Category Archives: thought exercise

I Was Right About the Megaman 10 Robot Masters

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A few days ago I made a post about how the eight primary bosses of Megaman 10 looked quite different from their predecessors, most of which were in-story creations of either Dr. Light or Dr. Wily, and thus felt that these new robots were the work of neither. What I did not know was that the magazine which announced the eight robot masters, Coro Coro, also included basic information about them, and it turns out that all of them are robots who had normal jobs who were then affected by a virus which made them go berserk. In other words, none of the Robot Masters were designed by Wily or Light, and  my suspicions based on their designs turned out to be true.

“Congratulations,” I said to myself as my right arm patted my left shoulder, “You figured out a plot point in a game meant to evoke the nonsense plots of the NES-era.”

Megaman 10 Robot Master Analysis

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These are the 8 Robot Masters of the recently announced Megaman 10. If you haven’t seen their sprites yet, you can consult my post from yesterday. As promised, I will be talking about their designs more today, laying out what I feel are key aspects of the latest set of eight.

When I look at the bosses of Megaman 10 I can sense a difference between them and their predecessors. While the game’s designs are still in-line with the overall classic Megaman aesthetic of cute and simple anime-style characters, there’s a consistent theme throughout their designs which only occurred sparingly in previous Megaman games.

The most prominent one is that the descriptor in their name dictates a lot more of their design in general than in previous games. Strikeman’s torso is designed to look like a baseball. Commandoman is a tank on legs. Sheepman needs no explanation. The properties that define them are more explicitly incorporated into their designs. The closest we get to more orthodox designs are Solarman and Chillman, and even they have somewhat unusual bodies.

While you have a few Robot Masters from previous games which do follow this trend seen in Megaman 10, such as Heatman having a Zippo Lighter for a body, they’re more the exception than the rule. When you compare Metalman to Blademan, Metalman is merely adorned with sharp spinning blades, whereas Blademan has swords for arms and a sword for a head.

Overall, these robots do not look quite like any bosses from the past. They do not resemble any of Dr. Light’s designs, nor Dr. Wily’s or Dr. Cossack’s. I think this is intentional. My suspicion is that, in actuality, none of these Robot Masters are Dr. Wily’s, and that they’re coming from another source entirely or from multiple different sources. In a way, they remind me of Megaman 6 because that game also had Robot Masters who didn’t seem all that Wily-esque, which made sense seeing as all of them were supposed to have come from different countries.

So I’m throwing it out there: I don’t think Dr. Wily is responsible for the Robot Masters in Megaman 10, and in fact I bet he was planning to attack with his own set of 8, but his minions also got affected by the “Roboenza” virus. That doesn’t mean he won’t be the villain, but I think it’ll be more him taking advantage of a bad situation. Or maybe once you figure out the cause of Roboenza and find the cure, then he’ll make his move.

The Precarious Position of “Seinen Cute”

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I am a man who likes cute things. This is sometimes a problem.

As a general rule in societies around the world, cute often falls into the realm of the feminine and the girly, especially when the ones being cute are girls. This is something I experienced when I was really getting into anime in high school, and people who knew about my interest in anime would sometimes say, “Cardcaptor Sakura? Really?”

During that period, the shock that fanfiction of Gundam Wing existed that paired men with other men was still fresh, so the idea that Cardcaptor Sakura was capable of appealing to a lolicon crowd didn’t even factor into the equation. It was more a matter of me, a guy (almost an adult at that point!), enjoying something that was made for little girls. It’s a battle I had to fight, and it’s a battle I’m sure many of you out there are familiar with and may even continue to go through. How do you break through societal standards of what is considered “umanly?” It’s a little easier when we’re all nerds and we suck at throwing objects, but even in the realm of geekdom you will find that masculinity plays some sort of role.

So when I see people bothered by how often seinen manga have this girlish, cute, sometimes moe aesthetic, I think back to whenever I’ve run into the problem of being told that I’m not supposed to be enjoying cute things made for girls.

