Ask John: Why Haven’t Satoshi Kon’s Films Been Relicensed?
Question:
Why has there been a lack of interest on the part of R1 companies to rescue Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent? Considering all the posthumous exposure he’s gotten since being associated with certain nameless filmmakers, it should be a no-brainer. Do you think the situation is like Cameron and Battle Angel, in that the deal which allowed Perfect Blue to be remade by Darren Aronofsky prevents anyone from seeing it until the contract expires? Or do you feel Madhouse/VAP might be asking for more money for the rights than they would have if Kon was more niche? Meanwhile, on a recent ANNcast, FUNimation expressed no interest in bringing back Paranoia Agent, even though it’s gotten a recent Blu-Ray version in Japan.
Answer:
I’d like to answer this question definitively, but I can’t because I don’t know the inside details surrounding the availability of late director Satoshi Kon’s work. I’m unaware if licensing fees for American release of titles like Perfect Blue and Mousou Dairinin have increased or are tied up and unavailable. However, I do suspect that the current economic climate and anime market have a significant impact on the acquisition and release of certain varieties of anime in America. By their very nature, eclectic, highly artistic anime titles have a limited domestic audience. Anime itself has a small American audience. Art house anime only appeals to a small niche within the already small audience of anime viewers. The majority of Satoshi Kon’s animation: Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories, which included Satoshi Kon’s “Magnetic Rose” short, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika, have been distributed on American home video by licensors outside of the core anime business. In fact, only Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent were licensed and distributed by domestic anime licensors. Kon’s productions certainly warranted relatively mainstream American distribution, which explains and justifies their acquisition and distribution by major studios including DreamWorks and Sony. However, the domestic anime industry has also seemed cool on acquiring these titles, possibly due to a recognition that such acquisitions are a credibility boon but a financial bust.
Cricitally acclaimed art house oriented anime titles including Tenshi no Tamago, Twilight Q Part 2, Mind Game,Robot Carnival, Denno Coil, and even the relatively accessible Arete Hime have never been released on American DVD or Blu-ray. Even support for the continued production of Satoshi Kon’s last film, Yumemiru Kikai appears to have evaporated. (The Yumemiru Kikai official site closed several weeks ago.) Distributors like FUNimation that prioritize the acquisition of profitable anime titles seem to recognize that anime fans love to name-drop artistic, literate, exceptional anime but not necessarily buy it en mass. In the early 2000s when the popularity of anime was ascending in America, distributors including Disney, Sony, and Warner Bros. perceived anime as a potentially worthwhile investment. Acquiring critically acclaimed anime generated word-of-mouth, award consideration, and, hopefully, sales revenue. However, in today’s reduced anime market, the big boys have little interest in anime anymore, and the remaining core industry licensors are obligated to largely concentrate on current titles and sure-fire successes. Art house anime are great catalog highlights, but they don’t sustain a catalog. If they did, we’d see more of them available domestically, like Mind Game and Denno Coil. It’s mainstream, popular anime like Dragon Ball, Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, Bleach, and Pokemon, along with cult hits like Higashi no Eden, Clannad, Toradora, and Spice & Wolf that sustain the anime distribution industry and allow the industry to supplement its offerings with classy, acclaimed, limited audience masterworks like Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika. When America’s anime distributors continue to struggle to support themselves in a market that’s half the size it was five years ago, distributors may not have the luxury of diverting attention and resources to highly praised anime titles that generate a lot of acclaim but only sell to a small minority of anime viewers.
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Actually, the reason we don’t have Mindgame is Arias claimed it was so Youtubed, it was considered a “risk” for Sony. Although that’s a bs argument, because if it weren’t for Youtube, it would have done even worse on the shelf. Plus, there were people who paid for the screening in L.A., and they were a sizeable group with at least one person who I think might have known about it beforehand. So my guess is that Sony just really didn’t have the confidence in it to take a chance, even with the Animatrix connection. Of course, they seemed to have absolutely no problem with Onigamiden, even though everyone hates the hell out of it.
“However, the domestic anime industry has also seemed cool on acquiring these titles, possibly due to a recognition that such acquisitions are a credibility boon but a financial bust.”
Not really sure how. I mean, they can just use that Satoshi Kon quote from the How to Train Your Dragon guy on the covers now. Or transfer Elijah Wood’s name-drop of Paprika to it.
“Cricitally acclaimed art house oriented anime titles including Tenshi no Tamago, Twilight Q Part 2, Mind Game,Robot Carnival, Denno Coil, and even the relatively accessible Arete Hime have never been released on American DVD or Blu-ray.”
Though there’s a claim the rights to that effing Aussie music vid of Angel’s Egg is what keeps it from coming over here, ‘cus Manga Bay *was* ready to release it here at one point. And Robot Carnival didn’t come over here for different reasons. STA literally had to sell Jojo out of its car, ‘cus Broccoli dicked them out of distribution. And by the time the anime got a mention via the SJUSA manga, the bubble already popped. I do call bullshit on Dennou Coil, though. If FUNi’s willing to take a chance on Higurashi, in spite of its fugly art, then DC should be next on its acquisition list.
Higurashi has a sort of moe (or specifically “yandere”) appeal, where Dennou Coil doesn’t really cater to any established anime niche or otaku fanbase aside from the very small “sakuga” crowd.
