I just finished attending Comic-Con, a 4-day convention on pop culture held every July in San Diego. One of the panel discussions I witnessed was on the history of anime in the U.S., and I was struck by the similarities between the early days of anime in the U.S. and the current state of dorama in the U.S. Bootleg tapes, trading clubs, fan subbed creations (back then you were handed a translated script of the anime you were watching) were all part of the anime culture back in the late 80's. Japanese anime producers did not bother to market their product in North America (sound familiar, dorama fans?). But two things changed the whole scope of anime in the U.S. First, a couple of anime were dubbed and shown on American television; second, American companies were formed to began selling anime to the general public. When the Japanese anime companies realized there was a potentially huge market willing to pay for their product, they couldn't license their anime fast enough for U.S. consumption. The rest, as they say, is history. The question is, will dorama take off like anime did or will it remain the semi-under-the-radar genre it is right now. Anime in America exploded when businesses on both sides of the Pacific realized millions of people would pay hundreds of millions of dollars to consume anime. So far, it seems to me, there hasn't been that same demand from dorama fans. Maybe that's why Japanese companies refuse to subtitle their dorama and sell it in the U.S.; maybe that's why there are no domestic entrepreneurial companies acquiring the rights to dorama in order to sell to the general public. Are dorama fans in the U.S. content to continue feeding their dorama fix via the usual avenues-- trading, downloading, TV capturing etc.-- or is there a desire for dorama to become more mainstream, more accessible to the public as a whole like anime did? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. BTW, while at Comic-Con, I did not see a single mention or any evidence of dorama among the nearly one thousand exhibitors or the over one hundred programs, film presentations and panel discussions.

I dream of a day when Dorama is more accessible. I can not really imagine it. I have tried so hard to get people to watch the dorama's but most of the people I know won't read sub tittles and are more into reality t.v. and sports shows than doramas.



If it does become more mainstream and I can purchase them I will be in bliss poor, and surprised it caught on but blissful none the less.
_________________

p.s. I of course am still attepting to suck others into my dorama fetish.
_________________

Doramafan113 wrote:

p.s. I of course am still attepting to suck others into my dorama fetish.

I totally understand what you mean. I was trying to suck my sister into watching jdorama with me, she watched like 15 mins and said that she would rather watch Chinese dramas. IMO, most of the Chinese dramas are rather boring, which is why I like to watch JDrama so much, there is always something new out there.
_________________

"Smiling is infectious; you can catch it like the flu. When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too"

amberrsan wrote:

I totally understand what you mean. I was trying to suck my sister into watching jdorama with me, she watched like 15 mins and said that she would rather watch Chinese dramas. IMO, most of the Chinese dramas are rather boring, which is why I like to watch JDrama so much, there is always something new out there.

I totally agree with you on the Chinese drama part...most of them really are boring with very bad acting for the most part, tho there are a few period dramas that are quite good. I've certainly tried to make one of my cousins watch j-dramas but she much prefers k-dramas. I think it's really a matter of personal preference so I've stopped trying to change her opinion. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion as inferior as it might be to our own, eh?
But if j-drama becomes mainstream in the U.S., I will be so excited Even tho a lot of j-drama are available in Chinese subtitles, which I can read very well, currently I have to buy them whenever I go back to Taiwan to visit...so I can only enjoy j-drama about a quarter of the year each year SO, in short, if j-drama becomes widely available in the U.S., I will be as broke as Doramafan113
_________________

Shizu

Jeanxi wrote:

SO, in short, if j-drama becomes widely available in the U.S., I will be as broke as Doramafan113

I am broke as ever already! I been purchasing jdorama on ebay alot and my bank account is slowly depleting!
_________________

"Smiling is infectious; you can catch it like the flu. When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too"

amberrsan wrote:

I am broke as ever already! I been purchasing jdorama on ebay alot and my bank account is slowly depleting!

I feel your pain. I am an E-Bay Drama shopper too. My wife always says "Mata" (Again) everytime I am on e-bay she knows I am looking for a new Dorama
_________________

From the Simpsons
Mr. Burns: I could crush him like an ant. But it would be too easy. No, revenge is a dish best served cold. I'll bide my time until ... Oh, what the hell. I'll just crush him like an ant.

