Pokemononoke: Anime For
The Millennium
(continued from page 1)
Success Is Possible
Dragon Ball may not enjoy the U.S. awareness of Astro-Boy
-- in its '60s heyday, more New Yorkers tuned into Osamu Tezuka's
creation than the network news. For the '90s, however, it's a major
achievement. Toonami also popularized such titles as Sailor Moon
and '80s space adventures Voltron
and Robotech, the latter amalgamated, as fans well know,
from three separate anime. Interestingly, Sailor Moon, made
in Japan as a "shojo" (girls') show with superhero elements,
had failed badly in syndication and only found its feet with Toonami.
"We provided Sailor Moon with the environment, with
packaging and similar programming, which gave it the ratings lift
it never would have received in syndication," comments Mike
Lazzo, senior vice president of programming and production for
Cartoon Network. Sailor Moon offers a particularly interesting
(if trivial) case of mainstreaming. The anime is name-checked in
Barenaked Ladies' motor mouth single "One Week" ("the
boom anime babes that make me think the wrong thing"), and
fanatics may discern the lyric toward the end of the teen-raunch
comedy American Pie.
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With
Cartoon Network's Toonami series, shows like Sailor Moon
have opened up whole new merchandising arenas for anime.
© Kid Rhino.
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Lazzo plans to repeat Sailor Moon's
success with the sci-fi series Gundam Wing and the comedy
Tenchi Muyo, both established anime fan-favourites to be
screened in the near future. "Toonami will remain committed
to anime as an important and essential programming philosophy,"
he asserts. Indeed, there are even reported plans for a whole new
channel based on Toonami, a possibility that has Web sites buzzing.
Lazzo believes the "strangeness" of anime which once deterred
Americans is less of a problem. "If the story and characters
are not compelling to an American audience, the stylization of anime
can pose a barrier to general acceptance. (But) that is rapidly
changing, as audiences become more familiar with anime, due to its
current popularity with shows such as Dragon Ball and Pokemon."
Innate Differences
Nonetheless, the limits of anime's mainstream acceptability
are shown by the treatment of even kid-friendly Pikachu. Five Pokemon
episodes were deemed "unsuitable" for U.S. children, and
others edited to elide the villainous Team Rocket's cross-dressing
and similar elements. (The infamous "strobe-light" episode,
which caused seizures in hundreds of Japanese children, was one
of those excised in America.) This is only a milder form of the
treatment given to series like Sailor Moon, whose inclusion
of themes like gay sexuality (common enough for girls' shojo in
Japan) had to be chopped, along with mild nudity and less mild violence.
Predictably, such acts divide admirers of the Japanese shows; some
see it as compromise, others as bastardization. The latter stick
with uncut video editions where available, or turn to unofficial
imports subtitled and copied by fans (fansubs). The extent to which
anime is mainstreamed rather depends on one's temperament; to put
it more simply, how much of a purist one is.
The issue of uncompromised vision was a headache for Miramax, which
distributed a dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Japanese megahit Princess
Mononoke to U.S. cinemas at the end of October. A film with
little of Pokemon's cuteness (only the "kodama"
hommonculi spirits come close, with their clicking heads and benevolent
presence), Miramax was further hampered by a contract stipulating
no cuts without permission. The rationale for this was an obscure
American video called Warriors of the Wind. Warriors
was actually an imported version of Miyazaki's 1984 film Nausicaa,
cut-down and kiddified without the director's knowledge or permission.
Miyazaki was horrified at this mutilation, and determined it would
never happen again; artistically laudable, but a problem for Miramax.
In a Time article -- an addendum to a Pokemon cover-story
-- studio co-chairman Harvey Weinstein wondered, "Could Mononoke
be streamlined (i.e. cut)? Yeah, and it could be more accessible
as a result of cutting. But Miyazaki is like Kurosawa or Sergio
Leone -- one of the greats of international cinema. The very idea
of cutting is anathema to a director of this importance." ["Amazing
Anime," Richard Corliss, Time, Vol. 154, No. 21, November
22, 1999, p76.]
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Ashitaka
(voiced by Billy Crudup) and San (voiced by Claire Danes)
in a scene from Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke.
© Miramax Films.
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Given several bloody scenes and a running
time of 133 minutes -- longer than any all-animated U.S. film --
marketing Mononoke was always going to be a challenge. In
the event, Miramax opted for a limited approach, initially releasing
Mononoke to only eight screens. However, the distributor
did much to generate favourable word of mouth, previewing Mononoke
at film festivals and running a long programme of other films by
the same anime studio (Ghibli) at numerous venues, including New
York's Museum of Modern Art. Miramax also arranged a whirlwind press
tour for Miyazaki in North America and Canada. The result was considerable
press-coverage, much enthusiastic, with Roger Ebert and the New
York Times' Janet Maslin delivering much-quoted raves on the
film. Yet even favourable critics chafed at the anime facial designs
and stilted movement (Speed Racer was a common comparison),
predicting the film would look crude to viewers used to Tarzan-level
motion on the big screen.
Overall, it was doubted if Mononoke could realistically find
a wide U.S. audience. Some questions surrounding "grown-up"
animation in America were discussed in my "
Cartoon
Movies: Acting Their Age?" piece last issue. Given a running
time close to twice the Disney average, plus material definitely
unsuitable for small children, it's not surprising Miramax's release
was so cautious. As I write, Mononoke is in its third week,
playing at 47 theatres; current figures are respectable but already
falling. Barring miracles, its total earnings will be the tiniest
fraction of Pokemon's, a situation many would compare to
The Care Bears Movie trouncing Fantasia. The consolatory
hope is that Mononoke will help counter the prevalent image
of anime as cheap kitsch, perhaps attracting anime newcomers who
found Sailor Moon and Pokemon too ethnocentric (or
weird).
