Blog Talkback: Introversion in Anime and Comics

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LittleFred2008

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This is the talkback thread for Introversion in Anime and Comics on the rabroad Blog.

Broadly speaking, I think I'd describe this as the start of an attempt to compare & contrast anime with Western creations and tastes while also discussing what's wrong & right with anime as it is right now. I'm thinking & hoping on doing more.

All comments are more than welcome. Hope you enjoy this!
 
Ummm... I agree?

Yeah, I don't have much to say except basically, : what you said = truth.

I think pretty much anyone who has been into anime since the late 90's and early 00's is looking fondly at continuations of classic series or trying to find those with similar qualities as such.. and failing.

I`m not trying to sound homophobic by saying this, and I'd be a hypocrite for decrying all moe when I've watched and enjoyed Friendship is Magic(whose archetypes are basically the cast of a moe anime, better differentiated and developed...and in pony form), but as my sister put it (who is also an anime fan and an art student), and as I've heard people walking through the anime section at best buy say, who are/were most likely fans, is that anime has become, well, for a good part, kinda gay.

Not gay as in the sense that those commericals decry the use of in subtituting it for a random insult, but gay as in extremely feminine. While this is not necessarily a negative, the percentage of the population of western society who enjoys those types of things is far less than that in Japan. Anime used to be known for epic stories, brutal fights, and killer villains that would go further than skeletor or cobra commander ever did back in the day. And for a good long while, it was. But somewhere along the line, Japanese companies realized something. Big Bucks were to be made by selling merchandise to otaku who loved the female charachters. Now, this was fine when these charachters were in exciting stories of all genres, romance, action, slice of life, sci-fi, comedy, and fantasy all coexisted peacefully.

But one day, a very smart man got the idea to cut out the middleman. Why do they need to put any effort into making a good or exciting story? All the otaku want is the girls and they'll always buy the products anyway because they're tools (driven to be so by japan's archaic social conformantions). At some point, this idea spread, and anime with great stories suddenly started dissapearing. "Why pay writers and animators to come up with elaborate arcs and fight scenes? Who needs any drama, charachter development or tension in a romance or slice of life series? All we need are girls to sit there and look pretty."

This leads us today, where anime is practically defined right now in japan by simply being moving pictures of cute girls being cute and acting cute. Because that's what makes the most profit for the least investment. It's simply bad business NOT to use this model. When the system stops rewarding quality, it breaks down.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the pacific, american animation, especially action, was going through a Renaissance. Writers such as Bob Forward, Larry Ditillio, and Bruce Timm were, driven by the success of anime, suddenly allowed to have more brutal fight scenes, complex story arcs, and more deeply written charachters. I don`t think I can name one recent successful action series today, regardless of art style, that dosen`t try to have seasonal story arcs or try to do charachter arcs. The proverbial shoe was now on the other foot. Cobra commander is no longer a raspy, bumbling idiot, he's a badass and a master of the xanatos gambit, and acts like an actual brutal dictator. Americans essentially took the best parts of what made anime so special to audiences, right as Jpaan decided it didn`t need them anymore.

Of course, I`m trying not to be too general. There are some western action clunkers and some truly inspired anime recently as well, just not nearly in the quantity they used to be. But I`ll simply leave with the fact that, for me personally, it's getting harder to say I`m an anime fan with any sort of pride.
 
Productions have been decreasing? Really? Next season there's over 40 new shows. That must be a record of some sort.

I don't really think that there have been less good anime shows lately. More bad anime shows? Probably. Less classics? Yeah; I can only think of two shows from the past five years that seem to have a strong chance at longevity (Haruhi and Gurren Lagann), and those shows are definitely geared more towards established anime fans who already know what's being deconstructed/reconstructed rather than new fans. However, there's enough good stuff with some mainstream appeal that just hasn't made it here that I think the fault is less what shows are being made and more with the market itself. And by the market, my main beef is naturally with Cartoon Network, because let's face it, if you wanted a non-butchered non-toyetic anime to reach a wide audience on TV, Cartoon Network for the longest time was really the only option, and now that they've basically abandoned all non-toyetic anime...
 
