Predictions & Resolutions: 2K10 Edition

Y’know, Year of the Tiger? (pixiv link)

It’s become a habit of mine to be tardy with the annual predictions post so I won’t make excuses and will just move on to judge how well I did with predictions and how poorly I followed through on some resolutions. (You can see last year’s post for the reasonings behind those.) I also made some guesses about the year ahead and some different goals to work toward because I can’t get myself to break this cycle – it’s become too much of a tradition.

2009 Predictions Evaluation

1) Bandai Entertainment will NOT fold in 2009.

Result: TRUE

Even though BEI survived 2009 and managed to bring over Kannagi and Hayate (albeit both sub-only), their prospects in 2010 aren’t particularly bright. For video, they do have the Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers movie and the first part of Kurokami coming out in February and the second season of Gundam 00 beginning in March. The second season of Haruhi started to be hinted at in late December so THAT‘s coming, too. They are also continuing to publish manga and novel versions of the Gundam 00, Gurren Lagann, Lucky Star, and Eureka Seven properties.

I think the company has a good chance of landing Summer Wars since they previously put out another Hosoda feature film, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, in 2008. (Manga UK already has a jump on them, having announced a September release of that movie on DVD & Blu-Ray.)

2) At least one “new” anime will make its North American premiere on a basic cable or broadcast channel.

Result: TRUE

Monster premiered on Syfy in October. Naruto Shippuden also premiered on Disney XD that month but I consider that to be an extended cable channel whereas Syfy shows up on many basic cable packages.

I wouldn’t question another “new” anime premiering on American television – in fact, Adult Swim has recently hinted at three new series to replace Blood+ and Death Note.

3) More OEL/American manga titles will be released in Japan.

Result: ASSUMED FALSE

It was an out-there prediction and I don’t think it came true but I’m not too sure of the numbers.

Looking at amazon.co.jp, Softbank Creative published the following under Tokyopop’s Global Manga Series: Dramacon vol. 1, J-Pop Idol vol. 3 (renamed Eyes on You), In The End by Pink Psycho, and MBQ vol. 1. There may have been a few others but I can’t be bothered to sift through listings to find more. [Update: actually, J-Pop Idol was originally a Japanese cell phone manga - thanks, Deb! Her review of volume 1 mentions that fact.]

I shouldn’t have expected many releases of OEL manga (or world/global manga, whatever you want to call it) in Japan, considering how that type of manga has struggled in America. There was even an industry-only discussion panel at Anime Expo 2009 called “Can Manga Be Created in the USA and Be Commercially Successful?” that went through seven challenges publishers and artists have faced in making and marketing original content.

It’s difficult for OEL manga stand out among all the localized Japanese and Korean comics sitting next to it on bookstore shelves but it’s not impossible – volume 2 of Maximum Ride, based on James Patterson’s series of novels, has appeared on the NY Times’ bestselling manga list for ten straight weeks.

4) Oversaturation finally makes an impact on North American manga publishers.

Result: LIKELY FALSE

I had said it may “be difficult to determine whether this … will actually happen” due to lack of access to retail info and I accordingly qualified the result here with “likely” because it feels like it wasn’t a major factor – publishing as a whole suffered in 2009, particularly magazines.

In an interview with Mania in October, Yen Press founder Kurt Hassler said the biggest challenge for manga publishers over the past few years has been “calling out the winners and supporting them to reach their potential” and refining their strategies to “par[e] down their lists to provide greater focus and emphasis on the best of their best”.

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2009 Resolutions Evaluation

1) Continue to develop audio content.

Result: MOSTLY FAILED

I managed to do an episode of the Nigorimasen Podcast with lelangir and compile Sac-Anime interviews & panels into another. (I still want to get a Zoom H2 or other high-quality portable recorder so I don’t have to convert WMA files.)

Plan for 2010 is the same as 2009, except to be less timid about asking people for interviews.

2) Write more about English (and other) dubs.

Result: FAILED

This didn’t turn out as well as I thought because I only wrote two posts with a dub focus: passing along some D.Gray-man casting news in February and wrote a post in July after watching Honey and Clover‘s first two dubbed episodes.

(By the way, here is G.B. Smith’s opinion of FUNimation’s Spice and Wolf dub. I am holding off on the anime until I finish the first novel.)

3) Do passive episodic blogging.

Result: HALF-SUCCESS?

I used my MAL blog to post stream-of-consciousness notes taken while watching FMA Brotherhood, Shikabane Hime, Phantom‘s first episode, and a February anime club meeting. I’ve kind of grown out of taking notes while watching something unless I feel like it might help me pay attention (as I did with Texhnolyze) but looking back on these posts months later gives me a sense of what caught my attention during the episodes.

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As far as predictions for the new year (which is already more than a week old!), I would be playing it safe with something like “there will get more simulcasts from 2010 from Crunchyroll/Funimation/whoever” so that’s out.

2010 Predictions

1. Kodansha’s self-publishing venture will release at least one new series.

They received some constructive criticism on critics about not making improvements over the original releases of Akira and Ghost in the Shell. I think they will have improved the print quality of the next volumes of both series and on whatever “new” material they put out. I don’t know what series they would prioritize for themselves to work on rather than give to one of their US partners, like Del Rey or Tokyopop.

This prediction is more of a hopeful one than a properly informed one.

2. There will be another series about anthropomorphized objects.

2009 saw Miracle Train (train stations as bishounen), Hetalia (nations as mostly guys), and Akikan! (empty cans into girls – is transforming different?) all get animated so I figure the trend might carry over into this year. With what sort of object, I have no clue.

3. Japan will not make it past the group stage in this summer’s World Cup.

The Japanese team is in Group E with the Netherlands, Denmark, and Cameroon and I have a hunch that they will fail to move on to the second round, either by points or by goal differential. (The Netherlands beat Japan 3-0 in a friendly on September 5th.)

2010 Resolutions

1. Attend more concerts/music events.

I previously wrote about wanting to do more enjoyable fan things at conventions and that includes seeing musical guests if they interest me. This resolution also includes non-convention concerts and dance parties.

2. Watch at least 50 movies/OVA’s I haven’t seen from Helen McCarthy’s book.

I reviewed McCarthy’s 500 Essential Anime Movies last July and said at the time I wanted to use it “as a long-term aid in expanding my base of viewing experiences”. (A little wordy there, guy.)

I have previously seen parts or all of 30 entries in that book including Voices of a Distant Star and Read or Die. Fifty seems achievable since that works out to just over four a month. I can always exceed it if time allows.

3. Begin writing about Asian film.

I simply want to expand outside of anime & manga. Funimation’s recent announcements about Shaw Bros. Hong Kong fare and a couple of other “live-action” movies (Kamui and RoboGeisha) will help. I don’t want to limit myself to the Japan-China-Korea triumvirate so anything from the greater region – India, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. – is fair game.

4. Do substantial research for a detective fiction panel.

In late August, I expressed a desire to put on a panel about Japanese detective fiction – novels as well as anime, manga, movies, and drama series – at some future convention. Of course, that requires a bunch of reading and research (including trying to get a good background in Western detective/mystery fiction as well!) so I’m not expecting to have it done by the big 2010 summer cons – 2011 seems to be a more manageable goal. That means I have time to figure out how to handle spirit- and occult-centric material.