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In place of our monthly club profile, Akadot features this letter that we received in response to Shawna James' piece, "Never Mind the Otaku, Here's Anime in the UK," which focused on waning anime distribution in the United Kingdom. Niels Viveen, an anime fan in Holland, fired back with this state of the anime industry address. Dear Akadot, At least the UK has an anime distribution scene to speak of. Here in Holland we have had a local Manga video branch spouting dirt for about two years before folding. In these two years, they have managed to destroy every hope of a productive anime releasing company in my country for a long time. Due to the nature of their releases, with even less censorship than in the US versions, anime has become synonymous with sex and violence. They even call anime, "Those horrid dirty Japanese Manga films." Theatrical releases like "Jin-Roh" could unfortunately not turn this attitude around because reviewers just refused to go and wrote negative reports on the film without having even seen it. Currently, Afilms, part of the Pathe group distributes DVDs of some of Manga's better films that have already seen release here on video. Titles such as "Patlabor 1," "Patlabor 2" and "Ghost in the Shell" have been released in the last month of Manga Video NL's existence - a desperate attempt to save their company by releasing quality product. Unfortunately, due to Manga's poor financial status, the quality of these releases leaves much to be desired, and they are not widely available to boot.
So, in 2001 the total status of Anime released (on DVD and Tape) in Holland is as follows: - Dragonball Z: Cartoon Network English dub/Dutch sub, four volumes, Tape/DVD And that's all. We, a group of dedicated anime fans, try to turn the tide by organizing yearly events in the heart of the country. We started off in 1992 with small meetings, sometimes even twice a year (nothing compared to US Schools). Due to selective marketing of our events, and some interviews on national radio and TV about anime and manga (this is in the context of a 400 year trade relation between my country and Japan) we were able to drop the name and location of our event in the mass media. This finally caused us to have a gathering of over 400 fans this year. We are finally having a real anime convention in our country. We hope to do even better next year, and our aim is more than 500 visitors. Due to recent developments with Cartoon Network leaving our country (they aired "Dragonball"), now would be the perfect time to act upon it with quality releases on DVD. Releasing in our country is simple since most people are used to subtitled movies (only shows for little kids get dubbed, sometimes). Only now we are looking for a company willing to take the step forward. For more information about Stichting Promotie Japanese Popculture, please visit our soon to be re-opening website. Currently we only have a registration form up for our next event, 8-10 February 2002. Yours faithfully, Niels Viveen |
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