Daily News (New York) August 03, 1997 SECTION: Sunday Extra; Pg. 24 LENGTH: 1685 words HEADLINE: JAPANIMATION INC. IS THE MAINSTREAM AMERICAN MARKET READY FOR POST-APOCALYPTIC ANIME? BYLINE: BY LEWIS BEALE BODY: Don't call them cartoons. They are not short subjects with wisecracking bunnies or stuttering pigs. Nor are they animated features in the Disney style, with chirpy music, an "Up With People" mentality and Day-Glo colors. The Japanese don't do cartoons; they do anime ("animation" in Japanese). And some anime makes its American equivalent look like childish doodlings. Take "Ghost in the Shell," some of the hippest anime to come out of Nippon. It's a full-blown cyberpunk tale set in a near-future Tokyo. The story line follows a female cyborg and her partner as they search for a computer hacker known as the Puppet Master. He's actually a virtual reality creation of a supersecret government agency who becomes an independent life form and demands political asylum. "Ghost in the Shell" contains copious cartoon nudity, gore-filled shootouts and serious discussions about the nature of identity. It's the kind of flick that probably has Uncle Walt turning in his grave, a stark contrast to everything Disney stands for. Yet it's graphically exciting, defiantly adult and totally cool. It's also sold more than 250,000 videos in the United States since its theatrical release last year, and was once No. 1 on Billboard magazine's video sales chart. "Ghost in the Shell's" commercial success is just one indication that anime, long a cult item among young males in America, is slowly making its way into the mainstream. Thanks to increased exposure on TV, home video and in theaters, anime is set to become The Next Big Thing. "The whole market [for anime] has grown because it's an alternative entertainment product that wasn't out there before," says Mike Egan of Manga Video, which distributes "Ghost in the Shell." Manga is the Japanese word for comic book, on which many anime are based. "Anime is perceived as being very fresh and new by young American people," adds Frederik Schodt, author of "Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga." "Both comics and animation in America have been so ghettoized [for children], it's a revelation to see both can depict so many different themes, and adult themes." Japanese animation has actually been available in America for decades TV series like "Astro Boy," "Speed Racer" and "Gigantor" have been around since the 1960s but it is only in the last few years that anime has begun to attract mass acceptance. The signs are everywhere: Anime is popping up with increasing frequency on TV. "Dragon Ball Z," a surrealistic kiddie superhero show, is seen on a number of stations nationwide, including Ch. 11 in New York (Sundays at 9 a.m.). "Sailor Moon," popular with young girls, is broadcast on the USA cable network (Mon.-Thurs., 8:30 a.m.). "Vivid, strong, exciting..." The Bravo cable network has shown anime, and it is a regular feature on the Sci Fi Channel, which shows anime Saturday mornings from 9 to 11. The Sci Fi Channel's fifth annual Anime Film Festival, featuring four films never seen in this country, begins this week for four nights in prime time. "Anime is very vivid, strong, exciting and story-driven, yet exquisitely executed animation," says Barry Schulman of the Sci Fi Channel. "It's different, unique, and it's content you can't get just anywhere." Anime is fast becoming a video-store staple, included in the inventories of chains like Blockbuster, Tower and HMV. "About 35% of video retail stores now have an anime section," says Mike Pascuzzi of New York-based Central Park Media, a major anime distributor. "Word of mouth among the real fans has been the biggest reason why the audience continues to explode." Anime Crash, a retail store that opened in the East Village two years ago, is on course to become America's first anime chain. The store carries everything from videos to manga, CD soundtracks, toys and model kits. A second Anime Crash already has opened in Boston, with more outlets planned for Times Square and Providence, R.I. "The same thing that happened with 'Star Trek' fandom is now happening to anime," says Anime Crash co-owner Scott Mauriello. "It's becoming mainstream." Mauriello says anime's increasing popularity has helped move its fan base beyond young males to females ages 16 to 38, as well as all sorts of Middle Americans. Even Disney has jumped on the bandwagon. The studio signed a deal to distribute the films of director Hiyao Miyazaki, often called the "Walt Disney of Japan." Eight of Miyazaki's family-oriented features will go directly to the home-video market sometime next year while a ninth, "Princess Mononoke," will be released theatrically by one of Disney's subsidiaries (no date has been set). This explosion of interest in anime comes after years in which the art form's primary fan base was young males who attended science-fiction conventions, logged onto computer chat rooms and formed anime clubs. "The animation is like nothing anyone's seen before," says 21-year-old Brian Mah. He belongs to the Metro Anime Alliance, a