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Sean Wong June 2, 2007
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If you’ve been keeping up with anime titles being brought over to the United States in the past year or so, you may have noticed a trend set by some well-known anime companies. Some companies have been licensing and bringing over titles that, while well received by the Japanese anime fan and fansub communities, are risky titles to the overall audience in the United States. Specifically, FUNimation has brought over Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (title in R1: Rumbling Hearts), Bandai brought The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and ADV Films is releasing AIR (both the series and movie) later this year.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against any of those titles; in fact, I enjoyed all three of them very much. (AIR is even in my top 5 list.) Let me elaborate. The Japanese and American anime communities have very different tastes. Dating-sim titles (i.e. AIR, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien) and otaku-oriented titles (i.e. Haruhi) seem to be a very big hit over in Japan, mainly because the majority of the anime-watching community over there is into those genres; many of them are otaku. However, the majority of the audience over in the United States is much more mainstream. That is, they prefer more action or sci-fi-oriented titles. This kind of audience won’t receive the aforementioned titles very well.
It is true that there are people in the United States that will, indeed, buy those titles, particularly the hardcore fans and fansub community. However, these people are too few and far between compared to the rest of the anime-watching audience in the United States as well as compared to the hardcore audiences in Japan. ADV, Bandai, and FUNimation are licensing titles that will satisfy the small number of hardcore fans; they’re making rather risky moves because it is not known how the general audience will receive such titles.
It is a risky move indeed, but depending how successful these titles are in the United States, companies will have more incentive to bring other titles of similar genre over. It’s time to cross our fingers and hope for the best. Oh, and don’t forget to get out there and buy a DVD to help bring more titles over here.
Tags: AIR, Haruhi, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Kiminozo, Licensing
Category: Rants & Raves
Adun http://www.moemoerabu.net
June 2nd, 2007 at 8:23 pmADV I think are taking a chance when they decided to license AIR. From what I know, KimiNozo turned out to be a success for Funimation and I think ADV want to ride on with that success. Whether the licensing of AIR will be a hit or not, we’ll have to find out in a few months. Of course being a Key fan, I’m happy that it got licensed.
Milly Schaefer http://
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:43 amI wouldn’t say Haruhi is a very risky series (it’s already got a big fanbase in the U.S. and I’d say it’s pretty marketable since it can be enjoyable even if you don’t get all the references), at least not compared to Kimi-Nozo and AIR, but I agree with your point. It’s great to see companies taking a chance on good shows that might not be as easy to sell. Another good example of this is Honey & Clover, licensed by Viz — it’s a great slice-of-life show, but a lot of fans worried it would never make it to DVD in the U.S. Then again, with the licensing frenzy (of a few years back) over, I hope that we can continue to see more deserving titles like these brought over, not just the stuff that’s guaranteed to sell ^_^
Darren Pangan http://anime2manga.com/
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:14 amIn the case of Haruhi, I think it was the hype. AIR is a good series but I personally don’t think it will be a hit to the mainstream viewers.
Sean Wong
June 3rd, 2007 at 12:28 pmBandai did a crazy marketing job with Haruhi. I thought the viral marketing idea was pretty well planned. They probably attracted a lot more people to it when they had sites like animeondvd.com cleverly ‘advertise’ the series. Here’s hoping it’s a success.
I think AIR might give the wrong idea for mainstream buyers. That is, fathers would probably buy it for their seven, eight-year-old daughters. “Oh, look at the cute art! Susan would love this!” they say to themselves. Probably not the impression that ADV wants to give.