On the sales numbers of Kon movies, there was a Twitch Film article that talked about them (and other such “prestige” anime)
http://twitchfilm.com/news/2011/11/on-the-fan-community-and-cold-hard-economics.php
seanny: “Higurashi has a sort of moe (or specifically “yandere”) appeal, where Dennou Coil doesn’t really cater to any established anime niche or otaku fanbase aside from the very small “sakuga” crowd.”
That’s nice, but Higurashi still went OOP, which means no one here actually wants it. Denno Coil, OTOH, at least has non-otaku WOM would help it cross over. As for those figures, does anyone remember how GoFisth originally marketed Millennium Actress? I rest my case. It did badly here, because no one knew about it, not even people who knew about Perfect Blue. And Paprika probably underperformed because it came out right as the anime bubble went bust. If it was around back when people were talking up Paranoia Agent, it might have done a little better. ‘Cus that was a title everyone was talking about. Still, I don’t doubt the whole Inception controversy’s been good for Paprika in the end.
What I’m trying to get at is that Higurashi has a fanbase (in Japan anyway), has inherent moe appeal, genre appeal, and grotesque violence which all makes it marketable. It was popular enough to spawn a bunch of spinoffs. I don’t see it as a high-brow, non-core “alternative” anime to the level of Dennou Coil or Satoshi Kon movies. Relative to those, Higurashi is a pretty typical anime product.
I don’t get the impression that many people saw Dennou Coil, despite the enthusiasm from the few people who have. It hasn’t provided Mitsuo Iso with a subsequent career in directing either (He still does some rare key animation under the pseudonym, Mikio Odagawa). “Ask” John has an article, which I basically agree with, that talks about how unmarketable the thing is in the US. https://www.animenation.net/blog/2008/01/04/ask-john-will-baccano-denno-coil-get-licensed-for-american-release/
“Denno Coil may be more difficult to successfully market in America than Baccano because it doesn’t have the chic, modernist character design, the sharply defined color contrast, and the detailed background design of Baccano – visual cues that suggest “edgy,” adult-oriented animation to American consumers. Denno Coil has the overt appearance of an uninteresting children’s show – an appearance that will have to be overcome in order for the series to attract the interest of mainstream American consumers.”
If I licensed Dennou Coil, I’d have to think long and hard what to do with it and how to pitch it to audiences beyond the core anime sphere, because if just lazily slapped on a disc, it’d probably only get a few hundred sales. That may be the challenge that makes these non-core prestige pieces iffy to companies looking to make a fast buck. It’s really sad that works like these can’t seem to find a place. I really wanted to see Kon’s final film.
Well, if there was an audience for Elfen Lied, then there’s one for Denno Coil. Just like there was for Paranoia Agent. The fact that Higurashi could not compete, even though it had the advantage, proves that consumers don’t always fall under neat little categories. And if there was no market for Kon’s stuff, then those art boxes wouldn’t have sold.
Apparently there were 300 art box sets? I’d certainly believe there are at least 300 hardcore Kon fans out there.
Elfen Lied couldn’t be more of a polar opposite of Dennou Coil though. It’s slick, ultra-violent, centered around guns and superpowers, has recognizable anime fads & aesthetics (catgirl, bishoujo, generally sexed-up presentation)… Basically it has “anime”appeal. Dennou Coil is _not_ Elfen Lied. It rejects otaku aesthetics and comic book sensibilities.
Paranoia Agent had an audience? This is the best I can Google for that, which are just some rather apocalyptic Japanese sales numbers: http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2011/08/09-1/infographic-how-many-copies-did-the-first-volume-of-your-favorite-anime-sell
Japanese home-video sales are the lifeblood of anime that aren’t in the center column. Dennou Coil is a bit of a special case, since it was an NHK show (very unusual for an anime!) and not a late-night otaku show like the rest, where their overnight broadcasts are practically infomercials for the very very expensive Japanese home videos & merchandise. But as you can see, the Japanese fandom is rather unenthusiastic about DC, and unlike Paranoia Agent & Samurai Champloo & Kaiba & Panty and Stocking, DC has none of the “edgy” qualities that US anime fans would look for.
Paranoia Agent ran a couple times on US cable TV, but the fact that they don’t really play anime on cable TV anymore says something about how speculative that endeavor was. Even if Paranoia Agent had good viewership on Cartoon Network back in its day, that may not be an open avenue anymore for a current release of Dennou Coil. And as a children’s show, DC doesn’t have the colorful, poppy presentation and pacing of (say) Pokemon or whatever. DC is a high-brow prestige piece made for “NHK Educational”. Maybe a half-plausible place for it would be PBS, but I don’t know if they’ve ever broadcast an anime before.
seanny: “I’d certainly believe there are at least 300 hardcore Kon fans out there.”
Not hundreds of dollars hardcore, even in Japan.
“Paranoia Agent had an audience? ”
Well, in America, yes. Dunno about Japan, though, which is what that link covers.
“But as you can see, the Japanese fandom is rather unenthusiastic about DC, and unlike Paranoia Agent & Samurai Champloo & Kaiba & Panty and Stocking, DC has none of the “edgy” qualities that US anime fans would look for.”
Well, no one in America likes P+S, even though it was tailor-made for us. So again, it doesn’t help to lump fans into certain categories. They do like Lain, however, which DC is closest in relation to in style.
“And as a children’s show, DC doesn’t have the colorful, poppy presentation and pacing of (say) Pokemon or whatever. ”
Well, the same can be said for Grave of the Fireflies and Now and Then, Here and There.