if forgotten by time.


The question which occurs at this point is does the door swing both ways? Is it possible to see a rapid decline in the same recent tradition of rapid growth enjoyed by anime conventions? It is important to note, that unlike other consumer based conventions, which revolve around specifically printed media, or meeting individuals like authors and actors, the anime convention has gone from a gathering who’s main goal was perhaps to watch anime titles that were new to the public or otherwise hard to find, to an event where the antics of the fandom itself are the main backbone of programming. Conventions have become large social events but the need to provide what they used to provide outside social activities, such as anime screenings, rare dealer’s room merchandise, and so on have all been proliferated via the internet and so a central event to provide such things is now unnecessary. This leaves anime conventions as nothing more than themed social gatherings, unless some other type of activity starts happening there. For a while it appeared as if actual anime business was going to start happening at the larger ones, but the way things are going now, it’s more likely that all that licensing that was supposed to happen is going to go scurrying back to MIP where it’s always lived. In fact, the devaluing of anime as a license which comes from fansubbing will probably lead to a decreased ability of conventions being able to afford the kinds of facilities that they have used in the past (Geneon won’t be buying all that floor space this time will they now?), based on the fact that exhibitor companies won’t be spending as much as they used to simply because of their shrinking revenues from the abysmal DVD downturn from which there is no end in sight.

In addition to all that, enter now the new animal. Sleek, for-profit, professionally run destination events like New York Anime Festival and Comic Con, which can change revenue formats from door-based to exhibitor based in a single year if they have to. Anime and Japanese pop-culture in general has become such an important part of American entertainment that Comic Con gets TM Revolution as a major guest. American comic shows used to be (and many in the old style still are) like kryptonite to an Otaku, and a celebration of everything that drove us away from the tacky, badly drawn domestic entertainment media we loathe. But that’s now a thing of the past in more areas large enough to support this new kind of corporate convention event, where content is king and paid employees rarely drop the ball.

Anime Convention Trifecta now in play, and completed with the last of the three kinds of anime conventions, the “hotel con.” I often vacillate between not liking these things because they are exercises only in frivolity and do not advance the fandom as a whole or the industry much, and thinking they are a very important component of the continuing development of a market and lifestyle that is ever evolving. I often think that if cataclysmic change rocks the convention world, that these humble little conventions will be the true survivors and keep alive the kinds of things that seem almost second nature to a conventioneer.


There is now a divergence, based around different groups who in reality would rather not share convention space with other groups. The upcoming convention in Providence RI that restricts entry to those only over 21 is one of the new breed of boutique conventions that serves a specific group within a fandom that is so large, normal demographic rules now apply, and the forced unity that was made prevalent simply because of a feeling of being surrounded on all sides by a community that failed to understand the otaku appeal, is no longer omnipresent and so the disunity that comes with all things at this level is forcing this new evolutionary step.



In most of the outcomes the possible rippling effect that the downturn of the U.S. Market might have on anime, the convention is probably going to be one of the last segments to feel the negative effects, which would mean a decrease in available material, but would that translate into a marked decrease in actual attendance? That alone is probably not going to be able to cause such an effect, but if coupled with a potential downturn in the popularity in general of anime in a post-Naruto world (it can’t go on forever) and the possibility for a non-profit large con to experience a single year of epic fail from poor planning, make a Bermuda Triangle that conventions as we know them today will have to navigate through in order to continue doing what they do.

I am still waiting for the American convention that restricts cosplay to one specific area... (they already do that back in the source country... you know the one I mean).

This is Not New

It seems to have reached a crisis level, and is the talk of the world of American anime economics, the notion that there is an impending collapse of the anime market in the U.S. in general, because of very poor DVD sales.

So fansubs can be seen to hurt a license, but also help it by creating brand awareness. “Brand awareness” however, is totally worthless if it can not be translated into sales of consumer goods of any kind. In many cases the ability of a property to make money in other fields of licensing is killed by fansub proliferation. It is a form of “bootlegging” in a way, not quite different from another segment of Asian entertainment that went through something similar over two decades ago in the 1980’s; Kung Fu.

