Philippe Moins and Don Duga give us two varying looks at Annecy 2004. Moins interviews the festivals artistic director Serge Bromberg and Duga presents us with his pictorial diary of the event.
In 1963, the NBC sales force believed that if station buyers heard Astro Boy was animated in Japan, theyd think cheap (like other Japanese goods at the time) and offer next-to-nothing for the shows. Artistically, we thought American kids would be interested in shows thought to be close to home, but care little about what was happening in a remote locale somewhere. So our goal was to make Astro Boys turf seem as close and familiar as Batmans (for example).
These days, its the opposite: I was stunned a few years ago to hear one of our licensees ask permission to call our Gigantor by his Japanese name, Tetsujin 28 written in Japanese symbols (kanji)! The licensee explained that kids today prize the Japanese names over the English! (More authentic.)
So, in less than 40 years, tastes have changed completely around! (40 years ago, wed have thought that was impossible.)
By the way, the NBC guys pronounced Osamu Tezukas name as Te-ZOO-ka. The correct pronunciation is TEZ-oo-kah (emphasis is on the FIRST syllable).
