Patrick Macias is the Editor-in-Chief of the new anime and manga magazine Otaku USA. The magazine is current out and you can find out more about it at http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/" class="bb-url"> http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/
Patrick has written such books as TOKYOSCOPE: THE JAPANESE CULT FILM COMPANION (Cadence Books, 2001) and CRUISING THE ANIME CITY: AN OTAKU GUIDE TO NEO-TOKYO (Stone Bridge Press, 2004). His next book, THE JAPANESE SCHOOLGIRL INFERNO: TOKYO TEEN FASHION SUBCULTURE HANDBOOK, will be published by in the US by Chronicle Books in Spring 2007.
http://www.patrickmacias.com/" class="bb-url"> http://www.patrickmacias.com/
1. Why a new anime/manga magazine now?
We're crazy. We got no sense. And it was either this or wander around
the park all day looking for bottles and can in the trash bins…I mean,
what the heck are we thinking doing a print magazine about *anything*
here in the age of the Internuts and "Dancing With the Stars"?
Ok. There's more to it than that. All you have to do is go down to the
local bookstore and trip over the kids sitting in the allies
bulldozing their way through the manga on the shelves, or hit the
local video store which (contrary to popular belief) still has an
immense amount of "Japanese cartoons" on the shelves. Or you can just
walk outside and sniff the air. There's a faint trace of burnt soy
sauce and banana crepe (bought in Harajuku) on the breeze…
Either way, a noticeable segment of the US population has gone crazy
for Japanese pop culture. There's been a paradigm shift of sorts.
Japan is now both cooler and closer than it ever was to America
before, and lots of people want to tune their radios to what's going
on over there.
Our publishers, who have been in the magazine business for 20-odd some
years, didn't have much experience in dealing with a menu of strictly
Japanese orientated stuff, but they figured that there was enough
interest in all this weird stuff to warrant a new mag. Meanwhile, I
had just come back from a long stay in Tokyo where I finished up a
pair of books and needed a new project to work on. We formed up like
Voltron and the results can be seen at a store near you.
2. With magazines out there like Protoculture Addicts and
Newtype, how does Otaku USA plan to be different?
Well, we aren't boring for starters! I make a concentrated effort not
to employ a bunch of video gamers who review some of that "anime and
manga stuff" in their spare time. Or contributors are basically
deities and demigods in their respective fields, like Jason Thompson
who handles our manga section (who's new book Manga: The Complete
Guide is getting rave reviews) and the Anime World Order gang who
handle the bulk of our DVD reviews and features. But what's better is
that they aren't out to shove their opinions down anyone's throat, nor
or they out to win the "smartest guy in the world" contest. A more
likeable and humorous bunch of knowledgeable nutjob personalities
would be harder to find in this, or any other fandom. Also, I'm the
editor in chief, and I don't think I'm too bad at what I do. But yeah,
some of the Protoculture Addicts people are friends so I don't want to
fire any hasty shots over their bow, but I think, at the end of the
day, our publications are different animals. You be the judge.
3. With the immediacy of online news, how does Otaku USA plan to
compete or differentiate from online?
By ignoring it as much as we can! Otaku USA doesn't even have a news
section, and no one is crying over it. I think news is what the
Internet does best, but trying to keep up with all of it is like
trying to get a drink of water out of a fire hose. Having said that,
it's my personal feeling that the Internet (especially with the Rise
of the Blog) is fundamentally weak on a couple of fronts. It's become
both too personal (i.e. subjective, see a million LiveJournal posts
for further information), conversational (message boards), and quite
often, there's not a lot of actual content there. The same information
just keeps getting passed around and around (consider Anime News
Networks ubiquitous RSS feed). My mission with the magazine is to try
and steer the subjects away from raw data and babble into an area
where the sole intent is to entertain the reader, no matter what the
subject is. Whoever originally said it gets a free subscription, "its
not what you say, its how you say it." Even so, I don't want to ever
think of Otaku USA as just some kind of reaction to, or a duel to the
death with the Internet. There are no limbs and appendages and
consequently, nothing to kick under the table.
4. What is the focus on the magazine? Is it just Anime and Manga, or
is more about Japanese culture in general?
