Bandai Entertainment has over a decade of history. It was “run by President Ken Iyadomi, who is one of the pioneers of bringing anime to the U.S. going back to the late 1980s.” The sub-division was started to “satisfy the growing need for the U.S. anime market which really took off in the 1990s and with the advent of DVD you really started seeing anime sections in DVD stores.”
What contributed to Bandai Entertainment’s participation in the anime and manga industry was a sister company and a new activity. In the early days of the division’s involvement in anime, it benefited from a sister company known as Sunrise with titles like Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, and Gundam. These “were great titles to brand Bandai Entertainment with.” However, manga “had to be built more from scratch,” because “there really isn’t a Bandai Japan manga division, so everything done in the U.S was new for Bandai Entertainment in terms of publishing.”
In regards to anime, “the division was started for the purpose of releasing anime to the U.S.” President Iyadomi “was behind the release of the first-ever subtitled anime VHS called Gunbuster in 1989.” During the early 1990’s, anime released directly to video in the United States was doing well. When the Digital Video Disc, DVD, was introduced, anime “really exploded” and was made available on the “mass retail level” with stores displaying anime in its very own section.
In 2004, Bandai Entertainment expanded into manga publishing and “business has been growing steadily year after year”. According to Napton, usually, the manga titles released has anime counterparts that are also available from Bandai. For example, Bandai has the anime Code Geass as well as the manga under its belt. Having both the anime and manga title, the company can have “cross-promotion and synergy” between both releases. “Rarely do we acquire manga on its own that’s not tied into our anime – the one exception I can think of is Witchblade Takeru where we released the manga but the anime came out from another company. But that’s very rare for us.”
When it comes to the decision-making on acquisition of titles, it involves the Bandai Entertainment President and staff, and they discuss and decide which titles would be successful in the United States market. “Success in Japan usually means success in the U.S, but not always, so there’s no formula – it comes down to a gut feeling sometimes.”
For example, the anime Lucky Star from Kyoto Animation, who did The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was a big hit in Japan and “has a huge following.” For Bandai Entertainment, it became “a successful series” in the US market. As Napton stated, “when shows do well in Japan, they will do well here – not always, but usually.” Another example of equal success in both countries is the manga Code Geass from Sunrise. The company is “known for it’s great mecha series.” According to Napton, the story in Code Geass “is excellent” and the characters are designed by Clamp, who are the artists for manga such as Magic Knight Rayearth and xxxHolic. “The manga being an extension of the anime was an obvious choice once we acquired the anime and there’s been several manga series, “Lelouch of the Rebellion,” “Nightmare of Nunnally,” “Suzaku of the Counterattack,” so it’s been a great manga line for us.”
Even though Bandai Entertainment was able to find success in corresponding manga and anime titles, as Napton stated, there is no defined formula on foreshadowing the success of titles released in the United States. “For both, success is always measured in sales--like with any company and sales are always determined by quality content. It comes down to great stories, artwork and characters – always – you can not sell something that is not quality.”
© 2010 Linda Thai
Stay tune for Part 3 of the Robert Napton interview!
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