Japan's Latest Export: Soft-Core Cartoon (LA Times, Aug1991)

[kndy]

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Title: Japan's Latest Export: Soft-Core Cartoon

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By CHUCK PHILIPS
Special to the Times


Cartoons are not just for kids.
While most animated programming is aimed at youngsters, the
prime-time success of Fox-TV's "The Simpsons" seems to have sparked
a new interest in sophisticated animated humor.
In fact, adult-oriented cartoon projects are in development at
all three major television networks, with NBC and ABC expected to
deliver animated evening shows by next winter.
But is the public ready for a pornographic cartoon?
John O'Donnell, managing director of Central Park Media,
thinks so. On Friday, his New York publishing firm is scheduled to
screen the U.S. premiere of the Japanese carnal comic "I Give My
All" at the AnimeCon Festival in San Jose.
Produced in Japan by Sony Music Entertainment Inc., and
distributed in the United States by Central Park Media, the 45-
minute soft-core porn animated comedy satirizes the sexual coming
of age of a wealthy teen-age girl, detailing a series of erotic
encounters that transpire during her first love affair. The
dialogue is in Japanese, with English subtitles.
"It's aimed at adults who grew up on cartoons but are looking
for something a little bit sexier and more mature," O'Donnell said
in a phone interview from New York.
While there have been X-rated cartoons in the United States
before -- Ralph Bakshi's "Fritz the Cat" in 1972 and "Heavy
Traffic" in 1973 -- sex was incidental to the plot lines. Based on
a comic-strip series created by illustrator Hikaru Yuzuki and
published weekly in the million-selling Young Jump Comics magazine,
"I Give My All" embodies the Japanese "love comedy" -- an animated
genre that relies heavily on titillation.
While the video -- stickered with a parental warning advisory
that reads "NOT FOR CHILDREN" -- features animated enactments of
masturbation, oral and genital sex, O'Donnell said he anticipates
no backlash from media watchdog groups in marketing the film state-
side.
"We don't expect to run into problems with [the Rev. Donald]
Wildmon or any of the Southern Baptist types," O'Donnell said.
"This isn't hard-core animated porn like some of the stuff
available in Japan. In fact, most anybody who has ever seen R-
rated sex will consider this video to be pretty silly. I think
they'll get a laugh out of it."
Not everyone is chuckling.
The video has already come under attack by Focus on the
Family, a Colorado Springs-based Christian media watchdog group and
radio broadcaster with offices in Pomona.

'We intend to pay close attention to what happens with this video,"
said Robert DeMoss, the organization's youth culture specialist.
"We believe there is no redeeming value to this kind of degrading
entertainment. [Central Park Media] assumes that Americans are
moral morons, but I think they may be surprised by the resistance
they are going to get from U.S. family groups."
Erotic cartooning may be a new phenomenon in the United
States, but in Japan it has long been a staple of the billion-
dollar adult animation industry.
In Tokyo, more than 200 serialized comic magazines -- one-
third of which specialize in pornography, sadomasochistic sex and
violence -- hit the newsstands every week. About three dozen
family-oriented animated TV shows air weekly and more than 40 full-
length animated features (of which approximately five contain
graphic sexuality) are released each month at theaters and on video
in Japan.
Bakshi, whose eccentric cartoons were criticized in the '70s
and '80s by family groups, said that he takes offense at the
explicit sexual detail presented in paperback comics marketed to
Japanese consumers.
"They seem to have a section of comics for every sexual desire
and perversion imaginable," Bakshi said. "The Japanese carry
something obscene for every age group and they seem to have no
problem marketing the stuff over there. But I can't imagine who
[Central Park Media] plans to sell a soft-core animated film to or
what retailers will carry it over here."
Central Park Media hopes to tap into a burgeoning underground
network of U.S. high school and college "anime" (pronounced Annie
May) fan clubs plus more than two dozen domestic computerized
electronic bulletin board services dedicated exclusively to
Japanese animation.
American devotees of the genre -- of which there are
reportedly more than 50,000 -- currently spend about$1 million each
year on pirated rip-offs of popular Japanese animated videos and
merchandise, according to a survey conducted by Lea Hernandez,
systems operator at Japanimation On-line, a division of GEnie, an
electronic bulletin board arm of the Rockville, Md.-based General
Electric Information Service.
To entice collectors, Central Park Media will ship the first
2,000 copies of "I Give My All" in its original Japanese packaging
with a promotional pink panty insert for $35 -- about one-third the
price of bootleg imports.
The company has also entered into a distribution pact with
Carson-based U.S. Renditions and Wilmington, N.C.-based AnimEigo
and is preparing to release a line of violent science-fiction and
cyber-punk animated videos--including such Japanese titles as
"Gunbusters," "Appleseed" and "Riding Bean."
John Dacey, manager of Hi De Ho, a collectible comic-book
store in Santa Monica, believes the time is ripe for graphic
animation videos to crossover into the mainstream.
Kevin Seymour, animation division manager at Books Nippan/U.S.
Renditions in Carson, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Nippon Shuppan
Hanbai, Japan's largest book, magazine and video distributor,
agrees.
"The American prejudice that cartoons are for kids is fading
fast," said Seymour, who has been distributing non-sexual animated
science-fiction comic books and video imports for more than a
decade. "It's just a matter of time before Japanese animation
breaks out of its cult status in this country. I believe that
before the end of the decade every video store will have its own
Japanimation sections."

Central Park Media's O'Donnell expects video retailers that
stock offbeat and "cutting-edge" foreign films to venture first
into the "anime" market.

"What we're offering cartoon lovers is a brand new kind of
animated experience," O'Donnell said. "This stuff is fun and
risque. The kids can still have 'Bambi.' What we're talking about
here is a new form of entertainment for adults."

[usamimi]

oh gosh, I remember when this was a HUGE deal. Didn't they end up not even releasing it just because people made such a huge stink about it?

(Also lol at Gunbuster being described as super violent... )

[greg]

Focus on the Family... I understand that they do a lot of good things for families, but I can't think of any at the moment without having to look it up. If stuff like this offends people and they don't want their kids watching it, then maybe they should pay attention to their kids more. I remember when another faith-based organization, Concerned Women for America, were up in arms over the release of Kiki's Delivery Service because it supposedly promotes witchcraft. If they had ever bothered to watch the movie, they would have realized that the main moral of the story is that we are obligated to use the talents that God has given us to bless others, and not to waste those talents. How could they be opposed to that?

[usamimi]

Because WITHCES ARE EVIL AND SATANIC, didn't you know?
Most people who get up in arms about movies or tv shows or books never actually watch/read them, they hear about them second hand from someone and figure that all they need to know is one tiny detail about it....then that's all they need to know and make snap judgements. It's ridiculous.