The year of Pandemia brought other first experiences. For the first time in the history of cinema, the highest grossing film of the year did not leave Hollywood. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train (In Spain, Guardians of the Night: Infinite Train) It is a Japanese film based on author’s manga Koyoharu Gotōge that exceeded 500 million dollars at the world box office (443 million euros) despite the obstacles that the pandemic supposed for the distribution and exhibition of films, thus becoming the highest grossing in the world.
This domain also made clear the strength of an animation technique hitherto minority, known as anime. “It is a way of telling stories deeply rooted in Japanese culture,” explains Mitchel Berger, executive vice president and at the head of the global crunchololl trade, platform and main seal of distribution of distribution of anime Out of Japan. “An artistic expression mostly realized by hand, full of action and emotions, with complex stories and a very peculiar rhythm, without cynicism, which has become a global phenomenon, with an increasing presence in popular culture,” which expands to its passage through the Annecy festival, the main sample of world animation, which is celebrated until this Saturday.
For a week, the small French town hidden in the middle of the mountains, almost at the border with Switzerland, becomes the world capital of everything animated. Short, long, documentaries, video games, hand drawn productions, by computer, stop-motionexperimental, industry or made with coffee beans and two euros, aimed at a family audience or an audience that appreciates more adult content. Everything that makes animation a film technique and not a genre, as many want to type it, meets in Annecy. A forum to which this year has joined the anime With all his strength, looking for the best of the windows and a little respect for his own community. Because even the overwhelming success of Guardians of the night: Infinite train, This style was valued only by a few, considered of geeks or rather otakus (The same term, but in Japanese) and somewhat belittled by the scholars of animation and, of course, by prizes such as the Oscars.
But things have changed. Those who grew up blurring Japanese series like Sailor Moon o Dragon Ball During the pandemic they preferred to take refuge in the anime of his childhood instead of kneading bread. “It is incredible how much artistic form has stayed with them. Especially, although not only, with those of generation Z,” says Berger, in the heart of this explosion, given the importance of Crunchyroll when it came to providing them with some content that they only found just pirate by the network.
At present, the platform has 17 million subscribers in about 200 countries offered by a fund of more than 2,000 titles with about 200 series of anime and more than 25,000 hours of content, which include international successes such as Solo Leveling, whose third season is “inevitable”, in the opinion of his followers, a feeling that causes a smile in this executive with more Viking vikingo out of How to train your dragon than a manga hero.
In Spain, interest has also triggered, and the one we could call the netflix of the anime He has doubled in the last two years his number of subscribers. But Berger wants more than one cake that attracts one billion fans in the world. A style with which it religiously connects 42% of the Z generation and the alpha In the United States, who sees anime weekly in a percentage higher than that followed by sports retransmissions such as American football.
The popularity of anime It is on par with those of figures of popular culture such as Beyoncé, LeBron James or Taylor Swift, according to a survey disseminated by the company, and Berger sees a great potential for expansion in markets such as the Middle East, Iberoamérica and Europe. “For this we are acquiring and investing in about 40 or 50 series and preparing six to ten films annual,” confirms on behalf of the company in charge of the distribution in the United States of 10 of the 20 highest grossing titles in anime In 2024. Among his bets is the new installment of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle, “An epic” with which in September of this year he hopes to repeat and overcome the triumph of Guardians of the night: Infinite train.
Speak in addition to global premieres. Berger does not conform to Crunchyroll’s work as a platform. At a time when the distribution in Salas is considered dying, only in the hands of a few stars such as Tom Cruise or Marvel type franchises, Berger speaks of offering fans “experiences”, returning them to cinemas to enjoy communally enjoying this animation style, whose tentacles are also noticed in music, in concerts, conventions or conventions, conventions or conventions, conventions or conventions, conventions or conventions, conventions or conventions merchandising.
“Demon Slayer He showed us that we can return fans to movie theaters. I want to make sure that the coming generations that really love the anime Do not lose the habit of going to the cinema, ”says someone who grews traveling from his neighborhood cinema to distant galaxies as a big fan of the universe Star Wars And that discovered the anime With series like Starblazers o G Force.
To launch this world domination plan, Crunchyroll is going “where fans are.” And what better place than Annecy, a city that has gathered more than 17,000 professionals and fans from 200 countries. He anime It also has the advantage that offers you a change in animated trends. “A clear turn is being given in the tastes, in the contents, towards a more adult theme,” the Turkish animator Aziz Kocanaogullari, of the ILM studies, known as the pioneers in the field of special effects, but who now seek to improve their position in the world of animated series for adults, confirmed upon arrival at his arrival.
Animation with adult content is an upward field as they demonstrate series such as LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS o Scavengers Reigns (Collection planet). Both are part of the filmography as director of Spanish Diego Porral, candidate for the latter to Annie, the Oscar of animation, and also in Annecy these days. “I am fortunate to work on projects that I would like to see as a spectator,” admits this horse maker between the millennials and the Z generation. “With the entrance of the platforms, the studies are risking content that years ago could seem like a niche, for geeks. They have realized that, if the story is good, the public likes. And that’s why they bet on something else and not only go to franchises that already exist, ”he explains.
Other events in Annecy, such as the exhibition dedicated to the successful Netflix series Arcane, on the border of what is considered animesupport or nourish the expansion of this animated technique that, as Porral emphasizes, is entering the industry. Always from Japan? Berger does not pronounce on the possibility of a anime That occurs outside Japan, perhaps by the Crunchyroll Association with Japanese studies in addition to the Sony company or because, in its opinion, in the DNA of this way of doing animation there is something fundamentally Japanese. However, the hybrid examples that approach anime From other countries they are increasingly frequent. “The division of anime From Netflix in Tokyo he congratulated us for the work we had done because they did not believe it was Spanish, ”recalls the director Maite Ruiz de Austri about the series Idhún Memories, Based on the popular Laura Gallego literary saga and transferred to television like an original netflix anime In 2020.
Even projects present in this edition of the Annecy Festival, such as the film The Violinist, First co -production between Spain and Singapore, they have adopted a graphic style anime To tell a love story in times of war. “In it anime There is something for everyone, “Berger insists.” Thus wide is the range of stories told in anime, For men, for women, LGTBQ+… Did you know that 44% of fans are women? ”
Crunchyrol expansion forecasts may not be completely supported in Europe, or at least in Annecy, where Berger’s presentation did not have the same mass bath or the same energy to which this company usually in its events in Japan. The same states Ruiz de Austri about the expansion of adult content animation. “The conversation exists and is seen on the platforms, but in the ticket offices at Spain there is really still much to improve,” laments the filmmaker. “With the anime That doesn’t happen. We are living a golden age, but mainly in series. There is much development ahead in its hybridization in cinema, ”he adds. Crunchyroll hopes to demonstrate otherwise with the premiere on July 18 in Japan (and September 12 in Spain) of his great new bet, Infinity Castle.