A while ago, I got through the thirteen episode anime’ series Elfen Lied. I watched the first three episodes with mild interest before loaning it out to a friend, who failed to watch it because he was too busy giving his time, money, and loyalty to Blizzard Entertainment via World of Warcraft, so I decided to snag it back. One night, with the house to myself, I did the only natural thing for a male in his mid-twenties who is unmarried and living up the lifestyle: I popped the anime in and decided to kill an hour, all alone.

I started watching the fourth episode at around ten. This started a chain of events that didn’t end until around three-thirty in the morning, resulting in one less anime series that I needed to watch and no small amount of physical and mental fatigue.

Yes, I sat through a ten episode anime marathon, and absolute impossibility for me these days. Part of this is due to my feelings of ill-ease. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that days have a sneaky tendency to up and end around the time I’m just waking up. As a result, I tend to lose interest in activities fairly easily, for fear that there’s something else I should be doing. There never is, but who am I to try and figure out my odd mental quirks?

Anymore, I’m proud of myself for getting though a single four episode DVD in one sitting, so a ten episode run is very impressive. This sort of falls into my mantra of what separates a good anime’ from a great one. A good anime makes you want to watch it. A great anime won’t let you stop watching until it says so.

Oddly, when I reflect on it, Elfen Lied is not what I would consider a great anime. It’s not for a lack of parts, since it has enough clever twists and the right tone to force the need to find out what’s going to happen next. It’s always a good sign when I curse at the end of an episode or a DVD, damning it for goading me into watching the next episode, despite other commitments, like work or my wedding. And yet I can’t say this particular title had all of its parts fitting together just right. I can’t point out anything glaringly wrong with it, though it could have had more episodes to flesh out to plot, which is probably one of the best flaws to have. It was a very good series, with enough emotional twists to keep you on edge, and I recommend it, but it doesn’t have that special something that pushes it ahead of its top contemporaries

One thing Elfen Lied is notable for, and there’s really no way to escape this fact, is the intense levels of violence. There are points where rooms are literally covered in blood, limbs are ripped off, heads explode, puppies are beaten to death (I’m not joking. I was really sad at that point, like I almost always am when innocent dogs are in pain. Don’t care much for the humans, though) and internal organs are flung around. When I first saw all the blood, my reaction was “Yeah, this is pretty gory, but it still doesn’t beat Devilman (a classic, violent anime). It’s got blood, but where are the internal organs?” It didn’t take long for a part of a minor character’s anatomy that had no business being outside of his body to come splashing out on screen. I didn’t say much after that point, though I still can’t get behind that puppy beating scene. Oh well, the miserable hu-mins get theirs almost instantly. Just wish they got a little more…

Er, okay, anyway, this is one aspect of anime in general that I respect. This level of violence has a way of making a situation even more dramatic (puppy scene…) and, more importantly, extremely uncomfortable, creating an even stronger impression. I’ll admit there are times when violent scenes can get ridiculous (Advancer Tina, anyone?), but overall, the animators’ freedom to create such violence is what attracts me to the art form, in principle and in artistic quality.

I have to establish to those in the dark that not all anime titles have violence, sexuality, nudity, or harsh language. For years, anime has been ignorantly and flippantly scrutinized in America, either considered disposable children’s entertainment or Chinese cartoon porno garbage, complete with extreme violence and wanton sex aimed at perverts and psychopaths. In the twenty-first century, anime slowly became more popular, and as new fans were born, the general respect for anime rose. Well, not really, but at least anime suddenly had more exposure to the mainstream, and the public could finally see that it wasn’t all about blood and boobs.

Unfortunately, American anime distribution companies have since decided if they can’t come up with a solid marketing or localization strategy, they might as well hype up the gore and sex to appeal to the consumer. I have to admit that I would never want to be in the position of an anime distributor. Those guys have to worry about breaking even on the production of any given title. I wouldn’t want to deal with the stress of paying licensing, translating, dubbing, designing, marketing, and distributions costs on something that may not sell a thousand copies (really). It almost seems like a losing battle.

But there has to be a better way of marketing anime than highlighting the offensive parts. I find this marketing ironic, since companies like 4Kids Entertainment and Toei Animation have been trying to distance the censored version of their titles away from being associated with anything that might put off parents. While I really can’t stand the concept of censored art, commercial or otherwise, I can vaguely understand, since we Americans have been brought up believing animation is pandering children’s entertainment. It doesn’t make it right, at least from a purist’s standpoint.

And yet hyping up the gratuitous content as the sole marketing strategy is almost as offensive. ADV Films, the distributor of the Elfen Lied, has become notorious for this kind of marketing. They decided to highlight how wanton the violence in the show was, almost overshadowing the actual plot.

This wasn’t the first time the company has pulled this kind of marketing. For a previous title called Gantz, ADV choose to go with a slogan stating that the show was too extreme for Japan, a statement that would make any knowledgeable anime fan turn his or her head. What this was referring to was some of the content, featuring violence, strong sexual content (including sexually degrading scenes and attempted rape), and nudity, which was edited out of the TV broadcast of the show. This says something, because there have been some intense shows that have pushed the broadcast limits, such as the immortal Berserk.

Gantz itself had some gripping elements, but mostly contained extremely poor pacing, terrible characters, and a questionable plot. It didn’t help that ADV decided to try a two episode per disc campaign to see if people would prefer lower cost, lower episode count discs. You can guess how that went, and I could have told them so. Overall, it seemed ADV was banking on the exploitive elements of the show and not its few merits.

It’s not just ADV, though. Funimation, a company that previously dealt with mainstream releases, but started getting into the hardcore fan market, recently ran a campaign called “Babes - Blades - Blood - Beauty,” highlighting the violence and sexuality in its new batch of acquisitions. While none of these titles were as extreme as ADV’s line, Funimation still milked it for what it was worth. It seemed to work, since I was digging up titles from that campaign at the local Allied Record Exchange soon after.

