| Animazement - Sunday - Nobuyuki Takahashi |
 In a previous
appearance at Animazement, Nobuyuki Takahashi (right) of Studio Hard said
the Japanese animation industry was going to have trouble because its brightest
young creative minds were being attracted to the big-money video game industry.
On Sunday at Animazement, Takahashi said those game companies were encountering
a different kind of trouble - throwing money away on expensive projects.
During his panel discussion, Takahashi noted that SquareSoft had poured
$80 million into an unfinished Final Fantasy movie, while Annex and Sega
were having trouble finishing its highest-profile game projects. Takahashi
said that was because the game companies decided not to use anime studios
for movie projects, and the gamers wasted their cash because they didn't
know how to manage those projects. |
 We've documented
that anime production is moving from cel-and-paint to digital computers.
According to Takahashi, that's not the major change ahead in the industry.
Again, it's a financial change. Pokemon's success fill encourage new investors
- many of them American - to put money into production houses, making it
possible for companies to complete new shows. He noted that two major animators
had been forced to suspend work on their films because of money problems
but new investment might let them resume production. |
 "The Japanese
market is currently at the point of saturation," said Takahashi. "Because
of that situation, the profit that could come from any single title has
become diluted. The studios are looking at the overseas market." A search
for English-speaking fans will lead some Japanese production companies
to launch English-language web sites in the next year, he predicted. However,
that doesn't mean that all anime will become Americanized. Takahashi thinks
family shows might be less Japanese, but sci-fi shows will still be recognizably
Japanese. |
 Many American
fans have grown to enjoy the colorful Japanese animation magazines. Takahashi
said those magazines have experienced hard times because the younger fans
from the Pokemon generation aren't buying them. Takahashi predicts one
of those anime magazines (he didn't say which one) may disappear by the
end of the year. However, figure and toy magazines are doing well, and
Takahashi thinks they key to publishing success may be a link to a web
site. |
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Sunday |
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