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OEL manga used to face backlash long time ago, why and what caused the backlash to stop?

This feels like the kind of topic that would have caused heated arguments 20-25 years ago, back in the earlier days of anime/manga. But these days people are fall less likely to care about the difference, if any really exists.

What’s really disturbing, to me, is that sometimes this bias extends itself to Japanese series that appear to be OEL (I have heard several times that Est Em was an “OEL artist,” said in a negative way–like, “I would like that manga but she’s an OEL artist”). A lot of fans refuse to touch anything OEL, or anything that appears to be OEL.

I think that several series were greenlit and published that really shouldn’t have been. I don’t want to name any names, because that wouldn’t be nice >__> but when you have so many bad series touting the OEL flag, it leaves a bad impression of what OEL is and what OEL has the potential to be. Essentially, the ratio of crap series to non-crap series is too high to leave a good impression, in a market (“manga”) that is already distilled into series that have proven that they can hold their own.

-Maybe the people that found out about Shotaro Ishinomori's Legend of Zelda: A link to the past comic that was published in Nintendo Power in the early 90's (the one that Viz Media would re-published in 2015) was not a manga when they found out many years later, I think it's possible that maybe there were anti-OEL purists and elitists that are fans of the Zelda franchise that may have first read the comic/OEL manga when it was first published in Nintendo Power back in the 90's and at that time, some of the anti-OEL folks that read them at that time were probably not anime/manga fan and probably didn't know what manga is or know who Shotaro Ishinomori until many years later. Now let assume that some of the anti-OEL haters/elitists that have first read the Zelda OEL manga/comic in the Nintendo Power magazine may have found out about the comic's non-Japanese origin and the author being Shotaro Ishinomori (I assume that most of the anti-OEL elitists/haters would've gained a lot of knowledge about important mangaka and would've been familiar with Shotaro Ishinomori) must've shocked many anti-OEL haters/elitists that they read an OEL manga before they became fan and also the revelation that the legendary Shotaro Ishinomori worked on a OEL manga probably thanks to both Viz Media republishing it in 2015 and Wikia/Fandom entry information on Ishinomori's A Link to the Past comic wasn't a manga given that it was first published in USA before it got published in Japanese a year later. So theory #1: The anti-OEL elitists/haters that may have been exposed to Ishinomori's Zelda: A Link to the Past comic/OEL manga in Nintendo Power may have found out many years later that what they read was a OEL manga. After that revelation, it made them question and challenge their views on OEL manga.

Another theory and this is my theory #2: Eldo Yoshimizu's works like Gamma Draconis and Ryuko not appearing on Anilist and MAL might have shocked anti-OEL haters and made them challenge their views on the definition of manga. As I previously stated on my 1st post of the thread, I have to assume before Ryuko and Gamma Draconis got official English translation, they must've found it's way into scanlation, and I don't know how many anti-OEL haters that may read one or both of his works must've been surprised when they find out that MAL and Anilist didn't count both of them as manga. For Ryuko, it was self-published in 2010, but didn't get an official publication until 2016-2018 in France, it didn't get an official Japanese publication until last year. This is my speculation but it's possible that anti-OEL haters that may have read one or two of Eldo Yoshimizu's works and were baffled by why Anilist and MAL didn't classify them as manga despite Yoshimizu's work resemble a manga (right to left orientation, black & white illustration), so it's possible those anti-OEL haters/elitists that read his work may have changed their own views on OEL and manga-like comic.

Theory #3: The acceptance of Korean pop culture/Hallyu contents including the rise of manhwa/webtoons mainstream popularity may have helped nearly eliminated anti-OEL backlash. Anime adaptation of manhwa/webtoons could've also contributed too. We know that the backlash and hatred toward OEL manga also led to these same haters hating on manhwa or any non-Japanese Asian comic/graphic novels. Given that many anime and manga fans have crossed over to K-pop and K-dramas thanks to K-drama adaptation of manga (ie: Boys over Flowers, Playful Kiss, To the Beautiful You, etc...). I have to assume that there may have been anti-OEL haters that could've been caught up on the K-drama/Hallyu craze. I guess crossing over to K-drama then to K-pop must have opened up their mind to checking out & reading manhwa/webtoon and voila, the hatred toward non-Japanese manga-like comic (including OEL manga) goes away once you been exposed to Korean pop culture. Also you factor in K-drama and anime adaptation of webtoons/manhwa, that probably break down the anti-OEL/anti-manhwa vitriol coming out of those haters.

