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INTEREST: Mamoru Oshii: Today's Anime Is Driven by Otaku, Merchandise

nightjuan wrote:

Which is why I also find it rather strange to see Oshii criticizing Gundam Unicorn because having a horn doesn't make it "different" enough. I guess he may have wanted to be funny, but apparently he's missing the point. Not only is Unicorn very well produced and executed, often using existing elements in interesting ways, it's simultaneously pandering to existing fans and selling merchandise while still trying to create a story that can stand on its own. And you know what? I believe it's accomplishing all of those goals.

He's not saying a horn doesn't make it different enough, he's saying the total sum of creativity in Unicorn is "the Gundam has a horn" - and 100% he's right. Gundam Unicorn is one of the most soulless and creatively dead shows I think I've ever watched.

Oshii discussed the nature of the "ghost" in Ghost in the Shell, mentioning that Japanese people can understand the concept more easily than foreigners.

The story revolves around a timid second-year high school student who finds a kindred spirit in a girl he meets via a blood donation site. The girl is actually a vampire, and the comedy follows the boy's madcap efforts to get blood donations for her.

On a purely personal level, I can definitely sympathize with your previous remarks. The thing is, your description is focused on remembering and including those Japanese anime titles that were eventually licensed and released overseas. But that's only a fraction of all the anime produced during the decade. Far too many lesser works, including but not limited to those appealing to contemporary fads or past merchandise trends, were also created at exactly the same time and they are now simply forgotten by Western fans who had little or no exposure to them.

I don't think it would be a huge exaggeration to say that we're usually only taking the tip of the iceberg into account. In other words, judging the anime industry of bygone days using only the "greatest hits" as a guideline presents an artificial picture of what the market really looked like back then...and sets unrealistically high expectations for what it should look like now.

I don't want to say there haven't been any real changes, because that's not my point and we could even ostensibly argue the model's old problems have actually become far more serious along the way, but we should take care to avoid thinking of earlier decades as some sort of "golden era" for pure or selfless artistic inspiration, when there has always been another side of the coin, in every possible sense of the term, even during the best of times.

In another twenty years, I imagine there'll be plenty of people inside and outside the industry who will look fondly at the top works of the current era and try to forget everything that's average, mediocre or worse...but the Internet will be around to remind us of their existence, for better or for worse.

Next thing you know you will tell me there was never any such thing as the Admiral Reinhardt body pillow.

I actually own a number of Japanese issues of NewType from the early 90's (who'd have thought these would eventually come in handy?), and practically every page has an article or an advertisement for a series that saw a release here in the West.

It's true that there's the occasional Gakusaver, Rokudenashi Blues, Jungle King Tar-chan or Perrine Monogatari that hasn't seen a Western release that do show up in the magazines, but there's a significant amount that actually have seen the light of day here in the West.

For reference, I'm looking at the July~November 1993 issues of Newtype, in case you ever happen to get your mitts on them (one of them happens to be the 100th celebration issue of Newtype).

Some additional info: most of the advertisements in the magazines involve VHS and CD soundtrack collections, which seems distinctly different from the towels, cell phone charms, body pillows, plushies, etc. that seem to be a mainstay of the modern markets.

I think it's all just a lot of nostalgia glasses and cherry picking honestly

You don't necessarily need to bring the most original concept in the world to the table in order to make anime that is worth watching. The real problem, however, is only that far too many of today's "copies" aren't well-executed nor interesting enough to stand on their own, regardless of whether the target audience is or isn't familiar with the original.

Oshii said that anime has the advantage of allowing the creator to control a world from its foundation to its smallest details. Therefore, an anime director who uses that power can develop any subject matter from across the world or throughout history, and indulge in obsessions to the ultimate extreme.

Quote:

During the lecture, Oshii said that the current anime is mostly otaku-centric and made to be turned into merchandising. Oshii added that anime today is a "copy of a copy of a copy that is no longer a form of 'expression.'"

Quote:

The story revolves around a timid second-year high school student who finds a kindred spirit in a girl he meets via a blood donation site. The girl is actually a vampire, and the comedy follows the boy's madcap efforts to get blood donations for her.

And this somehow doesn't sound like so many other seinen comedies out there right now?