Ask John: Is America’s Anime Industry Out of Touch with Fans?

Question:
Do you think that the American anime distributon companies are out of sync of what anime fans want to see come over Stateside? For example, ADV is spending money for a full re-release with a new English track for Macross. While I’m a Macross fan, I think it’s a huge waste of money since vintage anime doesn’t sell well in the States and it would’ve been better as a subtitled-only thinpack. Let’s not get into the mass of subpar anime that they bring over here. However, there’s plenty of great anime to choose from like Honey & Clover and Gakuen Alice that aren’t even lincensed yet. And when they do, it’ll be too “old” for anyone to care about buying it. What’s your opinion?

Answer:
I do think that America’s primary anime distributors, by which I mean companies that started primarily to import and translate anime, are aware of the tastes and preferences of America’s core anime fan community. Licensors on the fringe of America’s core anime industry such as 4Kids Entertainment, Sony, Dreamworks, and Disney operate on their own internal policies. 4Kids targets the mainstream audience to the exclusion of hardcore fans. Disney seeks to satisfy both mainstream and hardcore fans. Dreamworks seems to focus on faithful and respectful presentation of anime regardless of marketability. The primary American anime distribution industry typified by distributors including Bandai, Geneon, and FUNimation target their releases and marketing primarily at America’s fan community, and, I think, are conscious and in tune with America’s anime fan community. However, being aware of consumer demand doesn’t always mean that a business will be able to respond to that demand. And what American fans perceive as demand may, in fact, be very skewed by a limited perspective.

The core American anime distribution industry has to be cognizant of changes and trends in the fan community in order to stay competitive and profitable. No American distributor consistently licenses and releases titles that fail to sell. However, what gets licensed is influenced by more than just its American market potential. Yours is not the first criticism I’ve heard about AD Vision’s decision to re-market the Macross television series. There’s probably several reasons behind AD Vision’s decision to license and dub the show. ADV may not have the funds necessary to license new, high profile titles. Macross may have been an easy and inexpensive license to acquire, and it may have been a title that ADV employees themselves wanted to work with. Adding a new English dub may seem like an excessive expenditure, but from a corporate perspective, a dub may have been a vital necessity. Considering that AD Vision’s release was basically just a re-packaged version of AnimEigo’s restored version of the show, an English dub was vitally necessary to add new attention-grabbing novelty to the title. Regarding AD Vision’s “mass of sub par anime,” the company’s traditional policy seems to have been one of purposely trying to saturate the market in order to become the distributor with the biggest catalog and the most market penetration. However, that policy of spreading themselves wide but thin may have resulted in AD Vision oversaturating and diluting its own market, and expending its resources on bulk rather than quality, leaving the company now forced to resort to cheaper, older licenses.

Contrary to common complaints from many American anime fans who like to make broad generalizations about anime, there are indeed many excellent shows available in Japan which have not been licensed for American release, such as Honey & Clover and Gakuen Alice. However, America’s consumer market for anime isn’t always directed by interest in quality. The fact that shows like Honey & Clover and Gakuen Alice haven’t been licensed for American release may, in fact, prove that America’s anime industry is very astutely aware of what American consumers want, and don’t want. Hardcore American fans who seek out imported anime and voraciously devour outstanding new shows may not realize that they’re actually only a very small minority of American consumers. No matter how devoted they are, a thousand or two thousand hardcore American Gakuen Alice fans aren’t enough to make licensing and releasing the show in America profitable.

Geneon has licensed the Hellsing OVA series, Ergo Proxy, and Fate/stay night series because everyone in America’s anime industry knows that dark, mature, supernatural and cyberpunk anime is popular with American consumers. FUNimation has licensed the Negima, Tsubasa Chronicle, and xxxHOLiC anime knowing that Ken Akamatsu and CLAMP works are popular among Americans. Representatives of most of America’s main anime distributors regularly attend fan conventions and meet fans. And many of the employees of America’s anime industry are anime fans themselves. So I do think that America’s primary anime industry is conscious and attuned to the preferences and desires of America’s fan community, but professional distribution companies often have to make compromises between satisfying hardcore fans and doing what’s necessary to achieve financial stability and profit.