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Answerman - Why Is Animation Only For Kids In The US?

Is there a prejudice against watching an adaptation of a manga using the art style of the manga versus an adaptation that does not use the art style of the manga?
So, why is there an animated adaptation of Nodame as well?

Why is that 6 out of the top 10 highest grossing Japanese films in Japan last year were anime?

Well I tried really hard to avoid commenting here but I guess it's impossible for me to steer clear of this topic so might as well give my two-cents:

Like Justin I'm also of the mindset that the whole "why is animation still for kids in the US?" thing is kind of outdated, and most everyone under the age of 35, won't have a problem admitting they watch a few of them(even if it's unfortunately stoner comedies more often than not). That said I do get tired of this whole "east v.s. west" thing. It gives the idea that it's all entirely one way or the other and that the two in general should somehow be competing against each other in terms of content, which to me is frankly ridiculous.

I enjoy my share of both and at the end of the day I think it generally comes down to how well these shows work for you individually, I'll happily watch both Steven Universe and Jojo's but Sword Art Online and Family Guy are both steaming piles of garbage to me. I like and hate all of these shows for completely different reasons and that's to be expected because they're well...different shows. I've seen a lot of people demanding that western stuff be more anime like because that's the only way it can be "taken seriously" but that's frankly insulting to both sides of the ocean because it implies that they all do a lot of the same thing, which isn't true in the slightest. Different shows do different things and if we can acknowledge that Evangelion or One-Punch Man are both good shows for different reasons it seems silly to me to downplay stuff like Rick and Morty or Avatar, which each have plenty of their own strengths simply because they aren't doing them in the exact same way something from Japan does.

I'll be the first to admit I watch way more anime that I do western animation, but I don't demand that western animation needs to compete with Japan in order to compensate. If something looks interesting to me I'll watch it, and if it's a waste of time I'll move on. This goes for pretty much anything I watch whether it be anime, western toons or live action stuff. At the end of the day I just care about good content and if I think it's good then I couldn't care less which side of the ocean it comes from.

Ms Marvel isn't going anywhere. Expect a movie after Captain Marvel's is released. At the very least an animated series.

Now that being said I don't like most of the modern post 2000 western animation and that by enlarge comes down to art style and content. I just don't like the art style in shows like Steven's universe, adventure time, etc. Also the content of those shows just doesn't appeal to me especially the LGBTQ pandering in stevens universe (I'll freely admit to hype backlash on this one as I have only seen a tiny bit).

Good for you mate, as for myself, I can barely find 5-6 interesting anime in the whole year.

I think most adults, and quite probably most Japanese people, would feel that any grown-up dropping large amounts of money on highschool romcoms, ecchi battle harems, and moemoe "cute girls doing cute things" sorts of shows, aren't exactly the most "mature" apples in the bunch. TBH, if your apartment is decked out with dakimakura, fanservice pvcs, and miniature shrines to your favorite anime characters, you're probably taking escapism from the 'harsh realities' of adult life to some very unhealthy levels.

It is worth mentioning that before Flintstones and Yogi Bear, American animation was mostly made for adults.

I think that as Japan's culture consolidates it is becoming more and more Japanese and more detached from Western culture. Japan industrialized between the 1870's and the 1970's, by the time Japan became an industrialized country in the 1970's it was when the otaku culture emerged. After several decades this culture is becoming more and more it's own thing and is progressively less influenced by western culture, in a way modern Japanese civilization is itself becoming mature now.

As a result I think that now their output is harder for a westerner to consume than 30 years ago when it was like super Americanized/Westernized stuff like Bubblegum Crisis and Akira, now it's stuff like K-On! and PMMM which is intrinsically Japanese in its sensibilities.

I already stated that those kinds of shows aren't necessarily "mature," so what's your point? It's not like money from "unhealthy" adults feels any different to the industry than money from normals... except that the otaku actually buy discs and merchandise in sufficient numbers to keep the industry's output somewhere in the realm of sustainable. Either way, it's an easily-discernible economic reality that those latenight otaku anime target adult otaku (as I stated previously), not young teenagers (as rizuchan stated before that). Whether those adults get the stamp of approval from the Social Norms Department is irrelevant. Tbh, it sounds like it's the old-guard that's trying to escape the harsh reality that many anime are made for adults whose tastes and life experiences are different from their own. It's only natural that a niche industry would cater to non-mainstream consumers.

Direct-to-video movies: As long as Disney continues to churn out direct-to-video sequels and advertise them heavily, that stigma's not going to go away.

I just don't like the art style in shows like Steven's universe, adventure time, etc.

So it only takes 3-5 years for anime's output to outpace the worthwhile output of the last 1-2 decades of Western animation, then?

You were speaking more to the maturity of the content, and I was speaking more to the maturity of the individuals. And I'm not sure how pointing out this niche of adults as having immature (or in some cases disturbing) tastes could be considered "escapism", let alone for the "old guard". From my experience I think most mainstream Japanese adults feel the same way towards adult otaku, regardless of their own age (though they may be more sympathetic than I am).

The thing is that nowadays Disney OWNS Marvel, they are literally sitting on decades of comics with stories worthy of being animated (undiluted) or they could continue to output insipid sequels that no one wants to see. From a business perspective I think the answer should be obvious (therefore whatever business executive at Disney is in charge of selecting what direct to video franchise gets animated is brain dead! ). I mean, they are already have a budget to spend on animation projects, why not make some profit out of it?

Steven Universe is better than most any anime I've seen in the last 4 years.

And the American animation model can't follow the Japanese because the Japanese animation model can barely support itself, and we have guilds and unions for workers and try to make sure people get living wages.

Since you mentioned that most animators want to be freelance, do you think unionization is at all a solution to the pay problem?

Thomas Romain: I had this discussion with Lesean Thomas, the American creator I’m working with right now for Cannon Busters. He told me that unionization destroyed the animation industry in the US. There are no more animators.

We talked also about…doing storyboards for feature films. In Japan, usually the director does the storyboards for the feature film by himself. But in the US, they are working with a team of several storyboarders for each feature film. And he told me it was impossible in the US to ask only one guy to do all the storyboards because of the unions.

"Unfortunately" is a subjective term, as aiming for the mainstream gets them the results they want. When they adapt something, the intent is to bring in new fans, which they do pretty well (as is evidenced by the people who didn't know about the Twilight books until the first movie came out, for instance).

Ms Marvel isn't going anywhere. Expect a movie after Captain Marvel's is released. At the very least an animated series.

It doesn't help that most anime are inferior to Live-Action shows in almost every "adult" genres. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Psycho-Pass, but I'm not going to show it to my friends as shining example of (post)-cyberpunk, Blade Runner and Minority Report are much better representations. Same with Black Lagoon, I love the series, but if I want to watch gritty action in all its glory I rather rewatch Banshee.

H. Guderian wrote:

The Western Industry doesn't treat us like adults, and until then the industry isn't going to gain respect.

Currently, Archer, Family Guy, American Dad!, South Park, and to a lesser extent Brickleberry, Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty, and The Simpsons are appealing to the average working class American. I don't necessarily like all of them, but they get a high enough viewership to remain stable and go season after season.

As for a niche buying large amounts of money, that's not really related to being an adult at all. You can have minors who can pay large amounts of money for something they really like, and you can have adults who will refuse to pay a large amount of money for anything short of one-time expenses like cars and homes. Most of the people I know are in the latter category: They are not hardcore fans of anything but are casual fans of a large number of things.