Ten Things People Get Wrong About Anime?

The video above shows an hour-long lecture that British author and anime expert Jonathan Clements gave a few years back at the Czech con, Anime Fest. Recently rediscovered by Kotaku, it offers a brief-ish history of this art form; with fascinating insights about how certain stereotypes have spiraled from industry traditions (which actually began for surprisingly practical reasons). Definitely worth the watch if you have an hour...

== TEASER ==

Clements reiterates that the hentai stigma which continues to hang over anime in the Western mainstream's eyes is the unfortunate byproduct of how exploitative OAVs were simply imported early. Prior to AKIRA's release, anime imports like ASTRO BOY and G-FORCE were localized until they weren't even perceived as distinctly-Japanese products in Western markets - - they were just cartoons. After AKIRA, there was greater demand for anime-as-anime but, for better or worse, short-form OAVs were simply easier to license than classier, long-form series and movies. Essentially, anime's reputation in the Western word has always been colored by OVERFIEND because it was cheaper/easier to get into tape stores then.

Clements also asserts that anime's dependence on outside business concerns like figurine sales and video game company's sponsorship (among other things) has always been part of the genre. This is the long-term result of Osamu Tezuka using less-than-honest business tactics to give his animation studio a competitive edge by vastly under-reporting the actual costs of TV production. From day one, anime has been impractically expensive, and it's either had to cater to sponsors, or to niche fanbases who're willing to pay far extra than the average consumer.

So there you go. MOE actually has its roots in KIMBA THE WHITE LION. Go figure.

Let us know in the talkback if you find anything else in this lecture surprising. And, of course, we'd always like to hear which misconceptions about anime you'd love to see go away.

from Anime Vice Site Mashup http://ift.tt/1E3pXTS