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Anime Weekend Atlanta - Day Three - Industry
Chat
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When some of the people from the anime and animation industry got together
on the final day of Anime Weekend Atlanta, they had a lot to say. The convention
happened to come a few weeks after the big political flap, fueled by a
congressional committee and the Presidential campaign, about the potential
damage from violent entertainment. Animator Tim Eldred wasn't impressed
with that talk. "What they're complaining about is badly written violence,'
he said. "Well written violence shows the repercussions of an act, but
badly written violence doesn't. You look at Japanese cartoons and you think
`I can't get away with it.' You look at U.S. cartoons and you think `I
can get away with it.'" |
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| Why are there so many anime fans outside of Japan? "Americans are more
broad-minded than Europeans because we have this concept of a multi-cultural
nation," said Viz manga editor Carl Horn. "Americans may be more open to
Asian films than anyone realized. It's (anime) popular because it's strange
and it's different." |
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Freelance translator Neil Nadelman is one of the people who thinks
that there are so many translated anime shows around that eventually, someone
will decide to start an all-anime cable channel in the U.S. He points to
Time Warner's anime success as an example, saying "If you told me three
years ago that the Cartoon Network would be anime's best friend in America,
I couldn't have believed you." Horn, who also has Nadelman's long memory,
pointed to a passage in the Japan Edge book which quoted a (former?) Cartoon
Network executive as saying, four years ago, that Americans would not accept
anime shows. Of course, Nadelman also is critical of some Americanized
anime, especially the Fox Kids Network's version of Vision of Escaflowne... |
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| ...which tied into some talk about the never-ending sub-versus-dub
debate. Nobu Yamamoto of Bandai noted that dubs far outsell subs in the
U.S., but that distinction may become obsolete with the rise of the DVD.
While VHS tapes have only one soundtrack, DVD's can have both English and
Japanese dialogue, along with subtitles in several languages. |
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