Anime Rising

The popularity of Japanese animation extends beyond the far East

Twilight has set over Tokyo. Beneath the glow of neon signs, amidst the hustle and bustle of Japanese nightlife, a lone female figure kick starts her motorcycle to life. Weaving through the evening's traffic, the woman steers her cycle up a highway ramp, lights on her dashboard flashing an urgent summons. While speeding to her rendezvous point, two robots fly out of the night in ambush, guns blazing. Almost instinctively, her cycle transforms into a protective battlesuit around her body. Brandishing a large gun, she aims towards her attackers, her large, round eyes gleaming in the moonlight . . .

Japanese animation, better known as anime, is moving from its former cult status into the entertainment mainstream, enjoying more popularity with American audiences each year. A growing body of U.S. anime fans includes stars like Nicolas Cage, and even Walt Disney is getting in on the action, having purchased the rights to the anime series "Star Blazers."

Anime was presented to the American public as early as 1960, with classics such as "Speed Racer" and "Astro Boy." The home video market has since allowed the genre to flourish into the 1990s.

"We're about 20 times larger than we were our first year," said Robert J. Woodhead, CEO and co-founder of AnimEigo, a U.S. anime distributor. "Our sales are growing about 20 percent a year."

Woodhead started out designing video games before becoming an anime entrepreneur. Traveling to Japan on business was what gave him the idea to start an anime distribution company, and AnimEigo was born.

Before the days of mass produced video cassettes, fans were forced to buy low grade bootleg copies, some being very poor in quality. Plus, bootlegs were expensive, costing up to $150 for an import. With anime distributors now offering the best animation at an average of $20 per cassette, fans are back in the high life, buying like crazy.

"I've spent so much money on this stuff," said 22-year old Samuel Chuang in an interview with The Village Voice. "Maybe I should switch to cocaine. It'd be cheaper."

Anime distributors are not the only ones growing with the market, many video stores are now boasting larger anime sections.

"It does very well for us, it's definitely worth having," said John Biddle, manager of Allen St. Video, 232 S. Allen St. "We approximately have 350 anime titles."

Video retailers have also been watchful of the booming anime craze. To them, anime buyers have gone from a mere trickle to a flood, and as a result, they have been forced to enlarge their anime selections.

"It used to be one tape," said Dawn Velotta, manager of Suncoast Motion Picture Company, located in the Nittany Mall, about available anime videos. "Now we have an entire bankfull."

Japanese animation differs greatly from the Saturday morning cartoons and Walt Disney movies seen in the United States.

Available to consumers on both videocassette and laserdisc, anime embraces Japanese cultural settings with a variety of character styles.

Ninja warriors and space cadets are brought to life, as well as sensuous goddesses and crazed demons. Dwelling often in technological, post-apocalyptic worlds, these characters all feature trademarks of anime art: large expressive eyes, cute faces, and fantastic haircuts.

"Characteristics of anime are strong character design, innovative direction, good voice acting and excellent music and sound effects," Woodhead said.While most American animation deals thematically with fantasy and fairy tales, anime stories are more flexible.

Anime hurtles its viewers into realms of incredible technology, violence and crime as well as lands of swords and sorcery. Often with the help of complex and challenging plots, robots and cybernetically-enhanced humans are found battling for supremacy in many anime adventures.

"Because anime is made for many different audiences, from kids through adults, it tends to be able to stretch artistically," Woodhead said.

Anime, when stretching, can be visually amazing.

Characters and scenery are drawn with meticulous detail, emphasizing surface contours and the light that plays off of them.

Anime artists such as Kenichi perform thorough research before making a film. Vehicles and weapons characters might use in the anime are technically accurate, down to the last screw and serial number.

"Often I hear people say that anime is so detailed," said Darold Davis (senior-integrative arts) "The characters are very colorful and vibrant."

Yet, being animated doesn't automatically mean that everybody can watch.

Many titles contain graphic violence, and major and minor characters are often killed. Nudity and sex are also present in some animes.

As a result, parental warning stickers have been placed on anime videotapes to alert unsuspecting consumers. The Japanese can get away with putting this controversial material into their animation, as anime in Japan is created for all age groups.

Historically, storytelling in Japan began 700 years ago, when woodblocks were a popular means of telling tales.

The roots of Japanese animation can be traced back to the 1930s and 1940s, when Japanese artists began to experiment with the medium. Due to World War II intervening, these animators were for a time restricted to only producing propaganda. By the war's end, Japanese animators were free to use their creativity once again.

Defining the traditional style of anime two decades after the war was Osamu Tezuka, with his ground breaking comic books.

"He's a legendary artist in Japan," said Davis, who is minoring in Japanese. "He pioneered anime."

Japanese comics, known as manga, serve as the basis for most anime films.

