Forum - View topicINTEREST: Hideaki Anno Voices His Concerns About the Anime Industry
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walw6pK4Alo
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They certainly do try new things. Those things just bomb horribly and can either send a studio into debt if not shut it down outright, or they'll make the studio reconsider what they should be working on. Like Madhouse turning to adapting a lot of material, or Studio 4C trying to hit it big with going after Berserk fandom.
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asdqweiop
Posts: 33 |
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I hate to be mdo7 and splash around unrelated links, but I think this is a pretty good summation of Japanese creators' issues with the production committee system (incidentally also from Variety).
I don't think (as others have rightly pointed out) that Anno, the UTD people, or the Japanese filmmakers in the linked article take issue with the commercial exploitation of their creations. What they're objecting to is the limits/restraints on their creative freedom that they feel in the production process as a result from having to bend to input of the diverse and risk-averse committee members. |
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ChocoBar1
Posts: 49 |
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Anno has always had commercial considerations in his projects, he talk shit about irresponsible people. (which the majority of you Eva retards still butthurt about 3.0 seems to miss the point)
Here he is saying that it's needed to do something new, without commercial restrictions as an investment to push the limits of commercial animation. You need to make some bad independent 3DCG movies before making a commercial series like Sidonia. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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I have a love/hate with 3.0. Hate it made no sense, loved it did a lot new for a franchise we thought was just getting 'prettied up.'
More on Anno, he didn't want to make the original Eva movies. Fans were upset at the ending. He's on record of saying 'if you don't like it, tough.' |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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It won't happen, anime is a business and stuff that has no chance of making money off merchandise and BDs/DVDs to an extent will not be made. Can studios try new things, yes, and they also should try new things but no one wants to take a risk because the costs can down a studio, this also is the same thing that the video game industry is facing but unlike the video game industry there are no feasible alternatives for risks to be taken like the indie developers in video games.
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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This is just my interpretation, but I feel like he was referring to all of the anime we see each season that just drop off a cliff at the end of their sea and basically serve as a marketing ploy for the manga, or whatever their source material is. In that sense, I completely agree with him. Selling merchandise for your show is fine with me if you tell me a compelling story that has a definitive beginning, climax and ending. And if it helps keep their business floating and allows them to continue making stories like that, more power to them. What I hate is all of those cliff-hanger endings that are oh-so-common. I can't even enjoy most shows like that.
All of that being said, I feel like we have seen a slight uptick in quality original stories lately, and shows with pretty solid endings in general, so I'm not nearly as pessimistic about the state of anime as some of these grumpy old guys seem to be. |
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JulieYBM
Posts: 209 |
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An'no's comments make little sense when you consider every industry across the planet we call Earth faces 'commercial considerations'. He who funds deserves a Hell of a lot more say than he who does not. Production committees should trust those they hire to create their works, but to say 'commercial constraints' are a restraint is simply silly.
The one issue is a lack of patience and planning on the production committees part in the creation of their works. Shingeki no Kyojin showed what happens when a production committee rushes a series. Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta, Kyousougiga, Idol M@ster show what happens when one does not rush the production of a series. A few but vocal directors who want to make series that have no mainstream or niche appeal are simply that, a few. Many, many talents are creating the sort of work they like in the current climate or simply accepting what they seek is an unfair selfishness and keeping to themselves, like Iso Mitsuo. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Again, production committees make money by pushing commercialization that benefits various sponsors. They may aim for a particular theme, but don't micromanage the artistic direction of a show. Lantis or King Records will say, hey want our money? Just plug our new singles. That's it. In fact, this is exactly what the UTD producer states! The UTD producer literally stated that the commitee members "don't care" about the anime, only to push their product, which is good! Why is that good? Because here's what would happen if Lantis actually cared about the creative or technical aspect of making anime: they would constantly micromanage the creators, going to the writer and say, I don't like this line, or to animators and say this scene is all wrong. Note: the mangaka authors doing this for an adaptation is different , since it's their work. Likewise, if you are being paid as work-for-hire specifically to work on someone else's original idea, not yours. Ironically, some people are complaining about the main female character's looks and her figure for UTD, and these kickstarters who are financing UTD are already doing the same type of meddling they complain about. I'm not saying other methods can't exist, but that all various methods serve different purposes. They are not mutually exclusive. And Tezauka's pioneering efforts in developing this system has actually allowed anime to bloom and become widespread and have the diversity it has now. Do you think sports anime would be constantly made if you can't get some sponsors onboard? Say goodbye to comedies and mecha and all the rest too. And I'm saying this as someone who's backed with a LOT of money, all the crowdfunding efforts. I don't want anime to be nothing but avant-garde films and occassional OVAs released like a couple times a year, instead of the ~40 shows per season (160+ per year) plus OVAs and movies of all types of stuff we get. If you want true freedom, you would take the Mel Gibson route and completely finance something yourself. Otherwise the principle of TANSTAAFL applies even with Kickstarter. Of course the issue is, how do you make money in the first place. Here, we come back full circle again. |
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brankoburcksen
Posts: 126 |
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Referencing the same Variety article as asdqweiop, it seems one of the major issues beyond just production committees is the fact Japanese movies or TV shows do not do well abroad, and those in the committees do not care at all about the international market. If you look at that from and American, Hollywood or really any producer worth their salt in the film industry, that is either an insane or stupid mindset. Why wouldn't a creative, ambitious, forward thinking company look abroad to grow or expand their business?