Consider the fact that guys are guys, and while some of us like cute things we all have a tendency to like sexy things, though personal preference affects what “sexy” is. There is cute, there is sexy, and there is cute and sexy. And sometimes they all exist in the same comic, sometimes in the same character, and it can be off-putting for a lot of people while being just as enticing for others. Ask yourself, is it all right that a comic can have both sexualized characters and non-sexualized characters interacting with each other on an equal level? Does having sexualized elements in a character sexualize the entirety of their character?

If I had to take a stab at how Azumanga Daioh creator Azuma Kiyohiko felt about these questions, I think his response would be found in the character of Kimura.

Kimura appears to be a pretty creepy guy. He’s a high school teacher with a thing for high school girls to the point that, for him, age is irrelevant because “high school is high school.” But then you see how the guys in his classes react to him. They consider him a “role model” of sorts because he’s honest with his feelings. Further exploration of Kimura’s character shows that he is both a loving husband and a good father, and that he strongly believes in charity, donating a significant part of his paycheck on a regular basis. At the end of the day, taking all that into account, is he still creepy? Probably, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a lot of other things too.

Those of you who are creeped out by the state of seinen manga’s more questionable practices have every right to be creeped out, and those of you who enjoy it have every right to enjoy it, and everyone has the right to disagree with each other. To me however, no matter how much questionable material is released and sold, the very fact that cute comics aimed towards adult men are published and manage to be successful is a great triumph that can never be taken away.

Getting to Know the Characters: An Example

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In my look back at the first decade of the 21st century, I talked about the shift towards character and the idea of “getting to know the characters.” While I think I made it pretty clear as to what I meant in the original post, I thought of a good example to explain the idea: the mahjong anime and manga Saki.

Mahjong has been a topic frequently explored in manga for decades now, with even Frederik Schodt’s “Manga! Manga!” pointing out its existence. It’s a favorite topic among salarymen and older audiences, but it wasn’t until the game was paired with moe and a heavy dash of yuri that it began reaching out to the otaku market in the form of Saki.

Anime nerds are playing mahjong in greater numbers now, and it’s not like Hikaru no Go where the manga itself explains the rules to a certain extent; characters in Saki just come in and do their thing and winning magically happens. And yet the otaku still want to play.

The reason that fans of Saki play mahjong, instead of just admiring the girls through fanart and doujinshi (and possibly their own dreams) is that mahjong is the focus of the Saki world, and by playing mahjong a person can feel closer to the characters in the series. I’m sure Miyanaga Saki fans smile every time they get +/-0 in their final scores, while achieving Haitei Raoyue is a wonderful feeling for supporters of Amae Koromo.

Performing an activity that is done by the characters gives a sense of connection, and the characters themselves make you want to connect to them through the power of their cute, moe designs and notions of very close friendship. That is the feeling of being “one” with the characters.

Avoiding the Shounen Power Creep

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Shounen fighting is quite possibly the world’s most popular anime and manga sub-genre. Whether it’s Saint Seiya in South America, Naruto in the US, One Piece in Japan, or Dragon Ball around the world, the idea of heroes fighting villains and getting stronger along the way is an idea just about any boy in any country can understand and get behind. But one of the common problems with shounen is the idea of the “power creep,” where newer and more powerful villains keep appearing to challenge the hero to the point that the earlier villains who once appeared legitimately threatening begin to look pathetic by comparison. Tao Pai Pai in Dragon Ball may have been one of the few capable of defeating Goku early on, but by the time Goku turns Super Saiyan 3 the assassin is little more than a distant memory.

I think all shounen fighting series creators are well aware of this danger, but only some try to circumvent it, at least temporarily. As such I’ve included a few examples of attempts to quell the Power Level beast.

The first two series of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure had some degree of power creep, but starting with the third and most popular series starring Kujou Joutarou the series became about outwitting the opponent instead of outpowering them. Here, characters were given their own power sets which changed little to none over the course of the entire series, and all advancements came from figuring out new ways to use abilities already known to the readers, instead of acquiring entirely new powers.

