Answerman

Why is there a huge push for Western companies to make their own original anime content?

Mister M. asks:

"With the cold reception for Adult Swim's Uzumaki adaptation, there's been a lot of blame placed on Warner Bros. Discovery and AS for its failure and how 'Western companies need to stay out of anime.' But I want to know why there is a huge push for Western companies to make their own original anime content in the first place? And why do some initiatives find decent success (such as Viz Media's Viz Originals line) while other times fail (like the aforementioned Adult Swim anime originals or the short-lived Crunchyroll Originals, including High Guardian Spice)?"

Thank you for your question. As someone involved in one of these international anime co-productions with the Cannon Busters series for NETFLIX (2019), this question connects with me in a big way.

Episode 2 of Uzumaki is resoundingly disappointing compared to its stunning pilot episode. ANN's review of episode 2 more or less addresses the shocking drop in quality and what may or may not have contributed to it. I feel terrible for everyone involved. Nobody comes into this business to produce average work, and those using Uzumaki's production failures as the reason why Western companies should stay out of anime don't know what they are talking about. The Japanese anime production industry is doing a fine job of screwing itself up on its own terms, thank you very much.

How so? Poor working conditions, inefficient production practices, job insecurity, low pay, lack of recognition, harsh education and training regimes, and a changing work culture amongst Japan's graduates, which today values a real work/life balance over sleeping under their desks and chain-smoking in a poorly ventilated izakaya until midnight with the boss.

I don't believe there is a “huge push” by Western companies to produce their anime in Japan. There is, however, a big push to secure the international distribution rights. A case in point is DAN DA DAN, which was so popular and so expensive in terms of its asking price from producers that its simulcast ended up launching on three rival platforms in Europe simultaneously: ADN, Netflix, and Crunchyroll.

On the whole, there are maybe 3 or 4 true international anime co-productions happening with Japanese partners annually. There is far more Western interference happening at the Japanese production committee level, if you want to call it that. It is estimated that Crunchyroll is a production committee member (aka “co-producer partner”) on as much as a third of Japan's anime series output annually. I believe that Crunchyroll has become a vital partner in the long-term health of the anime industry in general. I would hate to think where we might be without their continued commitment to new anime series production.

There is no major commercial imperative for a non-Japanese producer to fight to make their animated series in Japan. Even though there is indeed a huge global demand for this type of content and an under-supply of it. Most of us are very wary of diluting what makes anime special for its audience, and that is in large part down to its provenance and authenticity. However! The creative allure of anime as a medium that allows mature and sophisticated storytelling in animation for mature audiences is very strong.

Anime has been the gateway drug for thousands of overseas animators for at least the past thirty years. For many of us, anime helped us to discover our joy of drawing as kids, and from that point on many of us never stopped. We are all passionate about anime. Most of us “animation industry professionals” have dreams of creating a series or movie in Japan with some of its amazing creative talent.

My only warning to fellow gaijin is that dreams have a way of turning into nightmares, especially in this context. Be careful what you wish for, and never ask yourself, “What's the worst that could happen?” when entering an international anime co-production. This was what I did, and as it turns out, a lot of stressful stuff can and will happen during your production.

When you co-produce an anime series, you are entrusting nearly all of the creative and technical elements from development to production and delivery to a foreign team that doesn't speak English as a first language, and who is determined to give you something back that is “better than” you imagined it could be. That's their intention because they are creative producers and not service providers*. So! You want to make sure the story you bring to Japan cannot be told in any medium other than anime, and you'd better be open to surrendering your creative control over your work to a team of collaborators. This is the exact opposite of how an American or European animated series or movie is produced. Generally! When the script is locked, and final boards are ready, we don't deviate from it.

Westerners metaphorically take their lives into their own hands when they decide to produce in Japan, but sometimes the risk/reward ratio overindexes in our favor. Take, for example, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the Netflix, Studio Trigger, and CD PROJEKT RED co-production and 2023 Crunchyroll Anime Awards “Anime of the Year” winner no less. It is a welcome throwback to '90s cyberpunk anime and is faithful to the original videogame story world and the lore it's adapted from. It pleased both fans of the game and general anime fans, and it has generated over 23 million total hours of viewing on Netflix to date. The Cyberpunk: Edgenrunners DLC expansion pack went on to sell over a million downloads, and the anime seemed to reinvigorate the fortunes of the core Cyberpunk 2077 game after it was successfully de-bugged and re-launched at the same time.

This month also sees the theatrical release by GKIDS of Ghost Cat Anzu, a glorious feature anime movie co-produced by Shinnei Animation (Japan) and Miyu Studio (France). The movie received a rapturous response at this year's Annecy Festival. There has always been a small space for European co-productions in anime. Some of the biggest kids' series of the 1980s included Ulysses 31, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, and Dogtanian.