One of the most pirated genres out there is the martial arts film. Now what’s important to realize that the audiences for anime and for martial arts films have only the slightest bit of overlapping (Fred Perry), and are mostly made up of groups that have nothing to do with each other. However a comparison of historical context is still worth something.

Like a combination of Adult Swim titles, Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon set off a huge explosion in interest in martial arts both as an activity/sport and as entertainment. There was also a new technology coming out at that time as well, one that the industry said would ruin the viability of all video entertainment, and that was the brand spanking newfangled contraption known as the VCR. At the point that martial arts became popular, the primary delivery method for such media was shifting from the cinema to the home. By the early 80’s there are back rooms in small shops pumping out bootleg versions of every Gordon Liu and Chan Seng chop saki basher to be sold on the street, in mail order catalogues, or at conventions.

The result of this was a large market for such material, but a market with standards which would make legitimate operation of media companies almost impossible based on the levels of pricing and sales would support. At the same time, there was a little known phenomenon that got around the language barrier, and that was Hong Kong colonial law. It stated that any cinematic media made in Hong Kong had to have an English version made as well. This is why all those old English dubs of kung fu flicks are done by drunken Australian sailors. Without this, the spread of kung fu in America would have been seriously hampered by a need for subtitling and a general audience not ready to accept anything in a subtitled form. That, coupled with the ethics of a martial arts movie consumer making fansubbers look like media boy scouts, brought a rapid growth of material with an underdeveloped legitimate infrastructure.

After a while of legit and bootlegs warring with each other on the video shelves things seemed to collapse when production could no longer be sustained due to the inability of the money generated in the U.S. make it back to the studios to finance ever more expensive productions. Throw in a change in tastes in the domestic audience, and you have a dark age for the genre. We are now out of that dark age as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon has become the Akira of a new era of martial arts as entertainment, but one that still has quite visible scars.

Now what does this remind you of? Let’s run down the list:
• Entertainment from Asia in high demand.
• New Technology circumventing the industrial infrastructure.
• Language barrier overcome without use of commercial means.
• Production of more original content stymied by lack of revenue.

The main difference is that the unlicensed copies of media in anime are being distributed for free, even further damaging the market since the information gathered about the market based on taking a free product is almost worthless and can not help companies make plans for the future.

The recent developments over at ADV are sending ripples throughout the industry and the questions about the future that are being raised now, are very different than those from just 6 months ago. Some questions are bleaker than before, others smack of the denial and ignorance running throughout fandom which simply serves to feed the burning anger and frustration of guys like me.

Like Ancient Rome, American fandom has sucked in the resources from the producers and have built a massive city, all without producing a single thing in return to help further that production. Simply “liking it” does not mean a thing if it operates outside the areas which provide economic subsistence. Like Ancient Rome, anime in America is surrounded on all sides and has no way to pay its own army. Like Ancient Rome, anime in America may see a long dark age before technology or a new method of international collaboration bring us into the light. We have seen it with martial-arts an era ago, and history may be about to repeat itself.

T.A.O.

PS:
AWO used this incident in their latest episode in their news section, very cool. I can now declare victory, in that I have been mentioned twice in a row on AWO and not once has Daryl uttered "Apollo Smile" not even once, as my bluetooth deception master plan is finally complete!

What You Don’t Know Can Make You Look Dumb:

Something I have been meaning to write down for a while now, is a scathing indictment of the ignorance of American Otaku when it comes to transferring what they have learned from anime into what is and is not permissible in Japanese society. But rather than simply start a war of egotistical posturing, I shall instead look to the formula pioneered by David Letterman and condense my thoughts into:
A top 5 list of things that shatter American Otaku’s views once they visit Japan.

1) Anime isn’t anime: In Japanese “anime” still refers to all things animated whether it be Full Metal Alchemist, Wallace and Grommet, or Fantastic Planet. Otaku-no-Video is not a documentary, and even if it were that time in history has long since passed. You will not find a 24 hour anime convention, nor will you find “anime” labeled with the specific connotations that have come to so strongly define it in America. Thusly in Japan it is viewed as simply another consumer product in the entertainment world, and not a lifestyle. This thusly effects the domestic attitudes towards anime productions, and the retail of licensed goods.

