Noritaka Kawaguchi, the founder, CEO, and chairman of CoMix Wave Films (CWF), and Mie Onishi, advisor to the company’s overseas business department, shared their frustration over the rising number of requests from Hollywood to produce anime, motivated by Hollywood purportedly seeing it as a cheaper means of production compared to live-action.
As Onishi and Kawaguchi spoke about recently announced live-action adaptations of anime IPs, such as One Punch Man, Naruto, and CWF’s Your Name, they shared the following exchange.
Onishi: “Also, there are anime adaptations of Star Wars, Scott Pilgrim, and Lord of the Rings.“
Kawaguchi: “There are a little too many works to check out. I have to watch Japanese anime and I also have to read Jump.“
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Onishi: “That’s right… That’s why it’s not a good idea to animate everything. Anime is just one method, not a genre. In fact, what I hate these days is that when I talk to people in Hollywood, they ask me, ‘Can’t you make this as an anime?’ What lies behind this is something like, ‘It’s cheap if it’s an anime,’ which really p*sses me off.“
Kawaguchi: “It p*sses me off!“Onishi [imitating people in Hollywood]: “‘It would cost 20 billion yen to make a live-action movie, so can’t you make it an anime?‘”
Kawaguchi: “Please tell them I said ‘It’s 30 billion yen for an anime!’ [Audience laughs]“
Onishi: “Okay, I’ll let them know. [laughs]“
Kawaguchi: “Hollywood creators also like Mamoru Oshii and Makoto Shinkai, so there are a lot of people who want to try making a movie in the Japanese anime style once.“
Comix Wave Films Company Talks About Hollywood + Awards and Changes in the Industry
The rest of the discussion, which includes thoughts from CWF’s overseas business department chief, Aoi Ishimaru, explores CWF’s success and further efforts to improve its accessibility overseas, the struggles of Japan’s live-action industry, Onishi’s desire to turn the stop-motion animated short film HIDARI into a feature-length film, and changes within Hollywood, domestically and in terms of international reach.
Onishi argues that there’s now a two-way exchange of films between Hollywood and foreign box offices. She and Kawaguchi add that after the controversies over a lack of diversity in film award selections, even films that are distributed outside of the traditional major studios can win Academy Awards for animation, as Flow (distributed by Sideshow and Janus Films) did this year and The Boy and the Heron (GKIDS) did last year. Onishi believed that in the previous Hollywood environment, where only films distributed by traditional distributors won awards, DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot (distributed by Universal) would have won the Academy Awards this year.
Kawaguchi also argues that Hollywood’s previous atmosphere likely harmed chances for Makoto Shinkai’s films:
“The reason why Makoto Shinkai’s works, such as ‘Your Name [2016],’ were not nominated was because the distributor was Funimation [acquired by Sony Pictures Television in 2017]. If we had entrusted the distribution rights to Sony Pictures, they might have been nominated. In the midst of all that politics, when Onishi said, “I think ‘The Wild Robot’ will win,” that means that there was that kind of atmosphere. The fact that ‘Flow’ won in that environment means that the voters voted wholeheartedly.“
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Source: Gigazine
Featured image © Suzume no Tojimari Production Committee
