CHANGING WORLD OF ANIME

I haven't been in the anime loop for some time now. One of the main reasons for this is that, similar to Hollywood, the anime world has stopped taking risks. Projects are becoming huge collaborations with major studios, even American originated studios like Warner Bros., based solely on works already popular in other mediums, like manga, novels or even blogs. The world of anime projects has been moving towards the realm of monotony for a long time now. We all are aquainted with the number of shows that feature some overly cute school girl with a sword, or a suit of power armor, or driving a giant robot. Even famed director Hayao Miyazaki has said that anime has truly gone downhill.

All is not lost though. The economic realities of the anime industry, while making it more difficult for studios to get shows off the ground, especially original concepts, have led to a new influx of foreign money and coproductions. Foreign countries which have the money, but may not have studio infrastructure Japan os known for, are capitalizing on the name and style of anime to create a new type of animated entertainment. It looks like anime, but it doesn't sound or play like anime.

One example of this is the Russian film First Squad. This supernatural, WWII film mixes anime style action with seemingly real, live action, documentary style interviews with historians and war veterans. It's a very unique concept, and the actors playing the live action parts give the impression you're watching something real on Discovery. Granted, none of them are really old enough to have been fighting in the story's 1942 setting. Still, it was nice to see something so original, even though the film on the whole could have been better.

Even though I still haven't seen it, Batman: Gotham Nights falls into this category as well, as does The Animatrix which inspired it. It can also be said that Afro Samurai, Highlander Vengeance, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and others join these ranks. Strange how so many of these involve Yoshiaki Kawajiri.

Now, I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about something like the 1980s when so many American cartoons, like Mighty Orbots or Galaxy Rangers were drawn in Japan. Those were not coproductions. That was outsourcing. In all the above examples, the Japanese studios were heavily involved in the creative aspects, or had total control and direction of them. I expect to see this expand in the future. And why not? What would you do if you had the money laying around so that you could hire your favorite character designer, your favorite director and your favorite studio and have them do your movie?