The New York Times 


September 17, 1995, Sunday, Late Edition - Final 

SECTION: Section 2;  Page 32;  Column 2;  Arts and Leisure Desk  

LENGTH: 309 words 

HEADLINE: Animie, Manga and Their Devoted Otakus Translate Into $60 Million in 
the U.S. 

BYLINE:  By TY AHMAD-TAYLOR  

BODY: 
   JAPAN'S PASSION FOR ITS COMIC BOOKS AND ANIMATED FILMS has taken hold in the 
United States. They have grown from an underground hobby for American collectors 
into a mini-industry that generated $10 million in comic book sales and $50 
million in home video sales last year. 

In Manhattan, two stores that specialize in the comic books, known as manga, and 
home videos, or anime, have opened in the last two years: Zakka in SoHo 
(212-431-3961) and Anime Crash in Greenwich Village (212-254-4670). Ancillary 
merchandise like toy models and T-shirts account for $10 million in annual 
sales, said Marvin A. Gliecher, president of Manga Entertainment, a leading 
anime video distribution company in the United States. 

American fans take on the name otaku, shorthand in Japanese for fanatic. They 
pay $3 to $12 for each comic book, sometimes spending more than $500 a year, and 
$30 to $35 for videos. Many of these fans were born in the 1960's and 1970's and 
got their first taste of the art form from Saturday morning cartoons like "Kimba 
the White Lion" and "Speed Racer." 

The American otaku tend to know bits and pieces of Japanese picked up while 
watching the videos. One avid collector in New York, Mark C. Wilson, 24, said he 
had decided to study Japanese in college after becoming fascinated with anime's 
view of Japanese culture. 

Even the comics that have not been translated sell well, in part because there 
is little need for words; the artwork does the talking. One series, "Lone Wolf 
and Cub," about an itinerant samurai, has a wordless fight sequence that goes 
on, and on, for 30 pages. The book has sold more than six million copies since 
1970.   TY AHMAD-TAYLOR 
  
  
WHERE TO GO 

ANIME SOURCE PAGE 

http://www.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Comics/Anime/ 


MANGA VIDEO USA HOME PAGE 

http://spider.mdia.phillips.com/manga/ 


GRAPHIC: Chart: "Animation: Japanese or American? 

Anime has several features that separate it from its American counterpart. 
  
THE FACES: Japanese characters tend to look vaguely Caucasian, and most 
characters have perpetual bad-hair days. 
  
SPEECH: Is usually rendered using hiragana or katakana, two Japanese syllabic 
scripts. 
  
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS: Eyes tend to be oversized and are used to convey most 
expressions.