‘Shogun’ stokes hunger for Japanese content

RISING SUN IN WESTERN MARKET Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, star of “Shogun,” attends a red-carpet event in Los Angeles for the hit TV series. Japanese content has become popular among foreign studios and local creators are adapting to meet that demand. —Agence France-Presse

TOKYO, Japan — Fueled in part by the success of TV hit “Shogun,” foreign studios are hungry for quality Japanese content and local creators are adapting to meet demand.

Fans of Japanese manga and anime cartoons have often criticized foreign adaptations that are unfaithful to the original material.

But “Shogun,” based on the 1975 novel by Australian-British writer James Clavell, broke the mold when the period drama series—mostly in Japanese and hailed for its authenticity—won 18 Emmy awards in September.

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Other recent Japanese works have also become worldwide hits.

Franco-US-Japanese show “Drops of God,” based on a manga of the same name, won best drama series at the International Emmy Awards in November.

Netflix’s 2023 adaptation of the manga superhit “One Piece”—starring Mexican actor Iñaki Godoy—was hailed by viewers and critics alike and will return for a second season.

‘Finding manga spirit’

More adaptations of major manga and anime hits are in the works, including the superhero adventures of “My Hero Academia” and the ninja escapades of “Naruto.”

Kaori Ikeda, managing director at Tiffcom, the content trade fair affiliated with the Tokyo International Film Festival, said, “Demand from Western markets is clearly increasing.”

But Japanese companies lack “know-how” when it comes to negotiating rights, she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

So Tiffcom has organized Tokyo Story Market, a space to facilitate networking and meetings between international producers and Japanese publishers.

Foreign studios are also getting better at avoiding some of the pitfalls of the past, such as the 2017 film version of the manga “Ghost in the Shell” starring Scarlett Johansson.

Critics accused the movie, whose main actors except Takeshi Kitano were all non-Japanese, of “whitewashing.”

Similarly, the 2017 supernatural thriller “Death Note” was panned for veering too far from the original manga.

“Manga authors are highly respected and fan communities are very vigilant,” said Klaus Zimmermann, producer of “Drops of God.”

His adaptation had also taken some liberties, such as starring a French actor as one of the main characters. But Zimmermann insists it was developed in collaboration with the authors of the original manga.

“It was about finding the spirit of the manga so as not to distort it,” he told AFP.

Understanding the genre

Yuki Takamatsu, a rights negotiator at manga publishing house Kodansha, said the process of adapting “Drops of God” was “amazing.”

“Everyone was open to tackling those challenges together … At every step, everyone was understanding about how we should do it,” he said.

Past failures were in part down to publishers struggling to communicate their wishes to foreign producers, who in turn lacked a proper understanding of manga and anime, Takamatsu said.

“Back just 15, 20 years ago, most of the inquiries we received from those big studios were like, hey, I know ‘Dragon Ball,’ do you have ‘Dragon Ball’ IP?” he told AFP.

“But nowadays, especially since COVID, the producers in their 30s, 40s, they watch anime together with their kids on Netflix or Amazon” and then reach out, Takamatsu said.

According to Masaru Akiyama, chief executive of Beaj, Western viewers have overcome their initial reluctance to watch the Japanese series with Asian actors.

“They have become used to it, they don’t care anymore. They want to see, they want to feel the stories.”

“Shogun” was “a game changer” for Japan, he added, and Ikeda agrees.

“That a samurai story with such attention to historical detail can become mainstream entertainment is proof of the potential” of Japanese content, she said.