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I was recently told about a fan expressing his surprise to see reports of Californian anime conventions (like Animerica or FanimeCon) in PROTOCULTURE ADDICTS, a CANADIAN magazine. It is strange how people like to put labels on things. It reminds me of this editorial in another "anime" magazine three years ago saying that PA could not make impartial coverage of the anime news because it was a Canadian magazine and it was not targeted at an American audience. Au contraire! Unlike certain small anime magazines that seems to try pleasing only the taste of Texan & Californian fans, PA is trying to cover the largest range of subjects and to reach the largest audience possible. And we don't bother with labels.
I could never understand people who create such borders in their mind. It is a way of thinking from another century. Coming from someone living in the deep rural America where things are still made the old ways, I might not have been surprised by this comments, but from California (which I have been told is the navel of the universe)...
Are we really doing a different magazine because we are Canadian? I don't think so. We might be a little culturally different (after all people are always amazed to see French people publishing in English about Japanese stuff and some even called us the "crazy Frenchmen" at conventions), but if I consider myself BOTH Quebecois (some would say French Canadian, but I hate this term; I don't believe in artificial countries: I believe in culture and geo-economics -- but that's another story) and North American. As far as belonging is concern, I'd rather consider myself a Human or an Earthling. Our difference lies in the richness of our culture which bridges both North American and European cultures.
When we make the magazine, we do not think about those meaningless borders, but about our READERS. They are the ones who dictate what kind of magazine we do. And they are all over the world. We have subscribers on every continent. We must also think about the American audience since ninety percent of our sales are in the United States. In fact, the place we sell the least is in... Canada. Go figure.
So, are we a Canadian magazine? Maybe our mailing address is in Canada. Maybe we are officially a Canadian company. Besides that: who cares? We cover the anime news wherever we can find it (and it is sometime in California). Also, the magazine, if Canadian, is not necessarily written only by Canadians. Aside from the minimal in-house staff, there are, of course, few local contributors, but many contributors are American and some of them are from Norway, England, France, Germany, etc. The human world is getting smaller everyday. It begun with satellite television (yes, we get CNN in Canada -- and more) and has now quite accelerated with the Internet. Almost every part of the world is within our reach.
We ARE a North American magazine and are trying to be as international as we can. We are surely not the best magazine (some are looking better or have more exposure), but we are giving our best to serve our readers. We have done so for nearly ten years and, after this 40th issue, we intend to continue for as long as fate allows us.
Don't listen those rumors saying that we are dead. We just changed the name of our publishing company. We are still the same. And if we seems to be published "God knows when," as some people complained, it is simply because we are a bimonthly magazine (we are published every TWO months). With the recent down-sizing of the company, we had to postpone for a while our plans to go monthly. We promise to improve otherwise. We are already trying very hard to improve the quality of the magazine as well as the schedule and we might be able to add some more pages soon. I hope that our efforts are showing.
In this 40th issue, we offer you our usual diversity: oldies and memorabilia with those "Heroic Robots of the Seventies," recent animation with "Blue Seed" which began in February from A.D. Vision (surely the anime releaser of the year), and a touch of Japanese culture with "The Tale of Genji." All this seasoned with a good load of anime news and reviews.
Enjoy and keep your mind borderless!
Claude J. Pelletier