Aso's 'manga museum' plan cool with Aussies

SYDNEY (Kyodo) Prime Minister Taro Aso's proposal to build a $125 million "manga museum" has received a ringing endorsement from Australian fans of Japanese comic books and other pop culture.

Comic: Prime Minister Taro Aso, widely known as a fan of "manga" comic books, attends the Group of Eight Summit in Italy last week. KYODO PHOTO

The national popular art center, scheduled to be built in Tokyo in two to three years, will display Japanese "anime," manga and game software, the Cultural Affairs Agency announced earlier this year.

The move has been criticized by opposition politicians as a "colossal" waste of money, particularly at a time when the economy is suffering amid the global financial downturn.

However Aso, an avid fan of anime and manga, is pushing ahead with the project.

Dean Prenc from Madman Entertainment, Australia's largest distributor of Japanese pop culture, believes there is a place for this "important and culturally significant art form."

"It's incredibly shortsighted to keep letting this stuff fade away, (to) be destroyed . . . it should be preserved and exhibited," Prenc said.

While the Cultural Affairs Agency hopes to create a new Japanese animation precinct to rival Tokyo's Akihabara district, Prenc said it needs to avoid the traps of the Tokyo Anime Center.

Describing the Anime Center in Akihabara as "dry and not massively interesting," Prenc believes the national art museum should be more like an unofficial "manga cafe," where people can interact with the various art forms.

"The exhibits displayed need to be done in a really interesting, entertaining and informative way, like any good museum," Prenc said.

"If it's dry and dull, who will want to go there?" he added.

Australia continues to be a growing market for Japanese pop culture, with the number of attendees at anime and manga conventions growing between 10 percent and 20 percent annually.

Although the number of Australian fans is hard to pin down, industry experts put it at around 70,000.

Prenc said that while the pop culture market is currently experiencing tough conditions, Australian sales of anime and manga remain steady.

"(It's) a very good sign, particularly compared with sales in overseas territories declining over the last few years," he added.

The country has even coined its own name for fans, with some hardcore manga followers known as "oztaku," a play on the Japanese term "otaku" (geek) and the colloquial term for Australia, "Oz."

Avi Bernshaw, 26, the business manager for OzTAKU, a Melbourne-based organization, believes a national archive of Japanese pop culture is vital from both a literary and education perspective.

"I know in Japan there are still a lot of people that won't read manga even though it's so pervasive, just because they've bought into this Western idea that comic books are for children," Bernshaw said.

He also believes criticism of children and teenagers reading manga is unwarranted.

"Not only is there no damage, but also it keeps kids interested in reading," he argues.

Australian fans gravitate toward the same popular trends as people in other English-speaking countries; however, parents have also latched on to the educational value of some animated films.

"The thinking mums and dads are picking up the films from Studio Ghibli that might be a little more challenging for an 8- or 9-year-old than the latest volume of 'Disney Princesses,' " Prenc said.

Local media have picked up reports of Aso's pop culture project, with many Australians already warming to the idea.

A good sign, given authorities expect the museum will attract some 600,000 visitors each year.

Nigel Binns, 33, who recently returned from a trip to Japan, thinks the idea of a manga museum has definite tourism potential.

"As a tourist . . . it would be a huge draw card and one of the more obvious things I'd do in Tokyo," Binns said.

Australians would probably be amused if not bemused if their national leader browsed the aisles of a comic book shop, but experts do not find it surprising.

No one has made that big a deal of it in Japan. "It permeates . . . the entire culture," Prenc said.

In that sense, Japan is similar to Australia. In a country renowned for its sporting prowess, there was nothing remarkable about having a cricket fan like former Prime Minister John Howard heading up the government.