Forum - View topicDo you think Pokemon was the reason anime became mainstream in the US during the 90s and 2000s?
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mgree0032
Posts: 295 |
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Some people said that Pokemon was the show that made anime mainstream in the US in the 90s and 2000s. Do you think that Pokemon was actually the reason why anime became mainstream in the US back in the 90s and 2000s, or was it something else?
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Flash33
 Posts: 92 Location: Florida |
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I don't think it was the sole reason but I do definitely think it played a big part along with having good timing with its release alongside other similar shows at the time such as Yugioh and Beyblade.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10109 Location: Virginia |
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I'm afraid I have to disagree. I started as an anime fan in 1997. My impression at the time was that people who were into Pokémon were simply Pokémon fans. Most had no idea what anime was or that Pokémon was part of it. Unlike earlier shows, it was known it came from Japan but the distributors made no attempt to link it to a larger fandom.
Also, I have no idea how you would define "mainstream" for this purpose, but I can't think of a single definition of the word that would be met by anime in the late 1990s and 2000s. Most of the viewing public had never heard of the word anime (including me before I bought my first two VHS tapes on a whim). Most of the time if you mentioned anime to someone you had to explain what it meant. Nowadays things are worlds different. You can mention anime randomly in media without having to define it. Even now though, I would have to question if it qualifies as mainstream. Yes it is significant in the world of streaming video, in US society as a whole, not so much. Probably it has a stronger presence in younger age groups, but that is not the whole of society. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1273 |
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An important thing about Toonami was that it acknowledged anime as anime. It didn't try to hide this from the audience at all, and even presented shows like "Tenchi Muyo", which...well, just look at the title. And it was a huge success story.
I feel like defining "mainstream" or "popularity" has been a thing people have gone back and forth on regarding anime for years. If you ask me, there is no doubt in my mind anime become more mainstream than ever before in that era, but sometimes I see people downplay that in favor of saying that like...it wasn't mainstream until My Hero Academia existed or whatever. Or that it NEVER become mainstream, and never DID and never WILL. Everyone's got their own bias. Now, you have celebrities who are lifelong anime fans and do not hide it, but people will still say it's not anywhere close to "mainstream". I think, at the very least, anime and manga are quite possibly the biggest "niche" out there. People who do not watch it at all know what "anime" is. I figure that counts. But that aside: My personal take? Yes, I think anime became mainstream in the late 90s, and I think it was due to a combination of Toonami, video tape/DVD, Pokemon, and video games. I think Pokemon was helpful, but all those other things had to be in place for "anime" as a whole to benefit. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1809 Location: South America |
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Anime can be regarded mainstream if a popular anime like Frieren becomes as popular as shows like Star Wars The Acolyte, Fallout, and Game of Thrones. If you look at this list https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/popular-tv-shows/, how many anime are there? Zero. So, anime is still not mainstream in the US, but its more popular than ever, but not yet mainstream.
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Barciad
 Posts: 134 Location: St Andrews |
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One of the reasons. It was a 'gateway drug', especially for the young. But not the only one. The point is Pokemon was a kids show. The trick was finding anime that could be exposed teenagers and young adults, and the mediums with which to do it.
Initially this meant channels like 'Toonami' and 'Adult Swim', and series like 'DBZ' and 'Gundam Wing'. The next step was the rise of the internet, and all that came with it. Communities and news sights (for example ANN) on the one hand. Torrenting and streaming on the other. It meant people knew what was out there, and they knew how to get access to it. |
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free2slap
 Posts: 210 Location: New York |
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I was perhaps seeing DBZ being the central of the movement. Your anime must have helped pushing forward as well.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16974 |
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For starters Pokemon didn't debut here until 1998 I believe. So it certainly had little impact on anime in the 90's given that. I won't it had none, but very little. Now as we go into the 2000's I will say it had some, but not as much as you think. While it certainly is anime, back then it wasn't seen quite as anime. During that time I worked at Sam Goody/Suncoast. Movies and Music store chains. In fact their parent company had a lot to do with the big anime bubble burst, but that's another topic. During the late 90's and early 00's I can say most anime fans who came into the store(s) to buy anime did not consider Pokemon to be anime. A lot of parents also thought of it more as a Western/American cartoon. Perhaps other people in different areas had different experiences. During this time what was or was not considered anime was also a big debate.
