Ask John: Is Anime Production in Japan like Movie Production in America?

Question:
I recently got into an argument with my friend over how they treat anime in Japan. She says its treated strictly as an art form whereas I said it was a money-making business, like movie making here. (Movies can be treated as art, but they are mostly produced for the $$$). Don’t get me wrong, I love and appreciate anime, but I’m pretty sure that anime producers aren’t as flawless and wonderful as my friend thinks.

Answer:
Based on my limited knowledge of the Japanese anime industry, I’d have to say that the truth is a compromise between your two opinions. Just like the American film or music industry, there’s no possible way that an industry as big as the anime industry could exist as an isolated altruistic, ideal collective of artists without businessmen or commercial concerns. No, the anime industry is very much a for-profit business, and the anime industry is as concerned with making a profit as virtually any other business. But because of the nature and dispersion of anime and manga culture in Japanese society, the anime industry does still seem to support an unusual degree of artistic integrity for such a massive industry.

At the grassroots level, the anime and manga industry start at and are supported by fans who watch anime, buy anime goods, and create their own “doujinshi,” fan produced manga comics, and sell them at school festivals and doujinshi conventions that range from small affairs to massive conventions that dwarf the largest American comic book conventions. Many of the most famous luminaries of the anime and manga industry, including CLAMP, Ken-ichi Sonoda, Masamune Shirow, Yuu Watase, Rumiko Takahashi and Johji Manabe, got their start in the industry by producing their own amateur comics. And many of these artists still maintain strong ties to the fans, even producing and selling their own self-published doujinshi after they became professional. Since the roots of anime and manga are so strongly connected to fandom that creates manga for artistic expression rather than profit, it’s only natural that this attitude would also carry over into the professional industry. Professional animators in Japan don’t get paid well, and work long, for little gratitude or appreciation. Yet they continue to do the job out of respect for the industry and love of the profession.

At the same time, big business and money do have their place in the industry. For example, according to rumor, production on Katsuhiro Otomo’s movie Steamboy was halted because Otomo wanted to create a film set in the 19th century, but his studio withdrew financing because they wanted a more marketable futuristic cyber-punk film, essentially another Akira. Another example of very human flaws and greed in the anime industry is Gainax Studios’ legal trouble from a couple years ago over tax evasion and their efforts to hide millions of yen in a bank safety deposit box without reporting it as taxable income. That artistic films like Tenshi no Tamago, Jin-Roh, Nekojiru-So, 1001 Nights, FLCL and Memories get produced is attributable to the fact that the anime industry is very cognizant of the artistic nature of anime, and very supportive of anime as a form of contemporary art. At the same time, the production of poor quality anime adaptations like the Star Ocean EX TV series, and the fact that anime productions like Gunnm, the second Tenchi Muyo OAV series, Dragonball GT and Gundam X get discontinued or canceled when they fail to draw an audience suggests that the industry has one hand on the paintbrush and the other hand on the checkbook.