There are too many people on these committees who only care about the domestic market because it is safe. International markets are still a big unknown for anime. Of course they will fail and stumble at first because they do not fully understand it. But the ones who can crack it. The ones who create anime the rest of the world will fall in love with: the skies the limit. They will no longer be so reliant on a small swath of fans in their home country. Hollywood already depends more on the international scene than the US. Maybe it is about time anime does the same. |
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Ialdaboth
Posts: 94 |
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Anno is right, but his diagnosis comes too late : he should have realized it and do something about it ten years ago. The prospects for the future of anime are a wasteland right now.
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firedragon54738
 Posts: 3113 Location: wisconsin |
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Well it is going down hill there just to much and most it centers around a 1 cour fanservice
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VORTIA
 SubscriberPosts: 941 |
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I'm not sure how the animation industry can succeed by ignoring "commercial considerations". Anno seems to be suggesting that animation studios should simply draw whatever strikes their fancy, and not worry about making money, but that's a one-way ticket to bankruptcy. There's a reason why the "starving artist" is an established stereotype.
Anime is a business. Businesses have to make money. That means pleasing your customers and your clients. As an animation studio, that means either selling the animation directly to the consumer, or being paid to create it by a production committee. To paraphrase him in American motion picture terms, "Super Hero movies are killing the film industry, and there's only so much time for someone to create another Schindler's List before it's too late." I'm sure Disney is crying over how much money they're making churning out Marvel movies that simply retread decade old comic book stories. They'll be in a panic to greenlight the next Amadeus any week now. Last edited by VORTIA on Tue Oct 28, 2014 9:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I'm a bit confused here, but then again, what Anno is saying sounds rather vague. "Without commercial considerations" could mean that he wants anime to be made without any input from the sponsors, or he could mean that he does not want anime to be so dictated by merchandise.
If he's anything like a number of other outspoken artists in the entertainment business, he's probably of the latter. With his whole "TOO BAD" thing he did a while ago, I get the impression that he's the sort of person who wants to do things his way and becomes upset if other people feel some other way is better. I do wonder if he'd be more comfortable making western programming, since your content is dictated not by the sponsors (well, not directly at least), but by your direct superiors. Then again, he might think it's worse. Are sponsors for Japanese programming related to the content of the show itself, or are they totally different? What comes to mind is the old sitcom The Goldbergs, which had Sanka coffee as its sole sponsor. The writers, offensive content aside, were pretty much free to write whatever they pleased, as the premise of the show (a Jewish family living in New York City) was completely unrelated to coffee--all they had to do was have one character endorse the coffee midway through the episode. While American television sponsorship works much different now, the idea of sponsors selling things that have nothing to do with the show itself still holds, and I think that provides more creative freedom. (Of course, the way Japanese television stations are run, you couldn't really do that sort of thing and be profitable.)
Sometimes, there are ideological and political reasons for a lack of interest abroad. There have been a few independent or otherwise small game studios that would turn down every offer to localize their product for some other country. Some even had messages in English telling people not to translate their game. (I knew someone who would do such fan translations back in the heyday of fan-translated video games. Her group would not touch a game that had such a request, and she says they find them all the time.) Something else to consider is that there are many western businesses that have little to no interest in international sales or have no clue how to do it. I mention pinball a bunch, but pinball here is a painful example. See, in 2007-08, Stern Pinball was getting decreasing sales and wanted to market to China, and they were going to do so through licensed pinball machines. The two they chose to release? NBA and Big Buck Hunter Pro, under the idea that the Chinese are into basketball and video games. During their test runs, the Chinese largely ignored these machines, so Stern gave up trying to sell internationally and have since concentrated their marketing exclusively to Americans. As I keep hearing stories about how Japanese companies, or at least the sponsors, assume that the international market functions just like the Japanese market, I would bet no effort is done to try to make an anime series more international in appeal for this reason: Lack of knowledge and lack of interest in finding out. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6253 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Well thanks for sharing similar thought like I did, also I read the Variety article you linked and yeah I share that same thought after reading the article. But back on topic: looks like Hideaki Anno is becoming Keiji Inafune (whom Keiji said the video game industry in Japan is finished) Sadly, I kinda agreed with Anno's view, I don't like what's coming out of Japan when it comes to anime, I miss the old day (pre-2010 anime) before it went downhill. |
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Momokochan
 Posts: 103 |
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This people is getting old and FAST. Yeah, there's a lot of mass produced crap send to Korea, we all know that. However, there's around 3x the production than when i.e Evangelion was produced. Of course, if it is mass produced and mass marketed there will be crap. However, we've also seen the influx of really experimental and new takes on anime that would have not been done in the past. A lot of them have not been succesfully commercial at all (Kick Heart), that does not mean they are not being made.
I'm not saying everything is Gold, but many great series have been produced in this past too decades, many being economical risk, some have done well like Madoka and SNK, other not so much like Shin Sekai Yori/Mawaru Penguin Drum, but nevertheless would had not been produced, specially by Anno. What is evangelion, really? A harem with a sudden existential crisis. Anno would had not made evangelion what it is with out the help of Tsurumaki and Ikuhara. It's not too late at all, a lot of good series have been produced, the fact that nobody cares about Eva anymore even if it is pushed in razor blades, does not mean "anime is over". The 80's saw too a dry spell characterised by a heavy production of sports anime (sounds familiar) But, by 87 great series were produced that then led to the "glorious" 90s. Of course there will be off seasons, jesus christ. It's a simple concept. |
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