What’s ‘otaku’ in Mandarin?
The anime industry, a “small” corner of nerd-dom, has rumbled for a few years with rumors of the medium’s decline in Japan. This is tantamount to the decline in movie theaters among anime fans. So I was less than surprised when I read a piece by the Associated Press about China’s plan for taking over. I have noted the increase in popularity for non-Japanese manga and anime in the past few years, anything from Korean/Taiwanese/Chinese to American and French. I remember the days when anything produced outside of Japan was dismissed as ‘amateur’. Rumor has it that the main cause of anime’s decline in Japan is due to illegal Internet distribution, which pushed already thin budgets beyond the limit, though I can’t cite any sources.
Anime projects have operated on insane budgets and time crunches since the days of Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy in the early sixties), so I’m not surprised that some studios are cutting their losses. Somehow I think otaku-consumers, at least the non-Japanese sort, will wait and see about the quality of a Chinese anime before passing judgment with their dollars. But since bootlegging Western movies is such a big business in China, I wonder how they’ll react if the reverse happens with Chinese anime?
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