2) You’re a gaijin: No, that’s not awesome, nor is it something that you want to draw attention to. It is not to say that one should be ashamed, but aware of. No matter how well spoken you are, absolutely nothing will trump that physicality which will effect everything else you can and can not do. Conversely, if you are of Japanese, Chinese, or Korean decent, then you are going to be the one they go to first to try and talk to, even if you don’t speak a word. This is not a culture where differences are celebrated, and for Americans putting that grade-school E Pluribus Unum indoctrination out of the way when one reacts to every day situations that confront those notions, is quite a task indeed.

3) Anime ≠ Documentary: Yes there is much that you can learn about Japanese culture, both traditional and contemporary by watching their entertainment. However, acting like an anime character in public is not something that would ever help your situation out, no matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, no matter what anime character you think is OK to imitate (even KareKano isn't real, and no one else can see that imaginary sweat bead). Individuality as a concept is something that always takes a back seat to a notion of “the greater good” in the land of the rising sun. This may be because there has never been much of an “internal struggle” between competing groups within Japan itself for its entire history. After the recent post war period where unity was maintained as the key to winning a very real struggle to get enough to eat, this notion is very entrenched, and even the most rebellious Japanese youth does so with the confines of “the greater god” (look at the fact that School uniforms are still in widespread use). What this means to the visiting Otaku is that when you think your “inalienable rights” are being impeded when you get those dirty looks or polite requests to move along, it’s not an affront to your individuality or “free speech,” it’s that you obviously don’t know how to properly comport yourself in public in Japan. There is a difference between putting away fear of embarrassment and ignorantly crossing social boundaries.

4) Beer in the Vending Machines: If they had beer vending machines here in New York (we basically do, they’re called “bodegas”) but regardless, I don’t think I would drink less, but I would drink more responsibly. Life in Japan in general places much more responsibility for one’s self in one’s own hands, and so the notions of extreme behavior being acceptable so long as it violates no law, is practically nonexistent outside the Karaoke club. That’s not to say Japan does not have its nanny-state-isms, because they do. But they are some of the most advanced nanny-state formulas on the planet, relying on very long term policies and subsidies held in place with the ever present Japanese social glue, shame. Simply stated, a lot of the activities and methods of communication a young person engage in, in America are simply not done by their Japanese counterparts simply by the mere notion of “well you could, but why would you want to?”

On a side note, Japanese beer is a good way to represent the country itself. You take it from every region north to south, and it’s the same. No matter which beer it is, it’s always the same style and same taste. That’s one image the world sees of Japan, one big pile of sameness. But dig a little deeper and you’ll discover saké. Saké is found throughout Japan as well, but that is about all beer and saké have in common. Move even one prefecture over and the saké becomes something totally different, and that’s Japan to the Japanese. Still constant, but very different from one end to the other... But they’ll never admit that to you.

5) Tokyo Sucks: Hey, I am a big city fan and I love Tokyo. But if you are young, and looking for Japan, Tokyo is the last place you want to bother with. It’s for business people, let them do business there, but for you my otaku friend there are other places with are nicer to look at, and cheaper to stay in. You can get your anime fix just about anywhere, so consider anything from Sapporo to Fukuoka as worth checking out.

Now if you’re going to Japan for a week, this list really only applies on a very basic level and there’s nothing here for you that a good guidebook can’t do better for you on. But if you’re going to be buying your own groceries, commuting to work/classes, and wandering into places where the Japanese haven’t seen a foreigner since the Dutch, then these things will become apparent as you experience them, and the only thing this list will help you do, is recognize them the first time they happen.

My final tip only applies specifically to Americans, and that is when you plan your trip, don’t fly on any American air carrier. You know they suck, the suck hard. So get on JAL or Malaysia Airlines, or Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, or even British airways or whatever, just don’t bother with an American carrier, because you’ll really be sorry if you do.