As with most such questions, the answer is likely multifactorial. However, I would like to suggest that a big reason is that Tokyo Pop quit publishing in the U.S. in 2011 for about five years.

Tokyo Pop was the company that was most vocal about pushing OEL books as being manga. As I remember they even had a contest to find new OEL writers/artists. They were also one of the biggest publishers of Korean comics. Korean stuff more or less disappeared as a result until recently. (Also Ice Kunion failed and their titles were picked up by Yen Press)

Basically the "haters" disappeared because no one was fighting with them. It is hard to sustain a good flame war when no one is providing new fuel. Now OEL books are still being printed but they just come out as new and sometimes good comic novels. Sometimes they will be listed as manga inspired.

Oh, for the record I was not one of the "haters". I have a lot of that stuff that I picked up because it looked good.

This isn't something I've really paid a lot of attention to, but in general my perception is that the backlash in the 90s/early-00s towards media that affected an anime/manga style was disliked for not being genuine. For being the result of business-decisions made to chase trends (this was during the "anime boom" in North America). And, as a part of that, the artists generally weren't skilled at replicating the intended style.

This is kind of clear in some of the DC animated products of that era (like Teen Titans) that will sometimes use Japanese visual language incorrectly, betraying a lack of fluency with the medium that betrays the artifice. Things like the stylized manga "veins" popping on characters, heads, jumping back and forth between chibi/SD versions of the characters, those blue vertical lines down characters faces, etc., etc.

But for the best examples, check out any of those "How To Draw Manga" books published in English from that period, very obviously drawn by artists who had absolutely no familiarity or experience with the style.

And I think it's simply that level of apparent artificiality that generated so much derision and scorn -- both from Anime/Manga fans who disliked it for being shamelessly derivative, as well as non-fans (or, in the example case, DCAU fans) for abandoning established visual styles in favor of something new and trendy.

The interesting thing is definitely how all of that animosity sort of just... disappeared.

I'm certain that if you look hard enough, you'll manage to still find some of those haters. If my brief tenure on Twitter taught me anything, it's that this world has no shortage of middle-aged men willing to devote their lives to whining about decades-old cartoons. But for the most part, they're a dead or dying breed.

Honestly, I think the explanation is pretty simple. If the heart of the problem was artificiality, then it ceased to be a problem once that artificiality diminished, disappeared, or ceased to be perceptible.

Avatar: The Last Airbender must have drawn some ire from anime fans/purists, am I correct?

I do remember those "how to draw manga" books that were coming out in late 2000's, they were not drawn the best. But there were some of those books that were done by professional Japanese artists that showed how to draw manga.

Wait. you're telling me that there are DCAU fans that weren't happy with anime-styled animation and drawing being done on their favorite DCAU shows like Justice League, and Justice League: Unlimited? Did they hate anime at first? If they did, I'm going to take a guess that it took Batman: Gotham Knight, and probably The Big O to change their view on anime, am I correct?

That's why I created this thread for, to find out why did the anti-OEL backlash just stopped.

Wait regarding the part I bolded, and highlighed in red. What do you mean by that? Are you saying the OEL haters are what age they were, old people. Could you be more specific like maybe an example?

The backlash didn't stop until 2014/2015.

I really wish someone who was a former OEL haters on ANN could come to this thread and leave a message here telling their stories why they stopped hating on OEL, and what made them changed their views on OEL manga, manhwa/webtoon, manhua that they stopped hating on it.

I'll try to respond to everything, but please forgive me if I don't.

But before that, I should hasten to point out: I don't think this is the kind of thing that you're ever gonna have a firm start or end date for. When did the hate stop? It didn't, it just got increasingly less prevalent. Like, there was a time when you couldn't even mention a manhwa series without someone feeling to comment about it not being a "real manga," but we've largely moved past that. Especially now that we've started to see Japanese anime adaptations of Korean stories.

I can specifically remember grousing about ATLA, yeah. Though I also think that ATLA ending up being a very good show did a lot to silence that angle of attack, eventually at least.

