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The Future State of North American Anime

I don't think anime is going to go away. It might go back to where it was 20 years ago, in comic stores and specialty stores and the bottom shelf of the sci-fi aisle at Blockbuster. But I don't think it's going away. If you look around, there are tons of little companie filling niches like this in every industry you could think of, and making reasonable amounts of money at it.

However, one thing anime has done is reduce domestic American animation. If these studios wish to keep up, they'll have to adopt the anime style themselves.

20 years ago!? nah, theres a solid enough fanbase now to keep it at a higher level than that. the fanbase might drop a good amount, but there are enough fans out there - that arent all older guys and some older girls - that can keep the fanbase going. the internet helps too, since so many people today have a computer.

maybe the companies could try this: find a small fansub group and in turn for shutting down, pay them to make the dubs and subs more accurate.

KyuuA4 wrote:

However, one thing anime has done is reduce domestic American animation. If these studios wish to keep up, they'll have to adopt the anime style themselves.

I disagree. If they want to "keep up", companies that produce animation have to escape from the mentality of directing everything at either 6-11 or 18-34 audiences.

The Seventh Son wrote:

oh great. thats the last thing we need. american animation starting to copy anime more and more.

why is that bad? I can certainly see the reverse, Anime becoming more like american animation being bad. But if American animation copys Anime it really doesnt even effect Anime/Anime fans.

KyuuA4 wrote:

However, one thing anime has done is reduce domestic American animation. If these studios wish to keep up, they'll have to adopt the anime style themselves.

I disagree. If they want to "keep up", companies that produce animation have to escape from the mentality of directing everything at either 6-11 or 18-34 audiences.

Pepperidge wrote:

If they want to "keep up", companies that produce animation have to escape from the mentality of directing everything at either 6-11 or 18-34 audiences.

Agreed, many domastic shows have broken through. Look at Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Metalocalypse, Family Guy, American Dad, etc.

Summarizing that if anime doesn't play on primetime TV, it isn't mainstream, doesn't get to the root of why it isn't widely accepted here.

I have to throw in my two cents and say that, imho, America is one of the most literal-minded countries in the world. I'm not saying that's good or bad, and it has little to do with ignorance. It's just a fact that this country was built on pragmatic, industrious people who had little time for art, and we've only had a handful of generations go by since that time.

We simply don't have much of a history of art appreciation or contribution to the art world in the U.S. (though part of that is simply due to our newness as a country), so it shouldn't be too surprising that most Americans can't take animation seriously aside from us "nerds".

I recall a CG show about a family of lions, starring John Goodman and Cheryl Hines a couple years ago on NBC, which didn't last more than a half-season I'm sure (I don't know exactly how long, as I wasn't watching, but neither were most people). It just seems that adult age viewers will not watch animation during primetime on the major networks.

Does anyone else think that it's partially because the anime choices lately aren't as good? To me, it seems like most of the newer series are cutesy, moe-ish, visual novel adaptations, usually involving school girls. A few are fine, but it's getting out of hand.

On the topic of licensing fees, I too have heard that the Japanese are killing our companies by jacking up the prices. Well, isn't capitalism supposed to manage this kind of thing? I mean, if dubbers stop biting because of price, the price is supposed to come down. It's a supply-demand thing. Perhaps we just haven't quite gotten to the point where the Japanese have realized they're killing us.