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INTEREST: Tadashi Sudo: Does Japanese Animation Suffer From the Galápagos Syndrome?

I think what Tadashi Sudo was going for was beyond just the content of the anime, its also the "behind-the-scenes" elements as well. Constant articles and interviews are released talking about the poor pay and work environments which needs to change. The anime industry as a whole needs to evolve beyond its current self. The anime industry feels like its stagnating a bit. The idea that outside competition may hurt the Japanese-style of anime is a bit overexaggerated as there's always been a general understanding that competition is supposed to increase creativity, improve process, improve technology, and other aspects of an industry. While it isn't always the case, I believe that's what Tadashi Sudo is trying to say.

The Japanese anime industry needs to take a few cues from recent and ongoing changes in Hollywood. Sudo had it right on the money when talking about the Hollywood influence. Hollywood is undergoing significant changes right now to be more inclusive and, overall, more influential (whether this is working or not is a different conversation), while the Japanese anime industry isn't really doing anything at all. The industry isn't very welcoming to new talent (in front of the microphone and behind it) due to working conditions. If Japan is looking to keep exporting animations globally, it will need to adjust to global markets.

Anime fans wishing that anime stays a niche, or semi-niche hobby, will need to accept that we're part of that growth. As more fans come into the hobby, the more the industry grows (looking at you "video games"), the more money is made, the more wealthier certain individuals get, which will then cause an increase in the number of productions and exportation. Generally you can boil it down to supply and demand.

I think Boku no Hero Academia's and One Piece's global influence show as prime examples of underutilized markets where Japan can really became a major player but don't choose to play the game because of old-fashioned, unchanging business practices. If we want studios to stop going out of business, we need to support better working conditions and overall industry changes to be more palatable to the global market.

Could inviting foreign talent in other fields other than animation help to an extent too? Maybe Japanese animation may need a new touch of storytelling at the hands of those outside of it as long as it can be handled well.

If people are saying anime needs to go the way of video games, then that's going to be a hard disagree from me. AAA games might sell well, but my interest in most of them have completely died. I don't care about shooters, games-as-a-service, open worlds, battle royals, or any other popular soulless trends that are common in the western gaming scene right now. I lament that days gone of older genres and titles that were once great but now are pushed to the side chasing trends. Luckily, I don't see this happening at all. Let Hollywood and other industries chase those fads and run their industries into the ground. We'll just keep doing our own thing.

Blackiris_ wrote:

meiam wrote: There's very few anime that I'd say have a distinctive Japaneses setting, outside of historical piece that happened in japan (but even there there's plenty happening in non Japaneses setting, like last season Arte). So I don't really know what he's talking about... You don’t consider all these school and slice-of-life animes distinctively Japanese? Almost all non-fantasy anime are set in Japan these days. And probably always have, but it feels like the "cultural curiosity" in anime has faded to the same extent the market has shifted towards otaku interests in the ~2 decades.

High school in japan aren't that different from anywhere else, there's more focus on club in anime (no idea if that's an accurate representation), but that's a very simple concept to understand since it pretty much boil down "do stuff with your friend after school" which every high school kid does. I'm pretty sure you could take literally any high school/SoL anime and set it in a school anywhere, at least in the developed world, and it would need very minimal modification. The only one I can think of that's very Japanese and would be hard to export is Chihayafuru, but vast majority of them are simple enough. Even think like kendo or kyudo are similar enough to non japan version to not need any modification (only so many way you can shoot an arrow).

Anyone know if samurai Jack is popular in japan? I'm guessing not which just show that borrowing element from other culture doesn't really help the show in said culture.

The best thing about Japanese anime, is that it is Japanese anime.

It is not competing with anyone. We are all watching Japanese anime. I am not going to stop watching Japanese anime because Netflix has a hit once in a blue moon, and the same with China and Korea.

If I want to watch globalized anime, I can watch western animation.

I think the main point trying to be made here is that there are certain elements that have become distinctly "anime" such as the art style and the narrative structure. But those things are easily copied. Subject, pacing, content, are the other areas that get overlooked, but matter a lot to the end product. Japanese animation has increasingly retreated to niche offerings. You can say what you want about how much sex sells and all that, but anime tends to depict "clearly" juvenile characters whereas other media tends to keep far away from that. For every gruesome and bloody anime that gets churned out, other media is careful with how much of that they show on screen. And even where you might be tempted to compare slice of life stuff with the latest Disney movie, slice of life tends to be more unfocused in its story, while that Disney movie tends to have a very direct and streamlined narrative, even when it does get more exotic.

Now, we can pick through all this and point out how much we like these idiosyncrasies of Japanese anime, we have to remember that we are already fans. We are part of the niche. And unfortunately for the industry, that niche is not growing large enough to support it. That's the whole idea of Galapagos Syndrome - your niche environment, while itself beautiful, cannot support itself long-term. It can either admit this and adapt to be embraced by a winder audience, or it can sit there and be stubborn, and die of the vine.

...snipping the first paragraph...
Now, we can pick through all this and point out how much we like these idiosyncrasies of Japanese anime, we have to remember that we are already fans. We are part of the niche. And unfortunately for the industry, that niche is not growing large enough to support it. That's the whole idea of Galapagos Syndrome - your niche environment, while itself beautiful, cannot support itself long-term. It can either admit this and adapt to be embraced by a winder audience, or it can sit there and be stubborn, and die of the vine.

That's the whole idea of Galapagos Syndrome - your niche environment, while itself beautiful, cannot support itself long-term. It can either admit this and adapt to be embraced by a winder audience, or it can sit there and be stubborn, and die of the vine.

In both cases, I don't think it's a problem for a production to include such depictions, but their inclusion may limit the product's marketability; and perhaps by more than some may think. As recently as the 00's, there was quite a bit of manga censorship of Christian imagery in the US, precisely because it would make the work more marketable. Finding the right way to approach issues like this is tricky, and a lack of differing opinions about them will only make it harder for producers to achieve their goals.

Instead of defining the world standard into the future, as Hollywood and Disney have done in the past, Japanese animation is at risk of suffering from the Galápagos Syndrome while creative teams overseas produce more globally appealing content.

Japan has hardly changed, but the world is changing dramatically. The uniqueness of Japanese anime, subject to the Galápagos Syndrome, has expanded to the world, and that uniqueness is now, in fact, becoming diluted," he observed. "The spread of the Japanese style can be seen as a sign of success for Japanese culture. On the contrary, however, it bodes difficult times ahead for Japan. This style which was once thought to belong only to Japan can be created outside the country, which compromises Japan's top position and increases competition."

Now, we can pick through all this and point out how much we like these idiosyncrasies of Japanese anime, we have to remember that we are already fans. We are part of the niche. And unfortunately for the industry, that niche is not growing large enough to support it. That's the whole idea of Galapagos Syndrome - your niche environment, while itself beautiful, cannot support itself long-term. It can either admit this and adapt to be embraced by a winder audience, or it can sit there and be stubborn, and die of the vine.