From the Forest

The top-grossing films in the Japanese movie industry tend to be animated features. While it’s true there are animated films for older audiences, such as Hayao Miyazaki productions and Kadokawa features, most anime features are oriented toward children, such as the popular DORAEMON and CRAYON SHIN-CHAN.

If a feature is targeted toward older children, they can go to the theaters on their own. Although Toei Anime Festivals are also attended by older fans, there’s no getting around the fact that the bulk audience is made up of children. Consider, if you will, the fact that an audience of young children always includes the parents–and with so many parents in attendance, it’s a pretty attractive business. It’s a full house every day. That’s how children’s movies make more money as compared to “regular” movies, which are often screened in only half-full theaters.

Toho makes DORAEMON and CRAYON SHIN-CHAN as 70-minute features and release them about once a year. Typical Toei Anime Festivals include not one feature, but a collection of three short features. Usually, film releases are scheduled for spring, summer, and winter breaks.

Toei’s features tend to be the side-stories of the Toei animated or live-action shows on TV that year. They’re also stories that fit within a 30- to 40-minute frame, and–so as to not confuse the children–the plot does not conform with the continuity of the TV show. Japanese animated shows (and live-action shows) change annually, so the Anime Festival’s titles change every year, as well. And thus, most of its features are self-contained stories. But then, there are shows such as DRAGON BALL, which have been going on for nearly ten years. With two theatrical releases a year, you can see how quickly (and how easily) carefully plotted TV continuity can be breached, and why the TV continuities are therefore avoided in Toei Anime Festival releases.

After all, in the main DRAGON BALL continuity, main character Goku grows up and raises a family; his children grow up, and they eventually become the main characters themselves. As they grow up, various new friends and villains show up. The theatrical feature is just a short film that comes out every half-year, so it can’t cover the half-year of development in the official story. On the other hand, if a feature just tells its own story–for example, one with Goku still in his childhood–children might get confused.

Theatrical features must tell an original story that stands on its own at the theater, while still assuming that the children are familiar with the developments in the TV show. So usually the central characters in the feature are those who have been associated with the main character on TV by the time they show up in the theater, and they then get to face off villains original to the feature.

You might say it’s unfair of the Toei Anime Festival to expect its attendees to follow the TV show in order to enjoy the features. But remember that the primary audience is, of course, children. The grand premise is that children should be able to fully enjoy and be excited about seeing DRAGON BALL at the theater, and I think this is what is expected by children who both watch the TV show and attend the Toei Anime Festivals, as well.

So that’s why features don’t spend too much time on introducing the characters, but instead go straight into plot development. As a pure work of entertainment aimed at children, it’s easier to understand, and yet never boring. See you next month, from the forest.