Ask John: Does the American Market Affect Anime Content?

Question:
I was reading Schoolgirl Milky Crisis and Clements quotes someone at a convention panel saying that the US now accounts for half of the total anime market. I would think that would be too large a market segment to ignore when making content. How much influence does the eventual American market have on the content of anime? Is content changed here and there to avoid offending potential American DVD buyers and TV viewers? What sort of changes are made, if any are?

Answer:
Finding market figures for the anime distribution industry isn’t especially easy, so I’ll need to refer to what I’ve got. According to the Japanese Media Development Research Institute, the Japanese anime consumer market was valued at $2.026 billion in 2006. The Japan External Trade Organization estimated that the American anime market was worth $2.829 billion in 2007. Based on those figures, the American demand for anime actually exceeds Japan’s own. But it’s important to recognize that in 2007 literal anime DVD sales accounted for only $316 million while merchandise, presumably including imported toys and collectibles, accounted for $2.5 billion out of America’s $2.8 billion in anime sales. This statistic suggests that there’s little need for Japan to tailor the content of anime to American viewers because the majority of the profit that anime generates in America comes as a result of interest in anime characters, imagery, and concepts rather than interest in actually watching anime. In essence, Americans like the concept of anime -the exotic impact and influence of anime – much more than they actually like watching anime.

While anime is certainly an international commodity, it’s also a traditional Japanese art. We have seen anime altered to better suit international distribution. Some major and well known examples include director Yoshiaki Kawajiri choosing to create his 2000 Vampire Hunter D film with English dialogue in order to appeal to an international audience, and the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure manga and anime series being temporarily removed from circulation so that imagery offensive to Muslims could be removed. Doubtlessly countless other changes are small and occur during the production process, so foreigners never know that such decisions were made and implemented.

But in terms of literally watching anime, Japan remains the world’s largest audience by far. Despite being a commercial medium, anime is still created by small teams of Japanese artists that apply their instinctual Japanese perspectives and consciously and unconsciously target their work at fellow Japanese viewers. To cite a somewhat extreme example, world famous animator Hayao Miyazaki has said that the conceptual audience for his films are the residents of the Koganei neighborhood where Studio Ghibli is located. The most obvious examples of anime altered to appeal to international viewers are international co-productions like Afro Samurai, IGPX, The Big O II, Dino Breaker, and the upcoming Bakugan: New Vestroia. It’s really difficult for outsiders to say, or even estimate how the degree to which anime intended for Japanese release gets softened or compromised for potential global release. I’m sure that it happens, but considering the innately Japanese nature of anime and the state of the international markets, there’s not a strong compelling reason for Japanese animators to extensively alter anime for American release or concentrate on creating anime that will primarily succeed in America.