Hokuto no Ken saw fit to make its main hero Kenshiro already absurdly powerful. Kenshiro is not a youth who needs to learn the ways of fighting and to live up to his potential, but a man who already has received the title of master of the world’s deadliest martial art. As such, Kenshiro’s victories are generally won through willpower and using the right moves in his encyclopedic collection of head-exploding strikes. The other move Hokuto no Ken makes is to establish its main villain Raoh relatively early and make him a proper end boss, and also establishing the fact that as far as fighting ability goes, both Kenshiro and Raoh are at similar levels. Even when the series goes crazy with Kaioh and such, this is never quite a problem.

Digimon Adventure 02 saw a problem when it realized that, if left the way things were, the already powerful Angemon could just go Ultimate and leave an unfortunate stain where the evil Digimon Kaiser (Digimon Emperor in the English dub) was once standing. To get around having to make the villain more absurdly powerful than the final opponents in the first series, the concept of the “black rings,” devices which prevent digital monsters from evolving, was created. The solution was that the heroes had to find an alternate means to “power up” which, while incapable of reaching their old heights, gave them a fighting chance. Eventually they overcame the Digimon Kaiser and new villains appeared, but at least for a time the shounen power creep was stayed.

Those are three examples. Can you think of any others?

Gunshow Comic Anime Club and Saying Your Anime Sucks

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Gunshow Comic’s “The Anime Club” recently reminded me of how easy it is to make someone angry by saying their favorite show sucks. For those of you who haven’t read “The Anime Club,” it’s an on-going series about a group of high school kids who love anime and fall prey to every negative otaku stereotype possible, and yet is still fun to read and never actually feels mean-spirited even when it’s actually making fun of anime.

In the relevant chapter, a loud and obnoxious character insults the all-time favorite of another loud and obnoxious character, and through it reveals the simple steps needed to insult anyone’s favorite show. All you do is declare that the story is “predictable” or “cliche,” the characters “flat and one-dimensional,” and possibly insult their intelligence and/or maturity. You don’t even have to know anything about the show to do this.

Now it’s not like bad characters in fiction don’t exist, let alone in anime, but what’s interesting about this generalized method of diminishing someone else’s tastes in anime is that it hits on multiple vital levels.

First, by saying that a show is predictable, you say that they are easily entertained and have less intelligence than they should for not being able to see the “obvious” developments. And if you were to look at the self-image of anime fans, you’d see that they usually consider themselves to be smarter than average. Second, by calling their favorite characters flat, you trivialize any emotional connections they have made with those characters and demean the fact that they opened up to it. Third, by calling into question their level of maturity, you exploit that niggling doubt that exists in a great many anime fans, that their hobby is worthless and that a “well-adjusted person” who lives in the real world would never do this.

The last one’s efficacy is dampened somewhat if it’s coming from one anime fan to another, and in general the effect weakens the more you talk specifics as then the possibility of mutual understanding increases. But the overall effect, whether the blow is softened by familiarity or not, is that it becomes an attack on an anime fan’s confidence, and many fans have some degree of confidence issues.

What Makes a Series Good Fanfiction Fodder?

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I’ve been thinking about the nature of fanfiction recently, what spurs people on to write stories in pre-established settings, and what sources make for good fanfiction. For you fanfic buffs, what I’m about to say probably isn’t going to be anything new to you, but I just felt like jotting some thoughts down in a public setting. Feel free to correct me or to chime in.

I feel that there are two types of stories most conducive to creating a fan community that generates fanfiction. These are “detailed world fiction” and “sparse information fiction.” That is to say, the former is comprised of series which provide detail after detail about the setting of the story, while the latter consists of fiction where details are scarce but just enough are provided to get fans thinking about possible connections. Examples of “detailed world”  include Buffy and Harry Potter, stories that lay out how the world works and why, while examples of “sparse information” would be something like Super Mario Bros., where its lack of real concrete detail means you can fill in the blanks with your own imagination. They’re not separate ideas either; a story is capable of having both a detailed world and sparse information, only concentrated in different areas.