I dunno. Anyway, yeah, there used to be a HUGE divide between fans of American comics and Japanese manga. You got the same thing in the RPG sphere, which I grew up with more and therefore have more familiarity with in the late-90s/early-00s, with there being a *ton* of disdain for the Japanese media, for various reasons.

I think multiple factors are responsible for that resentment quieting down over the years, the biggest of which may simply be the new generation of comic book fans growing up after being exposed to these sorts of anime-influenced works as children, and thus being too accustomed to them as "normal" to really care all that much about the stylistic choices.

It didn't "just stop" -- it's still there. Even here, on this very forum, you'll occasionally find people making disparaging comments about "webtoons" in general.

Again, I don't think this is really accurate. I also don't think it's fair to attribute the diminishment of those voices as those people changing their minds. More likely the people that wasted a lot of their time vocally hating on OEL stories back in the day simply moved on -- either to find other media du jour to be outraged by (right now I think that would be "censorship"), or to other hobbies in general. And while that happened, the fandom in general exploded in size, which further diminished their reach.

My dude, have you not seen the current state of geek culture? It's been dominated by far-right reactionary types for nearly the last decade, almost all of whom are middle-aged men. There are more examples to mention than stars in the sky. That comment wasn't about OEL haters specifically, but the more broad trend of "hating" in general

It would be an interesting perspective to hear from, I'll grant, but again you're still making that assumption that they corrected your ways. And in my experience, limited though it may be, that very seldom happens. I think you may be approaching this whole thing with perhaps a bit too much optimism.

I'm not familiar or aware of the huge divide in the RPG communities, was there a big rift in there just like the comic/manga fandom divide? Because if there is, then I guess the element of anti-Japanese racism could be the answer for whatever you mentioned.

But the anti-OEL, anti-manhwa/webtoons, and anti-manhua happened in the 2000's, and 2010's. So if you had looked at the OEL manga jumping the shark thread from 2007, then you know these people were in their teens, or in their 20's when the backlash happened. These people have not passed away from old age. I'm 37 years old and I was 19/20 years old when I got deeply involved in the OEL manga debate/flame war on that ANN thread. So those former OEL haters are still alive and out there living their life. They didn't just passed away or died.

I'm already aware of this, but we're focusing on OEL haters, and last time I checked, the OEL haters were in their teens, in their 20's, and probably in their early 30's that are rabid manga fans. And for them to stop attacking OEL manga, manhwa, and manhua means something happened to these haters that made them change their views.

I have a lot, a lot of thoughts on OEL manga, as well as animesque art. I say this as someone, both who wants to make my own comics/stories with influence from both anime and western animation and western comics and so on, and someone who wants to consume comics, someone who likes anime.... First of all, its pretty evident if you look at the OEL manga debate, the reason OEL manga has a type of certain staunch defender is because they want to make manga... not "they want to make honorary manga" or "they want to make comics inspired by manga" or even "comics visually indistinguishable from manga", they want people to call their comics manga. But if you define manga as comics made in japan, that's not going to happen. The OEL manga detractors never at any point stopped defining manga as comics made in japan, OEL manga are still not considered manga, the detractors just stopped debating. And I think people stopped debating because no one in the english speaking world is actually making OEL manga anymore, people are definitely making manga and anime inspired comics, but no-one except europeans are making comics which are called OEL manga anymore... and I actually do think works like beyond the clouds (a franco belgian comic) or radiant are for all intents and purposes oel manga, but the french are a hell of a lot better at imitating both what makes manga look like manga and what makes manga good (I haven't read BTCs yet so I hope I don't eat my hat) than TokyoPop ever was.

Second of all OEL manga exists in a conflict between creatively expressing itself, being original and being exceptional... and imitating manga to the point where its indistinguishable from manga, which based on cultural osmosis, OEL manga strove to do so by aping very generic Japanese genre cliches and copying superficial aspects of manga like vertical speech bubbles and reading order... Why read an OEL manga when you can read any of thousands of generic romances from japan, which are actually by definition manga. If you're constantly stifled by the limitations of trying to pass as an authentic manga, published in a manga magazine written by someone who lives in japan, ironically you can't actually write a compelling hybrid of manga and western comics which will appeal to a western audience. I've said this before, but I think there are massive gaps in the market for western-style fantasy stories in animation and comics (like Dragon Prince or Redwall)