There are two definitions of the word "Foreign". One is the literal meaning that
something is from a country other than your own and the other is the idea that
something is exotic, unknown or unfamiliar.
There was a time when these meanings weren't so separate.
Where the etymology just made basic sense.
"Of course music from Korea would be unfamiliar," they might say.
"They're seven thousand miles away!"
But today, K-Pop has sparked global appeal! Fan clubs, concerts and
that's not to mention, KCon, a Korean Popular culture convention that travels
the world each year, visiting seven cities in different countries for 2017.
But I bring up K-Pop for one main reason and that's a boy band called "EXP Edition".
Beginning as a thesis by Bora Kim, a researcher investigating the global
popularity of the K-Pop genre, she assembled the group in 2015 with the
catch that none of the performers were Korean.
The experiment has received constant backlash with some describing it as an affront to the K-Pop subculture
and many recommending they just do normal pop music instead and that's an option.
We can just abide by what we know. As someone from Australia I can just
stay home and raise kangaroos. But there's something amazing about breaking
down borders and globalizing entertainment. And if there's one medium
that seems to be benefiting the most from becoming a part of global culture,
it's anime.
Anime is a global medium. Not just in the way that people all over the world enjoy
it, but in how it's been adopted as an aesthetic and how people have traveled
miles to become a part of it. International licensing has become a
huge part of how anime makes money, overtaking merchandise revenue in 2015
and enthusiasm for anime both within the US and China are huge parts of that.
Especially China.
It's important to talk about China in anime, because that market is going to influence the future of anime as
producers start talking, not just about what would be appealing to those within the domestic market,
but also putting an ever increasing importance on those overseas.
Producers have constantly referred to their desire to create anime that is popular in
America and viewers have been putting in huge numbers for Chinese streaming
services, even reaching up to 100 million for RE: Zero on BiliBili.
And famously, Your Name hit the box office with 42 million US dollars in its
opening weekend in China. These are outlier numbers, but they give
us an idea of not only the size of the market, but its value. With multiple
streaming services available and an audience that they can rely on, bidding
wars may result in more revenue entering the anime industry from China.
So therefore, it's no surprise that international streaming services are
taking the extra step. Instead of just buying the licenses to stream the series,
they're going straight to the source and aiding in producing it. For example, BiliBili
helped produce both Idol Incidents and Akiba'Strip, whilst Crunchyroll was
on the production committee for Kemono Friends, Masamune-kun's Revenge and many more.
The only reason so many anime can be
produced today is that companies from outside the traditional Japanese market
are interested and represent the millions of fans that don't happen to
live in Japan.
There are increasing examples of
anime made possible with support from overseas, but there's already endless
examples of anime produced by people born overseas.
You can go back to the 1990s, when Michael Arias moved to
Japan to direct Tekkonkinkreet or you can talk about just this year where
Korean animator Se Jun Kim was selected to direct Gundam Twilight Axis.
We can go on and on about cultural changes and an expanded global
entertainment market, but the simplest fact of the matter is that people love
anime, regardless of what borders they happen to live within. And if you're not
set on leaving home, countries of close proximity to Japan are actively involved
in the anime producing business.
Whilst there are obviously Chinese and Korean domestic animation, the huge majority of animation produced in these countries
are exports. Whilst in Japan, studios will decide on the location for their building
based on the proximity of business partners, the reason many Korean and
Chinese staff gave for their location was basically:
"It's close to the airport."
Furthermore, whilst Korean studios will primarily be sending animation to Japan,
the United States or France, they will only contract out to one country each.
Put simply, Korean studios that work with Japan, will only work on Japanese anime.
If you're an American producer you can't ask this studio to do your work. You'd
have to ask one that works on American productions. And when domestic animation
is produced in these nations, there's very clear inspirations.
To Be Hero's Chief Animation Director Lan told WaveMotionCannon that "Japan is a strong
neighbor and a role model Chinese audiences are already used to Japanese
animation so they expect that Chinese animators can make something at the same level.
Although, when it comes to South Korea, the Japanese aesthetic can be
regarded as a political statement. In an interview with South Korean mangaka Tiv
who moved to Japan for her work, she explained that she loved Japanese anime
and manga back in school, however despite the proximity of South Korea to Japan,
many illustrators were encouraged to draw in realistic Western styles.