In a “detailed world” series, so much information is given about the “rules” of the world that the basic building blocks for establishing a setting are there, often under unique guises. If you’re writing a Pokemon fic for example, then having a character who only uses Grass-type Pokemon can say a lot about their character. The type weaknesses chart is your basis for action scenes. Creating an original character within these worlds ends up being an exercise in just how you can incorporate the properties of the source material into your own ideas.

However, just as Pokemon provides endless information on certain aspects of its world, so too does it skimp on other properties, particularly in characterization and small details. Characters’ last names for example can be a big deal. The logic here for example can work like this: “If the main protagonist Ash Ketchum can have a last name, that means last names exist in this world, so why shouldn’t Brock and Misty have them as well?” In contrast, there is an explanantion in Avatar: The Last Airbender for why Toph is Toph Bei Fong and Aang is just Aang, and that is because last names are a sign of affluence in that world and culture. And never mind that the whole Misty’s last name thing only applies to an English dub of an anime; Robotech is all about that.

Fanfiction thrives when it has a place to grow. A story that is a little too closely woven, such as Monster, doesn’t do well for fanfiction because it fails to provide room for fan thought and imagination that could potentially be true. But when you have a story like Dragon Ball Z, with a universe full of planets and super powered entities, why the stories simply write themselves.

The Most Difficult Opponent

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Recently I attended a friend’s birthday party, and encountered a most unusual social barrier. Now my friend is a geek through and through, loves to program, loves board games, science fiction, and has many other interests (though none of them are anime). He’s a good friend that I’ve known for many years and I was all too glad to attend his party (even if I’ve missed out on many of them in previous years).

Being the nerd-geek that he is, his primary form of entertainment at his party was games. Board games, card games, everything from old classics to new hotness with ramps and trick shots. As most of our friends over the years have been geeks also, and we knew him well, we understood that this was pretty much how he’d want a party to be and we accepted wholeheartedly.

The “problem,” though I hesitate to call it that, was that he invited a couple of girls to the party who were not exactly into this sort of geekery. Now the two of them didn’t seem terribly interested in games, and so my friend asked them what they usually do. “We talk,” was the response.

Conversation! We know how to do those! And while we might not have anything in common, that doesn’t mean we can’t talk, right? After all, my birthday friend for example may not like anime nearly as much as I do, and my knowledge of computer science is limited, but we can still talk about our respective interests to each other and enjoy hearing what the other has to say.

And so the first question asked was, “What are your interests?”

The response? “Nothing, really.”

At this point conversation almost died entirely. It managed to recover somewhat eventually, but right after their reply the questions that followed from us were things like “do you have any hobbies?” or “do you have any favorite books?” Our natural geekish tendency to relate to others who might not necessarily have much in common with us by seeing what they were passionate about backfired as the evidence presented to us all but implied that the two of them had no passion. An odd feeling came over me, where I said to myself, “That can’t be, right? People are usually into something, even if they don’t have the time or the resources to pursue it actively.” Even if a guy only watches sports casually, you can still find out what he likes about it and why. But when asking these two after they said they “kind of like sports” about what it is they enjoy about sports, again the answers fell flat.

Another problem that I could see in hindsight is that between us geeks and the non-geeks, we had two very different ideas about what a “conversation” is. Both are predicated on the idea the conversation is “natural,” but with geeks in general I feel like conversation is rooted in our mutual curiosity. We want to find out about subjects. In this case, the subject was these two girls. But for them, conversation meant something much less intense and less active. They still wanted to learn, but not as much as we had come to expect of “conversation.” It was as if for them, conversation was more about “feeling it out” than it was an opportunity to know more.

All of this made me think about the various conversations I have with my fellow anime fans on the internet. There are times when we may disagree vehemently on the very nature of anime and what dictates a “good” or a “bad” show, but we all know that on the other side is someone who has a passion to which they devote their attention. But here, it was like there was nothing in their words that we could take a hold of in order to carry the conversation.

