Did a philosopher once state that "the golden age
never is the present age?" Nobuyuki Takahashi would not agree if you asked
him that question about the anime industry and fandom in North America.
The publisher, producer and founder of Studio Hard sees a bright future
for anime. Based on the success of shows such as Dragon Ball and Pokemon,
and considering the proliferation of anime conventions in North America
(there was an Orlando, Fla. event on the same weekend as Project: A-Kon),
Takahashi thinks the anime and manga market is going to continue to increase,
with as many as one million people fans interested in these art forms.
And he's hoping to capitalize on that rising market with a new English-language
manga publication in the autumn of 2002.
Takahashi admits that not all of the Dragon Ball
and Pokemon generation will stay with fandom, but he expects there will
be enough to drive a growing production industry over the next five years.
He compares the U.S. market in 2002 to the Japanese market in 1982, "...with
the difference that there are some highly interested people who are helping
this culture rise from the grass roots." Then there's the rise of the manga
art style among mainstream U.S. comics artists, and the popularity of anime
techniques in live-action film making. Takahashi sees this leading to an
industry that will employ as many as 30,000 people in North America to
feed the growing demand for anime and manga products.
Takahashi believes in that future so strongly that
he's taking a chance with a radical approach to Japanese comics in English:
come as close as possible to duplicating the look and feel of the huge
Japanese manga magazines. Along with Negishi Tadashi, Takahashi's business
partner, a company is being created to publish a North American manga magazine
called Raijin Comics. If you picked up a copy of the pre-release edition
of Raijin Comics, the only way to tell it apart from a weekly manga book
is the English dialogue in the word balloons. Where Viz publications such
as Animerica Extra and the discontinued Pulp took a smooth, West Coast
anthology approach, Raijin keeps the chaotic jumble of ads and stories.
And while American comics are released only each month, Raijin plans to
release issues each week.
