Ask John: What is Japan’s Opinion on Anime in America?

Question:
Do any of the Japanese anime houses and studios ever take into consideration American anime fans when creating ideas or making decisions, or is there not enough interest, financial or otherwise, for them to worry about us across the water yet? Furthermore, do anime fans and creators in Japan know or care how many changes America makes to their beloved shows?

Answer:
I think the statements Hayao Miyazaki has made of his creations largely represent the entire Japanese anime community. Miyazaki has said that he makes films for Japanese children, and if foreigners happen to like his films also, than so much the better. There have been so Japanese/American co-productions, especially recently. Manga Entertainment helped finance productions including Ghost in the Shell, Macross Plus and the Street Fighter Zero OAVs. Disney provided financial assistance for Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbors the Yamada-kuns. Urban Vision helped finance the new Vampire Hunter D film, and AD Vision is co-producing/co-creating several anime OAVs including Sin: the Movie and Lady Death. So far, Sin, which was based on an American story and created specifically for an American audience, shows some concessions to American viewers. Other titles, such as Street Fighter Zero and the distinctly Japanese Yamada-kun are obviously created for Japanese audiences.

I honestly don’t know enough about the ins and outs of the anime industry to be able to offer any sort of authoritative answer to the question of whether or not Japanese fans consider the alterations made to anime once it comes to America. From what I know, Japanese fans and creators know very little about anime fandom in America, and have little knowledge of the alterations, edits and censoring imposed on a lot of anime when it’s brought to the US. For the most part, and I may be mistaken on this, I believe that the Japanese simply don’t think about anime in the US. I think the general attitude is “out of sight, out of mind.” Because Japanese fans and creators generally don’t see anime once it’s come to the US, they don’t think about what happens to it. Because it no longer effects them directly, it’s nothing to be concerned about. Furthermore, I think that most anime creators are so honored and excited to have their creations exported to the US and seen by a foreign market, that they allow minor editing, considering it an unavoidable compromise. Since there’s currently a controversy over Viz editing the Dragonball manga, allow me to cite the example that, according to Viz, Akira Toriyama agreed to the editing of his manga with only the stipulation that Viz try to mask or otherwise re-draw panels rather than delete panels of art, pages or sequences entirely. Along the same lines, Hiroaki Samura, creator of Blade of the Immortal, requested that the dialogue in his manga serial be translated faithfully, and the panel lay-out not be “flipped” for American audiences. Mamoru Nogano’s Toy’s Press, which publishes the English language version of the Five Star Stories manga in Japan, for sale in the US, prints his books with English dialogue and translations, but still prints them in the Japanese, right-to-left format.