Movies: Red Garden Vol. #1: Live to Kill

You have no idea how many gaskets I popped — out of sheer jealousy — when Adam Beck, that lucky dog, got to review Black Lagoon #1 for AMN Anime. Not just because the series kicks about sixteen hectares of butt, that’s a given, but because it would have been a note-perfect way to throw down a theory about anime (and to a degree, manga) that’s been percolating in my head for some time and which now seems more truth than mere theory: A good percentage of the anime coming out now, despite being in Japanese and despite airing on Japanese TV and being released in Japanese video markets, was created to sell specifically in America as a way to recoup its costs.

I’ve seen way too many examples to not take this theory seriously. The folks at Bandai have expressed that they wanted to make a third Ghost in the Shell TV series — but only if the Solid State Society movie sells well here, because the U.S. (and other English-speaking territories, really) is where they make back their investment. Black Lagoon, too — which sports two cast members that are American and is, if anything, even more watchable in its English dub than the “original” Japanese edition — it has the same smell of a made-for-export product about it. Is any of this bad? No, absolutely not; although it does mean that we might be seeing that many less animated productions that have an unmistakable Japanese flavor about them and more things that are — how to put it? — “mid-Pacific”.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.