It felt like the most difficult person for a geek to interact with is not “girls,” as the stereotype might say, but simply people who lack interests.

Over-Counter-Reaction

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Interest in anime, especially among otaku, can be a very personal thing, and so it is often easy to consider an insult to your favorite anime an insult to you, and so you come up with all sorts of reasons why the other person might be wrong. The more extreme their response, the more extreme yours potentially can be unless you step back for a moment.

One defensive response that I know I’ve used before is that if doesn’t like your favorite show, it’s because they don’t like whatever it is you like most about the show. Using K-On! as an example, if someone talks about how they think it’s a bad show, an easy response would be, “Oh that’s just because you can’t enjoy the simple things in life,” even if that doesn’t even influence whether or not they like it.

The most dangerous aspect of this line of reasoning is that it’s not like it never applies. There are definitely times when a person hates the show for the exact reason you like it, or that they don’t pay attention to the parts that you pay attention to the most. Because these valid instances exist, it becomes very easy to think of it as a “rule,” and then for another person to see you using it and come out with their own very rigid, extreme opinion opposite yours.

Even if people disagree on fundamental levels, I think it is important for arguments not to get too unnecessarily heated and overly personal (though a little I feel is okay). However, I know that doing so can be very difficult because it only takes one person to start attaching insults to their opinion in order for everyone to be doing so, and then from there it’s all too easy to say that criticism simply should not exist at all, ever when that potentially can stifle discussion. There is definitely a middle ground in terms of discussion, even if it doesn’t necessarily exist for opinions.

2000-2009 Part 2: Looking Forward

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Make Way for the New Generations

Introduction

Anime and manga continue to change and develop, becoming at times almost unrecognizable from what they once were in the past. Having first taken a broad (but also detailed) look at the significant parts of the decade of anime and manga from 2000-2009, I think it is only appropriate that we also look ahead. As such, I have written out a number of topics pertaining to where I think anime and manga will go in the coming years. They’re half-predictions, half-observations, and all things that I think people should watch out for.

The First Digital Generation

In the previous part, I discussed how the advent of digital animation is one of the biggest markers of the current decade of anime and that anime is affected by this switch. One vital point to consider is the likelihood of a generational shift. In about 20 years or so we are going to see an entire generation of adults in Japan (and around the world) who have grown up primarily on digital animation. When you consider the level to which nearly all people in and out of the industry still look fondly back towards the anime of their youth (or from the time they discovered anime), the style that has begun to grow out of digital animation is likely going to have a profound impact on where anime goes, especially as that first digital generation grows older and the cel generations die off.

Over time, I think that the peculiarities of digital animation, such as the computer-based shortcuts, will become part of the style itself, but less direct about it than, say, Studio SHAFT’s current output, and not necessarily influenced by Shinbo’s work either. But if there are any, they will be making in-jokes and references about the early, nostalgic days of digital animation and not light boxes and such.


SHAFT’s Bakemonogatari is a hint of where anime may go in 20 years.

For better or worse, as a new range of ideas and techniques emerge, parts of animation technique and philosophy born out of cel-based anime will fade away, perhaps forever. After all, Miyazaki can’t live forever.

Flash Animation

In this decade the US animation industry has embraced Flash Animation as a way to reduce cost, particularly by eliminating the need for animation teams in South Korea and other places to do everything for you, as well as being able to create works domestically without incurring the exorbitant costs required to animate things traditionally in the US. The results have been mixed, as Flash as a program lends itself to “flat” animation.

In light of the anime industry’s history of low budgets, I think that more companies, be they animation studios, broadcasters, or otherwise, will start to look at Flash as a viable method to keep things low-cost and at-home. Now I don’t think it will eliminate today’s more “traditional” animation, especially when it comes to bigger-name, bigger-budget works, but it will be an appealing tool for those middle-of-the-road shows, and shows for kids. We’re already kind of seeing it with something like Shugo Chara Party!, where one of the segments feels very much like a flash animation.

