Ask John: How Can Some Anime Films Spend Years in Production?

Question:
What features are unique to the Japanese animation industry that makes it not atypical for a feature film to take more than 5 years in production? Redline took seven years to make. A Letter to Momo took seven years to make. Steamboy took ten years to make. Even GITS: Innocence was pretty long at four years in production. So what gives? Why don’t we see this trend in the United States?

Answer:
The state of Japanese theatrical anime can be easily divided into two distinct varieties. Typical anime films are much like American animated films and don’t require an unusually lengthy production period. Franchises including Doraemon, Detective Conan, Pocket Monster, and Crayon Shin-chan get new feature films annually. Studio Ghibli lately releases a film annually but spends about two years producing each film. Yet the two years of production time are evident in the abundant detail and exceptional animation quality obvious in Ghibli films. Many other typical anime pictures like Gusko Budori no Denki, Fusé, Summer Wars, Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, Welcome to the Space Show, and the Kara no Kyoukai and Break Blade film series don’t spend inordinate lengths of time in development and production. While still being very creative, these films are conventional studio productions animated with typical studio efficiency.

Then there are animator pet projects, films which are as much a technical labor of love as a big-budget studio production. Katsuhiro Otomo’s Steamboy was ten years in production partially because it languished on hiatus for several years when its producers pulled production funding after determining that the film wasn’t going to be another Akira. The finally finished film is very much illustrative of creator/director Katsuhiro Otomo’s personal vision. Redline required seven years to produce because director Takeshi Koike insisted that the entire film be hand drawn. The film had to be created during the times studio Madhouse could spare labor from its other, more immedaite productions. Creator/director Hiroyuki Okiura spent seven years developing and solidifying the idea for, scripting, and storyboarding his film Momo e no Tegami, which explains what accounts for most of the film’s lengthy production span. Mamoru Oshii’s 2004 Ghost in the Shell sequel film Innocence was, likewise, primarily a production not supervised by a studio or production committee for a big commercial release but rather a film guided and developed as a distinct creative work from its visionary director.

Typical anime features like Toaru Hikuushi e no Tsuioku, Colorful, Omae Umasou da na, Mai Mai Miracle, and the Mardock Scramble pictures are films which strive to be excellent quality but are produced to be completed promptly and released, hopefully to generate profit. Select anime films are personal works crafted and tweaked by their directors, films created for prestige or to satisfy a creative impulse more than to generate commercial revenue. It’s those later variety of periodically produced anime film that frequently consume a much longer than normal production period. We typically don’t see an equivalent trend in American film production because America’s film industry is vastly different. Typically, American animation studios produce films with the same commercial philosophy and expeditiousness that’s applied to typical Japanese anime films. America just doesn’t produce avant garde, uniquely personal animated feature films. Disney’s Princess and the Frog is a rare exception. It spent four years from conception to release. American live-action movies typically don’t have the luxury of extended, multi-year shooting because actors need to move on to new roles.