Not against the medium I consume it.
But it occurred to me that there seems to be a lot more exposure to anime and manga largely thanks to services like crunchyroll and manga reader services, this includes physical sales as well.
It’s just that you’d think say, Superman would be more stupidly popular since everyone knows who he is than someone such as Lelouch from Code Geass.
Is it because comics just doesn’t have the same spark with the younger generation? Or is it because there are a billion different issues of comics so it makes manga more streamlined?
I would like to know your thoughts as I am quite curious about this phenomenon, since even in the early 2000s I was into anime, and you could get your fix from non legit services via the Internet, but I’m sure as shit it didn’t hit this mainstream until the mid 2010s and now the roaring 2020s.
I mean there are a lot of reasons, but the main one is that the anime industry has its shit a lot better than the Western equivalent and the night novel->manga->anime pipeline.
First, you have sheer quantity and variety. Every season, meaning four times a year, more than 50 anime are released, in all genres and for all ages. Meanwhile almost all Western animation is either for kids or marvel. Compare the darkest or most brutal Western animated show you can find to stuff like Perfect Blue (huge trigger warning BTW) and Made in Abyss. I, personally, watched more than a thousand hours of anime, likely more than all Western animation not aimed at kids below 10 put together. It just doesn’t begin to compare. Even popular titles like Adventure Time or Gumball are for kids; they’re just high quality works that also appeal to adults (more on this later). I know series like Invincible exist, but seriously. Name me 10 of them. Anime is a huge industry of its own right, more comparable to Hollywood than Western animation, and I think we all know Hollywood isn’t interested in making anything decent right now. That’s part of why anime is so popular.
Second, with anime there’s usually a story that’s being adapted. This means there’s a lot less of the hit or miss aspect surrounding a new work, as a manga or novel needs to have a certain amount of quality before it even qualifies to be made into an anime. Also, the market cares more about its customers than in the West, so studios do their work more faithfully (otherwise they won’t get new jobs). As someone making a new anime, you want to sell blue rays, you want people to buy the original work, you want them to buy merchandise, and for all these you need to create something good that will actually turn in a profit. Also, if they’ve got a good anime going they don’t suddenly decide to kill it and spend the money on another yacht. I’m still salty we didn’t get a proper season 3 for The Owl House, for example. Studios have more respect for the work they’re doing, and an original story they have to follow or they won’t be getting any more work. Nothing like the MBA infested mess that exists in the West.
Third, anime and manga aren’t tied to a certain age in Japanese culture. 60% of Japanese people watch anime at least once in a while, and a similar percentage reads manga. It’s not something you graduate as soon as you enter middle school. Light Novels are also obviously not for kids, because what kind of kid reads for entertainment today? These media all lean towards teenagers and young adults, and generally don’t make too many assumptions about the viewer. I mentioned Adventure Time up there; so even anime that’s made for kids doesn’t treat its viewer as an idiot, which makes it watchable as an adult. Now how watchable depends on your tastes, but even a straight shonen like My Hero Academia or Demon Slayer has reasonably realistic characters with personalities, as tropey as they may be. Even the most shonen of shonen anime passes the same standard that makes Adventure Time and Gumball watchable to an adult compared to something like Paw Patrol.
So, yeah, it’s not even a comparison at this point.
doesn’t treat its viewer as an idiot
A lot of what you said is reasonable but this is absolutely laughable. As someone entering their thirties, this is the single most annoying aspect of anime and it’s especially blatant in works aimed at teenagers. And trust me, I’m not here to hate - this stuff isn’t aimed at me and that’s okay, but claiming most anime doesn’t do this or that not virtually 100% of shonen does this is absurd.
As someone entering their thirties, this is the single most annoying aspect of anime and it’s especially blatant in works aimed at teenagers.
I meant an idiot in the sense that kids are idiots. I should’ve probably used a better word but I was comparing with Paw Patrol for a reason. I was talking about watchability, not quality, and while I definitely agree a lot of anime doesn’t respect the intelligence of its audience nearly as much as it should, that’s more lowest common denominator stuff rather than assuming everyone watching is a kid below 10 who recently graduated bedtime stories.