Just as most American films are based on novels, anime is based on an individual artist's manga. Due to competition with big-budget Hollywood movies, the Japanese movie industry began to focus more on animation, using various manga to provide the screenplays.

Extremely popular with the Japanese, manga is also beginning to find an American audience.

"It's been pretty well received," said Kris Boose, owner of the Comic Swap, 110 S. Fraser St.

Boose said that some manga titles sell better than others, and that a Japanese manga version of "The X-Files" is currently popular.

"It's just like comics here, there's good and bad stuff," Boose said. "When people get exposed to the good stuff, it's going to find an audience."

A manga hot with American audiences right now is Ghost in the Shell, an eight part series by artist Masamune Shirow.

"When the series was coming out from Dark Horse Comics, it did very well," Boose said. "Now they collected it into a book and we continuously sell out of it."

Last year an anime based on Ghost in the Shell was released by Chicago-based Manga Entertainment. Ghost in the Shell proved to be a groundbreaking moment in anime history, marking the first collaboration between a distribution company and a Japanese studio.

The rise of numerous college and university anime societies has been a testament to the genre's growth.

Universities such as Cornell and Ohio State have taken their societies on-line, advertising free showings on flashy web pages.

Free showings are offered by almost all university anime societies, as a way to spread interest and to bring in new members. Society members are fans both old and new.

"In a college atmosphere, people are more open-minded towards new things," said Matthew Smith, president of the Penn State Science Fiction Society, also known as PSSFS.

This power to attract new fans has not gone unnoticed by anime distributors, who do their best to assist college anime festivals.

- Robert J. Woodhead, CEO and co-founder of AnimEigo

"They do a very good job introducing people to anime," Woodhead said of these societies.

Free showings on college campuses bring in varied amounts of attendance. The PSSFS usually holds one anime festival per semester, and its audience size usually depends on outside factors such as football games.

"As for the people who show up, it usually goes in waves depending on what we show," Smith said.

Many college anime societies have good-sized videotape libraries.

Animate! Ohio State, at Ohio State University, offers members access to over 60 titles, provided they pay the $5 membership dues per academic year.

"We try to stick tapes into the tape library. . . essentially one for every person that joins," said Will Ray, coordinator for Animate! Ohio State.

To some fans of manga and anime, merely reading and watching isn't enough.

Stories inspired by and based upon favorite animes are written by enthusiasts and posted to internet newsgroups, while their sculptures, paintings and sketches go on display at anime conventions.

Not surprisingly, all these creative activities have been classified into what's known in anime circles as "fan art."

"There are people who do fan art," Davis said, "but I really want to go somewhere with it and not just draw it."

Davis, who will be studying in Japan this academic year, began drawing in the anime style since he attended high school. He discovered the world of anime through reading magazines, and decided to try his hand at reproducing what he saw.

"I would open up the magazine, put down my sketch pad, and draw freehand," Davis said.

Eventually, Davis found the only things he would draw from then on would be anime characters.

Now he prides himself in his artwork, hoping it will take him overseas.

Davis said his dream is to live in Japan, doing graphic and character design for video game companies like Nintendo. While there, he said he would like to start his own manga after attending special two-year schools that specifically teach comic art.

"It really gives me pure, personal satisfaction to know that I can design something," Davis said.

Learning how to draw in the Japanese style proved to be challenging for Davis because no written manuals are available to teach it.

Anime fans are often hard pressed when looking for directions on how to draw anime.

"This has been a question that's eluded so many people," Davis said. "People are literally trying to look for directions over the net. Ultimately, one must teach oneself."

To the skilled anime artist, the ability to distinguish one artist's work from another becomes second nature.

Davis can easily tell the work of anime artists Hayao Miyazaki from Masamune Shirow's, much like contemporary experts can tell a Renoir from a Monet.

"A person like me who's been studying for a long time can easily distinguish various artist's styles," he said, "but to Americans, anime tends to be all the same."

Diagnosing the future of anime can be tricky, even for the physicians of the business.

Currently, many fans wonder if anime will lose its Japanese cultural flavor as more films are geared for world distribution.

"Once the Japanese start specifically targeting for the U.S. market, it's going to lose much of the flavor as anime historically has had," Ray said.

As an example, Ray said the anime series "Sailor Moon," released for children on U.S. television, has had all of its Japanese cultural references erased. Japanese symbols used in backgrounds were deleted out, and characters that once ate sushi are now eating donuts and hamburgers.

The manufacturing of anime as a commercial export has not come as a surprise to American distributors, in fact, to them it seemed inevitable.

Davis believes the United States resembles Japanese society, in that both cultures are driven by fads. Whether or not anime will retain its popularity, he is curious to see.

"It'll get its day in the spotlight," Davis said, "but it's only a matter of time before something else pops up."