Japan, manga-isolationist ?

[Maciamo]

It's a long time I wanted to write this thread.

I grew up with anime series on TV like the children of my generation. But what we watched on TV depend on the country where we grew up. As a child I didn't know where each anime came from, and didn't care anyway. Of course, some were obviously Japanese (Astro Boy, Lamu, Doraemon...), others obviously American (Duck Tales, Looney Tunes...), and others obviously Belgian (Lucky Luke, Tintin, the Smurfs...).

When comparing our childhood anime with my wife or Japanese friends, I noticed that there were quite a lot of them that they didn't know, while I knew most of the ones they knew. So I checked where they all came from, and found out, not surprisingly, that all the ones they didn't know were not Japanese, or only partly Japanese. Here are the animes both I and they knew (regardless of personal preferences )

Astro Boy
Uchû kaizoku Captain Harlock (aka Capitaine Albator)
Galaxy Express 999
Lupin III
Saint Seiya
Dragon Ball
Hokuto no Ken
Urusei yatsura (aka Lamu)
Kimengumi
Maison Ikkoku
Doraemon
Ranma 1/2

These are all Japanese. Add to this the Disney and Looney Tunes productions from the US.

Here are the ones they didn't know, with the country of origin :

UFO Robot Grendizer (aka Goldorak) => Japan
Captain Future => France-Germany-Japan, based on US comics
Transformers => USA-Japan
GI Joe => USA
Tom Sawyer => USA
Scooby Doo => USA
He-man => USA
The Care Bears (aka "Bisounours") => USA
Inspector Gadget => USA-Canada-France
Les Mondes Engloutis => France
Il etait une fois... => France
Les Mysterieuses Citees d'or (Taiyounoko Esteban) => France-Luxembourg-Japan
Ulysse 31 => France-Japan
Lucky Luke => France-USA, based on a Belgian comic


Here are some they knew, but had never watched them on TV (because it didn't show on TV) :

The Real Ghostbusters => USA
The Smurfs => USA, based on a Belgian comic
Tintin => Belgium

So it seems that European and American animations are not shown on Japanese TV. The manga-anime industry is a big industry in Japan, and I suspect that the Japanese government has been protectionist about it, like most other big Japanese industries (cars, electronics...). I was quite amazed for instance that so many Japanese didn't know companies like Philips, Siemens, Bosch or Motorola. No wonder, apart from electric toothbrush, I haven't seen Philips products (TV, Hifi, light bulbs, PC accessories, medical equipement...) in Japan. Likewise all the brands of mobile phones in Japan are Japanese (so no Siemens, Motorola or Nokia). The funny thing is that I have seen a lot of Korean electronics in Japan (Samsung, LG, Daewoo), but virtually nothing from Western countries. That's maybe why the Japanese are suprised when we tell them that we know so many Japanese things since our childhood, from anime to electronics to martial arts to Kurosawa movies... The reverse is NOT true ! (apart from brand clothes and luxury cars, because there is little competition).