There are two key points here. First, is that I do not think, if Japan starts to use Flash more regularly, that they will utilize the same methods the US does, particularly because US animation is generally characterized by lots of movement and Japanese animation is not. Also, I think that animators will be trying to apply their existing principles to flash, rather than trying to master the “science” of it. Second, this will create another bridge between the industry and the internet, where flash animations come out of 2channel periodically and some achieve terrific success. The main challenge from there will be pushing the limits of flash animation in terms of how successfully the visuals can be used to convey a story, as well as the breadth and depth of the subjects explored.

“How effectively can stories be told in this format?”

Changing Views on Hikikomori and NEETs

The chronic shut-in known as the “hikikomori” is a topic that Japan for the past decade has been in debate over, and as with the “NEETs” and the “Freeters” and so on, the focus has been on the future and fate of Japan, especially when factoring in the shrinking Japanese population and the fear that arises from that scenario. “Why aren’t these people going out and making something of themselves? Why aren’t they growing up?” Essays and news reports and even anime, manga, and light novels have been made of the topic, with Welcome to the NHK providing prominent examples of the last three.

But the reality of the economy is such that not having a good job (or a job at all), living at home, and having your parents’ support will be an increasingly common sight. Some will become hikikomori and try to close themselves off from the world, but there may be a sizable group that is only partially hikikomori, who will not completely lose their ability to interact with others or to engage in meaningful activity, and they will have a cultural and social “pulling” effect on the full-blown hikikomori. In turn, those “full hikikomori” may drag some down with them.


Writings on hikikomori will evolve.

The result may be that Japan’s view on the hikikomori and the NEET, especially in the face of having these groups increase in size, will be a mixture of greater panic and greater relief as they will fret once again that this is potentially very dangerous for Japan, while the internet will provide this larger hikikomori population with the group setting in line with Japanese ideas of “group,” where the interactions between partial hikikomori and full hikikomori will take place.

Thematic Responses to the Economy

The anime industry, much like every other industry, is feeling the sting of the poor economy but also has the sting of disappointment and high expectations from the US and other markets. The result is that production of anime is feeling the squeeze, with reduced budget and staff and less wiggle room for creativity. All in all, anime is being affected on a technical level by the world economy. In a certain sense however, this is only the beginning.

In about three to five years, I predict that we will begin to see both anime and manga which address the idea of global recession itself and incorporate it into the themes and settings in these works, to have it become a concept that is to be explored, whether directly or indirectly. Evangelion and other shows were responses to the recession that befell Japan starting in the early 90s, and I don’t think it would be unusual for an international economic downturn to have a similar effect.

Money will matter on more than a practical level.

Some works will be more explicit about the topic, and probably mention governments and businessmen who played roulette with the world’s economy, or businesses which had too much hubris, while others will be Silent Service-style “what ifs” but for the economy. There will also be shows which are more subtle about these elements or will have them as part of the background.

The New Escapes

Fiction, even realistic fiction, is often an escape, and over the course of anime and manga’s histories we have seen the idea of the “escape” take on many forms. More recently, escape has been manifested through the idea of “moe” and all that it entails. Moe however, like every other genre of anime, cannot last at the forefront forever, and in time new escapes will appear. Some of them may resemble older trends, but they will all ultimately still be ways to not approach reality head-on.

There are two basic forms to “escapism.” The first is a type of introverted escapism, that is, to become increasingly insular. The second is an extroverted escapism, where you want to project outwards, to go beyond yourself. Almost all genres have both to some extent in different ratios. Moe for example is very insular in the sense that it seems to want to keep characters and emotions isolated in time, but is also somewhat extroverted in that these shows are generally trying to portray the strong emotions of other characters and the ideal of being able to see these qualities at the forefront.

