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Opinion

Fresh blood for anime fandom

By Matthew A. Thorn


アニメファンに変化あり

先日、米国で開かれたアニメコンベンションにパネリストとして出席した筆者は、 ファン層が大きく変化しているのを見て驚いた…。

A few weeks ago, I was invited to Secaucus, New Jersey, to be a panelist at a convention for fans of anime and manga. I hesitated about accepting, I had only been to one other anime convention, and though I enjoyed myself there, I have to admit there were enough socially impaired, hygienically challenged stalkers-in-training present to make me seriously wonder if I would ever want to go to another.

That was then, this is now. To be sure, the hopeless nerds (not to be confused with the cool nerds) were there in Secaucus, but it was clear that American anime/manga fandom has gone from an obscure subculture to a mainstream phenomenon. The clearest indicator was the presence of hundreds of kids below the age of 18, most of whom looked like they were not a favorite target of school bullies. What's more, whereas anime fandom was once dominated by males, the majority of the people there were female.

What caused this transformation? When I started translating manga professionally back in 1990, translated manga were published in the American comic book format (a stapled pamphlet, about 30 pages in length) and distributed through comic book shops, which tend to be patronized only by fans of comic books. The then-new video rental chainstores, on the other hand, were frequented by ordinary consumers and were desperate for material - including dubbed or subtitled anime - to fill their shelves. It makes sense, then, that anime, not manga, broke into the mainstream first. But the breakthrough took time. Attempts to bring "Sailor Moon" and "Dragonball" to America through television met with a lukewarm response.

One day in 1997 I received a call from Shogakukan Productions. They told me they were planning to market their most successful property in years in the States, and wanted to know if I could help them. I told them I was too busy but I also told them I thought the title would not fly in America. It was too cute for American boys, and too violent for American girls. That title was "Pokemon."

My prediction turned out to be hilariously wrong. Pokemon quickly became a hit card game, Gameboy game, and animated television series. Itwas also the first translated manga to break out of the comic book shops and into mainstream venues. To the shock of the comic book industry, the Pokemon comic book went straight to the top of the charts, easily outselling any American title.

Last August I returned to the States for the first time in several years, and was bowled over by the sight of translated girls' manga in paperback form sitting on the "Teen Fiction" shelf of Barnes & Noble. And this weekend I saw hordes of 14-year-old girls wrestle control of comic book fandom away from the old guard, many of whom are men now in their forties. While many of the geezers griped ("When I was your age, I had to walk ten miles in the snow to get my anime!"), most of us found the sight of so much young blood not only refreshing, but a vindication of our years of effort to bring the world of Japanese animation and comics to the Anglophone mainstream. I suppose the downside for me has been the fact that Shogakukan Productions has never called again since I told them Pokemon would flop in the U.S.



Shukan ST: July 9, 2004

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