Slap a "Made in China" sticker on anime

(tags anime, China, Japan, criticism, kawaii, season 2005/04)

One of my favorite English-based anime bloggers, Matthew, had an interesting report on how Futago Hime is being shown in the Chinese TV prime-time despite being a Japanese-made anime, because it is restamped as "made in China". This anime has all the audio parts in Chinese, voices, OP and ED songs, but the visuals are the same as the Japanese version.

He in turn links to a Japanese speaker who is conversant in the Chinese anime otaku scene with 3 posts (「ゴールデンタイムに日本のアニメを「中国で制作した」として放映？」:1, 2, 3) on this very issue.

Summarizing (hopefully not too crudely), the company that made the 2005 TV anime Fushigi Hoshi no Futago Hime (ふしぎ星の☆ふたご姫) is the HAL Film Maker Co,. Ltd, which is one company in the TYO Group. TYO Group also has a 31% stake in the Chinese company Da Lian Eastern Dragon Cartoon Development Co., Ltd, who is responsible for this "made in China" anime.

So the transfer of assets seems legitimate. It sounds like a business strategy to repurpose a successful product towards a different market. I'm sure that the "made in China" stamp is so that the show garners more eyeballs, which in turn will feed the toy purchasing.

But it's the same situtation as when any U.S. based (or elsewhere) dubbing company releases a Japanese anime. Do you call that product "made in the U.S.A"? I didn't think so.