Ask John: Why is Canada Becoming More Prominent in Anime?

Question:
Growing up an anime fan in Canada, I sometimes like to look up animes that have mentioned or featured Canada or Canadians in any specific way. There is one big thing that I have realised, it seems that within the last ten years anime has began to take more and more notice to America’s northern neighbours. I’ve noticed that animes from between the 1960s to early 2000s had very seldom involved Canada in their story, be it a main character or simply a passing reference. However, in recent years it seems Canada has been given a much more prominent role in anime. While still not nearly as prominent in anime as The United States, Britain, China or Germany, in the last ten years alone, there have been two anime set entirely in Canada (Konnichiwa Anne: Before Green Gables and Kaze no Shoujo Emily), Ginban Kaleidoscope co-stars a Canadian (Pete Pumps), the Freezing series also features a Canadian (Chiffon Fairchild) and, of course, there is Canada himself (Matthew Williams) in Hetalia. An episode of Kaleido Star is set in Vancouver, and even Winnipeg, Manitoba was a featured city in Super Robot Wars.

Why do you think anime is finally beginning to pay more attention to Canada?

Answer:
Regrettably, I don’t have penpals in the Japanese anime creation community that I can simply make inquiry to, so I have to rely on my own intuition. I can think of two reasons who Canada may be slightly more prominent in anime than it used to be, and the question already mentions one of those reasons. The audience for anime is notably becoming more global, so anime itself is increasingly recognizing that new, global audience. With its proximity in geography and culture to the United States, as well as its ties to and influence from Britain and France, Canada is an interesting metropolitan frontier from a Japanese perspective. Canada has never been highly influential or prominent in world affairs, but the country is appreciably associated with winter sports and rural natural environment, so including reference to Canada within anime evokes those thematic suggestions.

Furthermore, the Nelvana animation studio is located in Ontario. Since August 1999 when Nelvana acquired English dub rights to the Cardcaptor Sakura television series, the company has slowly increased its involvement in Japanese animation licensing and production. Nelvana is the international master licensor for the Beyblade and Medalot (“Medabots”) franchises and has been pivotal in the continued development of Toei’s Bakugan franchise. Adding Nelvana’s ongoing producer and distributor activity in the anime production industry with the 1997 launch of the Canadian cartoon-exclusive television channel Teletoon, which has aired anime including Macross Plus, Wings of Honneamise, Patlabor, Ninja Scroll, Rockman, Spider Riders, Keroro Gunso, and Cardcaptor Sakura, and the activity of the Canadian network YTV, which has broadcast an even larger selection of anime series, including the only North American television broadcast of Pretty Cure, the Japanese anime production industry has doubtlessly taken notice that Canada is a small but not insignificant market for anime export.

The bulk of Canadian reference in contemporary anime originates in the original work of individual Japanese creators, so it’s probably thanks to increasing globalization that individual Japanese artists are becoming more conscious of overseas countries and are becoming more interested in culturally diversifying their creations. Anime sponsors and producers may also contribute somewhat to the increasing recognition of Canada within anime because these companies recognize that Canada is slowly becoming more prominent in anime development and international sales.