Forum - View topic

Answerman - Why Isn't More Anime Made For Americans?

Late night TV anime really are just like OVAs with infomercials. They subsist on a tiny audience and are virtually invisible to mainstream Japanese. Expecting them to hit mainstream Americans is even more unlikely.

Could Space Dandy count as an anime specifically for Americans? If it does, then it was somewhat successful on Cartoon Network.

Give it a week, then all those who want anime to meet western sensibilities will come out of hiding.

There is still a strong movement of fans in anime, that want anime made with the west strongly in mind. For them the draw of anime is not that it is different than the west, but the Japanese use of the medium for everything, which the west doesn't really do.

Could Space Dandy count as an anime specifically for Americans? If it does, then it was somewhat successful on Cartoon Network.

The reason most of us like anime in the first place is that it's something different; it's an alternative perspective from what we usually get. It doesn't do the same things American television does, or fit into the same format. Why would you want to try to force it to be something it's not?

Part of why I like anime over american TV is that it most times has a beginning, middle and end.

When you make something creative for an audience that does not include yourself, you're basically trying to predict the tastes of a country based on preconceived notions and stereotypes. You don't get subtle nuances, you don't get obscure cultural references, and you don't REALLY understand the full baggage of that country's history and how it influences people's thought process. The entire creative endeavor is predicated on the creator trying to put themselves in a mindset of someone they don't know or understand. Very often, the resulting project ends up sort of bland and generic. You end up spending a lot of effort clumsily giving your potential audience what you think they want, which is essentially pandering.

And besides, when has America ever come up with something that was specifically targeted towards Asians??? Nobodies perfect.

On the same note, as Justin has noted before, anime also depends on media and goods sales to make money (airing the anime itself rarely does). And again, we run up the same thing - the dedicated collector really isn't so much of a thing in the US. Cartoon goods are seen as 'kid stuff'.

Which brings up yet another thing - to many Americans, "anime=cartoons" and "cartoon=kid stuff". Cartoons for mature audiences (by which I mean thematic, not skin) are thin on the ground, and rarely widely successful.

I'm actually really glad anime doesn't follow the week after week, never ending American format. Do we really want stuff like the Simpsons, where the characters never develop or age for 20 years? Or even worse, something like American comics where anything meaningful is eventually retconned or rebooted to keep the status quo? Part of why I like anime over american TV is that it most times has a beginning, middle and end. With how bad 'filler' in anime can be, I'd rather not see it adopt an American structure.

Actively forcing a creative work to cater to a demographic can also hurt artistic freedom- unless that artist already has a western influence (like Nightow or Otomo). But some works are intensely Japanese, and loved the whole world over - such as Ghibli's movies. I mean, Spirited Away is as Japanese as it gets and it won an Oscar. That said co-productions aren't always bad. The Animatrix is often considered the best thing to come out of the Matrix franchise.

Ever since Western anime fandom has begun, there's been this prevailing myth that anime (of the kind the fandom likes) is accepted or common or widely successful in Japan.

Most Japanese people absolutely do think "anime=cartoons" and "cartoon=kid or family stuff or for geeks." Not different at all.

But as many here say, it will probably turn out to be a limp cultural hybrid and nothing else.

Also, i wish we had statistics of the prime reasons non japanese watch anime, because it is not similar to american shows plotwise or artwise? or like manga crusader says... it become more and more because of sex? I will bet on the second reason first and foremost.