A Live Webinar Dissects Manga and Anime as Global Phenomenon
Roland Kelts (upper L), Julia Mechler (upper R) and Bill TSutsui discuss about Japanese manga and anime as a global phenomenon in a Japan Society webinar on Feb. 15
How has manga and anime, which represent modern Japanese pop culture, become a global phenomenon and what is the secret of their popularity beyond its home country?
A panel of manga and anime specialists gathered on Feb. 15 to share their insights into these issues via online. The live webinar, “Japanese Pop Culture: Connecting the World through Manga and Anime,” was organized by the Japan Society, which is based in New York.
Speakers were: Julia Mechler, a manga creator from Okinawa, producer of Okinawan traditional performing arts, and Content Production Group Manager at mixi, Inc.; and Roland Kelts, a Tokyo-based Japanese-American journalist and the author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S.
The moderator was Bill Tsutsui, President and CEO of Ottawa University who wrote Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization.
Expansion to Global Market
In Kelts’ view, the definition of the word “mainstream” has changed dramatically over the recent years. Rather than manga and anime going mainstream, mainstream came to manga and anime. And it’s partly because of the “explosive fan base outside of Japan.”
In 2021, the overseas market for Japanese anime outgrew the domestic one, racking up more revenue than the Japanese market did. As anime is now available on many streaming platforms including Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, and Disney Plus, Kelts believes this trend will continue into the near future.
Because of the huge success of anime, demand for comic book originals – manga – has gone through the roof. For decades in Japan, anime shows have served as advertisement for their manga originals in print.
Now this is happening all over the world. According to NPD book scan in the U.S., manga sales grew 171% from 2020 to 2021, Kelts said.
Historical Roots
Modern manga and anime are not something purely Japanese but a hybrid of Japanese art form and Western influence, specifically one which came to Japan during the 19th century Meiji era and after the end of WWII in the 20th century.
Japanese roots, in the meantime, can be found in some of the key traditions from Japanese culture.
The tradition of emakimono (scroll paintings), for example, goes back to 7th and 8th centuries. Coming to its peak during the 12th and 13th centuries, these scrolls were used to tell stories in the form of illustrated narrative. For instance, the famous Choju-giga (“Animal Caricatures”) pokes fun at the upper classes, using simple lines called “an economy of line” to depict caricatured animals and humans.
These strokes and lines, Kelts explained, are the same elements fundamental to manga and anime. “If you want to take it all the way up to the 20th century, you think of the outlines of Hello Kitty and Pikachu,” he said.
Japanese woodprints, or ukiyo-e, from the 19th century also takes the economy of line in storytelling.
Being for mass consumption, ukiyo-e was similar to today’s manga. It was disposable, could be crude, funny, erotic or irrelevant, and shared a formula for modern manga and anime for these reasons.
Kamishibai, street corner paper plays or storytelling, flourished in Japan from the 1930s to the post-war period. These sliding images were a pictorial narrative, and could be considered as a precursor to television and, certainly, an art form that influenced manga.
Kelts points out that Japanese storytelling has emotional tones that might not be found in Western stories.
It offers contrasting emotions like terror and comedy at the same time, typically in ghost paintings and stories. They often express different emotions that may not be very familiar to Western readers. An example is a novel Yabu no naka written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, which is known as the base of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon. In it, a dead man speaks in a murder/rape investigation, along with live witnesses. This mixture of emotional tones is also part of the characteristics found in modern manga and anime.
Uniqueness of Manga & Anime
Q: What sets Japanese anime and manga apart from all other animation and graphic novels in the world, as their visual style is becoming more dominant among young kids around the world?
Roland Kelts
Kelts: I think Pokémon had the most decisive impact on anime fans when it appeared in the 1990s.
Before Pokémon, there was certainly a broad fan base for classics like Osamu Tezuka and other great manga artists of earlier generation. But Pokémon really blew the doors off fandom around the world.
By using the economy of line, Pokémon attracted fans in Japan and beyond, with its characters so easily recognizable. The aesthetic was not exclusively Japanese: American cartoonist Charles Schultz created Charlie Brown and Snoopy characters using the great economy of line. It works well for powerfully bringing characters to life. I think Pokémon really changed a generation of fans and artists outside Japan.
There is also something participatory about manga and anime.
Whereas Marvel and DC comics make you feel like you are watching epic events happening in a big stadium, manga and anime makes you feel like they are happening in your back pocket.
The stories in manga and anime start quietly, not with an attention-grabbing big bang. That’s another reason manga and anime feel like everyday life stories and, therefore, make younger generations feel as if they are part of them.
Mechler: I think such intimacy in manga and anime comes from the fact that Japan doesn’t have a single religion that everyone believes in. That makes anime stories feel more open to any group of people.
Characters in Japanese manga and anime are ambiguous and hard to tell where they are from. For example, Sailor Moon has characters with all kinds of hair colors, from blonde to brown to blue.
This ambiguity in character description is a reflection of the multiplicity of human nature and actually very realistic.
Industry in Japan Today
Q: More Japanese manga/anime creators are working in other countries today as the industry is getting globalized. What are the problems or issues in the industry in Japan?
Kelts: One of the problems of the Japanese anime industry is that it doesn’t pay very well.
The current system is unsustainable, and it’s no surprise that overseas animation companies are luring Japanese artists with better pay.
Some of the young, talented artists are understandably taking up such offers, ending up in Shanghai, Guangzhou, or at Pixar or Disney.
The Japanese industry is getting more aware of this problem and there is an ongoing effort to fix it, particularly among the CGI studios, but it has a long way to go.