In relative terms, yes. For quite awhile during the 00s, if nothing else, there was more content. On a related point, to illustrate things from another angle, financial issues are a huge reason why anime series have grown so much shorter and why the OVA scene is a shadow of what it was in the 80s and 90s (some standout exceptions notwithstanding!). The industry's generally creating stuff with less money than what it once had.
 
It's a pretty good blog, GW.

Beyond the dynamic that there's not one entity fanfaring anime currently, I think there are more then a few other dynamics at play here.

Before I jump into some of the other dynamics I think are causing some of this distension from anime, let me also throw this kicker in: I think Toonami did more for animation then it's ever going to be given credit for. It exposed so many entities (outside their audience) to so many new ways of thinking that it inspired many networks to try to, at least in part, emulate Toonami.

That being said, the underline issue is always going to be profit and that's almost entirely why we are seeing a dramatic decline in recent years. The toy-centric model you talked about certainly contributes big time, but its certainly not the only reason.

Essentially, we hit the FCC debate during most of the Bush 43 era to get some ideas of whats been going on. A lot changed with broadcast mandates during that era and a lot of networks shed their kid friendly blocks because it became too expensive to reinvest money that was already spent to accommodate mandates. Frankly, as a lot of us have noted, many networks like NBC, ABC, WB and FOX simply found it more cost effective and more profitable to simply show infomercials in what was once the Saturday Morning cartoon slots.

Networks like CN, Nick, DX and now The Hub went the opposite direction. They started investing in their OWN studios. They have been finding over the years they virtually hemoraged potential profits by not doing things themselves. Instead of going to Sony, instead of going to Mainframe, instead of going to any of the various other homegrown animation studios, they started doing everything themselves. Why? Because if they own every aspect of production for their properties they will never run the risk of having to share those profits with anyone else for any reason. Beyond that, lets face it, there's A BIG talent pool for it and very few people are being tapped.

By and large, there's still series from the 70s, 80s and 90s that are wrapped up legal quagmires. That's why we're NEVER going to see, say the 80s Inhumanoids on the air ever again because X entity owns the broadcast rights, Y entity owns the release rights, Z entity owns the production rights and its nearly impossible and also very time consuming to track those people down and either buy the rights or ask permission for those rights. Essentially most those networks said "If everyone isn't going to play nice, we aren't going to either".

Look at the results over the last year though! We've seen some pretty mediocre series come up in the anime upfronts while the Western Animation dialouges have been pumping some triple A productions out. I'd argue that G.I. Joe Renegades, Young Justice, The Avengers: WMH, and Avatar are all world class series that are beating most new anime in the last few years. There hasn't been any super, super, super awesome series that rivals DBZ, YYH, Naruto, One Piece or Bleach in a while. There's a few on the horizon, but nothing here TODAY.

These are all major contributing factors.
 
This is one reason I normally don't like watching the latest new series on Crunchyroll - most of them are too moe for my liking. I like a good cute character as much as the next one, but a lot of these shows seem to overdo it.

I saw Kanon a couple of years ago. Outside of the "uguu" girl and that other character with the sword, it was too cutesy and not plausible enough for my liking.

I made an exception when Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt came out last fall because it was different. It didn't look like it came straight out of a dating sim; it was unique and original and wasn't afraid to take the occasional risk.

They need to make more shows like that one. Without so much of the semen, booger and barf gags, of course.
 
I think one of the big problems is that 5 years ago, we had 4 hungry companies with the same share of the market plus another 4 that wanted in in a big way. They saw the success with the US fandom of many outlier anime that were niche if not failures in Japan, and those US companies flooded money in to create an artificial bubble of that content. That eventually diluted the talent too thin and too few rules were set down to keep the talent from making over-wrought and self-indulgent content (some of which was fantastic, but too weird for most, and some of which was just plain mediocre,) and like that, there was a collapse. We now have one company with most of the market, and who seems loathed to cover some of the ground that used to be fought over. Funimation even perma-pre-licensed the last big bastion of fresh content, Noitamina, and had done for all intents and purposes next to nil with it. Heck, subbing the content and jamming it on youtube might make any show they do want to get on TV a much harder sell.

