The Media Mix: A Japanese Phenomenon

I find myself fascinated by the media mix — the way one type of media can become popular and spawn a number of other types, how a manga can become an anime, a video game, or a movie — both animated and live action.

Card games, amusement parks … there are a huge number of ways one type of media can proliferate so widely. There are a number of prime examples of one media opening the way to another, including Final Fantasy, One Punch Man and Yu-Gi-Oh!.

finalfantasy.wikia.com/

Of course, you can’t discuss the media mix without talking about the Final Fantasy series, a role-playing game that emphasizes a mixture of fantasy and science fiction. The first Final Fantasy game, called only Final Fantasy, was developed in 1987 by Square Enix, a well-known name in gaming, and created by Hironobu Sakaguchi. A huge number of games were released, including 14 main games.

Among these games, there have been releases for several consoles, including the early Nintendo Entertainment System and later Xbox and Playstation, on the PC as MMORPGs, and even ports for iOS platforms. Even now, there are new games and MMO expansions being made, despite the series being nearly 30 years old.

Over the years, these games have led to a number of trans-media adaptations. There are two CGI movies – Spirit Within and Advent Children – which received variable levels of success, and two Original Video Animations, or OVAs, based on Final Fantasy V and VII. An anime called Final Fantasy: Unlimited was released in 2001, and in and of itself had a number of transmedia tie-ins that continued the story, including a novel, Sou no Kizuna, a drama CD, and a manga.

More than any other franchise, I feel that Final Fantasy series embodies the idea that the media mix is a way to capitalize on the material wants of its fans — there are an enormous number of games, with a whole bunch of movies and anime that begin new adventures or even continue storylines, therefore not only encouraging fans to buy the tie-ins, but almost demanding it if one wants any sort of conclusion for their favorite characters. Despite this bring a prime example of the media mix, when one hears of Final Fantasy, they don’t think of manga or drama CDs, but mainly console games. In that way, I feel that the original source media is the most well-known or popular … most of the time.

An example of a transmedia phenomenon where the original media is less popular than what came after is One Punch Man, a series whose main character is a superhero that is stronger than all others, and can finish any fight with one punch, even against villains that would cause characters like Goku from Dragon Ball trouble. One Punch Man was originally a web comic created by a mangaka known as ONE that attracted the attention of manga artist Murata Yuusuke, of Eyeshield 21 fame, who offered to redraw the series. Why was this such an important thing?

This is a comparison image of Saitama, the main character of One Punch Man, finishing an enemy in one punch. The image on the right is from the original web comic — proof that ONE, while a talented storyteller, isn’t much of an artist, though his childish style is somewhat exaggerated on purpose. On the left is a redraw of the same panel by Murata, who is a supremely gifted artist but doesn’t write manga of his own.

It was Murata’s redraw that was serialized as a legitimate manga, and it was the redraw that earned One Punch Man an anime, which was recently released. Being a long-time fan of the series has given me a sort of insight into the Western fandom’s reaction to this. A large number of fans refused to read the original web comic, despite it being far ahead of the redraw, on the grounds that ONE’s art was terrible and ruined their immersion. As such, One Punch Man is an excellent example of how a transmedia anime can bring new life and attention to otherwise lesser known works of manga. Incredibly, the redrawn One Punch Man appears to be popular enough in Japan that ONE and Murata teamed up to work on a number of short manga.

Of all these, there’s one series I can’t ignore, a show that aired when I was a child and I still watch every week: the famous Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, which consists of a number of separate series featuring protagonists that duel for the safety of the planet with magical monster cards in a game known as Duel Monsters. Interestingly enough, Yu-Gi-Oh! began as a manga that focused on many games, not just dueling, but the original creator of the series, Takahashi Kazuki, became fond of the card game and repurposed the series to focus only on it. The original manga spawned an anime series and a full blown interactive card game.

All five protagonists.
source: jpninfo.com

The card game proved to be so popular that it was published in several languages, including English and Spanish, and there are a number of professional players that participate in dueling tournaments that are held every year in order to win rare cards. The rarest cards can sell for hundreds of dollars online. As a result of this popularity, a number of movies and five other Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series were created, though Takahashi was involved with them only remotely. After the original, the subsequent manga series were all based — slightly — off their concurrent anime counterparts, with the characters remaining the same in name and appearance, but with a different overall plot and, occasionally, alternate characterizations and card decks. In order to capitalize on the success of previous series, the newest anime addition, Arc V, features the previous series in a convergence of alternate dimensions, allowing Konami to bring back old favorite characters with new cards to generate increased revenue.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief exploration of the media mix phenomenon in Japan. Media mixes can be found everywhere, of course, especially in the superhero comic/cartoon/movie dynamic that’s so popular here in the U.S., but I feel that it’s most prominent in Japan. Until next time!