In more recent times, we enjoyed Afro Samurai, an African-American samurai series devised by a Japanese mangaka and writer, produced by Gonzo Studio for Spike TV USA and Funimation, written entirely in English, and starring the voice of Samuel L. Jackson. The Warner Bros. Japan/Kamikaze Douga Batman Ninja film has been very successful for HBO Max as well. This production shares some of its creative DNA with the original Afro Samurai Japanese team.

Then there is Cannon Busters, a production committed to entirely in Japan over 24 months, up to post and delivery. The scripts were produced in English in LA, but everything else was created in Japan with Japanese talent and staff, with LeSean Thomas on hand as series director and producer every step of the way. LeSean relocated to Tokyo for the entirety of the production, where an interpreter shadowed him during the whole process. We produced Cannon Busters at a time when companies like Roosterteeth, Viz Media, and Netflix all wanted to own their content rather than attempt to license it away from established distributors like Funimation. It was a seller's market, and Cannon Busters was one of the most successful Kickstarter pilots to hit its funding goals at that time. It generated a lot of buzz thanks to the amazing pilot that Satelight Studio produced, and we found a home for it with Netflix.

There are varying degrees of success for every Western anime co-production like Uzumaki. As many experienced animation directors will tell you, just getting the show made and delivered is a type of success. Generating meaningful profits and a license and merchandising business is another type of success all producers strive for. Afro Samurai managed this for nearly a decade, as did Roosterteeth's RWBY. More recently, we have all enjoyed Suicide Squad ISEKAI, which I note, performed well in the end-of-season rankings.

There is space for some Japan + Overseas anime co-productions. The primary driver of these collaborations comes from an authentic place that any anime fan can sympathize with; a deep love, curiosity, and abiding passion for Japanese animation and storytelling. Anime as a medium allows the storyteller the freedom to explore genre and mature themes. To make animated stories for adult audiences. This is something every animation maker I know wants, so it comes as no surprise to see works like Scavengers Reign, Invincible and Blue Eye Samurai coming from Western studios.

In 2023, for only the second time overseas revenues earned by anime exceeded domestic consumption, with this trend set to continue this year and beyond. There is massive demand for anime, more than Japan can meet on its own, and so there is an opportunity for Western creators to produce it. In addition to these commercial and creative factors, streamers want to license popular anime generally, but some want projects that have a strong eye on the broader Western audience. It is also important to not underestimate how strong the desire to “own” the IP is by the producer/investor, and as such, the risk/reward ratio of producing your show in Japan will continue to be attractive to some of us.

Like it or not, the future of anime will be dependent on ever-closer business ties between Japanese producers and overseas/Western investment and distribution partners. The good news for those who fear that this will cause some sort of cross-cultural contamination should rest easy. Anime's value is in its unique point of view, which is intrinsically Japanese, and not something any of us want to spoil.

*About Service Animation:

I salute anyone from overseas who is determined to produce their production in Japan because it is a very difficult thing to do. The main reason is that Japan doesn't offer a service animation infrastructure. In other words, it is not a destination for overseas animation producers, generally speaking.

Japan's animation infrastructure has been built up over many decades to service its domestic anime productions. Any service work that is provided such as inbetweening (AKA “animation productions” or “douga”) is usually provided by another local sub-contracting studio. Sometimes douga is outsourced externally to neighboring studios in South Korea and China, plus a few other Southeast Asian territories.

The key animation studios, the ones that handle design, backgrounds, storyboarding, and animatics (The general look and feel and direction of the series) are usually set up by the creators themselves, and not the investors or distributors. By their very nature, creative-run studios, apart from the rare exception, are not ideal partners when it comes to service work, which is very much following the scripts and storyboards strictly and definitely not adding your own “improvements.”

Japan has always had a robust domestic production industry, which is powered by an exceptionally healthy domestic distribution network that, for the longest time, provided more than enough financial resources to ensure there wasn't a heavy reliance on overseas investment at the production level. As stated above, more and more overseas companies like Crunchyroll and Netflix are coming on board new anime series projects at the production committee stage, but they are rarely creative producers. I.e., Bringing in the IP or original script to be made into an anime. These companies are generally “buying” into a preconceived anime production, which is usually adapted from an existing manga, light novel, webtoon, or videogame IP.

There are a small handful of studios in Japan built specifically to provide international animation production service work, such as OLM (Pokémon) and Polygon Pictures (Transformers, Love Death + Robots, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Freshman Year), but even these studios have their origins in the creator-led animation industry. They will mix international service work with domestic anime co-productions. It is this lack of a service base in Japan that means Western anime productions are generally a rarity.

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