Gephyrophillia | Watch This Space #124

Originally Posted on 02/15/2005 by Jeff Harris

I suppose everyone has heard about the deal between entertainment conglomerate Time Warner and Japanese-based firm Itochi Corp that will create a joint venture which will produce at minimum of three shows, which will be all be weekly productions by April 2006. By this June, the joint venture will have $29 million on hand with more funding from other sources as the partnership gels, including toy manufacturers and animation studios. Each of the three shows will have a budget 20 - 50% higher than the average anime series which should bring about excellent animation that I hope won't be as limited as many of the shows many otakus feel are the pinnacle of animation excellence (I won't name any names, but I have seen some anime that makes the Filmation shows look like Disney features). The intial three series are guaranteed slots on Cartoon Network in both America and Japan.

Now, when this announcement was made, the otaku element of anime fandom got all frothy saying that whatever gets made by this new joint venture isn't really anime. Other cynics believe that Time Warner will completely influence the three series and pretty much make them nothing more than toyetic series and PokeYuGi clones. Strangely, there are a bunch of animation fans that believe that the idea that a major American company is actually putting in a huge chunk of funds into new animation productions that will actually concurrently premiere on both sides of the Pacific is a great one that should have happened many, many years ago. Of course the rabid otakus and the cynics both think those fans are sipping a little too much of the wacky sauce. Let me explain why I feel that way.

Otakus believe that Time Warner are simply jumping on a bandwagon with this deal, continuing a corporate takeover of both the anime and manga industries in subtle ways. However, Time Warner isn't a johnny-come-lately, but rather the anime industry's biggest North American supporter. As owner of both Cartoon Network and the Kids' WB programming block, Time Warner is perhaps the biggest reason why the anime industry has exploded in the past decade. With blocks like Toonami and Adult Swim and popular franchises like Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, InuYasha, Full Metal Alchemist, YuGiOh, Cowboy Bebop, Hamtaro, Rurouni Kenshin, and countless others, almost every major televised anime in the US in the past 10 years is seen or has been seen on either CN or KWB. Time Warner has also made the industry stronger as a result. Distributors like 4Kids, Geneon, Bandai, and FUNimation grew by leaps and bounds as a result of having their franchises on Cartoon Network and Kids' WB. Sony's entry into the anime industry in North America has also benefited by Time Warner, which has shown Cyborg 009 and Astro Boy on their outlets. Do you even think their would be a 4Kids TV if Fox wasn't so impressed by the performance of two of their marquee shows on Kids' WB? Like it or not, Time Warner has done a hell of a lot of good for the anime industry, and their involvement in the production of three new series has been a long time coming.

Let's not forget that Time Warner has co-produced three previous anime projects, The Animatrix (along with Village Roadshow), The Big O II (along with Sunrise), and the Toonami microseries IGPX (along with Production I.G.). All of them (even The Big O II up to the final episode) were well received in both the States and Japan. However, there is still fear that the three new weekly series would be nothing more than card-battle/kid-oriented franchises. After seeing some of the most recent acquisitions like the popular Duel Masters and Bandai and Xebec's toyetic series D.I.C.E., they may be right in that assumption. But what is it that they say about assuming? Don't get me wrong, we might get a new kid-friendly card show out of this deal, but we could even get something fantasy oriented or mecha-oriented. Cartoon Network, which will undoubtably have some sayso into show development, could create a fighting series in the tradition of Dragon Ball Z or Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files. Time Warner could even surprise some folks and translate some of their library franchises into a new anime series. I could seriously see them go to Thundera to resurrect Ted Wolf's Thundercats in anime form revitalizing the almost 20-year old franchise (wouldn't it be funny if a new Thundercats series would be a part of a 10th-anniversary Toonami lineup?) or going into the DC Comics library bringing DCU franchises that just scream anime like, say, The Legion of Super Heroes? Heck, if you look at the recent shows, from Batman Beyond and JLU to the animeesque Teen Titans and The Batman, wouldn't an anime DCU series be the next logical step?

This joint venture could be the biggest thing to happen the anime industry and the animation industry as a whole. It just proves that animation is poised to be the next global entertainment industry that the world should truly notice. The lines are being blurred, much to the chagrin of otakus who want to keep anime separate from the rest of the global animation world. The joint venture between Time Warner and Itochi could very well prove to be a shining example of how the animation industry could work on a worldwide scale or an example of what not to do so others could do it right. Regardless of what happens, it could be fun. Or, it couldn't happen at all.

*end transmission*

Jeff Harris,
The X Bridge Webmaster/EiC/Lead Writer
February 2, 2005