I think the big question here is; would Dorama fans accept dubbed versions of their favorite doramas? Someone else's voice coming out of their favorite actor's (or actress's) mouth.

I, for one, wouldn't.

Shin2 says that two things changed the scope of anime in the U.S.

"First, a couple of anime were dubbed and shown on American television; second, American companies were formed to began selling anime to the general public."

I think the first change mentioned was the big one. They dubbed the animes into English. You can do that with Anime, because it's Anime.

It's not the same when you have live actors performing on screen.

Take a look at the dubbed versions of Chinese and Japanese movies from the 60's and 70's. They were either ignored, or seen as campy... funny... or something to be made fun of. (Part of the problem being that the actors doing the dubbing weren't very good.)

The real, mainstream, majority of American TV viewers don't want to "Read" TV. When watching TV they just want to relax. To turn their brain off.

I'd love it if Fuji or TBS or whoever would liscense Dorama in the U.S. As has been said, I'd bankrupt myself buying high quality DVD's of shows with decent English subs.

But I also have to acknowledge that of my whole family, and my entire circle of real world friends... I'm the only one who watches Dorama. And that's not a good percentage if your talking about marketing this stuff to the mainstream.

But on the never say die side...



Shin2

What's stopping you from setting up a Dorama booth at next year's convention? You like Dorama, you're obviously interested enough in this stuff to go to the convention. Why not contact the people who run the convention and find out what it would take to set up a booth?

The demographics of anime is a lot more diverse than Japanese dramas. I can't see kids watching dramas, but there's tons of them watching anime.

For completeness, let me take a few minutes of your time to summarize the demographics of dramas versus the dramas themselves, then I'll roll that thought back into the anime/drama comparison.

There are actually different types of dramas. The different types of dramas satisfy different demographics. For example, dramas with young stars attract young thinking people, such as high school and college students. Dramas with a more mature cast of stars (ex: Wataru seiken wa oni bakari http://jdorama.com/drama_441.htm ) attract the more mature audience*.

* mature audience - I define this as those individuals who are settled down in their lives, have been around the block and have seen just about everything.

The reality is that people watch dramas for different reasons... For the younger audience, dramas satisfy their fantasies, imaging themselves being in the situations portrayed in the dramas (ex's: Having a girlfriend like Ueto Aya, or being popular like Kimura Takuya). Many young people are at the stage where falling in love, being with a special someone, and settling down are higher priorities in their lives. That's why visual appearance of the cast is top priority, along with love/romance themes and even possibly the melodramatic plots. In the U.S., Aaron Spelling played along with this idea in the late 1980's to early 1990's, which is why Beverly Hills 90210 is so mega-popular among Americans. And Korean drama writers have figured this out, which is why their works are booming in popularity. It's really easy to catch the attention of young people, as long as you play along with their thought processes.

For the mature audience like myself, we've been there, and done that. There are a lot of Japanese dramas people on JDorama.com have never heard of discussed, though they are very popular among the mature folks. Stuff like Hagure Keiji Junjoha, the various samurai and epic dramas on TV Asahi (not including the NHK taiga dramas), and a lot of daytime dramas like Wakari, Women of the Onsen, among others. However, you don't hear about these because much of the mature audience do not frequent the on-line drama resources like JDorama.com. Most people here think that JDorama.com is the entire universe of Japanese dramas, but it isn't.

Okay, now that I have that thought out of the way, let's get back to the anime/drama ties... Anime can be enjoyed by a much larger audience, including children (yes, kids DO watch Love Hina and Ai Yori Aoshi in Japan), high school and college students, and even some of the mature crowd. You cannont say the same thing about dramas. Kids don't want to see live people involved in various plots because you really can't do much with live people... They can't make the usual facial expressions, they don't have unusual colors of hair like orange and pink, and you don't see much of the fan service that adds humor to anime.

As a result of all that, Japanese dramas will never make it in the for-sale market outside of Japan. So why has Japanese anime been able to make it in the for-sale market?

