Ask John: Is There Any Interest in Japanese/American Anime Co-Productions?

Question:
I couldn’t help but notice the dramatic resemblance of The Big O to the American Batman cartoon series. Was there was any collaboration between the Japanese producers and their American counterparts when The Big O was made. Also, are there any other anime series that have had any extensive creative input from Americans? I have been noticing more and more references to American cartoons in anime as of late, most notably in Gainax’s Furi Kuri, whose “South Park” sequence in the 5th OAV took me completely by surprise, but I haven’t heard much about any “official” collaboration between American and Japanese companies. Has there been any interest on either side to undertake joint projects?

Answer:
While undoubtedly the Batman Animated Series did have an influence on The Big O, I’m not aware of any direct relation between the two series. This is a good example, though, of the influence of American media on Japanese animation. There have actually been quite a number of not only American influences and references in anime, but also direct involvement in anime from American sources.

The most obvious examples of American influence in anime is in anime created for the American market, including Sin: the Movie, the few seconds of Warrior Nun Areala animation and the Satanika music video, the upcoming Lady Death “movie,” and Mother (more commonly known to Americans as “The Eyes of M.A.R.S.”). These collaborations have all resulted in productions that may be deemed uneven, to say the least. What has fared rather better are Japanese productions co-financed by Western sponsors. My list will be incomplete, but just a handful of examples include Manga Entertainments financial contribution to the productions of Macross Plus, Street Fighter Zero and Ghost in the Shell, Urban Vision’s private support of the new Vampire Hunter D film, Disney’s co-production of Studio Ghibli’s Tonari no Yamada-kun in return for exclusive Western distribution rights, Media Blasters’ co-production of Yasuomi Umetsu’s Mezzo Forte OAV series, AD Vision’s backing of the current Chance! Triangle Session TV series, and Central Park Media’s financing of the fourth La Blue Girl OAV series. These productions, which utilized American backing but not creative input, have been able to maintain a more consistent level of quality and stylistic consistency than productions supervised by creators in both Japan and the US, produced with both Japanese and American influences to appeal to Japanese and American viewers- which often result in disjointed works that feel only half-way complete.

Just as American animation including The Power Puff Girls and Atlantis, and American movies like The Matrix have been influenced by Japanese animation, anime has also virtually always displayed a degree of awareness of American influence. As far back as 1981, the fan produced Daicon III convention opening animation included parodies of Star Wars, and the 1983 Daicon IV animation clip included visual references to virtually every significant character in the entire world’s pantheon of science-fiction history. In 1985 the Dirty Pair TV series included numerous in-jokes, gags and visual references to Star Trek, Star Wars, The Terminator, Ladyhawke, Krull and other well known American sci-fi films. And the 1987 Yasuomi Umetsu anime film Lilly C.A.T. was little more than a blatant copy of Ridley Scott’s Alien. But more recently, as more cross-cultural productions evolve, the degree of Western influence has increased, ranging from the mere influence of American cartoons on programs like Oh! Super Milk-chan (which is quite similar to Ren & Stimpy) and The Big O, to the appearance of Western rock & roll icons in Kacho Ohjii (Black Heaven) to last year’s comedies Miami Guns and Excel Saga. Miami Guns parodies everything including Initial D, Evangelion, the Dirty Pair movie, Wacky Races, American culture, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even Rat Fink. Excel Saga includes numerous parodies of American movies including Apocalypse Now and Aliens. FLCL is somewhat of an exception because, like the Daicon shorts produced by the founding members of Gainax when they were still fan artists, FLCL simply includes references to virtually everything imaginable, from classic Lupin III to South Park to The Matrix to John Woo to Clint Eastwood/Sam Pekinpah/Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns to even the original Daicon shorts.

We’ve also seen the influence of the West on anime production in a more technical sense, in the regard that films like Armitage III: Polymatrix, Blood: The Last Vampire and the new Vampire Hunter D were filmed with either partial or total English language dialogue and released in Japanese theaters with Japanese subtitles. We also see this influence in Oja Majo Doremi, which has introduced an American character who speaks only English subtitled in Japanese.

At the same time that distinctly Japanese programs like Fruit Basket, Shaman King and Super Gals Kotobuki Ran are coming out or are on the air, and Masaki Kajishima has admitted that he wasn’t even aware that Tenchi Muyo was popular in America, American companies are co-producing new anime productions, Bandai is making great efforts to bring import the Japanese Gundam market to America, and companies like Miramax and AD Vision are buying the American distribution rights to anime including Ghost in the Shell 2, Cutey Honey TV series 3, and Urotsukidoji OAV series 5 well before the films even go into production, and Japanese companies including Newtype Magazine (Kadokawa Shoten), Gamers, Animate, Studio Pierrot, and Studio A.P.P.P. are making inroads into American distribution. So far, the American influence on the Japanese anime industry has been relatively small and limited, and doesn’t look likely to ever totally dominate or even become an influential determining factor in anime production, but there’s no question that an American influence is becoming more significant in the Japanese industry than ever before.