Over the past week, a small but building movement has swept the internet via social media services like Twitter. It started as a murmur among knowledgeable if marginalized fans, but since that time the word and excitement has spread to more general fans of anime, animation, and film in general.
I am talking, of course, about REDLINE, the most amazing, kick-ass film in existence.
REDLINE began life as the brainchild of live-action filmmaker Katsuhito Ishii and animator Takeshi Koike. Ishii has in recent years attained something of an international reputation with his bizarre films like Funky Forest and Taste of Tea (which often employ mixed-media, combing live-action and animation). Koike is a long-time staffer at production studio Madhouse, known for his work in the Yoshiaki Kawajiri unit on classics like Ninja Scroll, and in more recent years for his highly original angular designs and show-stopping animation technique. Together, they conceived of REDLINE as a throwback that delivered the same kind of energy and excitement of the pioneering animated films of the 1980s. REDLINE became a labor of love for Koike, who spent an incredible 7 years on the film, not only directing but doing the storyboards, character designs, color designs, mechanical designs, background designs, animation direction, and a substantial amount of (uncredited) key animation. In an incredibly gutsy movie, Madhouse studio head Masao Maruyama gave Koike all the time and resources he needed to bring his vision to life. The result is a staggering work of cinema, a towering achievement celebrating what hand-drawn animation can accomplish even in the age when computer techniques have stripped away much of the individuality of the art form. In many ways, the film’s storyline of a group of “fools” who continue to race ‘old-fashioned’ wheeled cars in an age when hover vehicles are common closely parallels the story of the animators themselves, who still toil away with pencils and forsake the ‘progress’ of CGI. For both the racers and the animators, passion is what keeps the wheels turning, and for both, the accomplishment at the end of the day is far sweeter and more meaningful than anything created under the mantra of better tech and bigger profit.
After the film came out in Japan in October 2010, exposure outside of Asia had been limited. A number of hard-core animation fans (myself included), motivated by a chance viewing or a snippet of footage, tasked ourselves with spreading the word, but the general public of anime fans remained largely uninformed. Until this past week, that is. On August 10, the DVD and Blu-ray release of REDLINE reinvigorated interest among fans around the world. Many braved the high cost of shipping and volatile exchange rate to order a copy. And in a smart move that hopefully will become a new industry standard, the Japanese distributor Tohokushinsha Film Corporation (TFC) included English subtitles not only on the film, but on all the special features, including the hour-long making-of documentary. This, combined with the fact that Blu-ray shares the same region code as North America, has allowed many international fans to order the film immediately without needing to wait for an eventual local distribution release. And given that the Japanese special edition release undoubtedly will contain many additional features the US/Canada release will not, serious fans will want to grab the Japanese Blu-ray and bask in the glory of the flawless image quality and pulsing soundtrack.
But the Japanese Blu-ray release has had another consequence as well: fansubs and piracy. Within several days of the Japanese home video release, pirated versions were already spreading across torrent sites. The great tragedy of this, of course, is that REDLINE is (more than most anime) a film which needs financial support from its fans in order to succeed. The 7 years of production were expensive and difficult undertakings, and Madhouse literally gambled everything to give Koike his best shot of making something amazing. They succeeded, but now we as fans have to give back. Madhouse co-financed REDLINE, meaning that it is their money at risk, not some nameless bank or production committee. If the studio is to make more innovative art and entertainment in the future, if Koike is to be given another shot to astonish the world, we as fans must pay for our entertainment and help Madhouse get a return on their investment. Watching a fansub of REDLINE may let you experience the film, but it doesn’t help the people who made it. Therefore, I want to directly reach out to everyone who has watched REDLINE in the past week, or who will watch it via fansubs in the future: if you liked the film, go buy it. Either buy the Japanese release (which is subtitled and looks far better on a TV than whatever you downloaded), or wait for the eventual localized DVD/Blu-ray release in your region. Either way, please buy the film and show your support. With the level of incredible messages flooding Twitter, Facebook, message boards, and blogs all over the internet, I know a huge following for REDLINE has materialized overnight. If all of you who love the film also bought it, it would not only make REDLINE a financial success, but it would give the creators the opportunity and inspiration to make many more innovative films like this. I know times are tough and money is limited, but REDLINE is truly a stand-out film, and of all the anime you could buy, this is one of the very best. Supporting it right now with your purchase will strike a blow for keeping the anime industry strong and creative for many years to come.