I also want to mention the incredible inventory of manga and anime stories accumulated throughout the past 70 years.
For example, Devilman Crybaby, which came out on Netflix five years ago, was a revival of the 1970s’ manga series “Devilman” by Go Nagai.
There is so much richness in the inventory of stories and visuals that it’s incredible. I don’t believe anybody will be able to catch up with Japan in my lifetime.
There’s so much great material and young Japanese know how to draw, even kids just coming out of middle school. I don’t think you can replicate that overnight in another country.
Q: Japanese folklore mythology is rich with so many narratives from which creators of pop culture today can draw.
Kelts: Japan has a relatively flexible sense of spirituality versus institutional religion, which we have in the West.
This makes Japanese stories a little more agile, relatively free from party-line issues such as gun control and abortion. Artists can explore ideas without being heavy-handed all the time.
Mechler: There are some things we have to be careful about, when bringing Japanese content to the U.S. market.
When the content is unlikely to be accepted in the U.S., you have to say so to the Japanese team and prepare them for modifications.
Also, the abundance of stories mentioned earlier could be part of the reason why Japanese artists and creators are not appreciated as much, because people are just used to seeing it for free.
It leads to these creators working for Chinese or Korean companies. They are good at creating a better platform for overseas viewers like Webtoons.
Kelts: Japan has this great “monozukuri” tradition of making physical things really well.
On the other hand, I think there is a tendency in Japan not to take abstract ideas seriously, like software, entertainment, or stories. You pitch a story to Japanese film producers and they are not going to put any money behind it.
There are so many stories in Japan already that if you come along with more stories, it can be treated as just another story. Every street corner in Osaka has a story.
Opportunities for Foreign Artists
Q: Has the growth of foreign markets for anime and manga opened up opportunities for foreign artists?
Kelts: It’s one of the most exciting, recent developments in manga and anime in Japan.
Recently I wrote about a Black American artist working with Japanese manga and anime producers. He did an anime story about the first, or maybe the only, Black samurai in Japanese history. There is also an anime studio in Tokyo founded by a Black American.
Still, the market for foreign –made or non-Japanese-made comics is pretty weak in Japan. The Japanese audience is not very receptive to manga or comics made outside of Japan. From what I’ve heard, it’s kind of hard for non-Japanese artists to get into the market there.
Julia Mechler
Mechler: I never thought about it from that perspective. Now I think maybe that’s why none of the publishers in Japan wanted to publish my story [because I’m not a 100% Japanese creator]. It was an American publisher who wanted to do it.
It’s definitely different for a gaming industry, though. I currently do a kind of merger of gaming and manga in the form of an app. It’s coming from a gaming publisher. I see that the two worlds [game and manga] are more and more merged together, and I think we will be seeing less of the attitude [of accepting only Japanese creations] because many Japanese publishers want to go global, and that means going into app.
I’m assuming that this trend is going to change the platform of manga.
LGBTQI in Manga & Anime
Q: Some manga and anime stories feature LGBTQ characters. Can manga and anime have a meaningful impact on social awareness about LGBTQ?
Mechler: I grew up watching Sailor Moon, and I never questioned it when a character in the story dressed as a man in one occasion and wore a female fighting costume in another, because it just came so naturally. I think in Japan there is not much opposition to LGBTQ; it’s not discussed as much as in the U.S. In anime, it’s just another character. They are just who they are.
Kelts: When it comes to LGBTQ, I think in Japan people will look the other way to a degree, as if saying that storytelling is storytelling. There is fluidity and tolerance about what you do or fancy. But it’s not exactly what your life would be like in reality. Japan can be pretty backwards when it comes to civil rights for people who are different. There’s sexism, there’s racism, there’s chauvinism. Japan is hardly Shangri-La.
There’s a level of intolerance, and I think it’s important for manga and anime fans to know that what they read or see in manga and anime is a fantasy and a projection by skilled storytellers. I try to tell young Americans who talk to me that yes, you should go to Japan, but please know that it’s not an anime.
Mechler: Still, I think Japanese anime & manga could inspire kids in America or some other countries to feel that they can be LGBTQ and still be a hero. They might relate to the character and feel that they could have courage to be part of the change.
Manga & Anime Evolution
Q: Has foreign demand for anime and manga changed their art form?
Kelts: Since Netflix opened their offices in Tokyo five years ago, there have been two evolving categories in the industry.
One is the anime-inspired work in the form of CGI, digital or 3D. They are often jointly produced by Japanese studios and studios in other countries. They retain a look or feel of anime, and are often intended for an international audience.
The other is what I call traditional or conventional anime that’s made by tiny studios in Japan.
This type of anime is basically made for the Japanese audience, but it doesn’t mean that a foreign audience will not love it. For example, Kimetsu no Yaiba (“Demon Slayer”) was first out as a manga that’s set in the Taisho-era Japan, and was not expected to appeal to an overseas audience. But when the movie came out, it made records overseas as well as in Japan. So it’s very hard to predict how a title will do just because it’s made for a Japanese audience.
Ningen Shikkaku (“no Longer Human”), a 1948 novel by Osamu Dazai, is a pretty depressing story about a miserable guy, and it’s the number one Japanese literature bestseller on Amazon in the U.S. Part of its popularity is due to the main character being featured in an anime series.
Also, who would have thought Bungo Stray Dogs (an anime based on the hit manga series of that title) would take off outside Japan? The characters are based on famous Japanese novelists and writers.
So that’s the ongoing evolution of manga and anime I’m seeing. There is anime-inspired work on one hand, which can be very different and interesting; on the other hand, we have homegrown work intended for a Japanese audience, which sometimes takes off overseas quite unexpectedly.