In that sense, I think that in the near future the escapism for anime and manga will be increasingly introverted, but will soon give way to a more extroverted form as a response to the desires of more and more fans who want to be released into other worlds. Though I don’t think that anime and manga will be reaching that early period where stories tended to feel very “epic,” I think we will see a lot of stories about worlds with wide scope focused through the lens of personal characterization, and in a way in which the former affects the latter significantly and vice versa.


Many series will try to balance daily life with a greater world.

Increased International Integration in Collaborative Efforts

Like all companies, manga publishers want to increase profit every year, and at some point a decade or three ago, Japan began to realize that one direction they had not gone was to appeal to people outside of their fanbase and readership. The classic example at this point is Shounen Jump, which noticed that it had developed a sizable female audience, and so made the move to start releasing series that are designed for female readers (without driving the boys away, of course). The result is Jump‘s approximately 50% female readership.

But then I recalled something Ed Chavez, currently of Vertical Inc. and formally of Kodansha, has said on multiple occasions: The “problem” with the Japanese manga industry today is that it has no room to grow in the nation itself. For all intents and purposes, the Japanese market has been saturated, as manga selling a million copies is completely normal and the fact that there’s pretty much something for everyone.

The only way to go then is outside of Japan, but the problem facing the industry there is that it’s difficult to pinpoint the manga-reading audience for different cultures and nationalities around the world. The same thing applies to the anime industry, which has been trying to really grow outwards for a while but lost its footing along the way. The tricky part in all this is that anime and manga have to achieve a certain level of distinctness, but still have to be familiar enough that people are comfortable with the material, and this is something that is even more of a challenge to achieve when the people making the work are unfamiliar with the culture they’re trying to attract. Naruto, Bleach, and Dragon Ball Z are pretty much the most popular things out there for boys in the US, and when you think about it they’re not that different from American superheroes.

This is why I predict that over the next decade and beyond, we will be seeing collaborations on animation and comics where the staff producing these works will be much more closely integrated. International collaboration isn’t new to manga and especially not to anime, but the work is usually cleanly divided between the countries involved. So it’ll be less Gurihiru drawing for Marvel’s Power Pack and more Oban Star Racers. This way they have a better chance of hitting that cultural sweet spot, though nothing is guaranteed and there’s going to be some serious misses as a result of trying to mix two cultures together at the base level of production.


French and Japanese Collaboration Oban Star Racers

Incidentally, by necessity translators will have to be more closely involved in the process as well.

Age Demographics in Japan vs Age Demographics Abroad

Anime and manga in the US has had a contradictory reputation for the longest time, being viewed both as “cartoons for children” and “raunchy pornography.” These days however, if we were to look at the fandom we would know the truth: In the US, anime and manga are primarily for teenagers with both childish and adult elements in different proportions, and it’s been this way for a number of years now. One concern I’ve seen from people is that they fear that a lot of these works, particularly in manga, will never get brought over here because they will simply never have an audience. And to an extent they’re right, but I believe that in time the manga audience in the US will slowly mature and eventually reach a point where they want something that is more in-line with how they feel about entertainment, their lives, and the world at large.

The key however will be whether or not Japan realizes that age demographics do not map one-to-one between Japan and the US. Not all “seinen” works will appeal to an older audience, and they will have to somehow find a way to understand just what this slightly more matured manga-seeking audience is looking for, possibly through the greater international collaboration I mentioned earlier.


Seinen may become more “shounen-friendly.”

Josei in Japan went through a similar growing pain in that it tried to be more “adult” in certain ways until creators and editors realized that older women still want the shoujo series trappings of their youth, but with more mature concerns and characterizations. In time, I think Japan and the US will get a better handle on it, but it won’t come without some serious bumps in the road capable of taking a company or three under.

Multimedia Customization

When it comes to streaming anime, you can’t please everyone, and methods of distribution and how to turn those view counts into sales is a mystery which eludes even big sites like Hulu, let alone smaller players like Funimation or Crunchyroll. While streaming anime is a step in the right direction, anime finds itself to some extent in the same bind as scanlations: sometimes people want to actually own a hard copy for themselves. However, the cost of printing DVDs for a series that won’t sell can be prohibitively expensive, meaning even if you really like Saki, unless someone decides to pick up the license to produce a box set you’re not going to have it sitting pretty on your bookshelf.