Anyway, in the collapse of the US co-production wave, the Japanese ran hard to the safest ground possible - pander-tastic moe series. Truthfully, I might even argue there hasn't been an increase in that content. A change in style, yes, but the the modus operendi isn't that drastically different. What's changed is that there aren't 4 multi-million dollar companies dumping cash into offbeat co-pros any more. All that's left is safe-zone cash ins, barring moments when a studio is in a position to go hard and ignore the haters.

In short, yeah, anime's in a rut. Problem is, the International Industry helped make that rut seem extra deep by making an artificial burst of creative content, and it's up to that international industry to fill the rut. There is a bit of that with Iron Man and Wolverine, but really, to end up with the handful of titles that really stand a chance of TV success in the US, you probably need a 90-new-anime-per-season industry. At the very least, the non-otakucentric stuff that's being sat on and slept on has to be pushed to keep the fans built up in the 00s in the game. There is content that meets those criteria that was made after 2008. In fact, some of those shows are better than most of the boom era content. Tokyo Magnitude is fantastic. Princess Jellyfish is fantastic. Trapeze is brain meltingly rad. Panty and Stocking was a brilliant screw you to otaku in one fashion while Madoka is destroying the tropes from the other direction. This isn't a bad time to be a fan - you just gotta dig. FUNi needs to pull out their back hoe, perhaps even if means dealing with the anime industry version of a collateralized debt obligation and buying a few garbage shows to get at the sweet, sweet, America-ready meats in the package deal.

If we had a 2005 Geneon or ADV or Bandai, if we still had a Synch-Point or a Central Park Media, we'd be talking pre-licenses for everything I just mentioned. They'd even take those horrible deals (that probably killed them, which is probably why FUNi is sketched out by taking that risk - I think they should trust their brilliant monetization skills more - after the inevitable 40 re-releases, they'll be in the black on even the most exploitative, poorly-animated moe sack of garbage they might be saddled with, they'll get to buy a quality classic that makes it's money back twice over on the first run.)

Maybe that's just a dead era though, and anime, much as it led the way into DVDs and home video in general, will be the ones to lead to next big thing, and that's not a TV resurgence. However, I really don't think it's a purely content driven issue. There are rad shows out there right now. The shows that got otaku to become otaku, and that emptied their wallets for most of a decade. I can't buy a lot of them though, and neither can a US broadcaster.
 
I agree with Darwyn's critique against Marvel and DC's problem perfectly. However, I think the reader base is to blame as well.

Now like Darwyn, there are readers who are turned off by perverted content. I'm in the camp as well.

The problem though? Yeah there's comics like Identity Crisis or Ultimates 3 which overdo the adult material, but there are comics like the Disney line from Boom, the comics based off a DC Comics cartoon, comics from the Marvel Adventures line which lacks perverted material.

But do the readers take action and heavily support the comics which are devoid of pervertedness? Or do they just complain and hope that the problem will remedy itself?

And the same holds true for manga and anime as well. Venting is healthy for letting out anger, but the only solution is to heavily support a manga/anime which doesn't have this problem. Make sure that someone who shares your view is aware of these titles.
 
THIS.

And I've gotta add that nostalgia goggles are a terrible, terrible thing. Things always look better in the past because we're only remembering the stuff worth remembering - AKA the good stuff. Everything else is forgotten. While the industry certainly has its ups and downs, the bulk of it churns out mediocre stuff and always has churned out mediocre stuff - we just don't remember that part.

So, sure, a few years ago there were 90 different shows in a year. How many of them were worth watching, much less dropping any money on?
 
The big problem though, is like I said, everyone has turned to largely their own in house produced material now.

They just aren't interested in broadcasting something they didn't personally produce unless its really worth their bottom dollar.

  • Look at DX - They have 1 show on their network currently they didn't produce.
  • Look at CN - Everything single show on their network was produced by CN.
  • Look at The Hub - They have a few filler shows right now from other company's but at the end of the day, its obvious they would rather show their own live action game show content instead. Everything thats not theirs is there while they create their own content much like any other startup.
  • Look at Nick Toons - DBZ Kai on their network is a TESTAMENT to how much CN doesn't want to deal with anyone else's content. Beyond that, DBZ Kai is the only thing on Nick Toons right now thats not their own original content. Nick got really screwed by Marvel / Disney not too long ago and its obvious they aren't going to be making the same mistake again. They went out and brought the exclusive rights to everything they probably want for the next 5 - 10 years and are going to sit back pretty waiting for that to percolate.

