Ask John: Where’s All the Avant-Garde Anime?

Question:
Why can’t I get more “artsy” stuff in America? Examples: Mind Game, Kaiba, Genius Party, pretty much all Studio 4°C’s output.

Answer:
I have little doubt that there are many American anime fans that can answer this question. But the fact that the question has been asked suggests that there are also American fans curious to hear an answer. The answer is simply a matter of demand, specifically, not enough of it. With a minority of exceptions, animation has always been considered children’s entertainment in America. Americans don’t consider animation “art”; they consider it “cartoons” and a cheaper, more practical substitute for live action. When Japanese anime first came to America, it was imported as cheap, ready-made supplement to American produced children’s cartoons. Since the American anime boom errupted in the 1990s, anime has been perceived as a cool, alternative, underground entertainment. Ninja Scroll became massively popular because it had fluidly animated nudity, sex, wildly novel ninja, and shocking bloody violence. Akira gained tremendous success because it was a visual futurism that Americans could relate to but not envision for themselves. (Twenty years later, there’s still no American created sci-fi movie that exhibits a socio-political vision similar to Akira.) Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball captured the imagination of young Americans by depicting superheroes that had all of the admirable heroism of American comic book superheroes yet still felt human and down-to-earth without being parodies or grim, psychologically troubled anti-heroes.

However, within all of that popularity and success, there was no room for anime to succeed as art. Attempts to import esoteric, abstract, and artistic anime to American consistently failed or underperformed. Night on the Galactic Railroad, Meikyu Monogatari (“Neo Tokyo”), Ai City, Robot Carnival, Kenji no Haru (“Spring & Chaos”), Nekojiru-so (“Cat Soup”), Memories, Tekkon Kinkreet, Birth, the Osamu Tezuka short & experimental films including Legend of the Forest, Ayakashi, Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei (“The Tatami Galaxy”) and even anime titles of only moderate abstraction including Noein, Palm no Ki (“Tree of Palm”), Princess Tutu, Utena, Kyogoku Natsuhiko Kosetsu Hyaku Monogatari (“Requiem From the Darkness”), and Bokyaku no Senritsu (“Melody of Oblivion”) have failed to gain significant audience in America. Director Mamoru Oshii’s two, or arguably only the first of his two, Ghost in the Shell motion pictures have managed to escape the curse of obscurity that blankets highly artistic anime in America.

Anime productions including Tenshi no Tamago, Twilight Q, Ryokunohara Meikyu, Nasu, Yonimo Osoroshii Grimm Douwa, Midori, Chocolate Panic Picture Show, Yumedamaya Kidan, Shouka, Kemonozume, Kaiba, Kimagure Robot, Tamala 2010, Mononoke, Genius Party, the Ga-nime series, and Kuchu Buranko have never been officially released in America. Similar artistic and esoteric anime including Mind Game, Pale Cocoon, and the Grasshoppa collections even include English subtitles on their Japanese DVD releases yet have never been officially distributed in America. There’s simply very little demand for complex, provocative, and artistic anime among American viewers. The massive majority of America’s anime viewers want anime to be exciting, novel, engrossing, and “cool.” The massive majority of American anime viewers don’t want to watch cartoons that are slowly paced, confusing, difficult to understand, or look significantly different from the typical impression of chic, alternative cool. America’s few anime licensors are businesses that eek by on small profits. They’re companies that literally can’t afford the cost of producing and distributing DVDs that most consumers have no interest in watching or buying. When Japanese distributors consider which titles to distribute internationally, there’s little reason for them to pick their obscure, artistic titles instead of their massively popular or newest titles.

Unfortunately, there’s not much solution to this dilemma. When the majority of American consumers are increasingly disinclined to purchase even popular hits, convincing a significant number of American consumers to support niche, avant-garde anime is exponentially more difficult. We can be pleased, although not satisfied, that unique productions like Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei, Eve no Jikan, and Sirius no Densetsu (“Sea Prince & the Fire Child”) are still reaching America. When it comes to anime, by in large, we get what we deserve. In other words, we get what we support, and the vast majority of Americans don’t support artistic, avant-garde anime.