Ask John: Why Are Opening Credits Sequences Edited For American Release?

Question:
Why don’t American anime publishers keep the openings/endings “authentic?” Do you think this is entirely a product of budget issues or might there be some other explanation for what appears to be outright laziness.

Let me give you a (somewhat old) example: the Sailor Moon series had many different openings, and indeed each series itself had multiple openings. For example, in Sailor Moon S, there was a separate opening for the “Pre-Sailor Saturn” phase and [one for] the remainder of the series. I distinctly recall, however, that Geneon opted to use only the second opening throughout the entire DVD series and thus essentially “spoiled” content that was much later in the series.

Answer:
The fact that American anime releases have occasionally suffered incomplete, missing, or altered opening animation sequences may seem like a simple topic, but, in fact, it’s actually quite a complicated subject. There are numerous reasons why certain anime opening scenes haven’t successfully made an intact transition to America, and different reasons apply to different examples.

Average American viewers can probably guess that abbreviated opening animation sequences for shows like Gundam W and Prince of Tennis may be made to trim running time. Since Japanese television broadcasts have fewer commercial breaks than American TV broadcasts, anime television episodes may need to be trimmed to fit within American broadcast timeslots. And it’s much easier to edit an opening animation sequence than remove content from the body of an episode.

American anime fans may also be aware of opening animation sequences sometimes being unavailable due to copyright or licensing disputes. For example, American fans did not get the first Kodomo no Omocha TV series opening animation or the original Japanese version of the Speed Grapher opening because of conflicts involving the music used in these animation sequences.

The third explanation is one which fewer American anime fans may be aware of because it relates to the way international anime licensing is frequently conducted. Fans may be surprised to learn that typically animators and anime creators have little or no involvement in international distribution. In many cases, anime distribution rights are not licensed through the studio that created the anime, but rather through Japanese home video distribution companies.

Anime production studios like Gainax, Madhouse, Sunrise, and Bones create anime. As soon as the animation work is complete, control of the finished animation is transferred to distribution companies like Starchild, VAP, Toho, Bandai, KSS, JVC, and Pony Canyon whose job is to sell the animation but not necessarily preserve or protect its artistic credibility. Distributors are salesman, not artists. Allow me to explain with this analogy.

An American buyer may wish to purchase a house. Perhaps the buyer has only seen the exterior of the house, or has only toured part of the house. Or perhaps the house hasn’t even been built yet, and is being offered for sale on the strength of the reputation of its architect and contractor. The realtor that sells the house is a middle-man with only a passing affiliation with the builder and the buyer. After the deal is done, the realtor moves on to another job and may not want to spend time tracking down missing doorknobs or lightbulbs on behalf of the buyer. These minor additional elements may be important to the American purchaser, but for the Japanese seller, they’re superfluous and often times troublesome to dig up. As a result, the American purchaser may eventually just give up after requesting this additional missing material numerous times.

Probably every American anime distribution company has stories about struggles to urge Japanese licensors to deliver additional production materials, video footage, or art assets. Sometimes these requests are honored, sometimes they’re ignored or simply put off until the American licensor gets frustrated and gives up. Geneon’s initial release of Trigun, for example, didn’t include the original Japanese episode specific openings while the later American DVD re-release did. The most likely explanation is that Geneon USA wasn’t aware of the variant opening sequences, or simply couldn’t acquire them in time for the initial DVD release.

Of course, changes to opening animation sequences may also be a conscious stylistic choice. Viz Media representatives have described their revisions to opening animation sequences as “creative input.” AD Vision has repeatedly claimed that its policy of “morphing” Japanese titles into English is done at the request of Japanese licensors, although I’ve encountered speculation that at least some of ADV’s uses of “morphing” are done simply because ADV likes doing it. Finally, doubtlessly some Japanese opening animation sequences are altered or re-edited for American release in order to create theoretically catchy and marketable openings that are better suited to capture the interest of American viewers.