 Science & Technology || Search|| Back Numbers CREATING A MONSTER: Cartoons No Longer a Kid-Sized Industry February 27, 1998 
The Pocket Monsters can be found in stores as well as comics and video games. (Photo: Kyodo) In December 1997, children across the nation suffered seizures and other severe reactions thought to have been triggered by bright flashes in an episode of the animated television series "Pokemon" (Pocket Monsters). The ensuing rumpus, which saw the show temporarily discontinued, served to highlight the popularity of this cartoon; among those affected in the fallout were makers of video games, food products, and toys. The total Pocket Monster market, based on character goods, is said to be worth 400 billion yen (3.2 billion U.S. dollars at 125 yen to the dollar). It has become standard practice for advertising agencies and production companies to "scout" characters likely to become a hit and develop them through several different media. With holders of copyrights on hit products expanding their activities overseas, Japanese cartoons, or anime, appear to have entered their golden age. Marketing on Two Fronts Pocket Monsters debuted in a computer game created by a famous Japanese video-game hardware company and two software makers. In the game, 151 tiny monster characters ranging from bugs to mythical beasts have to be tracked down, captured, and then cared for. Simultaneously with the monsters' video-game debut, their comic strip also began to appear in the supplement of a popular comic book aimed at upper-grade elementary school children, a group that forms a core market for computer games. This strategy of spinning the story-line across separate media greatly boosted their appeal, and after six months the Pocket Monsters migrated from the supplement to the main comic book. That move pushed the book's monthly circulation from 1.2 million to 2 million copies. Of the 23 serialized strips carried by the comic book, 5 are tied in with video games in the same way. The video game software is also doing very well, clocking up shipments
of over 7.5 million copies in a market where 500,000 copies is enough to
make a product a major hit. Over 30 related publications have come out,
many of them "strategy books" explaining how to corral the beasties; also
available are over 100 kinds of merchandise including stuffed toys,
confectionery, and albums of the theme music. By the time it was pulled
from the air following the mass seizures apparently resulting from an
exciting scene in an episode aired in December 1997, the TV program had
picked up ratings of over 15% of all households, although it had just
debuted in April of that year. With every new market, the Pocket Monster
craze fed on itself and grew bigger.
The anime industry is now expanding overseas. As Japan is a major importer of entertainment, it continues to pay enormous sums in distribution fees to Hollywood and other foreign suppliers of music and movies. Anime, however, is the one entertainment field in which Japan is internationally competitive and maintains an export surplus. "The Dog of Flanders," an anime made by a major production company and screened on the Fuji Television Network, has been shown in some 60 countries. Foreign, mainly European, big-name media organizations were falling over themselves for the rights; recently, more purchases have been made by TV channels in Asian countries including Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand. Now, half of production company income derives from overseas sales of broadcasting and character-merchandising rights. In 1996, a major publishing company simultaneously launched in 13
countries a dinosaur cartoon strip carried in a weekly comic book. It has
also received many inquiries about movie and other spin-off options.
According to a survey by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, top
TV stations based in Tokyo earned 5.3 billion yen (42.4 million dollars)
from program exports in fiscal 1995 (April 1995 to March 1996), a one-year
rise of some 16%. Growth has been in the double digits for several years.
In some cases, production companies held the copyrights, meaning that the
total export spoils are probably greater still.
In the 1980s, pirate publication of comics was rampant, especially in parts of Asia. The tide finally began to recede after intellectual-property rights protection became a hot-button issue and attitudes hardened in the United States, and Taiwan in 1992 revised its copyright legislation. But the development of multimedia technology and other factors are scrambling the copyright picture anew, and a new system of rules is urgently needed. Edited by Japan Echo Inc. based on domestic
Japanese news sources. Articles presented here are offered for reference
purposes and do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Japanese
Government.
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