Interview 092006SH

Viz Pictures is a new and unique company, whose mission is to distribute Japanese movies in the United States. They brought "Kamikaze Girls" to this continent last year, and this month, as their first movie since it became a separate company from its affiliate last year, they will release "Train Man: Densha Otoko", starting from New York City on September 22, 2006.

Smily and calm-mannered entrepreneur Seiji Horibuchi, CEO of Viz Pictures, has been selling Japanese comics and animation DVD's for more than two decades through its sister company Viz Media, which he also founded and still serves as Co-Chairman. Viz Media is a joint venture of Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and Viz Pictures is funded by Shogakukan as well. Horibuchi answers the editor's questions, about the popular, mass-type Japanese movies potential in the U.S. market.

A grand vision - theater and distribution of Japanese pop culture

So, why did he decide to take up the movie business after anime and comics successes?

"I like movies, and I have always wanted to do the movie distribution. So about ten years ago, while I was still running Viz Media, I bought the rights of about ten movies and started to show them in the U.S. as a side business. The first one was Koki Mitani's 'Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald', and some other notables are Takashi Miike's 'Dead or Alive' and Katsuhito Ishii's 'Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl'. But in 1999-2000, Japanese animation boom popped up all of a sudden, thanks to 'Pokemon' popularity, so I had to concentrate on my magazine and anime business for a while. Now that the comics business is well established and I can entrust the day-to-day management to others, I have restarted movie projects.

Japanese mangas (comic and anime) have been around in the U.S. for some time by now, and the young generation who grew up with Japanese mangas are now naturally interested in Japanese pop culture. I want to let them know that there are lots of fun stuff from Japan, and movies are definitely something that they can enjoy.

In fact, the project to build a theater dedicated in Japanese cinema started earlier than the distribution plan. A building in San Francisco Japan Town became available. It turned out that its basement was perfect for a theater, so I decided to make my dream come true. There was a Japanese movie theater long time ago run by Toho, but now as far as I know, there is no such thing elsewhere in the U.S., and we will be in a unique position to have both the theater and the distribution business.

We acquired the building last year, and are planning to open the place in 2008. The street level will be occupied by a new store by Kinokuniya Bookstore (Japanese bookstore), and we are currently searching for the tenants on the second floor. I am hoping to bring in a spa, beauty salon or something of that nature. (laughs) Once the theater opens, we can do a lot of fun things there, such as film festivals and different events."

Expanding the Japan Pop fan base

His approach to expand his manga business into movie/theater is a unique one, in the U.S. where "Japanese movies" are normally associated with either samurai/martial arts films or snobby arthouse stuff for a limited number of particular fans. And he is trying to break that barrier little by litte so Japanese movies will be accepted by wider range of U.S. people.

"In international film festivals, Japanese films are often treated as sort of freaks. Organizers' selection is often hard to understand. It is OK that some people enjoy Japanese films as freaky art works, but these don't work for mass audience. On the other hand, normal American people usually don't have motivation to watch foreign movies to begin with. They are not accustomed to read subtitles, and they just don't have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with Japanese movies.

My mission is to expand the base population who are familiar with Japanese pop culture. In the long run, it will benefit our core business. Of course, I am not willing to lose money for individual projects, though, so I will select the films carefully so the business makes sense. We already have DVD distribution channels, and we have a good grasp of what the potential market is, so we are in a good position to make the right judgement. 'Kamikaze Girls' was a good case. DVD's sold well."

Feeling of sympathy to the same kind, and importance of subtitles

Just as "Kamikaze Girls", his selection seem to be right on target for their existing customer base - young manga fans, often called "otaku" (a certain type of "geek" in Japanese). American otakus share the same taste and sentiment with Japanese otakus, who would flock to Akihabara and collect comic hero figures. And "Train Man"'s hero is exactly their kind. In the film, normally unpopular and shy Train Man falls in love with a pretty girl, and with a lot of support from anonymous friends on the Net, he tries to approach her.

"We held a screening of 'Train Man' in Anaheim Anime Expo in July. The 1000-seat theater was standing-room-only, and from the start till the end, everyone was raising their fists and screaming out their support to Train Man. It was just an amazing sight. I have never seen such an enthusiastic response from the audience.

Usually, the original films supplied by studios have English subtitles, but we put our fine-tuned subs, so the wordings are natural and understood better by Americans. In 'Train Man', we experimented the both versions, studio-made subtitles and our version, to the general audience, and there were sharp differences. They laughed at the different timings, and the reaction was much better with our version. Subtitles are very, very important. In 'Train Man', Japanese smilies, used on the Net community, play an important role in the story, and we tried to emulate them as much as possible in the subtitles."

Waiting for the judgement

The editor personally really enjoyed this film (my particular favorite characters are the "otaku trio"), and Japanese mass market, not only otaku niche but wide range of viewership, supported it as well, as was proven by its 3.5 billion yen box office gross. But when it came out in Japan, there were some negative comments in English language press by film critics, picking on the childish behaviors of the hero or the under-developed character of the woman. What are the reactions by the American press this time?

"A press screening was held in New York last week, so we are waiting for their words right now. I understand that there are some flaws in this film from the movie art point of view, but that is not the point here. The important thing is to deliver the right thing to the right target audience. If the film critics watched it together with Anaheim audience, they probably would have felt differently. Movie is highly individual art. Everyone feels differently to the same movie. So I don't put too much emphasis on the film critics. But it is true that their words have influence to the general public, so I hope they like it this time.

Once the show opens to the public, the film is out of hands of providers. How people would receive the film is totally up to them, no matter how the producers or distributors think, because the movie is such a personal thing."

Exciting plans

All these sound so exciting, but that is not all. He has more fun movies in the pipeline.

"We are preparing to release 'Linda, Linda, Linda' in December this year. After that, we have Katsuhito Ishii's 'Taste of Tea' to follow. This one is a bit different from the pop-oriented line-up in the past, but the director has strong followings, and I liked its calm and quiet taste.

We are currently focusing on manga-related pop movies to establish our brand, based on our existing manga fan base, but we hope to expand it to other types of Japanese movies in a few years."

"Train Man" is opening on September 22, 2006, in limited theaters. See the U.S. official site for the theater schedule.