Ask John: What’s John’s Opinion of the Otakon 2004 Licensing Announcements?

Question:
Many of the licenses announced at this year’s Otakon are of shows that I have not heard much hype for, and what I see on their websites makes most of them seem highly derivative. Do you think that there are any particular ones that hardcore contemporary anime fans need to check out? Or are the really good licenses still waiting in the wings?

Answer:
I think that the American anime fan community is beginning to become a bit jaded and somewhat victimized by a herd mentality (or should I use a linguistic pun and say “heard” mentality)? Since it’s tangential to the question asked, I won’t discuss the trend of supporting what’s trendy, but suffice it to say that much of American contemporary fandom seems to have abandoned its ability to selectively consider anime. Instead, much of the contemporary American anime fan community seems to presume that what’s good is what other people say is good, or what other people watch.

Ironically, though, that tendency doesn’t really apply to most of this past weekend’s Otakon announcements because many of the titles announced this past weekend are obscure or not well known for good reason.

Bandai Entertainment announced the acquisition of Avenger, Planetes, and “Fantastic Children,” a poor re-titling of the 2000 Shin Megami Tenshi Devichil anime TV series. While I haven’t watched a lot of Planetes since I’m not a fan of hard sci-fi, what I’ve seen was excellent, and I hear that the entire show follows suit. Oddly enough, hard sci-fi anime seems to have never been tremendously successful in America, but regardless of its commercial potential, Planetes is an acquisition that Bandai should be proud of because it’s a show that genuinely deserves greater recognition and exposure. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Bee Train’s 2003 sci-fi/action series Avenger is a jumbled mess of style without substance, or even cohesive linear exposition. Following the deserved success of Noir, and the manufactured success of the .Hack franchise, Avenger is something like the spawn of both its predecessors with the intelligence and logic of half of each of them. Doubtlessly, though, the series will likely become a hit in America in spite of technical quality that should prohibit such an event. The Devil Children TV series was successful enough in Japan to last for 50 episodes. But it’s nothing more than another monster collecting video game adaptation in the vein of Pokemon and Digimon. Yes, the series was based on a Gameboy Advance game (two of them, actually). Fans of this sort of anime will probably enjoy the show, but most everyone else will probably overlook it, and hardcore fans of the Shin Megami Tensei series will ponder how their beloved dark and macabre franchise turned into a Pokemon clone.

FUNimation’s confirmation of acquisition of the 2001 Grappler Baki TV series will ironically probably work for and against them. The bad reputation of the original Grappler Baki OAV will precede the TV series, and the fact that the anime is pure testosterone in visual format will almost certainly exclude females from its audience. But beside having some uneven production quality and an unresolved conclusion, the Grappler Baki TV animation is actually tremendously entertaining, and even addicting. The show is one of the best pure action/martial arts anime titles ever, but it will have to overcome a lot of preconceived reticence from American viewers before it receives the attention and credit it deserves.

Geneon announced the largest number of new acquisitions, but the titles themselves cause me to wonder if Geneon simply announced their highest profile titles earlier in the year, or if their latest acquisitions are a sign that there’s very little brilliant anime left unaccounted for by domestic licensors. Human Scramble is a drama about the human condition. Each episode is a self contained, slice of life story. The series was not a big hit in Japan and was not well received in the American fansub community, so I wonder how well it’ll do commercially in America. There’s always been some demand for an official, domestic release of the Star Ocean EX anime, although I’ve never understood why. I suppose fans of the game, may appreciate it, but I was shocked by the show’s terrible art and animation quality and its severely cliché characterizations. I couldn’t bear to watch more than 2 or 3 episodes of it. I managed to get a bit farther than that through Tokyo Underground, which was marginally successful in Japan. But objectively it’s a mediocre action title at best. I think the same applies to the Ultra Maniac TV series. It’s not a bad magical girl show, but it’s not one of the best ones either. The Petit Cossette OAV series is probably a wise acquisition because its “Gothic Lolita” style will sell the show virtually regardless of its quality. Having seen only the first episode, which I found to be neither Gothic nor Lolita, I can’t really critique the series. With the increasing popularity of yaoi and bishonen in America, the Kyou Kara Mao TV series is also a wise investment. The fact that it’s actually good is a pleasant bonus. The Koikaze TV series, a show about a developing incestuous love between an adult man and his teen-age younger sister, is an interesting and well written character study and relationship drama, which may be why its chances of success in America are limited. Typically American consumers don’t buy “real life” dramatic anime in significant quantities. I’m glad that the show is coming to America because America doesn’t get enough of these mature, intelligent anime dramas. And Geneon’s biggest license is a sequel to a hit title released by Bandai. Jubei-chan 2 will undoubtedly be successful, and deserves to be successful, because it’s actually better than the first season, and because it’s been heavily distributed in the fan community, so there’s a lot of awareness and anticipation for it.

Right Stuf seems to be trying to corner the market on life-sim anime with Boys Be…, To Heart, and now Piano. In its favor, Piano features character designs by Kousuke Fujishima. On the downside, Fujishima’s original character designs weren’t translated into animated form very well. Piano is a series about a teen girl that takes piano lessons. It’s about as exciting as it sounds. I wouldn’t anticipate the series being a big hit with most consumers, but I may end up being wrong. RSI also announced distribution rights to the Gravitation OAV series. At this point in time, it seems as though anything with gay romance in it is as good as gold.

Finally, AD Vision hinted at a domestic release of the “director’s cut” version of the second Rurouni Kenshin OAV series. Unlike the director’s cut of the first OAV series, the extended second OAV series is actually extended with new footage worth seeing. But with AD Vision continuing its policy of releasing the same titles multiple times, I have to wonder if the company will ever actually decide to be fan friendly and just release a title the way it should be released the first time.

There’s no telling what titles will and won’t be licensed for American release in the coming months, but at this point it’s a safe assumption that nearly every new TV series announced for Japanese release will eventually make it to America, regardless of its quality, content or subject matter, just because there’s so much competition in the domestic industry for any available titles, and so much demand in America for any new anime. As much as fans at conventions ask for vintage classics to be released on domestic DVD, they typically don’t sell in America. The American anime market has turned developed a voracious appetite for what’s current and popular, to the exclusion of virtually all else, so it’s easy to identify the biggest potential licenses. Just look for whatever’s most heavily fansubbed and most often discussed on internet fan pages and forums.