The Commentary Track
 

Newtype USA: Unfocused and Irrelevant

Can the new, rich kid on the block keep his friends?

By The Mysterious X

I admit it, I’m really sick of Animerica. But that’s nothing new. I first lost my respect for them back in 1996 when they ran a “cover story” that was really a badly written Ranma 1/2 fanfic/ad. They’ve gotten better since, and thanks to the hard work of its staff, have now achieved the journalistic quality and integrity of, say, Electronic Gaming Monthly. (Mind you, I’ve known 12-year-olds that let their EGM subscriptions lapse because of its poor, biased writing, but hey, it’s an improvement.)

For the anime and manga industry, Animerica is pretty much all we’ve had for quite some time. Other pure-anime publications have either been stillborn (Anime Republic), lived short lives (Animefantasique) or just never seemed to elevate themselves above ‘zine status (Protoculture Addicts). Truth be known, the anime market probably hasn’t been big enough until recently to support more than one magazine. Hardcore fans get their info off the ‘net, and for the other 85% of the market, Animerica has served its purpose.

Enter Newtype USA. It’s big. It’s shiny. It REAL purdy. Admit it, since the initial press releases went out, you’ve been drooling over the thought of having a resource as great as the OFFICIAL import magazine of anime fandom, in a format we can actually read!

Now it’s here. It’s everything we thought we wanted. And like us, it’s got a lot of problems.

Who Is Your Market And What Does He Do?

Unfortunately, a great deal of Newtype USA is a beat-for-beat translation of the Japanese magazine. Even more unfortunately, the magazine seems to revel so much in being so Japanese that it seems to have completely forgotten its American audience.

Are you a fan of Ikebukuro West Gate Park? Do you get TV Tokyo at your house? Do you really care about a new up-and-coming Japanese voice actress’s favorite foods?

Indeed, the majority of Newtype USA covers stuff that, frankly, has absolutely nothing to do with American fans. While the extremely hardcore among us might go out of our way to download a digisub of Heatguy J, the truth is that the vast majority of us won’t see ANY of the shows covered in this month’s issue of Newtype for YEARS.

And that’s just if we can understand what the damn thing is talking about. The liner notes of Overman King Gainer helpfully point out that its storyboards are by none other than Yoshiyuki Tomino. That’s nice. Who’s Yoshiyuki Tomino? A few hundred die-hard otaku might know that off the top of their heads, but what about the thousands of more normal fans needed to keep this magazine afloat?

Meanwhile, news and information that’s actually helpful to American anime fans – local convention news, DVD reviews, multipage color inquiries on shows just now coming out here – are noticeably absent. Lucky for us, there IS a two-page interview with Kankuro Kudo, the writer of two really great Japanese films that have never been released in the States. Gee, thanks.

Truth be known, the Japanese market and the American anime market are more different than they’re alike. Cute usually doesn’t sell here. Most of us don’t have the years and years of back knowledge on creators, Japanese voice talent and TV series that just never really made it over here that Japanese readers do. We also, generally, don’t read from right to left. It might make a lot of sense to print manga that way – artwork doesn’t have to be flipped, less retouching is required, et cetera. But for a magazine with ARTICLES and TWO-PAGE SPREADS that read from LEFT TO RIGHT, to a reader it’s just confusing.

Swim or Sink

Right before press time, Newtype USA wrote that they were cutting their price, from $12 an issue to $10, due to “overwhelming support from fans and advertisers.” Which probably means they weren’t meeting their charter subscription quota, and potential advertisers and investors were giving them funny looks.

No doubt, such a magazine is a risky proposition. The anime market is primarily made up of young people, most of whom seem to be continuously strapped for cash. Buying DVD’s, however cheap they seem to be getting, is the fan’s top priority, and all the extra stuff is secondary. A magazine this expensive needs to serve many needs, and really be an essential buy for it to succeed and have a growing fan base.

That’s where Newtype’s fifteen-year history comes in handy. Shows just now coming out here, or getting re-released on DVD for the first time have had prominent coverage at one time or another in that magazine’s history, and all that good information is something American fans could really use.

For an example, around five years ago, Newtype featured an interview/conversation with the creator of Evangelion (Hideaki Anno) and the creator of Utena (Kunihiko Ikuhara). Two of the most creative minds, the creators of two of the most screwed-up and loved shows in all of anime. It was an amazing read.

Many anime fans are Japanophiles as well. Japanese language lessons, cultural tips, and recipes would be great for fans to get their feet wet. Japanese live action films that are just coming out stateside would be interesting to cover as well. Don’t forget the rest of Asia… many anime fans are also into Hong Kong and Korean movies and music. Coverage of the Japanese pop music scene (who IS that singing the opening to Rurouni Kenshin?), primers, and tips on popular otaku past times like video editing are also can’t miss concepts that are woefully overlooked in most American magazines.

I still love the idea of having an American version of Newtype. I really would like for this magazine to succeed. I think it has the potential to. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t bother writing all of this. I’d simply roll my eyes and write it off as another interesting, landfill-bound experiment by overzealous fans or ill-informed Japanese businessmen with too much time and money. You know, like Raijin Comics.