Ask John: Are Magical Girls Dead in America?

Question:
Do you think Card Captor Sakura will ever get a license rescue in the US?

Answer:
I have three reasons for guessing that a future American DVD or Blu-ray release of Card Captor Sakura is unlikely. The price diferential between the current Japanese retail and an American price is too vast. The show is getting older all the time. And American interest in magical girl anime, in general, seems to be declining significantly.

The practical hurdle to a possible American re-release of the 1998 Card Captor Sakura television series lies in its Japanese retail price. The 70 episode series was released in two limited edition Blu-ray boxed sets in Japan in 2009. At release, the two sets cost 78,00 yen and 47,000 yen, or a little over $1,500 US dollars, at today’s currency rates. Even for a relatively long show, $1,500 is a staggering, prohibitive cost compared to the current retail price of other anime titles released on American Blu-ray. Even should the show be re-released on Japanese BD, it probably won’t be re-released at a price comparable to current American anime Blu-ray prices. Because American and Japanese Blu-ray media are compatable, a Japanese licensor is highly unlikely to want a competing American Blu-ray release accessible to Japanese consumers at a small fraction of the cost of a Japanese retail copy. If a Japanese licensor doesn’t want a low-priced Blu-ray release available, and no American distributor wants to try distributing an especially expensive release, the result is an unnavigable impass.

Regional Blu-ray prices may not exclude an American DVD format re-release, but a DVD format re-release may not be viable for a domestic distributor. Considering that the series is still very commercially viable in Japan, an American acquisition wouldn’t be cheap. Even if a domestic distributor could negotiate a low acquisition fee, hefty royalties on DVDs sold would likely be high to provide back-end compensation. Card Captor Sakura is now a 13 year-old show. Its target audience may not even have been born yet when the show premiered. The show aired on American television eleven years ago. When selling the hotest and latest anime on American DVD is a daunting effort these days, selling an older anime that doesn’t have a contemporary viewing audience or contemporary buzz is even more difficult. The show could rely upon its name reputation and its CLAMP and Madhouse credentials, but after eleven years, many of the American fans that grew up with the show and remember if fondly have drifted away from the fan community. For many contemporary American anime fans and potential consumers, Card Captor Sakura is as distant and unfamiliar as Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Gatchaman, Space Cruiser Yamato, and Urusei Yatsura. The underperforming American releases of shows like Kodomo no Omocha, St. Seiya, Flame of Recca, Monster, and Hunter x Hunter serve as evidence that older shows that seem to have very devoted fan followings and voiciferous demand don’t necessarily turn into strong sellers.

Furthermore, the potential American viability of Card Captor Sakura should be examined within context of American reception of magical girl anime in general. Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson recently stated that, “Shojo in the book stores really fired up that whole [manga] trend… It was great for the industry for a while.” But he continues, “They appealed to a certain age group that may have moved on in their reading habits,” and Dark Horse has been less impacted by declining American manga sales because “We weren’t so dependent on the shojo.” Countless American critics have observed that the American anime community has contracted to its cultish, insular roots. During the American anime explosion, magical girl shows including Card Captor Sakura, Sailor Moon, Wedding Peach, Tokyo Mew Mew, Ojamajo Doremi, and Pichi Pichi Pitch got licensed for American distribution, and most of them reached American DVD. However, in the past five years traditional “mahou shoujo” anime titles including Pretty Cure, Lilpri, Shugo Chara, and Fushigi Hoshi no Futago Hime either haven’t been licensed for American release at all, or have only gotten American streaming distribution. Even mahou shoujo anime targeted at young adult male otaku, like Lyrical Nanoha, Papillon Rose New Season, Sasami ~ Mahou Shoujo Club, Animal Tantei Kiruminzu, Moegaku 5, Getsumen Toheiki Mina, Saint October, Moetan, Nanatsuiro Drops, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, have either underperformed on American DVD or haven’t reached American DVD at all. In fact, if no magical girl anime series has become a big hit in America since Card Captor Sakura did eleven years ago, during the height of America’s anime boom, the market for any mahou shoujo anime now, especially a conventional magical girl anime targeted at young girls, may have a very difficult time finding a paying consumer audience in America today.

Card Captor Sakura is certainly a top selection among the most deserving and most demanded former American licenses that are overdue for a domestic re-release. Shoujo Kakumei Utena was also high among that company, and it’s been re-licensed for domestic release. So the possibility of Card Captor Sakura returning to American disc isn’t zero. However, I perceive the possibility as a longshot. Particular circumstances affect Card Captor Sakura, and none of those circumstances provide a reason to anticipate a forthcoming license rescue.