It's quite simple... Japanese anime became popular before the Internet became mainstream. Before the early 1990's, American anime fans still had the conventions, the anime clubs, the translated scripts printed on computer paper with the green lines, and the VHS/betamax tape trading via snail-mail. With all of that, Japanese anime in the early phases didn't suffer the massive peer-to-peer trading craze that dramas are now facing. When people started using the Usenet newsgroups as binary posting sites, companies like Pioneer already purchased licensing of the anime products from their original owners. So even though anime is heavily shared on-line, the entire licensing process has already been developed. However, even with the sharing going on, people like myself will still pay $40 per DVD from Suncoast video.

Tired of reading? No, don't stop reading now... Here's the closer!!! Japanese dramas won't have the same marketing opportunity. I say this because there are several factors working against them. First, you already have a massive P2P sharing dilemma with dramas. Do you really think someone can make a profitable marketing opportunity with a commodity that's already being shared all over the world?

Second, the demographics isn't as diverse as anime. I already explained that earlier.

Even with Korean dramas, the sales figures aren't anywhere NEAR that of Pioneer's anime DVD sales. I honestly don't think Korean dramas are that profitable. YesAsia isn't that cheap, and KFBD-TV's prices are even higher than YesAsia. It takes thousands of DVD sales for any one company to turn over a profit. A company like Paramount Pictures can reach their sales quota in a week, tops! It'll take MONTHS for the Korean drama companies to reach their quota. And, with the decline in Japanese drama's popularity in exchange for an increase in Korean dramas' popularity, I doubt Japanese dramas on DVD with English subtitles would ever turn over a profit.

That's my view on things! Have at it!

--- groink

Geezer wrote:

What's stopping you from setting up a Dorama booth at next year's convention? You like Dorama, you're obviously interested enough in this stuff to go to the convention. Why not contact the people who run the convention and find out what it would take to set up a booth?

I believe it is a fairly straightforward process to request a booth at Comic-Con (the info is available on the website). As for me, I am sadly merely a dorama consumer; I do not download, trade, record, distribute or sell, but am dependent on and very grateful to those who do. Perhaps those who have invested a great deal of time and effort to provide dorama for the rest of us might be interested in doing what you suggest. I guess a lot would depend on whether or not there is a viable market out there that would be willing to pay for dorama.

Shin2

Like you, I'm a watcher, and a buyer, rather than a seller/trader/subber/et.al.

Unlike you, I'm not a person who goes to conventions. So I really don't know much about them.

But I see outfits like "Fangoria" putting on conventions for little nitch horror outfits like ei Independent cinema, and their DVD branch Shock-o-Rama... or Full Moon Productions... and I get the feeling that being a distributer, or a producer has little or nothing to do with running a booth for a specific genre.

I would think that if a fan (and I'm not singling you out) got booth space, and spent some time letting fans at different J-Dorama sites know about it in advance... he could arrange for any number of the different traders and sellers to show up and display their wares. To taut their obsession.

And if you gathered a fair sized crowd (and if Shock-o-Rama can gather a crowd, anyone can) , you could eventually get some of the big wigs interested.

It would have to be a committment. Whichever fan did it would have to be willing to start small. And be patient. But that's how all of these nitches at conventions got started.

Great points GROINK! I too,am one of the older viewers of the dramas. I started watching about 10 or 12 years ago. The first dramas I saw were PURE with Emi Wakui and Ugly Duckling with Tokika Tokiwa (I instantly fell for, as you can see by my icon). Even though I live on the East coast, I am able to get the International Channel with my cable subscription. The first 3 or 4 years there was English sub titles on screen that allowed me to view and learn different Japanese words and phrases. But, eventually it was turned off (which forced me to learn even more Japanese to be able to enjoy the shows). Yes, I would love it, if there were some English voice overs for the dramas, I don't think there is enough demand for anyone to do it.

I'm replying a bit late to this thread, but oh well!

I'm old enough to remember back when it was hard to get ahold of anime, when you had to trade for raws and watch them with scripts and pay $30 per episode on a tape (anyone remember laserdisk?). And yes, the "underground" nature of jdrama is similar to what was being done then, although the technology is a lot of more sophisticated now and it's a lot easier to get ahold of things.