People outside of Japan will be able to own Saki however they want.

I think that starting in the next few years this is all going to start changing until we reach a point of personal customization in our anime and manga: You will be able to make exactly the purchase you want with exactly the things that you want, on-demand. As an example, let’s say it’s 2015 and you’re watching a streaming video of the latest series New Mobile Fighter G Gundam: Second Generation. Sadly the show has no box set you can buy in stores, but you still really want to own it. What you’ll be able to do is specify just how you want to have it in your possession, and you will get that package. Do you want it on blu-ray or DVD? Do you want to shove all the episodes onto fewer discs, cutting out the extras and possibility some of the quality? Do you want to just download the episodes so you can watch them without relying on internet access? Do you want to also purchase merchandise for Neo-Japan’s “Typhoon Gundam?” You will be able to get what you want, weighing cost versus extras, and in a way that doesn’t just limit you to “Normal,” “Super Deluxe,” and “Bare Bones” packs.

Choice is the future.

New Paths for New Talent to Appear

Shinkai Makoto made a big splash on the anime industry when he released Voices of a Distant Star, a science fiction-themed OVA which he wrote, directed, and animated all by himself on his Macintosh back in 2002. More recently, Aniplex has introduced the world to Cencoroll, by another independent writer/director/animator named Uki Atsuya. The idea of the Anime Renaissance Man is appealing, but it’s something that people cannot expect all the time. Skilled creators can be born independently, but it’s clear from Shinkai’s example that, given proper resources and experience, even a genius has room to improve.

Works like Cencoroll will continue to be rare, but lessons can be learned.

I think anime is heading in a direction where people won’t have to be skilled at every aspect of animation production to be considered a Big Deal. One possibiliy I’ve thought of is “anime festivals” for amateur creators, be they industry-sponsored or independent, with competitions and awards for categories such as storyboarding and writing in addition to full-on animations. More importantly however, these anime festivals could take place entirely online.

The primary advantage of having festivals be online would be low overhead costs, and in this age of streaming video (which will only get more efficient over time) people will be able to see each others’ works and comment on them, possibly through chat rooms or Nico-style scrolling text. This will also encourage people to send in works from abroad, as they would be on an equal footing of sorts with those living in Japan, and would be able to enjoy seeing the results all the same. Of course this is not to say that online animation festivals would replace actual ones, but the ease of setting one up would make it an attractive prospect, and it would give amateurs opportunities to be noticed.

Manga too will start to have online festivals. There is already the International Manga Competition, but these will be a little more like Comic Market on the Internet, and will have a lot less pornography. The same idea applies however, in that people will be able to enter in a variety of categories and not just “Overall Excellent Manga Creator.” It’s not so much specialization as it is realizing again that not everyone talented is multi-talented.

Conclusion

Although I have written all of these ideas of the future of anime and manga, I of course do not pretend to be a soothsayer and cannot guarantee that any of my predictions will come true. I’ve always been better at observing the past than predicting the future, and I know my views on anime and manga are tinged by a certain degree of optimism, so in time we will all see  just what I was able to sense correctly and what was just my wishful thinking.

Still, I think that even if I get everything concrete wrong, every single item I’ve written about is something to consider and analyze further as anime and manga reach into the next decade.The main themes I’ve discussed are the ways in which the industry and the fans will handle the significant changes to the economy that have occurred, shifts in philosophy on the creation of anime itself, and new steps towards customizing and tailoring for audiences. Taken all together along with the advancement of technology in society, and even if I’m wrong I think that my ideas all have more than a few kernels of relevance to them.

So let’s approach 2010 with open arms, not so much to simply accept whatever anime and manga may come, but to give the same consideration of the past that we do the future, and to know that no matter how it might change they are still capable of inspiring.