The focus of the magazine is whatever and wherever our collective
Japanese pop culture obsessions take us. Nothing is set in stone. We
are free men! Of course, anime and manga are a big part of the
picture, but we also bow down to rubber monsters, rock and roll music,
and the extremely weird waters at the deep-end of J-pop. The
alternative is just a bunch of recycled press releases and pretty
pictures.
5. We now have people have fans that grew up with Starblazers in the 70's
with fans who just say anime on Cartoon Network just last week. How does
your magazine plan to address the growing generation gap in fandom?
As much as I poo-pooed the Internet earlier, I would at least like to
offer it a hearty handshake for helping to wipe out that perceived
generation gap a bit. Things were different a few years ago, when, if
there was a certain anime from One Million Years BC (Before Cartoon
Network) you wanted to see bad enough, you were pretty much screwed.
Now, you can at least access *something* without too much effort. And
increasingly, because of this I think, I'm seeing younger fans more
and more interested in older things like Rose of Versailles and Mobile
Suit Gundam. Which makes sense, since works like these help form the
bedrock of anime genres still with us today. So, OK, all is forgiven,
Internets. It allows the magazine to go off on any weird tangent we
want because no matter how obscure we get; the Thing Itself is usually
just a few keystrokes away (not that I am condoning piracy, or
zombies, or dressing like a ninja at the con).
6. What's the magazine viewpoint on "world manga"? Where is the line drawn
between Manga and Comics for the magazine?
I'm kind of in agreement with one of writers, Daryl Surat (of the
divine Anime World Order podcast), that the word "manga" *should*
refer to Japanese comics, made by Japanese people in some mythical
far-off undersea kingdom called Japan. I don't see what's wrong with
simply calling manga-influenced works made in America "comics", but
then, I don't make comics or manga myself so I have no idea how much
these kind of debates really keep one up at night. I know our manga
section editor wants to include some Original English Language manga
reviews from time to time, and that's totally fine with me. As for the
genre itself, I think that's great that Japanese anime and manga have
inspired a lot of people to hit the drawing table, but I think the
genre really needs a "killer app", rather than a succession of cult
hits in order to be taken more seriously. I'm hoping there's a work
that can do it eventually, and real, real soon!
7. Speaking of the definitions of Japanese words, how do you feel about the
American changes to words like Otaku and Manga? You touched on this in your
editorial in Issue 1 of Otaku USA, but could you expound on the topic?
The word "otaku", to me at least, has come to mean in America "someone
with an intense interest in Japanese pop culture, be it anime, manga,
or ugly polyester shirts with inscrutable kanji one them." I could be
alone in this. I could be committing some kind of linguistic faux pas
for thinking so. Yes, the word would seem to mean something different
in Japan, but even THEY are still debating what's otaku and what's
not. But they also get to twist English words around all they want and
the rest of the world finds it charming ala mouth-watering candy
called "Collon" and "Dew Dew" rather than turning it into fodder for
Serious Debate. So why can't we? As for manga, I can try and try, but
I still can't shake the idea that the idea that it means "comics from
Japan". It could be because manga is an actual form with a national
origin as opposed to a loose knit group of nerds, geeks, and dorks,
what have you. I appear to be contradicting myself here. Maybe not.
Next question.
8. What does it take to make a magazine? Can you go into the creativity an
artist or writer has to perform to make a magazine not only informative but
also entertaining?
Hmmm. It's kind of different for everyone. I've worked on a ton of
publishing projects before, but this is the first time I've ever been
the editor in chief of anything. I'm probably doing it all wrong! But
I feel like having a good support team is crucial. I like to work with
people who are fast, reliable, and who bring their own ideas to the
table, and luckily that's what Otaku USA seems to have. I don't know
how our other writers stay motivated during those long dark nights of
the soul, but outright fear usually works like a doozy for me. It
forces me to wake up, put some monster movies on the tube, slap on my
headphones, and go to war. As for being entertaining, I recommend
wearing a funny little hat.
9. Say you were hiring an aspiring writer or artist for your magazine, what
would you be looking for? What skills, experience, or schooling should they
need?