But there is another difference that hasn't yet been brought up in this discussion: the presence of a home-grown industry. Anime had the advantage of being different from anything that was being produced in the US. Yes, there was some animation going on, but nothing utilizing the kind of topics or sophisticated storylines that anime ventured into. One or two animated movies, maybe and that was it for the American competition.

But we have our own dramas here, that the jdramas would have to compete with. Now granted, the format is different and the things that make jdrama special (and the reason I bother watching it), might pull in some viewers, but on the whole, American are going to want the home-grown product. Heck, most British/Irish/Scots/Australian dramas don't become widely popular here, and they use the same language that we do! Think about it: how many networks show UK drama series? PBS? BBC America? A&E? And how many have really hit it off here? Usually, they end up being "adapted" for American audiences.

I'd love to see a wider legitamate variety of Japanese drama over on our shores (television AND film). It would be nice to have that kind of quality on the DVD. But there are a lot more hurdles than what the anime industry had to face, IMHO.

--Maria

>But there is another difference that hasn't yet been brought up in this >discussion: the presence of a home-grown industry. Anime had the >advantage of being different from anything that was being produced in the >US. Yes, there was some animation going on, but nothing utilizing the kind >of topics or sophisticated storylines that anime ventured into. One or two >animated movies, maybe and that was it for the American competition.

I think you're very right about this... the tv channel probably won't want J-drama to compete with their own home-grow drama, that seem quite logical to me. On the other hand if we take the exemple of anime, vast majority of them come out on dvd but will never be show on tv (well depend of the country too but most release are dvd, anime shows on tv are important to win new public through, if we take France the anime shows in the 80'-90' did sure did help to get ppl know about jpn. animation)
The difference imo is that J-drama will probably have a smaller market, someone already gave many reason compare to anime.... and if we compare to local drama, most ppl probably won't even think about watching foreign drama... they requiere to be at least a bit interested about jpn culture... or somone that make them discover Jdrama, but
that probably won't happen in a big scale, and some ppl don't want to see a show with subtitle (i could't imagine a Jdrama dubbed in English :/)

Hope I didn't make too many misatakes

Yeah, i can't see it becoming like anime. As mentioned, anime has a pretty clear differentiating, niche, and coolness factor. Dorama on cursory glance looks just like a TV series. Japanese movies have had beter success as they are different enough. I just can't see dorama breaking into U.S. mainstream. Some live action shows which are decidely different might stand a chance and actually have that come to mind are things like sentai shows. But I don't think you'd consider them dorama. The closest I can think of to a dorama that is commercially available in the U.S. is the Lone Wolf & Cub series. And it is strongly different what with being set with samurai. If a dorama were dubbed? I still don't know. I don't think there's enough popular interest in common asian culture/life to succeed, unlike the Japanese who have a strong interest in things American which makes things like dubbed Friends, ER, etc. succeed over there.

It seems the prevailing opinion is that dorama will remain a niche form of entertainment in the U.S. And while all dorama fans would prefer having more accessibility and greater choice, I wonder if there is a segment of dorama enthusiasts who would not be too disappointed if dorama remained in its current state. It seems that dorama is very much technology dependent (downloading, fansubbing, online purchasing, etc.) and interactively driven (trading, e-mailing, web site discussions, etc.). Could the technological aspect and interactive play be additional attractions for some dorama fans? Or am I totally off the mark here? Regardless, based on the postings for this thread, the limited fan base, cultural and geographical disparity, and lack of profitability seem to suggest that the future of dorama is likely to be what the current status of dorama is. So, is this good, bad, or neither?

I think the current state is pretty good. With the explosion of technology on the net for distributing, access is so much advanced for fansubs now. With the niche market dorama is, I don't see much change, versus anime which while foreign market is still kind of a drop in the bucket compared to domestic, it's grown to the point it's at now. And I see people complain when good series' get liscensed. That goes against the supposed intent of fansubs. People are supposed to be happy when shows they like get liscensed.

There was an L.A. Times article reprinted in the S.F. Chron the other day about TV shows going to DVD that I thought was interesting.

The big wigs at the studios have discovered there's money in DVD sales of their TV shows.

And I'm not just talking about the "Simpsons" or "Friends".

