Evangelion anime director Hideaki Anno and Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki sat down with Forbes Japan to discuss various topics surrounding filmmaking and culture. Notably, the pair both shared that they don’t consider the tastes of overseas audiences when it comes to storytelling.
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They were both asked about how trends have changed the way that content is delivered and created, particularly overseas. Anno said that he focuses on what’s well-received and entertaining in Japan, and if he’s lucky, he’d be grateful if people overseas also find it interesting. Yamazaki said, “I think the greatest strength of a work released for an overseas audience is to not think about the rest of the world at all, and to focus entirely on the domestic. That gives the work more power.” He added that creators in Hollywood are better suited to cater to global tastes, which gives Japanese creators an advantage if they can reach fans drawn to a uniquely Japanese approach to storytelling.
Anno added, “Film has visual and musical elements, so I think there are fewer language barriers compared to other fields, but the dialogue is still in Japanese, and it’s a drama about people who are driven by emotions based on Japanese thoughts, so if there are people who can understand that, I think it would be well-received overseas, but we can’t adapt to it from our side. I’m sorry, but it’s the audience whom I ask to adapt to it.“
Anno says that Japan needs to improve at selling work overseas; both shared that the rise in streaming has disadvantages. “If we rely entirely on streaming, it [works] won’t become a ‘movement,’” Anno said. “It won’t become a so-called social phenomenon. People can watch it when they want, so it’s not a very shared experience.“
Veteran anime producer Taro Maki (In This Corner of the World, Millennium Actress, Kino’s Journey, Patlabor, PLUTO, Serial Experiments Lain) recently said similar ahead of the Aichi-Nagoya International Animation Film Festival (ANIAFF) earlier this month. He shared that creators sometimes feel like their works are just one of many in streaming libraries; the purpose of the ANIAFF film festival, in its first edition, is in part to platform these works of art.
Anno and Yamazaki’s views on creating collective experiences amid the ease and rise of streaming, as well as their general thoughts, make for an interesting read. They discuss Studio Ghibli’s approach to overseas expansion, as well as industry challenges, the current failure to nurture the next generation, AI, work style reforms taking place in Japan amid concerns about exploitative labor, archiving works, and their own personal histories. It’s a very detailed interview. Creating experiences beyond streaming was also a topic we touched on in our recent interview with the president of the anime streaming service HIDIVE, John Ledford.
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Whether to cater to overseas audiences is a topic that often makes the rounds on social media. Companies like KADOKAWA and Crunchyroll have discussed adapting IP beloved overseas through Japanese sensibilities to expand anime fandom. Such was the motivation behind Crunchyroll co-producing the smash-hit Solo Leveling series.
Nevertheless, for some anime fans, the stories and expressions born in Japan have provided an escape from perceived flaws in storytelling closer to home. Top-down comments about targeting overseas audiences haven’t boded well for some fans amid pressure from multiple levels of society to clamp down on expressions common in Japanese content like fan service and youth violence.
This includes U.S. manga bans led by parents and school districts, the discontinuation of NSFW products following Crunchyroll’s purchase of RightStuf, legislation like the UK’s Online Safety Act and Media Act (new regulations on major international streaming services are set to kick in in 2027), and international credit card brands financially crippling Japanese companies.
Source: Forbes Japan
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