Ask John: Is 80’s Anime Licensing a New Trend?

Question:
Within the past year or so, the Region 1 anime industry had seen the licensing and release of titles like the Fist of the North Star movie, TV series, and Raoh Gaiden anime, the two Galaxy Express 999 movies, the Project A-Ko movie, the Golgo 13 TV series, Lupin the 3rd First Contact, Sea Prince & the Fire Child, and most recently Turn-A Gundam and the Ghost Sweeper Mikami TV series, and there’s probably one or two that I missed. Not only that, but Raoh Gaiden did well enough to get an English dub and Blu-Ray release; Golgo 13 TV received an English dub right away; and we’re mainly getting the Fist TV series since the movies seemingly did very well for Discotek.

Could all of this be a potential resurgance in the licensing of not only older anime, but recent anime based on older properties? Looking back even a couple of years it would have been insane to think that this many old-school properties would be returning to the market. Could we possibly be seeing more old-school anime licenses in the future?

Answer:
I don’t think there’s any need to debate whether a trend of licensing golden age anime is upon us. The evidence already makes an undeniable case. The question is how far and wide this resurgence will go and what’s behind it. To be honest, I’ve been out of the field of licensing talk for several years, so my insight is limited to little more than what average American consumers know. So I’ll have to largely speculate. Discotek has acquired a number of vintage anime properties partially because Selby over at Discotek has a personal interest in golden age anime. Furthermore, Discotek’s bilingual release of the Fist of the North Star movie did perform quite well, which certainly had some impact on the decision and viability of acquiring the earlier television series. Right Stuf International has long had an unspoken policy of trying to increase exposure for deserving older titles. A few fans may recall that in the VHS era Right Stuf acquired and distributed the Ai City (1986) and Legend of the Forest (1987) movies, and the Leda: Fantastic Adventure of Yoko (1985) OVA. AD Vision, now known as Sentai Filmworks, has also occasionally acquired golden era anime including the Borgman OVAs, Prefectural Earth Defense Force, Birth, City Hunter, original Dirty Pair, Dunbine television series, and St. Seiya television series. So while a 2010 acquisition of the 1993 GS Mikami television series is certainly unexpected, it’s not entirely out of character for the licensor. I should point out, though, that the English dubs for the Hokuto no Ken: Raoh Gaiden television series and possibly Golgo 13 television series were not necessarily a result of strong sales or consumer demand. Last March, Sentai Filmworks announced that it would produce English dubs for select series as a result of a partnership with several “affiliated groups.”

It’s certainly true that five years ago no one would have predicted a concentrated acquisition of a half-dozen 80’s anime titles by a selection of domestic licensors. One has to wonder what’s motivating this sudden, unexpected licensing trend. While licensing fees have slimmed from their inflated bubble period height, acquisition fees for especially older titles with less demand may be especially low. In fact, in some cases Japanese licensors may be willing to even accept royalty-only licensing deals just to get older titles new international exposure. Even without a large up-front licensing fee, distributing an anime series on domestic DVD is not cheap, and not every domestic licensor may be willing or even financially able to invest in translation, DVD authoring, replication, marketing, and distribution of a title likely to have a very small domestic audience. Furthermore, license rescues typically include lower affiliated costs because new licenses of previously released titles usually include the previously created translations, eliminating or reducing the cost of creating new translations or dubs from scratch. Domestic licensors may also be finding themselves forced to give more consideration to older titles as access to contemporary shows seems to be evaporating. Observation of the current American anime distribution spectrum reveals that the majority of contemporary anime titles reaching America are either passing through FUNimation, America’s current biggest anime video distributor, or Japanese master licensors are distributing the shows themselves online through partnerships with Crunchyroll. In effect, the recent increased acquisition of vintage anime may be as much a forced necessity as a selected option.

Finally, perhaps, the domestic anime industry may be discovering a new domestic market. For the past several years the American anime distribution industry has recognized that the most viable anime titles in America are those with massive mainstream audience potential and cult titles with a loyal following. The biggest titles are ones which generate revenue from their large audience. Cult titles are ones that devoted fans will buy in order to support. With fewer titles of the former category available, domestic licensors may be turning to the later category. And now may be an ideal time to do so. Now that the American anime industry is 20 years old, there are certain to be a number of American consumers and fans like me that grew up with golden age anime and now have nostalgia for them, and (hopefully) disposable income to purchase them. I’ve loved Dirty Pair since the late 1980s. I remember when Ghost Sweeper Mikami premiered in Japan. I watched Utena while it aired on Japanese television. I’m sure I’m not the only American anime fan that remembers these shows from the early days of the fansub underground, or the VHS era of domestic anime distribution, and is eager to own them now in an archival format free of VHS tracking flaws and video drop-outs. The domestic anime community has also now existed long enough that long time fans have matured enough to develop curiosity about vintage anime. Fans that were only interested in the latest, coolest shows five years ago have become a bit blasé about slick new productions and are now more receptive to older and more unusual shows. In a sort of what’s-old-is-new-again phenomena, golden era anime may be interesting to contemporary American viewers now because it’s very different from the look and style of the contemporary anime that we’re now most familiar with and most exposed to.

Speaking as a devotee of anime and as a personal fan of golden era anime, I’d love to see more vintage anime brought to America, although I really can’t predict whether or not that will happen. If the market is receptive to low cost, easily available vintage shows, there are certainly plenty of titles deserving of American distribution. Personally, I’d be thrilled to see any or all of Angel’s Egg, Cool Cool Bye, Bobby’s In Deep, TO-Y, Nineteen, Twilight Q, L-Gaim, Good Morning Althea, Leda, Arion, Dragon’s Heaven, Moeru! Oniisan, Touch, Like a Cloud Like the Wind, Gosenzosama Banbanzai!, Warau Salesman, Licca, Magical Taruruuto-kun, Granzort, Akazukin Cha-Cha, Bakeun Campus Gardress, and numerous other titles get American distribution. The recent trend in domestic licensing suggests that older acquisitions like these can be viable American licenses. And as the American otaku community matures, its tastes and interests seem to be very slowly expanding to encompass older, interesting shows.