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The Elements of a Fan. I've talked before about the Elements of Manga and fandom, but considering their rich base I felt another tour was in order and particularly looking at the type of fans that exist in manga and anime fandom is very interesting in terms of the development of manga's rise in popularity in venues outside Japan and its not shrinking market. How are fans helping or destroying the thing they are a fan of?
Fans of anime and manga in the US, and abroad, before the 1980's were a very small group. These were the trailblazers who touted how great the Japanese creators were to others and held up things like Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Kimba The White Lion and in the late '70's called attention to Battle Of The Planets and Starblazers. The 80's brought the first of the more pronounced anime and manga fans, many of who went on to enter into corporate world and work in companies like Viz, ADV, US Manga Corps, Pioneer, and AnimEigo. These beginning companies brought anime, and some manga, to the masses and led to the 90's anime fans that began to snatch up whatever they could, demanding more and more and creating the larger marketplace we know today.
Many of the older fans, who came into fandom in the '80's and '90's went on to major in Japanese in order to better understand their love (or obsession depending on who you talk to). Arguments over whether subtitled anime was superior to English dubbed anime became commonplace when VHS was the main distribution tool. (This argument has died as DVD's allowing both choices is commonplace.) Part of this argument stemmed from the problem of VHS only allowing one choice, either Japanese Language with English subtitling, or English Language dubbing. Though the fact the tapes were often $30 for two or just one episode was considered acceptable back then as the price we pay to have anime. Many companies went with subtitling, though companies like Viz and ADV found that making English dubbed tapes brought their goods to a much wider audience and increased their sales. Ranma ½ became the pioneering model for such releases, and other series like Tenchi Muyo, Gundam Wing, and Dragonball Z would follow this model.
The main element that united anime and manga fandom at this time outside of Japan was an obsessive compulsive nature to have it all. Series sold well, everyone had to not only watch the shows, but own them. While fansubbing (fans taking the original Japanese show and subtitling it themselves) was popular in the '90's most fansubbers would stop fansubbing a series if it was commercially bought, even if the commercial releasers did a horrible job of subtitling the series. (Sometimes the company would just put their English dub script on the bottom of the screen. Watch Martian Successor Nadesico as an example of this.)
The large rise and sales of anime drove companies to license manga as well, or to cause manga companies to expand into anime. This drove the market to have a glut of material and shows ready for new fans that at the beginning of this century came in droves and who have since left in droves, or at least their wallets have. The '90's fanbase were collector's first, fans second, and the new breed of fans are fans first, collectors … maybe third or fourth. Where once high sales could be expected for a series, and many companies were selling anime and manga, only a few now remain with Funimation the main anime distributor, Yen Press releases many manga now, and Viz doing a bit of both.
The monetary gain of anime and manga fandom, as I've spoken of before, comes in the sales, when possible, of the elements of their shows: knickknacks, posters, cosplay elements, with manga and anime sales greatly eaten up by fans tendency to just watch or read online for free rather then shell out for DVD's to own. Fans, myself included, who are more of the collector mentality and have to own, are a dying breed. Though the lack of new capital generated by newer fans maybe singling the decline of what was considered the massive manga behemoth that was teaching novels and comics what sales could really be like.
This new mentality is not just a foreign thing, many Japanese fans have become like this too, and as the profit shrinks so does the market. I've seen the trend increasing, and where many shops and businesses (such as comic book stores and Best Buy) had huge anime and manga sections these have not shrunk as more and more fans go online to get stuff for free. However, this element is not something I can wholesale condemn or condone. It is simply where fandom has gone. What is interesting to me is that even this new fandom finds that at times they want to watch or read things that they can't find online and they turn to their local stores or the older fans in hopes they have these rare gems. One friend of mine who fits this fandom wants to read Fist Of The North Star in color and well done. Raijin comics, now long forgotten, did such books in the early 2000's which are extremely hard to find now, though not worth a lot of money. But as the obsessive collector I bought mine long ago and now loan them in hopes that a new fan can enjoy what is no longer readily available.
While new fans are able to spread the elements of manga and anime easier in our technological age, the growth of the anime and manga industries in three years have shrunk back to below their output and market share of the late 1990's. Part of this can be blamed on the economy, some can be blamed on Japan's economy, and some is really at the feet of the changing fandom. Whether it is good or bad, fandom has changed and the industry has changed with it, and the elements that fandom now embrace are the ones that are being emphasized.
Jya mata otakus!
As always you can reach me at vdf1@hotmail.com
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