KBSC, KWHY, KIKU, and the 1970s C/FO

[mbanu]

I wonder if anyone has ever interviewed her about Raideen and the early anime on KIKU? I think she's in her 70s now, but seems to still be active on Facebook...

It looks like the answer is yes -- as a bonus feature on the Kikaida 01 DVD box set:

In another segment, Joanne recounts her past with KIKU-TV and the acquisition of many series she brought to the station, including not only KIKAIDA and KIKAIDA 01, but also GO RANGER (the first of the sentai/Power Rangers type series), INAZUMAN, KAMEN RIDER V3, YUSHA RAIDEEN, UFO DAIAPOLLON, CAPTAIN HARLOCK and others. It is an interesting look at the migration of these series from Japan to Hawaii in the 1970s.

(http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2007 ... aida-saga/)

I'll need to add that set to my wishlist, I guess. (^_^)

[mbanu]

A likely candidate on who was doing some of the translation work, Alvin Hamada, from what I'm guessing was a Honolulu newspaper article on whether it's "Kikaida" or "Kikaider":

Veteran KIKU translator Alvin Hamada has a different take on the nomenclature debate. Twenty-seven years ago, he thought that "Kikaida sounded kind of 'pidgin.'" But now Hamada concurs with the "-da" ending "because the kids used to imitate Jiro and say, 'Change! Henshin . . . Kikaida!'"

"Jiro never said 'Kikaider,'" notes Hamada, who translated the "Rainbowman" superhero series that aired on the station 27 years ago.

(https://www.generationkikaida.com/event ... ider.shtml)

Haven't had much luck finding out what he's up to now, though.

[mbanu]

Another possible translator, Elizabeth Keith:

When I first met Elizabeth, she was well-established and highly regarded in the Japanese
media. Among her many accomplishments, she was the NHK correspondent in Hawai‘i from 1986–2012, the assistant general manager of KIKU-TV, a TV reporter who interviewed famous people such as sumo wrestler Takamiyama (Jesse Kuhaulua), and a professional interpreter for heads of state/government. For the past six years, however, her career in international education has been her passion. She has been teaching at UH Mānoa intermittently since 2002, except during 2012–2015, when she worked as a senior lecturer for the Centre for Transcultural Studies at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore. Teaching at both institutions intensified her feelings on the value of international education. In July, after her return from a five-week trip to Africa, I had a chance to ask questions and catch up on her recent news.

Was your first language Japanese?

My mother is Japanese and my father was Swedish-American. I grew up in Tokyo, Japan. My father traveled often for work and my mother only spoke Japanese. So I guess you could say that my first language as a toddler was Japanese. When I was in high school and had the opportunity to choose French, Spanish, or Japanese to study, my father urged me to take Japanese. He said that someday, when I grow up and live away from my mother, I should be able to write a decent letter to her in Japanese. He said that my mother didn’t have to learn English to communicate with me, but I have to learn Japanese because it’s my mother’s language. I was a rebellious teenager, so in high school, I studied French.

What was it like for you to grow up in Tokyo?

Tokyo in my childhood years was quite cosmopolitan. The school that I attended was an international school attended by children of diplomats and foreign corporate representatives. As a result, over 20 different countries were represented in
my class of 37 students. I was able to watch French movies in the theater, enjoyed jam with tea and piroshki at Russian restaurants, ate hot Indian curry with my fingers, bought Irish lace kerchiefs as gifts, wore Burberry jackets from U.K., sipped Colombian coffees in the coffee shops, and treated myself to Belgian chocolates. The English language newspaper, The Japan Times, was filled with international headlines from around the world. As a result, I grew up in Tokyo with a keen awareness of the world outside of Japan.

(http://manoa.hawaii.edu/international/p ... l_2016.pdf)

[SteveH]

Don't overlook the possibility that Toei may well have supplied the scripts, having done the translation themselves. These things did happen.

[mbanu]

It looks like Marukai Hawaii was being run by the Matsu family, Hidejiro Matsu, Junzo Matsu, Kozaburo Matsu, and Richard (Ryuzo) Matsu... the shift away from wholesale (which I imagine also ended their interest in exporting giant robot toys and TV shows) was a result of the Japanese bubble economy:

Marukai began in 1965 strictly as a wholesale concern, run by Richard and Hidejiro Matsu, sons of the founder of parent company Marukai Trading in Japan. It sold oriental goods to local merchants who retailed the products.

Faced with declining business as prices of goods imported from Japan soared with a rise in the value of the yen, Marukai phased out its wholesale distribution operations and opened Marukai Wholesale Mart in 1987 on Dillingham Boulevard. There, it does its own retailing direct to customers who pay a small annual fee.

(http://archives.starbulletin.com/98/07/ ... tory2.html)

[mbanu]

(I think that 7 was supposed to be a 2, though, at least according to the old Marukai website.)

