The Japanese content industry has been steadily going global over the past few years, and with increasing government support and a fleshed-out expansion strategy, it is estimated to reach a market size of 20 trillion yen by 2033. Recently, Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno sat down with Forbes Japan to talk about the changes this has brought to the industry as it further expands into the overseas market.
When asked how these changes are impacting the way Japanese content is made and distributed, Anno remarked that anime and film studios haven’t made any “conscious” changes in the past years, even though the environment itself has slightly changed. “I personally never made anything with the overseas audience in mind. I can only make domestic stuff. Production companies are quick to say Think about the overseas market, but personally, that’s not my goal,” he explained.
“My stance is simply – it first needs to be a work that will be well received and found interesting in Japan, but if by any chance people overseas also found it interesting, I’d be grateful for that.” Anno mentions that working on Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, he “wasn’t considering the overseas market at all.” Apparently, he decided to produce the film independently because it meant no one else could interfere, and he was ready to take full responsibility for it regardless of how well it performed financially.
Anno explains that making a film for a non-Japanese audience comes with some considerable difficulties, especially the language barrier. “Works that are made through a Japanese thought process can only be understood in Japanese. Film has both visual and sound elements, so compared to other forms of storytelling, the language barrier is not that . However, lines in the script are still in Japanese, and the drama is achieved through the thoughts and feelings the characters experience in Japanese.”
The Evangelion director remarks that such works can be well received overseas as well, given that the audience understands the intentions and nuances of the narrative expressed in Japanese. However, he also says that as a creator, he can’t accommodate his work to the audience. “I’m sorry, but the audience will have to be the one to adapt,” he added.
Compared to video games, which are interactive media, “film is a one-way road,” Anno explains. Even if the audience complains, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the complains are reaching the creators – film isn’t a medium that accommodates its contents for the viewer. “That’s why the audience has to trust the creators in what is interesting, and that’s why I think it’s completely fine to keep production domestic,” he says. “Even Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki stick to domestic production, and I’m sure that they don’t even think about the overseas market.”
As Anno suggests, overseas promotion can come later, and that’s not something creators should be concerned about. “We should let the business people turn our works into products and sell them, that’s the best course of action,” he says. But a part of why Japanese works haven’t been able to make it to the West until now is because “we were kind of bad at selling them,” the Evangelion director remarks.
Related articles:
