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Interview: Studio Ghibli Production Coordinator Hirokatsu Kihara




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Zeino



Joined: 19 May 2017
Posts: 1098
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 3:30 pm Reply with quote
Mr. Kihara is clearly a man who's experience is worth listing to and who's appreciation for an open and honest in it's passions version of fandom is commendable.

Quote:
Kihara showed Miyazaki's self-portrait from the late 80s of what Miyazaki thought he would look like in 30 years. It was him in a hot rod with a speech bubble that said “You ready to rock and roll, baby?”
I know that Miyazaki certainly isn't a humorless grump but this is surprising. He never stuck me as the type to like hot rods or even imagine himself as a swinger.
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Moonsaber



Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 342
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 11:25 pm Reply with quote
What a humble interesting man. I need to meet him, or see him on a panel.

It really punches home that anime is MUCH more mainstream here in the USA than it is in Japan. It's kinda crazy that where it is made is such a smaller and underground market than here. But bigger is that I can be open about being an anime fan as a working adult, where as in Japan that is a BAD idea.
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Sahmbahdeh



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 712
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 1:12 am Reply with quote
Moonsaber wrote:
What a humble interesting man. I need to meet him, or see him on a panel.

It really punches home that anime is MUCH more mainstream here in the USA than it is in Japan. It's kinda crazy that where it is made is such a smaller and underground market than here. But bigger is that I can be open about being an anime fan as a working adult, where as in Japan that is a BAD idea.


I think saying it's more mainstream here than Japan is a bit misleading; if by mainstream you mean in the open, then yes, it is more mainstream in the US, but that has more to do with the way the Japanese deal with their interests; people tend to be much more guarded over there with their interests, and keep things to themselves in general, whereas people in the US are way more comfortable with "letting their freak-flag fly", as it were. As for sales numbers, Japan still leads the pack, and that's where the majority off all industry revenue comes from, even today, although the gap has narrowed somewhat in recent years.

That said, a lot of that is because a relatively small handful of otaku tend to be major purchasers, who are way more hardcore fans than fans in other countries. With that in mind, I'd be interested in knowing what the percentage of people are in each country who are into anime, so you could actually determine in which country it is more "popular," although I have no idea how one would operationalize a study like that. Could be interesting.
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Sensei Terry Silver



Joined: 12 Jun 2009
Posts: 52
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:19 am Reply with quote
I attended Kihara's Totoro's 30th anniversary panel when he came to Otakuthon last month in Montreal and I was lucky enough to sit in the first rows. If you ever have the opportunity to attend one of his panels : DO IT, and try to arrive early to secure a good seat.

It was said in the interview that Kihara is trying to make his panels "US-friendly". He did it right because Kihara is a fountain of charisma on stage. He interacts with the audience, had giveways, is genuinely funny and is incredibly generous of his time. Not to mention the artwork he brings to his panel are original anthology pieces (that should never leave Studio Ghibli in the first place) and you sit there with Kihara displaying original art pieces of the classic Ghibli titles you grew on while he tells the story behind it.

If you ever loved anything related to classic Ghibli titles, you owe yourself to attend one of his panels. It was like going back to story-time at kindergarten, with the teacher showing the pictures to the classes and everyone ooooooooh and aaaaaaaah-ing. It was surreal to see these kind of reactions in a room with a few hundred grown people Smile
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:36 pm Reply with quote
Holy shit, this poor guy. He comes across as feeling so trapped and stifled by Japan in this interview. Shocked
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reanimator





PostPosted: Thu Aug 23, 2018 6:57 pm Reply with quote
We're so behind...ANN has finally gotten a whiff of what Kihara was doing all these time. I was at the place where Hirokatsu Kihara doing first US presentations in San Francisco in 2016. I even wrote a detailed blog about his presentation:

http://anime-declassified.blogspot.com/

Quote:
But there is always a sense of preservation with Kihara's presentations. “Back then the studio's job was to make a film. So when it was complete, this was all waste,” said Kihara. “Can you believe that? They would put [the production materials] in the trash. At the time I thought 'No, this is wrong. This must be preserved.' People may not care about it in two or three years, but five, ten, 15 years down the line this is going to be worth it. It should be used for future animators to study from. I really want inspiring creators to see the real thing.”


Luckily some of the Japanese studios like Ghibli, Production IG, Sunrise, and TMS are starting to care about preserving and archiving their artworks. Anime! Anime! news site did interview with archivist who is specialized in preserving anime production materials:

https://animeanime.jp/article/2018/08/19/39556.html
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reanimator





PostPosted: Thu Aug 23, 2018 7:27 pm Reply with quote
Sahmbahdeh wrote:
I think saying it's more mainstream here than Japan is a bit misleading; if by mainstream you mean in the open, then yes, it is more mainstream in the US, but that has more to do with the way the Japanese deal with their interests; people tend to be much more guarded over there with their interests, and keep things to themselves in general, whereas people in the US are way more comfortable with "letting their freak-flag fly", as it were. As for sales numbers, Japan still leads the pack, and that's where the majority off all industry revenue comes from, even today, although the gap has narrowed somewhat in recent years.


Speaking of being open, I always see kids wearing some sort of costume or Goth Lolita outfit even though there in no anime-related event happening in SF Japantown. You're right about Japan leading the pack when it comes merchandise sales. People here buy some cheap (sometimes pirated) trinkets, toys, other anime merchandise and wear t-shirt, thus call it a day, but it's not enough to make boast about how big of fan they are.

Sahmbahdeh wrote:
That said, a lot of that is because a relatively small handful of otaku tend to be major purchasers, who are way more hardcore fans than fans in other countries.


Here's an example of that small group otaku in Japan being hardcore fan with his purchase:




Sahmbahdeh wrote:
With that in mind, I'd be interested in knowing what the percentage of people are in each country who are into anime, so you could actually determine in which country it is more "popular," although I have no idea how one would operationalize a study like that. Could be interesting.


That would be very difficult. In countries where legal streaming is available, those media companies can check data from their subscribers' viewing habits. Entertaining example would be Crunchyroll's Popular Anime by State/Country map. Any sales data provided by local licensed merchandise sellers will say something about popularity, but that is something cannot be disclosed t public.

However in other countries where piracy is rampant in both digital and physical, it's unreliable to measure popularity with loud cheering crowd at local convention.
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