ANAHEIM, California -- Anime has landed, and it just might stay for awhile.
The Japanese cartoon art form has grabbed the attention of American entertainment companies looking for new ideas. Game developers, television executives and movie directors have been scouring Asia looking for the next Spirited Away, which won the Oscar for best animated feature film in 2003.
This Fourth of July weekend, that search moves to Anaheim, California, which is home to the 12th annual Anime Expo.
What started as a modest 1,700-person gathering in San Jose, California, in 1992 has mushroomed into a major event. It's expected to draw 20,000 people who have come to hobnob with Hollywood types, revel in their collective fandom and see the latest Japanese anime making its U.S. debut.
The growing success of this convention can be attributed largely to the efforts of the Cartoon Network. The 24-hour cable television network, which launched with a back catalog of Hanna-Barbera cartoons in 1992, began popularizing anime with American viewers in 1997 with the launch of its afternoon action block called Toonami.
Today, a quarter of its weekday shows are imported anime, including breakout hits like Dragon Ball Z,* Pokémon* and Hamtaro.
But the network isn't just looking overseas for television programming. Its $500 million Burbank studio is now ground zero for production of some of the first Japanese anime made specifically for American audiences.
"The Cartoon Network provided the first big forum for this," said Jerry Chu, marketing manager for Bandai Entertainment. "They wanted to do something different and that was bringing Japanese shows to America in their unedited forms."
Anime, which has existed on the fringes of American culture since the 1960s, struggled for decades to find mainstream acceptance. Shows like Astro Boy, Speed Racer and Star Blazers ran regularly on off-hour television until the early '80s. For years, isolated fan clubs languished in comic book stores and small music shops.
Video games may have been the biggest influence on anime in America. Nintendo and Sega both revitalized the stagnant domestic video-game market by releasing games based on popular anime franchises in the mid-1980s.
When Final Fantasy made it to the United States in 1990, gamers gobbled it up. The graphics, largely influenced by anime, were much more visually striking than anything either Atari or Intellivision had done. The franchise eventually spawned 10 sequels and a domestic movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
"When those games came to America, games like Final Fantasy, nobody here knew that they weren't made for us," said John Ledford, CEO of A.D. Visions' Anime Network. "Video games have turned into such a huge business now that they reach a mass audience. That has really helped prepare people for anime."
The tipping point for anime came in the early 1990s when Musicland and Blockbuster began carrying small anime selections, said Bandai's Chu. Until that time, distributors either sold shows directly to fans through mail-order catalogs or through boutique shops like Suncoast.
Anime mania has now reached a fever pitch, as evidenced by the popularity of this year's Anime Expo. Fans converging at the Anaheim Convention Center are here not just to watch anime but also to socialize and to participate in the quintessential Japanese pastime of karaoke.
Hundreds are scheduled to compete in a two-day karaoke contest featuring teams of dueling singers. There's also an open mike center that never shuts down.
"We have a wide and diverse range of fans represented in the contest," said karaoke program coordinator Hank Wong. "(It ranges) from those who sign up at the last minute and are in it just for fun, to the very serious contestants who have extensive musical experience, practice for months in advance and prepare elaborate choreography and costumes."
Convention goers also will compete in an event called a "cosplay," or costumed play, by creating their own live-action character costumes. In addition, there's an anime music video contest giving fans the opportunity to parody their favorite shows. The pageantry of the participants has prompted continued comparisons with Star Trek and Star Wars fan groups.
Meanwhile, hardcore anime fans will join Hollywood movie producers and video-game developers hoping to find the next hot property, said Anime Expo public relations director Victoria Chan.
The expo features a cadre of studios openly soliciting new titles -- some hoping to duplicate the success of Spirited Away, not to mention The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, which were filmed as live-action animes. Another effort, The Animatrix, has climbed to No. 21 on Amazon.com's DVD sales chart.
"The recent release of The Animatrix has helped push anime's popularity and acceptance in mainstream culture," Chan said. "It's a lot easier for us to promote the event, and it's a place now where a lot of movie studios and industry people want to come."
