That partnership between content provider and consumer is exactly what's missing in the Western world's debate over intellectual property, where movie studios and record labels talk about their customers as potential criminals. In Asia, media companies have a much closer and more interactive relationship with fans, treating them as partners in evangelizing their products -- even when that means blurring the lines of copyright restrictions.
Kai-Ming Cha, manga editor of Publishers Weekly, notes that Japan's media industry has "developed a detente" with fans. She points to the example of doujinshi -- amateur "homage" publications that depict popular anime and manga characters in original, sometimes pornographic storylines.
"They realize these unauthorized spinoffs help to build the fandom, and ultimately drive sales of the original," she says.
Nele Noppe on 18 Dec 07Something we, as researchers, do tend to lose sight of. Anime and manga are not fascinating in and of themselves for the vast majority of fans. In all likelyhood, even most of the Japanese Studies students for whose benefit we're trying to incorporate manga into classes are not interested in the why and how of manga, let alone the educational benefits manga might offer. They just want to have fun reading or watching.