It’s not just the campaigns that can exploit the elements of a show, but also the translation. Sometimes anime companies decided to “spice up” a title by adding localized references or dumbing down the dialog to appeal to the sophomoric crowd. I’m not talking about poor translations or idiotic dialog, but rather throwing in obscene elements to make the show “more mature,” ironically taking away credibility in the process.

An older example of this was the English dub of Those Who Hunt Elves, a very good series that involved characters from Japan who were sent to another dimension and were forced to strip the clothes off of elves to get back home. The premise itself was ridiculous enough to carry the series, but good ol’ ADV decided to pepper it up by throwing in lots of cursing and out-of-place American pop culture references. Instead of the previously competent script, Americans were besieged with references of Brittney Spears, Meryl Streep, Starbucks, Judge Judy, and the Backstreet Boys. Thank God for subtitles.

This practice faded away for a while, until Funimation revived it with its release of Desert Punk. The series itself was pretty vulgar in its original form, but Funimation deiced to push it a step further by throwing in as many references to bitches, balls, and fun bags as possible. Ironically, one of the reoccurring female characters is trapped by an enemy and offers him sex in return for her safety. In the English version, he just asks for sex, and this shocks her. In the Japanese version, after she mentions a brief list of sexual activities (including sex), she’s only stunned when the bad guy suggests anal sex. I’m surprised they left that out, but I guess they didn't want to offend anyone.

What really stands out in my mind when it comes to the fantastically brilliant translation decisions we see on display is the change of a company name within the anime. In the English, they decided to go with the absolutely clever Ballsahurtin. Seriously, characters would be talking about serious plot developments surrounding Ballsahurtin. Really classy.

Then there are releases that just don’t make any sense. ADV licensed a show they titled Ghost Stories. The original show was aimed more at children, with comedic and light mystery elements. ADV felt the show was too dull for American tastes (having seen it, I don't get this), so they took the liberty of changing things around to make it an off-the-wall comedy instead, with the script altered, the dialog adlibbed by the voice actors, and numerous American pop culture references. The worst part was they touted this alteration, and were praised by some media outlets. The hardcore fans, however, were none too pleased.

What I can’t understand is if they thought the show was going to have such limited appeal, why didn’t they just find another show with more market potential? Why mess with the original formula in the first place? Granted, they offered the original Japanese version on the same disc, but that’s sort of like being forced to pay for two statues of David, one untouched, and one dressed in the latest fashions from Fubu.

ADV also decided to add a rather embarrassing feature to a couple of older releases, just for kicks. When they released Burn Up Excess and Plastic Little on DVD, they added a feature called the Jiggle Counter, which counted how many times a particular female character’s breasts jiggled during the show. While it was amusing, and this content was meant for risqué comedic value, the counter destroyed the subtle humor of the bouncing and made it more exploitive than it should have been. Yes, I am arguing the artistic value of bouncing boobs. I’m a fan, sue me.

Is there really anything wrong with marketing a commercial product (and despite what fans wish to believe, anime is commercial art) to a specific group, even if that means highlighting the more superficial aspects of the show or changing the script (especially if the original Japanese version is available to those who want it)? From logical standpoint, no. We’re still getting about the same content, but since when has fandom been logical? We see these tactics, by consequence, as ways of diluting the artistic value of the series these companies are trying to promote.

Sadly, at least in my opinion, the hardcore breed of anime fan is slowly dying out. The fans that got into anime when the market was still very niche are being pushed out or replaced by a new type of fan who has hundreds of titles at their disposal at low prices. I hate sounding elitist, especially since times were good when I got into anime when compared to twenty years ago. When I first got into anime in 1997, you were hard pressed to find stores that carried titles, and when you did, you could expect to pay $20 and up for a VHS tape. Nowadays, it’s easy to snag an entire series on DVD for that. Back then, anime was a rarity. Now, it seems like a commodity.

And yet I shouldn’t complain too much. Because of this business structure, I’m able to enjoy many more titles than was previously possible for a highly affordable price. I can even track down my old favorites and some classics I never knew existed. But I still wonder if the titles would have done just as well without all this cheap crap tacked on?

Again, I can’t blame these companies for doing what they think they need to do to make their money back on their investment. In most cases, this is a business of love, but it is a business. I just can’t imagine it would make that big of difference if they used more thoughtful marketing. I’m sure word of mouth would get a quality series where it needs to be, and fully intact, but I know there are many times when this simply isn’t the case.

Honestly, my love for anime is greater than my hatred for exploitive marketing techniques. My only criteria for watching anime is that it has to be good (or really stupidly bad, but that’s another article), despite the marketing. If a title is good, I’ll keep buying more of it. If a titles sucks, I’ll dump it like it was a copy of Sword for Truth. That’s really bad, by the way.

I’m not condemning anyone for buying anime solely on pseudo clever marketing, however. That’s the point of marketing: making the product appeal to you. By all means pick up a copy of ADV’s next splatter-fest. I just ask if you have any passion for anime at all, please consider other titles that you could be missing because they aren’t part of some marketing blitz, even if you have to dig around for them. No one said this hobby was easy.

And to the anime distributors… you know what, never mind. You know what my opinion is by now, and you’ve heard the opinions of countless fans, so I’m not going to drive it into your skulls anymore. This is mostly because I’d never want to be in your position, hedging your survival on a hobby with such a small consumer base. Really, I think you guys have had enough. For now.

Now if you excuse me, I’ve taken enough of my anime time up writing this thing. Maybe I’ll enjoy some uncut Card Captor Sakura or Sailormoon. You think I’m joking.

Arigato.