The director of One Piece: Red explains the great success of the film and why streaming can be a tool for anime to reach a global audience
The success of One Piece: Red It has been constant and very exponential. The film has remained for 11 consecutive weeks number one at the box office in Japan and already raised more than $198 million in world cinema, making it the sixth highest grossing film in history in the Japanese country.
That success was to be expected, after all it is a new movie based on one piece, one of the most iconic and recognizable stories in pop culture history. The work created by Eiichiro Odahas sold more than 500 million copies around the world and has inspired a series that has 1,043 episodes (and counting).
For this reason, the director of the film Goro Taniguchi explained why he thinks streaming can boost anime in order to satisfy the great demand for anime around the world.
It’s Time for Anime to Reach a Global Audience
In interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taniguchi said that the success of One Piece: Red It was a sign of the interest that the entire world has in Japanese animation, because in reality the story of luffy has millions of fans “Everyone knows the brand, everyone has heard of One Piece at some point in their day-to-day life. The challenge was to convince the public that continually consumes the story, that it was worth going to the movies for it”.
Part of the success of One Piece: Red came from joint efforts between Crunchyrol, Aniplex, Sony Picturesl and Toei Animation for the film to reach movie theaters, in addition to providing options with subtitles and dubbing. For that reason, taniguchi believes that streaming platforms can make the anime finally achieves global popularity, because they can already satisfy the demand of the international market.
“In my opinion, the big platforms see potential in anime. Around the 80s, many Japanese animators were working mostly abroad, because there were producers who wanted to develop their own anime and Japan couldn’t cope. […]
Now we’ve reached a level of skill and proficiency, industry members can now fill a bunch of needs, technical or narrative, for a global audience.”
Goro Taniguchi, The Hollywood Reporter
What does the cinema of Japan need?
Likewise, the director assured that the cinema of Japan is going through a period of technical maturity, but is too focused on the local market, which limits the success of their productions.
“We have to pay more attention to the international market. So far, our most successful products have sufficed for the domestic Japan market.
But in the future, the most successful will be those who can diversify their genres and their work teams, while keeping an eye on the rest of the world.”
Goro Taniguchi, The Hollywood Reporter
