Anime conventions a hit in US
Thursday, May 10, 2007
ON MOST days, Javin Mather is a 21-year-old developmental psychology major at Boise State University. But today he is a 7-foot robot. "We spent about 200 hours making this costume," said Mather, wearing a bright white and yellow suit made of a thermoplastic substance called Wonderflex. He leans against a trash can, wobbly from the large platform boots on his feet.
Yet Mather, who is also donning a mask with long feathers, barely draws a sideways glance from the throngs of French maids, masked warriors and ninjas gathered in Seattle last month to shop for comic books, DVDs, music and trinkets from Japan.
Seattle's Sakura Con festival, attended this year by more than 11,000 people, is one of many festivals drawing young Americans by the thousand to cities from Anchorage, Alaska, to Miami to celebrate Japanese pop culture.
It's a movement that encompasses everything from video games, film and music to elaborate costumes and accessories. Animated films from Japan, known as anime, and the comic books, or manga, that often inspire those films are the driving forces.
Many young American fans are drawn to these comic books and films because the storylines are complex, darker and often more honest than standard Hollywood fare.
"You get stuff you can't find in the US media like concepts of family, honour and things that are important to people, treating people with respect," said Cody Bowie, organiser of an anime convention in Anchorage, which drew over 600 people.
Anime films and manga appeal to a wide audience with genres ranging from innocent tales for young girls to erotica.
US sales of manga in 2005 totalled a modest US$180 million, according to ICv2, a trade news organisation specialising in pop culture products.
Yet when manga and anime are combined with video games, toys and movie or television deals, the US market balloons to US$10 billion.
In a sign of anime's creep into the American mainstream, last year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade featured a giant balloon of Pikachu, the central character of Nintendo's Pokemon franchise.
Pokemon started as a video game in the mid-1990s and quickly grew into a multibillion dollar media franchise complete with TV cartoons, 10 feature films, comic books and a trading card game that became so popular it was banned in some American schools.
"Pokemon really was the title that, in terms of mass-marketing Japanese anime style in America, broke the door down," said Roland Kelts, a University of Tokyo professor and author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Culture Has Invaded the US.
Still, anime's popularity remains mostly underground. The movement is driven by die-hard fans who gather at festivals to swap films, create music videos based on popular songs from anime movies or ogle rare comic books from Japan.
Not since the punk rock era or the heyday of the "Trekkie", or Star Trek, conventions have Americans donned such wild costumes en masse to celebrate a piece of pop culture.
"Perhaps some people watch Japanese animation to rebel against their parents. The dressing-up aspect of it certainly makes me remember Southern California punk clubs I used to go to in the early 80s," Michael Arias, director of the animated film Tekkon Kinkreet, wrote in an email.
Arias is the first American to direct a feature film for a Japanese studio and Tekkon Kinkreet premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to sold-out shows in late April.
To counteract an ageing population at home, Japanese animation studios are looking overseas to find young fans.
Afro Samurai is a case in point. Featuring the voice of Samuel L Jackson, the animated series features a samurai in a futuristic feudal Japan who is looking to avenge the murder of his father. The five-part television series aired in the US this year and will be broadcast in Japan this month with a hip-hop musical score produced by Wu-Tang Clan member RZA.
"What you are going to see more and more of is internationalisation of Japanese animation," said Kelts.
"The question is: Will it still be Japanese?" Reuters
Yet Mather, who is also donning a mask with long feathers, barely draws a sideways glance from the throngs of French maids, masked warriors and ninjas gathered in Seattle last month to shop for comic books, DVDs, music and trinkets from Japan.
Seattle's Sakura Con festival, attended this year by more than 11,000 people, is one of many festivals drawing young Americans by the thousand to cities from Anchorage, Alaska, to Miami to celebrate Japanese pop culture.
It's a movement that encompasses everything from video games, film and music to elaborate costumes and accessories. Animated films from Japan, known as anime, and the comic books, or manga, that often inspire those films are the driving forces.
Many young American fans are drawn to these comic books and films because the storylines are complex, darker and often more honest than standard Hollywood fare.
"You get stuff you can't find in the US media like concepts of family, honour and things that are important to people, treating people with respect," said Cody Bowie, organiser of an anime convention in Anchorage, which drew over 600 people.
Anime films and manga appeal to a wide audience with genres ranging from innocent tales for young girls to erotica.
US sales of manga in 2005 totalled a modest US$180 million, according to ICv2, a trade news organisation specialising in pop culture products.
Yet when manga and anime are combined with video games, toys and movie or television deals, the US market balloons to US$10 billion.
In a sign of anime's creep into the American mainstream, last year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade featured a giant balloon of Pikachu, the central character of Nintendo's Pokemon franchise.
Pokemon started as a video game in the mid-1990s and quickly grew into a multibillion dollar media franchise complete with TV cartoons, 10 feature films, comic books and a trading card game that became so popular it was banned in some American schools.
"Pokemon really was the title that, in terms of mass-marketing Japanese anime style in America, broke the door down," said Roland Kelts, a University of Tokyo professor and author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Culture Has Invaded the US.
Still, anime's popularity remains mostly underground. The movement is driven by die-hard fans who gather at festivals to swap films, create music videos based on popular songs from anime movies or ogle rare comic books from Japan.
Not since the punk rock era or the heyday of the "Trekkie", or Star Trek, conventions have Americans donned such wild costumes en masse to celebrate a piece of pop culture.
"Perhaps some people watch Japanese animation to rebel against their parents. The dressing-up aspect of it certainly makes me remember Southern California punk clubs I used to go to in the early 80s," Michael Arias, director of the animated film Tekkon Kinkreet, wrote in an email.
Arias is the first American to direct a feature film for a Japanese studio and Tekkon Kinkreet premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to sold-out shows in late April.
To counteract an ageing population at home, Japanese animation studios are looking overseas to find young fans.
Afro Samurai is a case in point. Featuring the voice of Samuel L Jackson, the animated series features a samurai in a futuristic feudal Japan who is looking to avenge the murder of his father. The five-part television series aired in the US this year and will be broadcast in Japan this month with a hip-hop musical score produced by Wu-Tang Clan member RZA.
"What you are going to see more and more of is internationalisation of Japanese animation," said Kelts.
"The question is: Will it still be Japanese?" Reuters
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