Ask John: Will There Ever Be A Harry Potter Anime?

Question:
Do you think Harry Potter will ever be adapted to anime franchise? Gone are the times when anime was simply adapted from the common media of manga. Nowadays, everything and anything can become an anime. Light novels, video games, doujinshi, and heck, even famous American literary works are being turned into anime. With the big hype involving the last books of the Harry Potter franchise and the new movies coming out, don’t you think Japanese studios would have showed some interest?

Answer:
The Harry Potter franchise is very popular and successful in Japan. The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix novel set a new publishing record for having the largest initial print run of any publication in Japanese history. The Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie was the highest grossing movie released in Japanese theaters last year. But despite all of this record breaking success and wild popularity, I don’t think that there will ever be an anime version of Harry Potter. I have a few reasons for my opinion.

Anime based on Western literature is nothing new. Osamu Tezuka’s 1965 anime TV special Shin Takarajima was based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel “Treasure Island.” And it’s not just classics that have become the source for anime adaptations. Modern and contemporary Western literature like Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea novels and Emily Rodda’s Deltora Quest fantasy novels have been adapted into anime within the past year. But the biggest Western franchises have not made the leap to anime. There are no anime versions of Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Star Wars, Star Trek, or Lord of the Rings. The Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise is exceptionally popular in Japan, and has appeared in the Japanese Kingdom Hearts II video game, but there’s no “Pirates” anime. I suspect that there are two reasons behind these absences. First, original licensors don’t want to relinquish creative control over these franchises to artists on the other side of the world. Second, on an international scale, the anime market is relatively small. American produced animated adaptations may have greater potential for commercial success and international distribution than anime adaptations. So even if Japanese studios may be interested in producing a Harry Potter anime, author J.K. Rowling and publisher Bloomsbury Publishing may be hesitant to allow an anime production.

But Japanese studios may also be hesitant over producing a Harry Potter anime. Since the franchise is foreign, much of the potential profit from such a production may go overseas instead of remaining in the accounts of Japanese producers. Japanese sponsors stand to profit more from anime productions of original properties they own than productions based on foreign licensed properties. Furthermore, now that the final Harry Potter novel has been released, the franchise has theoretically already begun its decline in popularity. The ideal time to produce an anime is when interest in the franchise is growing; not producing the anime as an afterthought, after the franchise has already concluded.

I can’t claim that I’m right, and I can’t accurately predict the future. My gut instinct is that if an anime adaptation of Harry Potter was in the cards, it would have already happened by now, or at least been announced by now. I don’t think that a Harry Potter anime is out of the realm of possibility, but I think it’s a long shot.