Its obvious today no one cares anyone else's content except stuff they earned. The only exceptions here and there are stuff that were notably high performers in the past.

The sad truth is, the only games in town right now for non-home grown products is Ani-Mondays and 4Kids. Both of them have problems that are going to mitigate or prevent anything truly special getting in. In both cases it comes down to available funds.

The risk, by and large, is too great anymore and there is most certainly an aftermath of various economical bubbles.
 
It's not that we don't remember it, it's that we weren't even exposed to all of the mediocre stuff. Sure some of it, but everyone talked about the shows that were actually good.

Now I have to hunt for anime that doesn't suck. And not because it doesn't exist but because nobody talks about them except every once in awhile. I swear these days the good shows get overlooked yet everyone complains that it's all moe....Well maybe if everyone stopped watching the moe stuff and actually payed attention to whats out there things would be different.
 
Oops, I kinda meant nostalgia goggles in general, not just as it pertains to anime. True, we (global fans) get to see a greater scope of stuff nowadays, but Japanese fans have been wading through anime mediocrity far longer than we have - we're just in the loop now.



This is also a big problem. It's hard to justify taking chances when the fanbase refuses to take a look. It's more of a fan problem than an industry problem, IMO.
 
Hmm, I'd like to hold back a bit for a future post, but I do want to offer some responses to the many good thoughts in this thread. Let's see here.....

Scirel: I think you hit on something interesting talking about the so-called "Renaissance" action animation experienced over here. I'm not sure exactly where you think it starts, but I do definitely want to give credit where it's due and say that it was getting smarter and deeper as early as Batman: The Animated Series. Gargoyles was another example. I'm thinking both predate the time when anime was breaking out as a "cool" thing and more coincide with when it was more defined by a select few "cult" hits--stuff like Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Of course, well before Toonami there was Robotech in syndication, which was definitely a distinct product in the context of the 1980s. Still and all I'm pretty comfortable assigning the creative triumphs of Bruce Timm to his awesomeness, ditto for the others. Though I might agree that anime had a role to play in lightening content standards; a while ago I'd found this news clipping making quite a big deal about violence in Dragon Ball Z. It was really something. It seems to me there's more acceptance today, some strange editing standards notwithstanding (Disney XD badly edits certain Darkseid-related episodes of Superman TAS, even late at night! What?!)

I think Knighthammer has a good point about action here against action over there; over here when we do it well we do it really well while with anime, the mainstays are stuff that's been running a long time. It's good...but since it's mostly already here (or already tried) things are coasting while we wait for the next big thing. And that can be a problem when you're relying on shonen jump manga and it can take weeks, months, even years for a great idea to manifest its awesomeness and then get noticed. Tiger and Bunny's one very new original action show that might hit the sweet spot though. We only have one episode but it potentially screams "PUT ME ON TELEVISION!"

I think Karl and Sparticus make excellent points about the good anime that's out there now (and Karl has typically excellent insights on why we are where we are now). I think some of the shining examples of anime in the last few years are in no way things that would have been on Toonami even in the best of times. I mean: Cross Game? Nana? Honey and Clover? Forget it. There's no home at all for that stuff on our television networks, there never was. But that's fine, there have always been quality titles that were sold but never got "big". What makes me shake my head are other things, like how unlikely it is that a title like Summer Wars gets screened on TV even once, or that somehow nobody's picked up super obvious bait like Heroman. Something's not right about that. I think to a good measure, this is by no means all at the feet of the industry. Cable simply falls short for this sort of variety, which is a pretty sad commentary when you stop to consider just how many networks there are. How's that old saying go....hundreds of channels and nothing good on?

Finally, on this point that suggests Introversion may be more a "fan problem" than an "industry problem": I see where this is coming from, but I think it's missing the point a bit. I don't dismiss the potential hypocrisy in demanding different content and then hoping the next guy supports it, but from where I'm coming from the essence of the Introversion problem is when an industry has trouble thinking beyond catering to the fanbase that exists. Let's go back to the Darwyn Cooke comment. Did he say hey, stop doing X and Y and Z so today's adult customers can buy this different content? Nope. He was talking about making comics for youth, for kids, for the crowd that comics were originally intended for.....for the next generation of fans yet to come. In short, it's a message about winning new fans. It's a message about planning for success beyond the immediate short term. This is a risky thing to do. As I point out in the blog post, it's the fans of today that pay your bills. But of course, there are perils in being too beholden to tradition as well.