Personally is number one for me. It's an indefinable quality, but I
know it when I see it. Professional wrestlers have a lot of it,
oatmeal, not so much. I think the Internet (there's that word again)
is a good place to cultivate it in your writing, but it's hard to get
a lot of valid feedback out there, which is why some people flip out
when their text comes back edited or cut. That's no fun for anyone,
especially the editor. Some kind of background in creative writing or
journalism is nice, but I think basic people skills matter a lot more,
especially if someone is serious about doing this kind of stuff in the
long run.
10. A lot of fans new to Anime and Manga want to know how they can go Japan
and be a Manga Ka or Animator. If there any tips you could give to break
into the Japanese industry or would they be better served working in the US?
Make a lot of Japanese friends. Take their abuse. Be the butt of their
jokes. Try and learn from it when they brutally beat the stuffing out
of your work and call you a lazy American (which you probably are)
when you try to impress them. Then again, I'm not a manga-ka or an
animator, so this is probably useless advice. I dunno…The Megatokyo
guys managed to get it together and are now being published in Japan.
Michael Arias directed his own anime film (Tekkonkinkreet) so the
doors are open a lot more than they used to be. It's less and less of
an "impossible dream" so people should just go for it instead of
trying to over think it before sitting down in front of a blank sheet
of paper.
11. With first with anime, and then manga, and then Jrock, new trends seem
to be constantly coming over from Japan. What do think the next big trend
will be?
Well, everyone wants to know and my telephone psychic isn't taking my
calls anymore. BUT I think that anime and manga will continue to act
as a kind of "gateway drug" for more diffused kinds of weirdness from
Japan, and people will continue to mix and match with whatever draws
them in.
12. A lot of fans are saying that Anime and Manga is now
mainstream. How do you see Anime and Manga fit in to American
culture? Is it a good or bad thing if anime and manga become
"mainstream"?
I can't put ethical terms like "good" or "bad" on pop culture. I don't
even know if there is a "mainstream" anymore. It seems to me like the
world has gone the way of "narrowcasting" (content designed to reach a
small number of dedicated consumers) rather than "broadcasting" (still
listen to the radio as much since you got your iPod?), so this idea of
some big unified evil "mainstream" to oppose isn't to what it used to
be. What blows my mind is that Japanese pop culture is even able to
fit into Any Mall USA without too much trouble (the manga section at
the bookstore, anime on TV, etc). If it winds up making someone a lot
of money in the process, I'm all for it. Please buy my magazine.
13. On the opposite side, how does American culture affect Anime
and Manga? Is the influence getting stronger as more sales are coming
for the US?
History lesson: The Western influence goes all the way back to Walt
Disney and the Fleischer Brothers, but there's no denying that what
anime and manga has become is very different from what it started out
as. The Japanese side of the equation has taken up a huge interested
in cultivating (i.e. fleecing) the Big American Dollar for a long time
now. This moment in time would appear to be their best chance. There
appears to be a deliberate effort to create more works with
"international appeal" now, but its not being done at the expense of
canceling out more typically Japanese anime style productions, which
is nice. Still, things are hardly utopian. There's a lack of talent
and decent wages, which leaves the door open for Hollywood to come in
and throw their weight around. But even that won't be The End of All
Things, so I remain optimistic.
14. What are some of your favorite Anime and Manga?
Experimental stuff and adolescent power fantasies, basically. New
stuff: Death Note, Gunbuster 2, Paprika, Karas, Gurren-Lagaan. Old
stuff: Zeta Gundam, Yamato, Gatchaman, anything by Kazuo Koike or
Kazuo Umezu.
15. If you could work with any animator, voice actor, manga-ka, or creator
on a project, who would it be? And what would the project be?
I have a big nutzoid oblique and difficult Science Fiction novel in my
head based on a semi-mythological vision of Tokyo I acquired from
spending most of the last couple of years there. It will be filled
with personal symbols, blatant lies, and thinly disguised versions of
all the bits during the interview where people say, "this is off the
record" because that's always where the best stuff always is. I'm
going to write it (soon) and have some folks (can't say who now) do
some character design and mechanical illustration for it. And then
everyone can debate what to call it afterwards. Original English
Language Poppycock!