Paramount is putting out a boxed set of Al Frankin's failed, "Lateline". Fox is putting out sets of"Greg The Bunny", and "Harsh Realm." There's already a boxed set of "Misfits of Science" and "Keene Eddie" a failed detective show from Fox is coming out in September. "Farscape", which couldn't even draw a big enough audience to keep it alive on the Sci Fi channel, is out on DVD.

Universal is already selling DVDs of "Battlestar Galactica", and "Sledge Hammer".

Accordig to FOX Home Entertainment, by mid year 2003 there were 153 TV DVD titles available.

By mid year this year that number has risen to 415 titles.

In all, the TV-on-DVD business is expected to hit 1.2 billion in revenue this year.

The rights to old shows aren't that expensive... costs for making DVDs have gone down... Americans have embraced DVDs the way they embraced VHS in the early 80's... and it turns out,

people like to buy full boxed sets of TV shows.

--(that's not me talking, that studio execs talking. They've done their research and discovered that consumers are drawn to TV on DVDs--)

If putting TV shows on DVD is the cash cow it looks to be, it's only reasonable that they'll start looking at foreign markets, to sell to, and to buy product from. Just the way they went to Europe and Asia to find movies to put on VHS.

And remember, Columbia Pictures (one of the big boys) is owned by Sony.

And if the studios are involved it pretty much answers the subtitling quesitons because they are already set up to do that on all their foreign films. (Heck, I've seen Chinese movies on DVD where they offer 3 or 4 different languages in their subs, along with tracks that offer two or three different dubbed spoken versions).

They know now that Americans want TV on DVD.

Now, it might help to let them know that some of us want Japanese TV on DVD.

Let who know?

Thomas Leshinki
President of World Wide Home Entertainment
Paramount Studios
5555 Melrose Ave
Hollywood Ca 90038

Sony Corp of America
Home Entertainment Division
550 Madison Ave
New York N.Y. 10022

Universal Studios
(no address right now)

Fox Home Entertainment

IF these guys think there's a market they'll look into it. And even if Fuji turns their corporate nose up, I'm betting TBS and NHK and some of the others would love to strike a distribution deal with these large U.S. companies.

Just a thought.

I think dramas could have a bit of small mainstream exposure in the US, if it leeched off of the anime fanbase a bit. Those people would be the most likely to try something out, and given the growing popularity of shoujo stuff out here, one of the many super light romantic comedies could be a little successful if brought out here and marketed properly.

Having the shows being picked up by FOX or NBC or something is a different story though. As far as TV is concerned, besides stations catering to foreign speakers, the only real possibility of a drama being picked up for display on American TV would be if there was a particularly excellent critically acclaimed series that got the attention of HBO or Showtime or something. It would have to be something curious enough to make it seem like it warrants special attention from the other drama TV shows that are out there, and also good enough for people to appreciate it once they see it. I can't think of something out now that would fit the bill, though a curious show like Love Complex from a few years ago could concievably work in that manner.Or perhaps a samurai period piece, playing off of one of the popular "cool" aspects of japan, but from the few I've seen, production values don't make them particularly enticing. In this scenario the station would also be likely to not dub the show either.

Uh, yeah.Those are my thoughts.

rezo

I wasn't talking about NBC or FOX picking up one of the Japanese shows.

I was talking about the TV-DVD home market.

I think you're right. The fans of anime probably will be the first large group to take a look at these series. Followed by all of us who were introduced to Japanese entertainment via Japanese movies on VHS. But we're not talking about the "mainstream" American TV audience anymore.

The shows I listed the other day, the shows that are being put on DVD for home use were all huge failures, as far as the American TV Mainstream is concerned.

On mainstream network TV, a show with a million dedicated viewers would be considred a disaster. A bomb. A failure.

But if that same show sold half a million copies on DVD, it would be considered a major major hit.

It looks to me like these studio execs have realized that there's value, profit, in going after the niche viewers.

Sci fi is a niche. A small dedicated audience. Dependable, but not big enough to have many successes on network TV.

Horror is a niche.

Anime is a niche.

And those of us who love Japanese dorama are a niche.

I don't think we're as big as Sci fi or Horror. But we might very well be big enough, and well organized enough, to become an identifyable target audience.