I think it while it certainly is/was popular and played a part I don't think as large of a part. I think perhaps a better distinction is think it's popularity might have helped show the Japanese side of things there is a good market over here, but I don't know if on the US side of things it helped grow the anime market (or what was at least seen as the anime market back then) nearly as much as other factors. I think Toonami for example, played a much bigger role. |
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Spawn29
Posts: 556 |
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For younger kids, most likely yes. However, anime was already popular with teens and adults before Pokemon. Anime was common to find video stores and there was anime blocks on TV. Titles like Ninja Scroll and Akira were talked about video store owners and other movie geeks. Ghost in the Shell was getting critical acclaim by the like of Roger Ebert. Movies like The Matrix were made by two film makers were definitely not introduced to anime by the likes of Pokemon, DBZ, or Yu-Gi-Oh.
Stuff like Pokemon was mocked by older anime and manga fans on the web. If you said that you like Digimon or Pokemon, people would assume that you're a young kid on the Internet or a total man child living with their mom (that stigma was very common at the time).
Sci-Fi had their own anime block long before Toonami did and they acknowledge it as anime. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5287 |
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I think it's limiting the scope of anime history to contribute the evolution of anime popularity to one single show or a specific era when it's obviously combination of various eras and shows, fandom support, and network marketing and company distribution. The rise of cable Internet being easily accessible to the masses also played a huge part in making anime more accessible.
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Spawn29
Posts: 556 |
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I always felt like Akira help put anime on the map in the states. Showing that anime wasn't dumb edited shows like Robotech and Battle of the Planets were. We started to see more anime on VHS afterwards.
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RupanSansei
 Posts: 174 |
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speed racer aside from Westernizing people's names came unedited in the 1960s if i recall correctly
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mdo7
 Posts: 6844 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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If you're talking about if Pokemon helped made anime mainstream in the US, then it could lean toward a yes, but it's highly debatable because there were other anime that came out at the same time as Pokemon, or even before Pokemon that helped anime gained mainstream prominence.
What if I told you back in the mid to late 70's and in the 80's, there were some specialized UHF channels in the US that broadcast uncut English subtitled anime TV series on those TV channel given that you lived in marketed area like I don't know Honolulu Hawaii, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and this was before Voltron aka GoLion and Robotech: The Macross Saga debuted in the US. Yep, those specialty UHF channel broadcasted Brave Raideen, Captain Harlock, Cyborg 009 (BTW, somebody was good enough to upload the Cyborg 009's UHF subtitled version on Internet Archive, which you can watch here), etc... in subtitles long before DVDs, Blu-rays, and streaming existed. So anime has already gained huge ground in the US even way before Pokemon made anime mainstream as you claim. Did you forget Sci-fi Channel back in the 90's broadcasted anime on Saturday? And this was a few years before Pokemon hit the US shore. Yes, Pokemon may have helped raise mainstream awareness of anime, but anime was already in the US by other means like the one I pointed above. As Spawn29 said, It was Akira that helped put anime on the US map and consciousness. Sailor Moon and Dragonball along with Pokemon just dumped the fire into raising anime's awareness in the US. It took time for anime fandom to grow. Asking if Pokemon is the reason why anime became mainstream in the US in the 90's and 2000's is like asking or saying that Squid Game caused K-dramas in the US to gain mainstream acceptance recently when this is not true. Squid Game dumped the fuel into the K-drama fad for American audiences, but K-drama already gained mainstream acceptance in the US even before Squid Game. So Pokemon may have helped raise awareness of anime in the US, but it didn't cause anime to become mainstream in the US. It was one of the many factors at that time, but not 100% definitive. I hope this helps. |
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Shendelzare
 Posts: 3 |
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Pokémon definitely played a huge role in making anime mainstream in the U.S., but it wasn’t the only factor. Shows like Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and later Yu-Gi-Oh! also contributed significantly to anime’s rise in popularity. Pokémon had the advantage of being a multimedia phenomenon—games, trading cards, movies, and merchandise—so it reached a wider audience, including kids who might not have otherwise been interested in anime. However, Toonami and the overall growth of cable television in the late ‘90s and early 2000s also helped introduce a generation to anime beyond just Pokémon.
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Digimon_Sommelier
Posts: 31 Location: NYC |
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Digimon should definitely be in that conversation, as, with its fued with Pokemon, helped anime skyrocket, as well as the Toonami's block. I was born in 1990, so my knowledge of anime expanded with the rise of the internet age. In 2003, I was able to write the first-ever anime book series in history Scout Masters. 22 years ago as of 2025. They're on Amazon/online booksellers. Thanks to anime that took the medium mainstream, I was able to dream big.
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