Let’s Make A Movie About Anime!

During the course of the pandemic, I have been doing a lot of things during my spare time.

Working on personal writing projects, designing my first board game, and raising a human.

I also took the time to watch a lot of TV and movies thanks to the countless streaming options that I have at my disposal.

This past week, I happened to come across a documentary that came out on Netflix back in 2019 that flew under my radar, “Enter The Anime”.

I watched it and felt that it should have stayed under my radar.

My issue with this documentary is that it concentrates on Netflix-produced anime, and doesn't go into the broad spectrum of the anime world. It felt more like a promotional tool for Netflix than anything else.

Disappointed in the fifty-odd minutes I wasted watching this quote-unquote documentary, I went online to look up what other documentaries about anime existed. There are a few about certain creators and some behind-the-scenes stuff from some production companies, but there was almost nothing about the anime as a historical document or covering its international fandom (especially here in the US).

The few that do exist are all mostly footnotes on DVD extras and maybe short films that give people a brief intro to anime, and that's it.

As for the documentary I want to see: I don't want a documentary explaining what anime is. A nice chunk of people know what anime is. If you open a dictionary, the definition is generally “a style of animation originating in Japan''. It really does not need to go further than that.

I want to see a proper documentary about the history of how anime grew in popularity in the US, and why it's popular.

I then realized something: I studied filmmaking. I went to college to be a journalist. I love anime. And I have an idea of what people want to see in regards to a proper documentary about anime.

As Thanos said at the end of Age Of Ultron “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

US ANIME.

This documentary is simple.

We want to chronicle the history of Anime in the United States. 

From the first anime to come to the states in the ’60s, to the early syndicated adaptations of the late ’70s trying to borrow success from Star Wars, to the toy grabbing and VHS bootleg years of the ’80s, and the big bang of popularity in the ’90s, and beyond!

Interview hopefuls would be the owners and directors of American distribution and streaming companies, convention organizers, and online content creators that talk about anime.

Consider this me officially entering the pre-production phase of creating this documentary.

Currently: I am reaching out to a few hopeful interviewees and figuring out crowdfunding options, so stay tuned for more updates!