It's not every day one finds himself in a room being wooed by a boy named Tiger, a robot and a certain Mr Yoda. That’s exactly what happened last month, when this reporter witnessed 10-year-old Tiger Onitsuka (no relation to Onitsuka Tiger, the sneaker) beat the hell out of his drum kit as the “world’s youngest pro jazz drummer”.
Following which, a Kenny G wannabe serenaded a sea of stiff suits with his sax - as a robot perched on his shoulders bobbed its mechanical head.
It was the opening night of CoFesta 2008 and the Japanese were showing off. Polite applause, please.
World Domination
In its second year, the month-long Japan International Contents Festival was an annual umbrella showcase of ongoing festivals, including the Tokyo International Film Festival and Tokyo Asia Music Market.
As the country’s celebrities and bigwigs (including actor Koji Yakusho of "Babel" and "Memoirs of a Geisha"; model/actress Anne Watanabe, daughter of Ken; and Tatsumi Yoda, new boss of the Tokyo International Film Festival and erstwhile CEO of top Japan music label Avex) filed up on stage to hard-sell - excuse us - praise CoFesta, it all became clear.
Japan is geared for world domination. And they’re doing it with anime, film, wacky TV shows and music.
The country’s “contents industry”, as it is collectively called, is estimated to be worth ¥20 trillion (S$315 billion) this year.
And why not? Anime flicks and TV series have seeped into global youth consciousness. European countries are scrambling to buy rights to various TV variety programme formats even as Asian viewers gorge on dramas. Last year, Japan’s film industry churned out 407 movies.
This month, Singapore will be playing Japanese with two major events on pop culture beginning this Saturday: The inaugural Anime Festival Asia (AFA08) at Suntec Convention Centre is a two-day extravaganza as a lead-up to the opening of the Japan Creative Centre in the middle of next year. Over at Singapore Arts Museum’s (SAM) 8Q, you’ve got the Japan Media Arts Festival.
Anime-nation
Why is everyone going gaga over Japanese pop culture? Because Doraemon is just darn cute, lah.
That and the fact that he belongs to the world’s cutest billion-dollar industry.
Last year, worldwide sales for anything to do with anime (Japanese for “cartoons”) amounted to an estimated US$2.22 billion (S$3.37 billion), according to the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA), an industry group comprising 50 anime studios and distributors.
Global revenue for TV anime shows stood at US$441 million.
In Singapore, the anime industry - which includes merchandise and manga (Japanese for “comic books”) - is estimated to be worth S$50 million. Although manga is considered a new thing in the West, it has been exported to places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and China since the 1980s, said Rony Neo of Chuang Yi Publishing, which has been translating popular titles like Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk into Mandarin, English and Malay since the early ’90s.
According to Gregory Ho, 42, general manager of the all-anime TV channel Animax Asia, “Singapore has an extremely voracious appetite” for all things Japanese.
Since it was launched as a spin-off to AXN, which had regularly shown anime shows, in 2004, Animax Asia has shown more than 100 anime shows on TV.
It has recently gone into producing an original animated feature, the sci-fi show "LaMB", which is slated to be shown this coming January.
Produced in Singapore, the show is based on a winning script from a regional scriptwriting competition last year that saw 2,000 entries. It features the music of Simple Plan and the voices of Taiwanese pop star Vanness Wu and Hong Kong actress Josie Ho.
Not Just Disney
According to Ho, adults in their 30s make up around 35 per cent of Animax’s viewership.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because we’re not talking about Disney here.
While there are very few TV series in the West that cater to both youth and young adults ("The Simpsons", "South Park" and "Family Guy" come to mind), the Japanese have something for everyone.
Ho said it can run the gamut from sci-fi and fantasy to horror and romance to adults-only stuff (which they obviously can’t show here) to those dealing with politics, economics and the environment.
He added that not only does anime have the power to turn people into couch potatoes, it can actually have an impact on society.
Ho cited "Nodame Cantabile", a romance anime about a pianist and a conductor that has revived interest in classical music among Japan’s younger generation.
Meanwhile, another popular title (this time, a manga) has been causing a buzz in the wine world.
"Kami No Shizuku" ("The Drops of God"), a series about how a young man is challenged to learn how to identify different wines by his late wine critic dad, has apparently been influencing wine sales in Japan and Korea.
Sing Song
Popular anime expos held in the United States and France have become ways of exposing the West to Japanese music, said Makoto Kunwahara, secretary general of the Foundation for Promotion of Music Industry and Culture, a co-host of last month’s Tokyo Asia Music Market.
The annual event that exposes Japanese music to buyers from around the world even had a separate showcase for anime singers, including teen sensation May’*, who will be performing at AFA08.
It’s a strange turn of events for a sub-genre that was looked down on decades ago.
Another AFA08 guest, Ichirou Mizuki has been performing for 40 years and is now regarded the “King of Anime Songs”. But when he first started out, “anime songs were looked down upon. No matter how many records anime songs sold, they were placed in the corners of shops and excluded from the music ranking charts. Now there are many people there who are memorising Japanese through anime songs”.
Such rabid support from Japanese fans was evident during one outdoor concert near Mount Fuji that Mizuki held in 1999. 5,000 fans watched him perform 1,000 songs in 24 hours. Yes, you read that right.
High and Low Art
Now, if you’ve been wondering why we’ve been talking about “non-arts stuff” in this paper’s Arts section, it’s because we’re taking our cue from the Japanese yet again.
“The thing about Japanese popular culture is that they do not make distinctions between high and low art. Aesthetics is a part of everyday life,” said SAM’s Tan Siu-Lin, co-curator of the Japanese new media arts exhibit at 8Q.
Indeed, the festival features screenings of anime features by acclaimed directors Hayao Miyazaki ("Princess Mononoke"), Kawamoto Kihachiro ("Winter Days") and Kon Satoshi ("Millennial Actress") and will even have a library of manga.
Tan cited how the classic woodblock prints such as those by the Japanese artist Hokusai, which influenced Western modern art, were mass produced creations similar to your off-the-cuff manga at Kinokuniya.
One such artist who pooh-poohs these distinctions is another AFA08 guest, Kouji Morimoto. The director, most known perhaps to non-anime fans for being included in The Animatrix anthology, has done movies as well as music videos for the likes of Ken Ishii and Utada Hikaru.
But he has also taken part in exhibitions by the Superflat group movement founded by one of the country’s most prominent contemporary artists, Takashi Murakami, who’s also known for crossing boundaries by designing bags for Louis Vuitton.
“I simply do what I want to do, be it a manga, a movie or being a DJ,” said Morimoto.
From the weird ensemble of Tigers and Yodas and robots to singers who do 24-hour concert marathons to artists who shrug off all trappings of how artists should behave - that’s world domination for you.
Source: channelnewsasia.com
No comments:
Post a Comment