Forum - View topicIS anime making an impact in the states?
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supersajjin
 Posts: 21 Location: Brooklyn |
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There have been breakthrough anime here in the states like Spirited Away winning an oscar. But thats that. Will anime be able to make an impact in the media and get the attention it deserves?
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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Anime is already making a large dent in the US. Over the years, it has been making its way into US news, from Pokemon to recent movies like Spirited Away and the Bebop movie, to just anime in general. The Baltimore paper even ran a story on Otakon this past summer. I think anime can get even bigger in the States, but IMO, it's already making an impact.
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4518 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Eh, except for the kiddy stuff, in all honesty, I think we're going to reach the anime market saturation point soon in North America, wherein the vast, vast majority of adults whom would be into anime if they had a chance to be exposed to it will have been exposed to it in one form or another (besides the kiddy stuff), and the market will either plateau or contract.
If there was that much of an adult market for cartoons in North America, Hollywood would produce more than two or three animated features a decade aimed solely at adults (which are usually miserable failures at the box office), not just kid's movies with a little risqué humour, like Shrek, and cartoons of all genres, not just comedies, would be all over prime-time network TV and not just on one prime-time comedy ghetto on Sunday night on Fox and on speciality cable outlets where the ratings don't have to be nearly as large to be considered a success. |
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Carol Maxwell
 Posts: 359 |
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But, it is from the "kiddy" stuff that people first see, then they look more into it most of the time, save for Yu-Gi-Oh kids who mostly just like the card game. But, even those kids are into it, therefore, it has made an impact. Heck, there's even a cellphone commercial, I think it was for T-Mobile, that featured the guy from Johnny Chase, (sorry if that's wrong, I think that's what it is though
 ). But, with all the new stuff recently, it has definately made a LARGE impact on the states. Some of the old schoolers who have watched anime almost all their lives should know this very well. I can't remember the exact details, but, back when there wasn't very much selection, there were very few who were into it. Now that they've got it airing on Cartoon Network and the WB (and a few others that I don't know of), they've got movies, games, all kinds of stuff that they didn't have back in, say, 1985. Anime has made an impact on the states, and that impact continues to grow.
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Tenchi
Posts: 4518 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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I don't have the automatic assumption that most kids will stick with anime or cartoons in general after they "grow out of it"... some will stick with animation after grade school like I did, but it will be a niche compared to the total population.
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BuffaloStyle
 Subscriber Posts: 274 Location: Colorado |
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Availability creates impact. Anime is much more available than it used to be as we have more programming hours devoted to it on TV and you can find it in almost any video store. We have magazines devoted to anime/manga and we also had an academy award-winning anime movie last year.
Sure, anime isn't for everyone (just like sci-fi isn't for everyone) but, IMO, the impact is very clear. Many of those kids who grew up watching Pokemon et al are now looking for more. Just like the kids before them. Will it be a niche compared to the total population? Sure, but that's okay since it is out there for more and more people to see. Thus influencing people's viewing (and spending) habits. |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4518 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Availability also, before too long, creates a market saturation point. A lot of anime fans fall into the "Disco Stu fallacy" that the popularity of anime in North America is always going to grow at the same rate, but there is or shall be a point where most adults whom would be into anime if they were exposed to something besides Pokémon or the like will have been exposed to it, and simple logic dictates that most adults in the United States whom would be into anime if they were exposed to it would already have a predisposition to liking cartoons as a medium in general and, as such, would likely already be Cartoon Network viewers.
And my generation had cartoons, including some Japanese ones, on television in the 1970s and 1980s, including some with fairly sophisticated, arcing plots by kid's cartoon standards (Thundarr the Barbarian, for example), and, I can say in my own peer group at school, pretty much everyone watched cartoons of one form or another, except for J.W. whose parents didn't let him watch television at all (and he had a chip on his shoulder about that), yet, of the members of my peer group that I can still keep track of, I'm the only one whom is still a big animation fan. It's completely anecdotal, of course, but it illustrates the "some people will still like animation as a medium when they're older, most people won't care" point. I also don't think the Pokémon kids are sufficiently "older" at this point to draw any conclusions as to whether or not they'll be animation fans as adults. And I certainly don't deny that anime has an "impact", but "impact" in this thread is poorly defined. If people read my posts and think about what I say even a little, then you could say that I've had an "impact". I think anime can and does have some degree of influence on some creative people in the media, but I do not think we'll ever reach a point where anime in general will be remotely as "big" with the general North American adult population as American-made entertainment. |
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BuffaloStyle
Subscriber Posts: 274 Location: Colorado |
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p.s. Gotta feel sorry for J.W. I think we all knew someone like that when we were growing up. Good pull on "Thundarr", BTW. I loved that show. "Ariel, Ookla....ride...." |
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RantingOtaku
Posts: 219 Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada |
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I'd like to see a bit more, maybe then we wouldn't have to pirate sattelite's to get it here in Canada... someday
Also, I really could care less what kind is here, kiddy stuff introduces children into it, and maybe they will continue to watch, and decide on older audience anime that most of us probably watch, while there seems to be more mature themed anime becoming popular as people are introduced by friends, their own kids (had both my parents watch most of my collection already, quite an acheivment). I say the more, the merrier 
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Tenchi
Posts: 4518 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Anyhow, if anyone wants my opinion as to how big the size of the anime market among North American adults will get, I think I've said it here before several times, but probably about as big as the market for the syndicated or made-for-cable sci-fi stuff on TV, like Andromeda or the new Battlestar Galactica. Of course, you have a high degree of crossover between fandoms there already, with A.D.V. distributing stuff like Andromeda on DVD.
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Traxan
Posts: 29 |
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For anime to get bigger it needs a big company behind it. Bandai, Geneon and ADV simply aren't enough. We pay a ridiculous amount of money for our DVDs. A full season of The Simpsons is $40. That gets you two discs out of 7 in the GITS:SAC line, for example. Making the discs cheaper will be instrumental in expanding the popularity of the genre. DVD sales can make you, or in the case of The Family Guy, resurrect you.
The anime studios need a Disney behind them, but at the same time, I fear a company like Disney would treat it with nowhere near the care and dedication of Bandai, etc. It would be just another product. I do like John Lasseter's vocal support for Miyazaki and his intros on the Miyazaki DVDs, it would be great to see Pixar throw its weight behind anime. But they are a production company, not distributors. |
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Steventheeunuch
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two year old thread WIWINWINW
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Abarenbo Shogun
 Posts: 1573 |
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Fixed. |
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Laff. 
Anyway, yes, please don't dredge up threads that are years old. Odds are, they're either no longer relevant, or everyone else just doesn't care. Locked. |
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