In an analysis by Frog-kun for AnimeFeminist.com, they note the identity politics
involved in regards to Japan's former colonisation that lead to the banning
of Japanese media for 50 years.
But Tiv also mentions her ability to discover new
creators through the internet. You can't stop people from loving Japanese culture
when it's only one URL away. And this is all the more relevant today.
I did an article for AnimeNewsNetwork with the original title being: "The Anime
Influences of Western Web Animators". The purpose of the article was to describe
how animators today are using the internet to both find inspirations and
publish their own work. And so I conducted a load of different interviews
and concluded that anime will largely be influencing global animation from an
aesthetic standpoint because many of those learning animation are learning
from Japanese artists online. And just one month after that article
was published was the announcement of the Castlevania Netflix series.
An American production with huge 90s and 80s anime inspirations. Oh, and fun fact:
Christian Maize, the animator who made my channel intro worked on it! Amusingly, some
people didn't even realise it was an American show with some people believing
it was produced at Studio Madhouse. With producer and director Adi Shankar
mentioning that he was inspired by shows like Vampire Hunter D and Space Pirate Harlock,
the use of the word "anime" as anything other than geographical
identification appears all the more obsolete. If you take one animator from
Massachusetts whose biggest inspiration is Masayuki Nonaka [KayAnimations] and another from
Fukuoka who was inspired by Shinya Ohira, [Masaaki Yuasa] both continue a legacy of Japanese aesthetics.
Perhaps EXP Edition's backlash was in its blatancy.
he group's full name is "EXPeriment Edition" after all, clearly drawing
attention to the fact that the project is something strange, unfamiliar and
using its second definition, foreign.
I have a similar worry regarding Indigo Ignited,
a short animated film directed by former Pierrot animator, Henry Thurlow.
I'm yet to see anything that strikes out as truly remarkable about
the project, but in every instance, it markets itself as the "American Anime". As if it
were weird and different, rather than an anime that can stand next to
other projects with confidence. Anime has so many different aesthetics to play
into, but like EXP Edition, it's the marketing that seems to place it within
this sort of middle-ground. Neither an american animation nor a Japanese anime.
A Schrodingers anime.
This is left in comparison with LeSean Thomas' collaborations in Japan.
Firstly with Studio Satelight for Cannon Busters and most
recently with Yapiko Animation on Children of Ether, funded by Crunchyroll.
Both productions operate with foreign staff members living in Japan. For Cannon
Busters, the mechs were designed by French art designer Thomas Romain, Austrian
animator Bahi JD was a part of the project and the backgrounds were
directed by French designer Yann Le Gall.
The project will be getting a full 12 episodes next year
thanks to both Netflix, an American company and MangaUK,
a British company. And speaking of Netflix, they recently announced that 90%
of its anime viewers are watching from outside of Japan.
And then with Children of Ether, it was produced at Yapiko Animation, a studio with ties to both the
French animation industry and Japan with studios in both countries. Meanwhile its
Meanwhile, it's storyboarded by One Punch Man director Shingo Natsume and the world renowned
animator Mitsuo Iso provided animation for the project. And not once has LeSean Thomas
referred to it as a European anime, an American anime or labelled it
as anime inspired. It's just anime. And it's anime with confidence and no
specific geographical ties. Because foreigners working in the anime industry
One of the best anime sites out there is FuransujinConnection,
a community of French anime staff who provide facts and tips for
those within the growing French animation world on how to work on the
anime they love and all the things they'll need to know about the Japanese
animation process. With the closure of many Japanese animation schools,
the anime industry is on a path towards global reliance. They will need to take
more flights to foreign animation schools in Europe and America to find
new talents to help create the increasing workload of anime in Japan.
And so Anime is a global medium. Its popularity worldwide has inspired both
companies and individuals to want to become a part of what was once uniquely
Japanese. And it's not like anyone wants to change it or mold it into something
dramatically different because those involved understand its inherent global
appeal as a storytelling medium. Whether it's producing animation outside or
inside of Japan, it's something that anyone can be a part of, regardless of what
country they happened to be born in. If you want to work in Japan, study your
Japanese language skills, because you're going to want to be able to talk to your co-workers.
And if you want to stay where you are, just start creating. Put yourself out there and make what you love.
Thanks for watching The Canipa Effect. Various sources and further reading are
included in the description. But before I go, I want to thank these amazing people
for supporting the channel on Patreon.
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