In fact, this gives me a perfect excuse to point to this fantastic Ed Liu post about what Disney's up to with its plans lately and how they were working out how to handle Tangled. "Tradition is something you can draw strength on, but it can also become a crutch (which I think is one thing that hobbled Princess and the Frog). In a worst-case situation, it becomes something that ossifies into stiffness and lifelessness. 'You can't do that because we've never done that before" is the worst possible justification for a creative decision,' he says. That's precisely correct in my view. It's great stuff, go read the whole thing. And then rejoice that Flynn Rider was not a prince.
 
I guess one feeds the other. If the industry is only putting out the same stuff for the same readers it alienates new fans, whilst cementing the image of what an anime/manga/comics/cartoon fan is. For a long time I thought comics were "soap operas for boys", and that the only people who read comics were creepy older guys who got uncomfortable if I (a little girl) happened to wander down that aisle of the bookstore (even though comics were still considered kids stuff at the time). It didn't encourage me to find a comic that WASN'T a soap opera for boys. It wasn't until I discovered anime, and then manga that I realized that comics could be anything, and for anyone.

THAT is why its a fan problem. The industry can produce something AMAZING, but if you've got manga cows sitting in front of that part of the bookshelf speaking in bad Japanese and generally being annoying, or hardcore "fans" panning it online and trolling anyone who likes it, it scares off potential new fans. Sure, some will keep reading or watching, but others won't. And still others won't even look at it at all because of that image of people who enjoy this stuff. They don't want to be seen as that - no matter how interesting a title might be.

That said, unless the industry decides go in a radically different direction (while still placating the existing fanbase), they still have to rely on the existing fans to a certain extent, and if the fanbase is not presenting itself very well, it can be very damaging.
 
On the fan problem: Anime and manga's narrowing focus certainly seems to be burning the candle at both ends in the fandom. A lot of the fans from the boom bled off after getting out of college/high school because there wasn't much content for them to grow into, and I think that maybe a more damaging aspect of introversion than other trends like moe. Nobody in the market really predicted that so many people were going to stop liking stories about high schoolers once they weren't high schoolers (or were as emotionally stunted as one,) but yet most of the teenagers I knew in the 00's who frequented the local anime store as if it were church have fallen out of it entirely. They actually are in a better position to collect as they are adults with jobs and their own residences now, but low and behold, they've gone from cosplay fanatics to maybe watching something on netflix or youtube or hulu. Meanwhile, there aren't the gateway titles for younger viewers/readers in the same volume as there were during the boom either. While a bit of that falls on the cable networks' feet, the rest falls on a complacent market that seems have settled into a stable size. Teens become adults, but kids become teens who find out about anime through a school club or social network or word of mouth or hot topic or legal episodes on youtube or whatever. The cycle continues, growth is zero.

On original content keeping acquisitions out: It certainly doesn't help when most cable stations take a pro-actively negative attitude on buying any show (though it's been a god send for improving the quality of original productions,) but at the same time, there are shows they would've bitten on if they'd been made properly available (the various pretty cure series, michiko to hatchin) even in this acquisition antagonistic market, but the industry just isn't there to push that any more. More competition, more licensing, more variety in content and variety in pitches to networks.

I'd also bet the fact that the single biggest provider of acquirable content now has a foothold in the various spaces the companies they'd sell to also work in chills a few things. Don't get me wrong, the FUNimation channel is fantastic - the packaging reboot since the HD switch is off the chain, and I make a point to watch it even though most of the time this involves two internet connections and a Slingbox. However, that quality channel is a disincentive to other cable networks buying those shows. They are a competitor. It's even worse online, where the networks are essentially in collusion to obfuscate access to their back catalogs and maintain the linear broadcast model while FUNimation posts hundreds of episodes for free on countless services.

