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| Luisinan 373th Post
 
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|  "How does the Japanese anime industry work?"
, posted Mon 7 Jul 20:43
Because I've recently got hooked into good anime, I am very interested into knowing how the industry works. Specifically, how is it possible to produce so many anime serials a year in Japan? Another question is, how are anime TV serials presented to the public?
I'm trying to understand serialized Japanese anime from the perspective of a westerner. In the United States all of the big name and high production television serials are shown Sunday through Thursday nights during the evening hours of 8-10 p.m. These are all live action serials. There a few American bred cartoon serials but they are rare and unfortunately, are all comedies (I'm not counting children's cartoons because they are rarely shown on the big networks during the evening hours).
I find it interesting that almost all new anime is basically adapted manga. I'm correct in saying that?
I would also be correct in saying that new anime serials never fail because they are all based on very successful manga? There really hasn't been any anime serial that has been cancelled in 'mid-season' or 'mid-run' because the ratings were so low?
Is the Japanese entertainment industry as obsessed with television ratings and viewership as the American entertainment industry?
If an anime serials are never cancelled due to low viewership, could it be due out of respect- to allow the serial to have it's ending?
I am very envious of the way the anime industry in Japan works. The way I see things, essentially you get most of the good manga animated for your pleasure. Sure, the manga is changed in the process but you usually still get a good anime serial. You also get a lot of diversity in your anime because manga popularity is so diverse.
I really wished the American TV industry and comic book industry worked this way. But sadly it doesn't. For one thing, we have a much smaller comic book industry with A LOT less diversity in the popular comic books (almost all mainstream comics are super hero related, blech). Secondly, when a comic book is turned into an animated cartoon, the cartoon is almost never an adaption of the comic book-- what's worse is that the comic book property is almost always mutated into a kiddie-lowest-common-denominator dreck of a show.
The only exceptions to this have been, AFAIK, Spawn the animated series and The Maxx. Both good shows, but neither show were actual adaptions of the comic book storylines. I don't think they were.
Really, US TV executives are always starving for the next best thing to get great ratings. There are a lot of great comic book storylines that could be adapted into a TV serial.
Bored? "160"
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| Fuchikoma 551th Post
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| "Re(1):How does the Japanese anime industry wo" , posted Mon 7 Jul 21:54
Wew... long one, but here we go. In Japan they have a huge variety of animated programs. There are plenty of cartoons aimed towards children, but there's also the series we're familiar with that's aimed towards the teen and adult market. Where the kiddy shows air daily during the day, series like Naruto, Gundam Seed, etc air once a week in primetime on the standard Japanese networks. There are also series that air on Japanese cable networks, for example Air Master plays on Japanese MTV which suits it's rock soundtrack. Ghost in the Shell standalone complex is cable only and actually only airs twice a month on a pay per view kind of system. Most of the cable anime can get away with more risque' material.
Only about half or maybe less than half of new anime series are adapted from manga. Right now you have adapted series like Naruto, Narutaru, Air Master, Inu Yasha, One Piece... etc, doing well. You also have plenty of original titles like Stellvia, Gundam Seed, Gad Guard, Wolf's Rain, Last Exile, Macross Zero... and so on. Actually looking at the shows I have on my HD right now, I'd say more than half are adapted from manga.
A successful manga does not make a successful anime. Plenty of times you have major issues in the translation from the manga. If an anime series based on a manga begins while the manga is still too new, it catches up to the manga and there's no new stories written yet. In the case of some they take time off for the manga to catch up and do a season 2, like Mahoro-matic. There's also times where there's new stories and characters added to the anime, Rurouni Kenshin was practically ruined in the anime version, it's quite different from the manga. Love Hina was cut short and didn't show the true ending until the OAVs came out recently. In most cases though it's hard to fit volumes of manga into a series under 50 episodes... so many stop short at the end of an early story arch, like Hellsing and Berserk.
Like I said, lots of shows are cancelled or cut short... Berserk, Kenshin, Love Hina, Hellsing, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Hikaru No Go, Hajime no Ippo... very few shows go past 100 episodes, although right now Inu Yasha and One Piece are going strong past 150 episodes.
The american animation industry isn't as productive, that's the main problem. You have the nice huge budget disney movies, but the average television cartoon will always be deemed towards children and have a limited budget. Most of the animation for shows like the Simpsons is done in Korea to cut costs. In japan there's a much larger demand for animated shows... characters like Astro Boy and Kamen Rider are national heros... kind of like Superman and Spiderman to us. Another thing that helps the japanese industry is the use of in-betweeners. Smaller studios save money by hiring individuals to do the filler frames in scenes... mostly housewives and other people looking for a side job.
About the Maxx and Spawn, the Maxx was about as much of an exact translation as you'll ever get. They copied the frames from the comic exactly in most scenes. Spawn was pretty faithful also, but certain things were changed... mostly Chapel could no longer be Spawn's killer because the character was made by Rob Liefeld, who was no longer a member of image by time the animated series started.
It seems cheaper in the US to do live action adaptions of comic characters. I find Smallville to be an excellent show and it's a good example of the right way to do live action comic book adaptions... you won't see any spandex or capes in the show. Birds of Prey was a major letdown though... mostly because they had some really terrible actors, that show is already dead. Whenever there's a new cartoon based on a comic book character, usually the most money is made from marketing toys... I'd say the exception would be the Bruce Tim DC cartoons... Batman, Superman, Justice League, and the upcoming Teen Titans... which doesn't try to "kiddify" the shows too much, they use actual guns, there's blood, and they don't dumb down the plotlines.
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| Jazzie D 1936th Post
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| "Re(2):How does the Japanese anime industry wo" , posted Mon 7 Jul 22:21
quote:
Love Hina was cut short and didn't show the true ending until the OAVs came out recently.
You forgot to add the drama albums. They really give off the ending to the Love Hina anime.
quote:
It seems cheaper in the US to do live action adaptions of comic characters. I find Smallville to be an excellent show and it's a good example of the right way to do live action comic book adaptions... you won't see any spandex or capes in the show. Birds of Prey was a major letdown though... mostly because they had some really terrible actors, that show is already dead. Whenever there's a new cartoon based on a comic book character, usually the most money is made from marketing toys... I'd say the exception would be the Bruce Tim DC cartoons... Batman, Superman, Justice League, and the upcoming Teen Titans... which doesn't try to "kiddify" the shows too much, they use actual guns, there's blood, and they don't dumb down the plotlines.
It's funny that you mention Teen Titans. Puffy (the J-pop duo, not the rapper) is singing the opening song to that upcoming series. If there's one reason to watch it, it'll be because of them. =P
Takino Tomo-chan - Kimura-sensei why did you become a teacher?
Kimura-sensei - CUZ I LIKE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS AND STUFF!
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