The Business of Anime

buckminster writes "Planet Tokyo's Talking Anime Business Blues is a great roundup and analysis of recent articles detailing the behind the scenes aspects of the anime business. By all accounts 99% of Japanese anime never makes it to America. Some of the arguments why might surprise you. There are still many in the industry who believe that fan subs are killing the anime market in the US."

Comments

Obvious lack of exposure

[itistoday]

It seems like you simply haven't been exposed to some of the great Anime out there and are using the poorly dubbed filth on Cartoon Network as the basis for your argument. Sorry, but if you think Anime is "Dragon Ball Z" or "Sailor Moon", clearly you need more exposure to it.

However, this isn't entirely your fault. A lot of this ignorance has to do with American culture in general. One of the major reasons that 99% of the anime out there isn't shown on Cartoon Network is because it doesn't conform to what's "socially acceptable" in the United States. Great shows like Outlaw Star were first stripped of their original voice acting, and then butchered of entire episodes because they revolved around "adult" material that the fat cats at Cartoon Network did not consider to be appropriate for children.

A lot of the anime out there would most likely shock 80% (figure pulled out of ass) of American mothers to tears. There would be so many lawsuits and complaining that Cartoon Network would run into a corner and try to disappear to protect itself from the hordes of broom-weilding angry mothers.

Over the years American children have been steadily conditioned into stupidity and happy fairy tail lands where battles are not fought by people but by little creatures called "Pokemon", and I'll be damned if I ever see a single speck of blood on ol' Pikachu even though he was just smacked by 200 tons of solid rock.

Americans would best understand the nature of Anime if they thought of it as "cartoons for mature people" (even though a lot of it is watched by children in Japan). My suggestion to you would be to search Netflix or something similar (or *cough*bittorrent*cough*) and grab yourself a few DVDs of shows and movies like "Princess Mononoke", "Full Metal Alchemist", "Hellsing", "Cowboy Bebop" and "Spirited Away".