I was chatting with a friend of mine, and he asked my opinion on a
small matter of taste, as people often do.
"What," he asked, "do you think of product placement?"
I paused for a moment -- not because I was uncertain as to my opinion,
but because I was uncertain why he would even ask. Eventually I
replied that I was for it. Pro-product placement.
He expressed surprise.
I expressed surprise back. "Look at William Gibson.
Neuromancer. Practically built on product placement.
'They'd left the place littered with the abstract white forms of the
foam packing units, with crumpled plastic film and hundreds of tiny
foam beads. The Ono-Sendai; next year's most expensive Hosaka
computer; a Sony monitor; a dozen disks of corporate-grade ice; a
Braun coffee maker.'
"And then he went on to actually talk about the importance of brand
recognition in forming one's identity.
Idoru: 'It's often
easiest for us to identify at the retail level, Laney. We're a
shopping species. Find yourself buying a different brand of frozen
peas because the subject does, watch out.' The product placement is
part of what makes this real."
(I've cleaned up the quotes, since I was not actually able to declaim
them letter-perfect, impromptu. But I came pretty close, for
off-the-cuff conversation. These are lines I've thought about quite a
bit.)
Of course it's possible to mess up with product placement. For
example, the Nissin Cup Ramen vehicle
Freedom was absolutely dreadful.
I watched an episode because I love Otomo's work. Later I learned
that he'd walked away from the project in disgust, and was
unsurprised. But
Freedom wasn't bad because of product placement.
Sometimes the placement was badly done, but so was everything else.
The animation was cheap, the characters uninvolving, the plot dull,
the backgrounds boring.
If it'd been a good anime, the product placement wouldn't have meant a
thing. We don't bash
Evangelion because it's got thinly-disguised
Yebisu Beer, or
Akihabara Dennougumi for its MOS Burger clone. We
don't complain about
Lain or
X for their use of prominent real-world
Tokyo landmarks. This is the same thing -- use of features from the
real world to make the work more immersive.
I mean, I don't know. I actually don't hear a lot of complaining
about product placement in anime. But just in case it's an issue for
anyone, now you know my thoughts on the matter.
words from chris, 2009-01-23 01:57:12, northern california