I’ve tried to do my part. When I was in Japan last year, I saw the film 5 times in theaters (and Japanese tickets are $15+ for each time!). I bought the soundtrack and a host of other merchandise. I’ve gone to every US festival screening that’s been in my area. All told, I’ve now seen the film 9 times. I also have been promoting it on Twitter and elsewhere ever since the Japanese opening weekend. Most importantly, I plan to buy the Japanese Blu-ray release soon. Not everyone can match my (rather insane) levels of support. But if everyone just bought the film, either now or when it comes out in your country, we can make a huge statement on where we want anime to go from here on. Those of you who bemoan moe and sequelitis, the lack of innovation and declining production quality of anime; those of you who were once anime fans that have fallen away in recent years, you are the ones that can make your voices heard loudest, right now, with your support. The film is no longer just a movie: it’s a movement. And it’s sweeping the world by storm. REDLINE has now been a top trending Twitter topic for 2 days straight. The buzz is on everyone’s lips. There’s never been a better time to get excited and get involved. And I hope that all the new REDLINErs will join in, so we can have many more REDLINE days to come.
To buy REDLINE on Japanese Blu-ray, please order from the sites linked below. Both Amazon Japan and CD Japan offer swift shipping and reliable service; I’ve used both and can vouch for them. They are quality merchants, and I hope you will consider ordering REDLINE from them.
REDLINE Blu-ray Limited Edition on Amazon Japan
REDLINE Blu-ray Standard Edition on Amazon Japan
Bravo! Well said. This is one of the few times I’ve imported something from Japan, and the only time I’ve ever imported something that I hadn’t already seen. It was totally worth it. The way I justify the importation cost is thus: brand new video games regularly retail at $60, and the vast majority of those are so immensely disappointing that it’s far less of a risk for you to put your money towards a purchase like this, from an established artist whose work is superlative, than towards something like a video game.
And seriously, if you’re a skeptical observer of the entire REDLINE phenomenon, just check out a couple of the trailers on YouTube. In the highest quality your computer can support.
Yeah, bought two artbooks…the soundtrack and the bluray….BUT piracy is not so bad, I mean NOBODY could buy all the stuff they watch, and anime wouldn´t be know anywhere if it wasn´t for fansubs, it´s what happens with french comics NOBODY KNOWS FRENCH COMICS, and it´s a huge huuuuge world, at least as big as manga…Because well…Nobody scans them. The problem with anime also is that most japanese products are PERFECT while foreign anime dvds and blurays are always inferior…and they take years to release them…I think eva 1.11 was released yesterday on bluray…I mean I BOUGHT eva 1.11, the japanese bluray, even if it doesn´t have subtitles, I wath a fansub HD rip, haven´t watched my disk once lol…
REDLINE WILL MAKE THE SECOND COMING UNIMPRESSIVE BTW, greatest sensorial overload ever!
I commend your purchases to support REDLINE, but I disagree that without piracy no one would know anything about anime in other parts of the world. With the enormous variety of free legal streaming offered by both American and Japanese companies today, fans have the opportunity to watch professionally-subtitled shows within hours of their premieres on Japanese television. This is an incredibly rare and privileged status for anime to acquire; if you don’t think so, consider how many other television shows from other parts of the world are given this treatment in other countries. Consider also that the Japanese rights holders and studios that allow their content to be so distributed online do so with little to no expectation of serious financial reward; they do it for the benefit of the fans in hopes that they will eventually buy the home video release. Let’s face it: we have an incredibly generous situation provided to us as anime fans with the amount of free and legal content we can enjoy. And despite the fact that it sometimes take a while for content to be released here, we should be glad it is released in the first place, and not be impatient, and wait for it and enjoy it when we can. We are not a nation of attention deficit disorder sufferers. We are capable of waiting in an honest fashion, just as generations of Americans past did for regular film releases and book publications.