That said, whether a given outlet or provider directly feeds the masses the full range of anime is mostly moot. The manga industry may be bolder than the anime industry, who are in turn bolder than the full suite of international licensors, who are in turn more diverse than the main licensor companies pushing to tv, who are in turn an order of magnitude more bold than the mass market cable stations. Linear TV's last decade of culture changing relevance was the 00s. Anime is already on that vanguard of online, non-linear consumption, and while the key issue of too much moe (or psuedo-art or maids or whatever the indulgence of the now is,) will always create a certain layer of introversion, accessibility has never been better, and so as long as the content has any audience, it'll find it.

That audience could admittedly be bigger if we had diversity, but that requires money and guts. The money might even be here in the US (might not - for all we know, they were all paying for co-pros with short term credit, and that's still pretty hard to get,) but everyone is playing it safe to some extent. It's a reasoned position to take. If otaku culture can just be another readymade youth sub-culture in the US along side mall goths, mall punks and so on, it makes a lot of sense for a business to work inside those confines, and not worry too much about making the next GitS or Eva or Bebop or whatever hits a broader audience. Occasionally, some auteur will come in and make those titles happen, but proactively seeking that environment didn't seem to pan out well. You make a bunch of bunk stuff like Wolf's Rain. Taking it easy maybe the best idea.

/no sleep thoughts...
 
I still say the fan problem contributes to the situation if not the sole cause. I mean, some of the current fans actually do want the publishers to do something different, but again aren't very active when publishers do try something different.

Some DC fans for example insist that DC's titles or events/crossovers are too dark or dependant on adult content. Fair enough critique, but I have to wonder if the same fans in particular strongly supported titles like Superman Adventures, Justice League Adventures, Batman Adventures, Justice League Unlimited, The Batman Strikes, Teen Titans Go, Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st Century and Batman The Brave & The Bold.

Now granted, some have said that these comics would come to an end with the corresponding show having ended, but if these titles had stronger sales, I imagine that DC would have seen fit to keep them going,

In the end, if we want either company to be more bold and daring, we ultimate have to vote with our wallets rather than our keyboards (unless the keyboard is used to buy the comics online of course;)). I mean the sad fact is that Identity Crisis sold well, while JL Adventures and JLU sold from poor to average. or even using a Marvel example, Spider-Man The Other made money while Spider-Man/Human Torch (full of five lighthearted stories) sold maybe okay at the most.

But to phrase it short, some current fans want change, but don't care or consider taking action to see those changes.

To go into another medium, look at Family Guy. At the start of the 2000s, the show wasn't held in high regards as far as Fox execs were concerned. However, they did go through with releasing the show on DVDs, and the sales were so high that Fox actually took interest in reviving the property. And today it's regarded as a major money maker.

Same thing (getting our voices heard) could be achieved for the comic industry. Best way to go about that is to support:
- The All New Batman The Brave and The Bold
- Young Justice
- Looney Tunes
- Scooby Doo
- Marvel Adventures Spider-Man
- Marvel Adventures Super Heroes
- Pretty much any Disney title by Boom Comics
- Sonic The Hedgehog and Sonic Universe
- Archie
- Mega Man (upcoming series)
 
Um.. My Little Pony? Are you being serious?

Well I really can't agree with your comments. Amine is just as awesome for me as when I first got into it. For me it's the opposite where I find cartoons on a downward path. Problem solvers really hurts my eyes, for example. I'm watching about 20+ anime right now but I haven't seen a cartoon worth watching in years. The new Avatar is the only show that seems interesting. Anime is still lightyears ahead of us until we can get shows like FMA or really Anything for girls that isn't Barbie or other dolls. when America ignores all these demographics I just can't say were anywhere close to Japan for cartoons
 
Ugh...seriously anime is great and all, but its not that great. You say you're watching 20 different series right now, well I'm sure at least half of them aren't all that great. Please don't discredit western animation because it can be just as good and often better than anything from Japan. I mean really they both have their crappy shows.

But I do agree that western animation is somewhat limited in certain demographics.
 
My Little Pony is surprisingly good. Seriously give it a watch. And Adventure Time is fun, and Sym-Bionic Titan was a solid addition to giant robo cartoons although it was not without its flaws (the animation was lovely, btw).

Trust me, watching 20+ anime at a time is only going to burn yourself out; in another couple of years you'll have moved on from anime, or will be kicking around the fandom in your nostalgia goggles griping about how the good old days were so much better.
 
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