fan club that meets at New York's School of Visual Arts. "Anime feels like live action in animation form," adds Mah. "And the storytelling is better than anything I've seen in America." Animerica magazine editor Trish Ledoux says this male audience loves the erotica and violence that typifies some anime, and is particularly fond of female superheroes with "big breasts, big eyes and big guns." It came from Japan Hypnotized by their bootleg videos (at one time the only way to see hip anime in the States), obsessing over their favorite characters, these fans tended to forget, says Ledoux, that "this stuff is mainstream pop culture garbage to a lot of people in Japan, just like Disney films." In fact, anime and manga come out of a highly sophisticated Japanese visual tradition. Because the Japanese language is based on pictograms, storytelling through animation and comic books is an accepted cultural concept. Comics are the largest portion of the Japanese publishing industry, and animated features account for more than half of domestic box-office revenue. Anime also is ubiquitous on Japanese TV, where as many as 15 shows from soap operas to kiddie programing and adult dramas are broadcast every week. Some scholars have traced anime back to Japanese woodblock printing from the 16th century, which occasionally contained very explicit images of sex and violence. Because of this, says Schodt, "animation in Japan has become regarded as something that can express a wide range of themes and subjects." But, he adds, "that doesn't mean anime and manga are particularly outrageous. It may mean [American] perception of what is acceptable is unique to our own history." In other words, in a culture in which "Dumbo" and "Bambi" define the animated art, a film like "Akira" looks like "Citizen Kane." Released theatrically in this country in 1989, "Akira" is regarded as the anime that began the current American craze and brought anime to the attention of mainstream film critics. A $ 7 million production often regarded as the masterpiece of the genre, "Akira" is about motorcycle gangs and psychic rebirth in a post-apocalyptic "Neo Tokyo" of the 21st century. "The animation is so completely cinematic," said the Phantom of the Movies in his review, "[I] often found it easy to forget [I] wasn't watching a live-action movie." Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the same film "a phenomenal work of animation [with a] post-apocalyptic mood, high-tech trappings, thrilling artwork and wide array of bizarre characters." Not all anime attains "Akira's" high creative level like all art forms, anime includes its share of the good, bad and just plain cheesy. A healthy portion of the genre is made in choppy-looking limited animation (eight drawings per second, versus the 24 per second in Disney films), and all too many plots seem like endless riffs on Mortal Kombat-like video games: weapon-wielding superheroes, mystic mumbo jumbo and gore, gore, gore. There is also plenty of anime that is family-oriented, like the "Sailor Moon" series or the Miyazaki films (his "My Neighbor Totoro," an utterly charming children's movie, was released here theatrically in 1993, and is available on home video). But it is the futuristic, comic-book material that tends to be more cutting-edge, stylistically and thematically. For example, many anime heroes are mutants or have psychic powers an obvious metaphor relating to Japan's concern with the Bomb and the effects of nuclear radiation. And the growing strength of women in Japanese society has led to an increase in woman warrior-type anime heroines. This, in turn, has helped attract a female audience in the United States. There's also a sense in which the extremes of anime and manga which can contain X-rated scenes of sadomasochism, lovemaking and grotesque violence act as a safety valve for the baser instincts of a very controlled, homogeneous society. "The ultra-violence in these things is a counterbalance to [Japanese] society, where there's very little crime," says Mauriello. "[When] you go into a bookstore in Japan, you see books on sadism and masochism right next to manga. This stuff is worked out in their film and their animation and their manga." But anime is not defined by its extremes. The continuing success of middle-of-the-road product like "Sailor Moon" ultimately will determine just how big Japanese animation becomes in this country. The same goes for Disney's entry into the marketplace with its marketing clout and brand-name identity, the studio can create anime awareness in a much wider audience. Where it goes from here depends on the upcoming Disney release of the Miyazaki films," says Ledoux. "It will either blow it wide open in terms of most kids knowing [about] it, or it will arrive, people will see it, and people will forget about it." But, adds Ledoux, no matter what happens in the Disney universe, anime is here to stay. "The cultish aspects will never go away," she says. "After all, this is the geek millennium we're talking about." GRAPHIC: CEL-ERS MARKET (Clockwise from far left) "Ghost in the Shell," "Sailor Moon," "Akira" and "Gowcaiser."