Now, I’ll just say this about myself: I’m not rich, nor do I spend everything I have on anime, yet everything I watch I buy, or plan to buy when it is released on home video. I do not watch fansubs, as I have described in the manifesto of this blog, nor do I condone them. I realize many people who read this blog will watch fansubs and take a more charitable attitude toward them than I do. I don’t want to fight over these issues. But I will maintain loudly and often that piracy does not benefit the industry because it results in fewer sales. Just because people watch films/shows via fansubs and then sometimes buy them does not mean the industry benefits. Compare with live-action films (particularly foreign films): if you want to see the film, you must pay to do so, even if you have few opportunities and little chance for a preview. The same is true of most American independent cinema. Anime, for all intents and purposes, is ‘independent cinema’ as well, in that no large companies are producing it, the potential profits are slim, and even single purchases make a big difference in the fight for survival. If your profit margin is 1-2%, as is common in anime, and your expectations of number of volume sales is in the 10,000 copy range, you cannot afford to lose even several hundred purchases to piracy. That’s why it is vitally important to buy what you watch. Just because something exists out there on the internet doesn’t mean you are compelled to watch it regardless of whether legal means exist. You can also do what I do, and wait, and watch it when it’s legally available, and buy it when it’s legally available. That’s not only the best way for the industry, it’s the only honest way that respects the hard work of the artists and rewards them for their labor.
If you find you’re watching more anime than you can afford to buy, then perhaps you’re watching too much anime and should broaden your horizons. It takes between 6 and 13 hours to watch most series, and if you have time for more than a few of those time commitments per month, I envy your schedule. I will not stress this on this blog, but piracy is not only a legal but a moral issue, and a key issue of respect. Keeping in mind the creators, artists, and animators who struggle to entertain us, I would hope that people try to at least keep in mind that we should do right by them as they do by us. Give the support you can, spread the love of what you like, and keep the creators in mind as you watch. Every decision you make, every show you choose to view, has an impact on the future. Try to make choices that will keep the medium going. That’s all this blog will ever ask.
I agree with the author and very strongly urge everyone to purchase the film via the links above. I saw this film when it first came out in Los Angeles. It appeared in the Los Angeles Animation Festival and witness first hand how incredible the film was; the details and effort the animators put into the film made it eye-catching and heart pounding. You get this incredible feeling from both visual and audio of the film that is felt through anime films or shows such as Akira or Ghost in the Shell. Hopefully, this kind of film will not be the last of it’s generation.
So you ask people to stay away from the evil torrent and to buy the movie when it becomes available in your region, but then you point out that it’s only been released in Japan and you don’t seem to know when it will be released outside of it. Why thank you, I guess I’ll just download the torrent now and then buy the thing when I actually have the chance.
Uh, sure, I could buy it from Japan, but I don’t think I’m that big of a fan of something I’ve yet to see to go that far.
As I explained in both the article and comments, it is my view that people should be able to wait until a film or show is released in their region to watch it. For decades before the internet and bit torrents, people somehow managed to do that without complaint. I don’t believe that humanity has fundamentally changed so greatly in the last 10 years that we are now unable to wait several months or even a year for something we want to see to be released in our area. If that were truly the case, then people wouldn’t be willing to wait for Hollywood films to come out, and would demand they be finished sooner than their actual production time. Really, if people are so impatient that they can’t wait for things anymore, even with the huge quantity of product and content that is currently available for them, we have a much bigger issue at hand than just piracy.
Regarding buying a Japanese release without having first seen the film/show, this is something I can understand very well. I’ve personally bought several Japanese releases, but I tend to avoid it due to the expense and typical lack of subtitles. However, in the case of REDLINE, subtitles are provided not only for the film but all the special features, and while the cost is high in comparison to a US Blu-ray release, I can assure you the price is worth it. If you want to preview the film, trailers are abundantly available that provide a good look at what you’re in for. And the nearly universal critical acclaim from anime fans should also give you a good idea that the film is of high quality and worth purchasing, since I’m hardly alone in advocating that.
As for the release of REDLINE outside Japan, the film has been licensed by Anchor Bay/Manga Entertainment and will be released in English-speaking territories soon. In the UK, Manga Entertainment is slated to release the film on November 14. In the US, Anchor Bay has pushed back its release date several times, but the most recent estimate is also for November. So, you don’t have long to wait if you are going that route.
I don’t pretend I have the ability to stop piracy. But as part of the reason I created this blog is to counter it, I will not go about advocating or tolerating it. I will not answer every single justification of piracy in the blog comments; my position is clearly laid out in the Statement of Purpose post linked on the front page of the blog. But if people come to this blog and attempt to turn the discussion away from advancing the industry and art form and toward easier and more effective ways to rip off anime creators, I will take decisive action to get the conversation back on track and prevent this blog, which is intended as a place for legitimate discussion, from descending into the same moralless swamp of intellectual property contempt that has consumed most other discussion boards of anime websites in recent years. That will not be tolerated. One corner of the internet at least can and will still be devoted to the legal and positive development of fandom and exploration of the animation art.
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