Two Japanese studios for the world, ‘anime’ launches to conquer the audiovisual market | Culture

The metal door of a garage rises up and, as a saxophone adorns dinner to the rhythm of blues, light that penetrates uncomfortably reveals the unmistakable silhouette of bounty hunter Spike Spiegel, before his futuristic home planet Mars, in the middle of 2071. With these first seconds Netflix presented to the world its adaptation of anime cult Cowboy Bebopum western space with jazz nuances exhibited for the first time in 1998, and whose version with real actors premiered on the platform in November. It is long to be a punctual release: days before, Netflix had already presented or cast for the adaptation of one pieceum two anime The oldest and oldest —it hasn’t been since 1999. The Japanese animation series have always been around, even before The Knights of the Zodiac (1986), to bet das platforms in bringing to large audiences content related to the anime it intensified since the confinement of the pandemic.

In 2020, according to Netflix, more than 120 million dollars will have some content of anime on this platform. That same year, the company partnered with four of the most important animation production companies —MAPPA, ANIMA & COMPANY, Science SARU and Studio Mir— to explore new stories and entertainment formats. This initiative joins the other five studios and six independent artists who are already working, consolidating a team that is in continuous growth and with which we intend to explore Japanese animation and expand it to the entire world.

exponential growth

In Spain, one of the most relevant distributors is Selecta Vision, which has been dedicated to the management of audiovisual directs of this genre for almost 40 years. Its founder and executive-chef, Jorge Gabarró, tells by phone that the growth in this sector has been exponential. “Not the first Salão do Mangá in Barcelona, ​​held in 1997, 20,000 people passed through it. Or last before the pandemic, or 2019, I had 160,000 participants. This year’s event, held between October 29 and November 1, had sold-out tickets on a single day and had a presence of 122,000 people. Gabarró points out that, while the home video market fell 20% this year, or anime continued crescendo: “Of course there is currently a lot of consumption by platforms, sim, more than before, it was also consumed, and continues to be consumed. The increase in interest is an international phenomenon.”

A Crunchyroll platform, specialized in anime, offers the largest catalog in the world. In the last two years, we bought the rights of 150 titles for Spain. Diego Martínez, his national coordinator, also highlights the growth of the market since the beginning of the confinement of the pandemic and considers that this is one of the best moments for this sector in his country: “It would mark two stages: either boom in the 90’s, what are you doing? dragon ball, Knights of the Zodiac and classic outros; and this, because through digital platforms we can virtually immediately enjoy the latest Japanese stars on any device, wherever we want.” The number of assassins on their platform grows every year. “We have a decade to reach the first thousand assassinations since the launch of Crunchyroll, in 2006. More than a few years, in just two years, we doubled. And in 2020 we reached three thousand. We are already having a chamative growth at this time, but in 2021 we surpassed five thousand users premium and the 120 million registered users, driven by the growth of digital consumption during the last year.”

Or profile of ‘otaku’

You otaku —Japanese word with which we identify manga and anime fãs— are generally adolescents, embora, observes Martínez, “certainly or anime I can reach any one.” The coordinator of Crunchyroll details that the majority profile on his platform is “young users with ages between 16 and 30, very familiar with how anime and fãs of games”. O que mais consomem é shonen, a category aimed especially at young people, who used to be about action and adventure. Next are the romantic comedies, which would fall into a category called shōjo.

Gabarró explains that “it is very important to know users” to connect with them. “Or consumer of anime It’s very special. Não é qualquer coisa que serle para ele. He is very well-informed about the product, he knows perfectly well what will come from Japan, and editorially he is very knowledgeable. If you você make a mistake numa dublagem, it is in maus lençóis ”, he says between laughs. “He is a collector, he buys very expensive and very busy editions, being a market that grows both in units and in price”. But he observes that each country has its particularities: “For example, Mazinger Z It is powerful not in Japan and in Spain, but in France and in Italy it is nothing. and here dragon ball It is nothing compared to France, where it is a phenomenon. I’m talking about classics, because it’s true that there are other titles that work very well in all countries, like Attack of the Titans (or Attack on Titan) and demon slayer”.

A film adaptation of the latter, with the subtitle of MugenTrain, born from the success of the series, obtained in October 2020 the best library of stars in cinemas in the history of Japan, despite the pandemic. No end of the week of launch, arrecadou more than 230 milhões de reais —até então, or title changed to Frozen 2, which faturou close to 100 milhões de reais in his stretch. In Spain, the film surpassed the barreira of six thousand reais. “These films are bringing to the cinema people who weren’t there before,” says Gabarró. For Martínez, the generational change is one of the reasons that explains this process, and for this reason he hopes that more and more people will check out anime: “This is thanks to the social networks, where we share likes and dislikes that at first may seem minority, but end up going viral or becoming a trend series, and for that reason it cannot be seen by a more general public”.

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