[mbanu]

Ah, wait, scratch that -- 1982 is the first Marukai Wholesale Mart in Gardena, California, while 1987 is a later one in Honolulu. (^_^;)

So I guess we have a few pointers towards how the experiment ended, at least -- KIKU was bought out in 1979 by a group of investors less interested in Japanese programming, Joanne Ninomiya leaves in 1981 to found her own translation and production company, and in 1982 Marukai Trading gets out of the wholesale business and re-focuses on retail in the face of rising prices due to the Japanese miracle economy. (^_^)

[SteveH]

Ah, wait, scratch that -- 1982 is the first Marukai Wholesale Mart in Gardena, California, while 1987 is a later one in Honolulu. (^_^;)

So I guess we have a few pointers towards how the experiment ended, at least -- KIKU was bought out in 1979 by a group of investors less interested in Japanese programming, Joanne Ninomiya leaves in 1981 to found her own translation and production company, and in 1982 Marukai Trading gets out of the wholesale business and re-focuses on retail in the face of rising prices due to the Japanese miracle economy. (^_^)

1982, the Dollar/Yen exchange rate was still to the positive in selling Japanese product to America. It would be 1985 when things first hit the speedbump.

Also, you're using words in a rather casual way that can be misunderstood without proper context. From the text presented, it's obvious that in order to survive the stronger Yen and still be able to move merchandise Maruki Trading stopped (or greatly reduced) being a distributor and shifted their business plan into being a 'club warehouse' company, where one buys a membership to shop. This would have allowed the company to sell Japanese products at a price that was somewhat reasonable but allow them to keep a set profit margin.

I must explain. Try to explain. It's complicated. There seems to have been an agreement among various export companies (Marukai Trading, Nippon Shuppan Hanbai K.K. dba Books Nippan, Uchino International dba Pony Toy-Go-Round and I'm sure others, that they would figure their pricing at retail at their stores based on a fixed standard... cripes, this gets into the whole business of how Retail in Japan works and that's messy as can be. How do I... OK, let's try this.

These companies mentioned, all of them are 'upper tier' distributors. They're the companies that deal direct (or at worse, one level down) with the makers, the manufactures, the publishers. OK? From these companies product trickles down to regional distributors, the regional distributors then sell to the prefectual distributors and from there it either goes to the stores or one more step to what could be called 'neighborhood' resellers to finally get to the mom and pop shop on the corner. Every step of the way somebody has to get paid. Got that?

American retail tends to be much more streamlined. If you have the money, that is if you buy enough product and sell it, anyone can buy direct from a manufacturer. Generally speaking most retailers buy from a wholeseller that buys direct from makers. So, on the whole, your store in the USA has only one step between themselves and the maker. That means lower wholesale costs and lower mark-up on the final product.

Now. It should be obvious this is a key factor in the price of Japanese goods. Bear with me.

Every store marks the price of their goods based on how much they paid and, really, what the market can bear. You could buy anything and double the price you paid and if it sells, that's what people are willing to pay. If it doesn't sell that's now eating at your profit and you need to sell more or SOMETHING to try and recoup that amount you paid. Failure to figure that out is how businesses die.

So there are generally accepted markups. One good rule of thumb is, on the whole, something you buy in a store cost the store half of what you're paying. Not always, WAY not always in some cases, but if you walk into Toys R Us and buy a modern action figure for $19.99, it probably cost them about $10. I'm not going to go deep dive into discussing return allowances and all the shenanigans involving rolling credit and returning merchandise.

Square? Solid? Still reading? Good.

Japan has fixed prices at retail for many things. You see it all the time on toys, books, CDs, candy. That means a retailer in Japan isn't going to be able to take that brand new CD (marked 3,000 Yen tax in and I'm not even going to touch taxes here) and sell it for 2,000 Yen because it's HOT HOT HOT and he wants to blow it out the door and he makes it up from the publisher in credit, nor is he going to be able to charge 6,000 Yen for a new, unopened CD because it's, ready? HOT HOT HOT and he feels he can really cash in. Insert crestfallen faces of American comic book shop owners circa the mid '80s. Prices are controlled in Japan. Used, discontinued items is its own thing.

So let's examine that. Retail priced at 3,000 Yen. The shop owner expects to make some profit (cost plus) from the sale of that CD, the perfectual 'jobber' that sold the CD to the store expected to make money from that, the regional distro expected to make some money from that CD, the top tier distributor expected to make money on that CD and of course the publisher. Now, I do NOT expect each step in the distro chain made a 50% markup, those places can live on like a 10% cut of the take. The math gets messy but what I assume, and it seems to hold, the maker starts the chain with their wholesale price being likely 50% of the marked price. (which, with CDs, means Pony/Canyon sells their CDs to the distro chain at the price a CD RETAILS for in the US. Keep that in mind)

Top tier distributors get the best discount.

Whew, that's a lot to digest. I'm gonna pause and come back with more later

[DKop]

Steve, you sure your not some economics professor somewhere?

[SteveH]

Steve, you sure your not some economics professor somewhere?

HAW! no, no, if only. I thank thee for what I hope is a complement.

Were I a prof, I'd be able to use lots and lots of $5 words. I'd cite obscure books and links to papers and stuff. Best I can do is use my bag of '10 for a Dollar' words and my personal observations.

thing is, I have NEVER seen anyone actually tackle Japanese retailing. All you ever hear about is lots of handwaving.

It's probably stupid of me to talk about this junk, but the way my mind works, if I don't understand something, if I have a problem understanding, I've found it helpful to learn the 'why'. Learning the 'why' can inform the 'how', and once you have the 'how' you can understand the whole much better.

How are Japanese prices figured that makes them so high? Because of the artificially imposed constraints created by the multi tier relationship between seller and buyer. And THAT factors into the Great Dying of Anime Goods that took place (with LOTS of peaks and valleys) between 1986 and 1996.

more later. nice tease, huh?