Ask John: Will the Narutaru Anime Ever Come to America?

Question:
What are the odds of Narutaru being licensed in North America? If indeed the show is licensed, what would happen to the anime industry in North America?

Answer:
Based on what we know, the Narutaru anime is already licensed for American release. In early June 2003, based on our familiarity with the Narutaru manga published by Dark Horse Comics as “Shadow Star,” AN Entertainment made licensing inquiries about the (at that time) upcoming anime TV series adaptation. We were informed that no new licensing offers were being accepted because the show was already in final negotiations with a North American licensor. From that point on, we don’t know if an American distribution agreement was ever concluded, but we assume it likely that the series has now been officially licensed, but not yet announced.

In some respects, the acquisition of the Narutaru anime series is a smart decision. The series has only 13 episodes, making it a more affordable license than a longer 26 episode series and a less time consuming and expensive series to localize for English language release. More importantly, the series already has name recognition and an established audience based on the serialization of the original Narutaru manga in Super Manga Blast magazine. Finally, the series was scripted by writer Chiaka J. Konaka, the writer behind The Big O, Serial Experiments Lain, Armitage III and other anime titles popular in America. The ability to market Narutaru with a “From the writer of …” tag line is a small but significant factor in the show’s American commercial potential.

On the other hand, fans that have watched the entire 13 episode series generally agree that the show is uneven, littered with unresolved primary and sub-plots, filled with seemingly pointless diversionary characters, events and even full episodes, and concluded by three episodes of shockingly gratuitous violence that appear totally without warning and are almost totally out of context with the rest of the show. There’s been a lot of speculation within the fan community that the final three Narutaru episodes are, or will be, tremendously controversial. Offensive the final episodes are, but controversial, probably not. With as up to date as the American fan community is with major anime news in Japan, if these episodes had caused any stir among Japanese viewers, we would have heard about it. In fact, perusal of recent Japanese anime magazines reveals a significant absence of Narutaru coverage, suggesting that the show came and went in Japan without much notice from the Japanese fan community. In fact, Japan’s Newtype Magazine didn’t even mention Narutaru’s weekly TV ratings in the list of 50+ anime series that the magazine reports each month.

While Narutaru will never air on American television because of its intense violence and themes including teenage pregnancy and teen violence, there’s no reason to expect that the show will not achieve a quiet and moderately successful American home video release. The series does contain scenes of brutal violence and gore, but nothing more shocking than content included in other successful American releases including Devilman Lady, Shadow Skill, Jubei Ninpucho and Berserk. Narutaru depicts intense violence performed by children upon other children. The same statement applies to Now & Then, Here & There, a series that didn’t create any uproar or controversy upon its American release. It may be argued that Narutaru subtly deals with sexuality. Yet again, the same has, in fact, been said of Alien 9, which again caused no significant moral outrage upon its American DVD release. While Narutaru may not be an exceptionally good show, it does have a degree of American market potential, and probably won’t be nearly as controversial in America as alarmist fans anticipate. If the series is released in America, I don’t foresee it having any singular noticable effect on the entire American anime industry.