‘Sword Art Online’ Director Thinks Anime Making Significant Gains On Hollywood, But Warns That Pandering To Global Audiences “Often Leads To failure”
Though he’s both aware and proud of the anime medium’s overseas popularity explosion, Sword Art Online director Tomohiko Itō is pushing back against the growing notion that Japanese creators should pointedly pander to international audiences, as he believes this path “often leads to failure”.
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Itō, who oversaw both seasons of SAO as well as its first film Ordinal Scale, added his thoughts to the ongoing debate around the future of anime during a recent industry-centric interview given to the Japanese news outlet Daily Shincho.
Asked for his thoughts on his favored medium’s rapid rise among international audiences, particularly those in America, the director opined, as machine translated by DeepL, “Just recently, there was news that Toho acquired a British anime distribution company. Since Aniplex bought Crunchyroll in 2020, I get the impression Japanese anime has exploded globally.”
“With factors like the writers’ strike a few years ago and the impact of COVID-19, Hollywood films seem to have lost some of their power,” he added. “I think Japanese anime has effectively filled that gap.”
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On the topic of global impact, Itō was then pressed as to whether or not he personally subscribed to the idea of ‘globalizing’ anime’s creative intent, to which the director declared, “On the contrary, focusing too much on ‘the world’ often leads to failure.”
“What Japanese people think will be popular globally probably won’t appeal to people overseas. In America, where political correctness is strict, they might think, ‘Is Japan still making the kind of shows where girls fight with lots of skin, the kind that would be met with suspicion in North America?'”
However, Itō did admit there was one element of overseas anime marketing he hoped to see both expanded upon and adopted domestically: Better recognition of a given work’s actual production staff.
“Regarding the world and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – the Movie Infinity Castle, I wish more light would be shed on the internal staff. Director Haruo Sotosaki rarely gets introduced domestically, yet he’s recognized abroad. Recently, I heard from a Chinese acquaintance that he did a stage greeting with the film’s cinematographer, Yuichi Terao, to coincide with the Chinese release.
“For the sake of those aspiring to work in anime in the future, I hope the history of who did what is preserved. Director Toga is the director of the top two highest-grossing Japanese films of all time in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train and Infinity Castle. Don’t you think people would like to know a bit more about him? Since these works are hitting it big overseas too, I wish they’d feature more than just the voice actors.”
Itō’s next work, an anime film adaptation of the first entry in Keigo Higashino’s Kusnoki no Bannin series of novels, is currently set to hit Japanese theaters at the end of the month.
