Ask John: Why Are Hollywood’s Otaku Suddenly Coming Out of the Closet?

Question:
Now we are witnessing the opposite trend: Hollywood directors who come out of the “closet” on being anime fans. Whether it’s Josh Trank, Guillermo Del Toro, or Zack Snyder, they do not seem to have hesitance to admit being inspired by the medium, with some even investing in outright homages. There used to be a time when, outside of the Wachowskis, Hollywood industry people would only bother paying lip service to Ghibli titles, at best. So what do you consider the motivation behind this recent phenomenon?

Answer:
Ironically, I suspect that we can most attribute the prominence of anime fans in positions of Hollywood power to the influence of directors who are not avowed anime fans. Directors including Sam Raimi, Christopher Nolan, Jon Favreau, and Bryan Singer have not claimed to be devoted anime aficionados, but their domestic superhero films have popularized and legitimized “geek culture” in mainstream American cinema. Although America has had comic book movies since the 1940s, if not earlier, mainstream America has never before considered the geek authenticity and credibility of Hollywood directors until the contemporary advent of mainstream superhero movie mega-blockbusters. I believe that the framing of the climactic fight in director Guillermo Del Toro’s 2002 film Blade II clearly revealed the director’s familiarity with anime. But a contemporary anime-inspired film like Pacific Rim exhibits such quality and earns such goodwill from genre fans because its director acknowledges that he’s a veteran fan of anime. Anxiety about Pacific Rim would have been tremendously higher had the film been made by a director without an extensive awareness of anime and a history of love for the medium. Emerging genre film auteurs like Josh Trank earn credibility when they acknowledge that they’ve paid their dues and emerged from years of immersion in geek literature. The contemporary consumer interest in the credibility of these creators is a result of excellent modern genre films. Because viewers have been treated to so many good genre films in recent years, we’ve come to expect and desire well-crafted, faithful, and respectful films made by directors that actually do have an intimate awareness of the material and a deeply rooted affection for the material they’re channeling onto screen.

The Hollywood production industry, and even the American mainstream audience don’t particularly care about anime itself or anime otaku. The fact that Joss Whedon is a comic book geek is just as relevant and important to today’s film consumers as the fact that Guillermo Del Toro grew up watching Tetsujin 28-gou, Okami Shounen Ken, Ribbon no Kishi, and live-action tokusatsu programs like Toei’s 1967 series Captain Ultra. It’s the background experience and the affection for the material that results in movies that feel convincing and affecting rather than bombastic but hollow. Quite simply, American filmgoers have come to trust geeks to make good geek movies. The fact is especially obvious in the amount of prominence that was placed on publicizing the fact that Evil Dead remake director Fede Alvarez was a long-time devoted fan of the original franchise and not just a hired-gun brought in to helm a quick cash-grab remake. Regrettably, the fact that Guillermo Del Toro crafted the best “original live-action anime film” that Hollywood has ever made, yet the film has earned three-quarters of its revenue outside of America attests to the fact that American movie fans are now concerned with the experience and credibility of genre film directors but still not widely interested in anime itself.