Dr. FangLang 's Pavement

A MASSPRODUCTION COLUMN(09/22/97, 01/20/98,01/29/99 Revised)

Should we regard Japanese animation as lengthy?

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported cable TV animation business on 09/15/97 in Japan. It introduced the words of a certain president. Formerly five cable executives participated in the White House's 07/29/96 summit on children's TV: Herb Scannell, president of Nickelodeon; Judith McHale, president-COO of Discovery Communications; John Sie, chairman-CEO of Encore Media Corp.; Betty Cohen, president of Cartoon Network; and Decker Anstrom, president of the NCTA.
Her opinion in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun article was that Japanese animation is lengthy and with violent and sexual description. Her other words are often quoted by a lot of mass-media in USA. This opinion will be also quoted all over the world.
Just after World War II, a broadcast code was forced on Japan. PTAs in Japan check programs for children. "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and Director Anno were blamed in 1995.
You know animation business in Japan is classified as three types. They are TV animation, Original Video animation (OVA), and Cinema-type animation.
You know Japanese movie business is in a period of decadence. Therefore the number of movie theaters in Japan is not large. Moreover movies from USA are very popular in Japan. Movie promoters in Japan assign major part of theater resources among foreign movies. Animation movies made in Japan are usually put on the screen as an animation festival for children on vacation.
Japanese OVAs are made for anime manias. So OVAs have high quality. They are offered as LD or DVD. They includes works with violent and sexual description. As they are very expensive, their sequel is scarcely made.
TV programs in Japan are closely related with sponsors. You know Japanese sponsors are partially under major advertizing agents. Moreover animation programs are often produced by advertizing agents. Advertizing agents assign broadcasting hours. Usually 25 minutes a week in sequent 26 weeks will be assign to a TV-animation program. The 25-minute program consists of commercial films and animation films. Of course if the program has a very low rating, the program broadcast will be terminated at once. TV-animation directors must make 650-minute animation. So most of Japanese animation seem lengthy.
Japanese animation is mostly based on Japanese comics. Famous TV animations which are based on lengthy comics are "Yawara!" "Urusei Yatsura," "Ramma 1/2," and "Kochi-Kame." "Yawara!" consists of 29 volumes. "Urusei Yatsura" consists of 35 volumes. "Ramma 1/2" consists of 38 volumes. "Kochi-Kame" consists of 103 volumes and more. On the other hand, some famous TV animations which are based on short stories are "Magic Knight Rayearth," and "You're Under Arrest." "Rayearth" consists of 6 volumes. "You're Under Arrest" consists of 7 volumes. "Sailor Moon" is medium and consists of 18 volumes. (Recently Viz or Dark Horse publishes Japanese-style comic books. Glénat in France has already published Japanese-style comic books. You know those number is based on Japanese-style comics.)
However these original comics do not look prolix. The cartoonists fight against readers. If a cartoonist draws a prolix comic, readers will cease supporting him rapidly.

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