How badly is anime's popularity fading in the US?

Gah, see, that's my own inner nerd talking there. I don't even consider the Wii in my comparisons between video game consoles because the console's got nothing I'm interested in.

. . .

Actually, the champion is the Nintendo RAB, but that is because it basically has a monopoly on the portable game market and also because the RAB is big-time cheap compared to full-sized consoles (which is anotther economy thing).
 
Which, if I may go on an economic tangent for a moment, is incredibly stupid. Specialization is good for an economy, because then they save a bundle of cash when importing gooRAB from equally specialized countries. Becoming good at everything you do only decreases the quality of your products because you're not as familiar with them or because you don't have enough time to devote to them. That's why this "Buy American" stuff is full of crap.
 
1. I think piracy has done huge damage to the anime industry. Sure, I know plenty of anime fans, but I'll be damned if I can find one of them who doesn't either download their stuff illegally or watch it on Youtube, Veoh, etc. Tons of them don't buy the DVRAB or watch it on TV. And piracy has only expanded since the start as technology has advanced and people have mastered fansubbing. I know people will argue with me about fansubs, but fansubs for licensed shows being released on television are damaging to that series life in North America, since many people stop watching it on TV because they can find it easier and in a format they find more pleasing on the Internet.

The time lag between releases in Japan and North America contributes huge to that, since fans are impatient people. I mean, with American shows, the earliest way to see it is on TV, and then it turns up online, but the opposite is the case with anime. I think executives finally started catching on with this new online streaming business deals they've got with Hulu, Crunchyroll, etc., but it's kind of late since the industry's already in decline.

2. As mentioned before, the huge success of Pokemon, DBZ, and Yu-Gi-Oh kind of blew it out of proportion. Those series were huge, but most anime series have always been pretty niche.

3. There's been a lack of new hits coming out of Japan. The quality hasn't dropped per se, but I'm talking strictly about popularity here. Look at the top 10 TV ratings for anime in Japan - all the series on there are hugely long-running series. There's no new hits. Sazae-san, Doraemon, Pokemon, Detective Conan, these have all been around for over ten years each. The hits that can succeed in North America have already been brought over and used up, and there's nothing lined up to take their place.

For anime to come back, there has be a HUGE new hit to come over here, but that will take some time since anime has lost its exotic appeal here from oversaturation.

Honestly I think companies who set them up as anime distributors solely dependent on the industry were kind of short-sighted, they had to know that the popularity goes in waves. If Viz, Funi, and the rest are smart, they'll have prepared themselves for a low period already, because that's what we're entering.


I'm surprised the show hasn't gone down south yet. I think the ship has sailed though, it's been on for over four years already and is likely entering its twilight.

Haha, I wonder how the Trevor Linden episode would go over in the States.
 
Anime is not like it was back then. “Now”, most anime I'm seeing are doing the samething over-N-over-N-over again. Same art style, same plot, it became “stereotypical” if you ask me. It's rarely you get some decent anime, but that's rare.

I don't think anime will be gone forever, but if it want to have that flame again, it need to re-learn the word “Originality”.
 
Well, that inconvenient fact kind of underscores the point you're trying to make that geeks are on the outs now. I don't necessarily think that's true (if anything, I'd say that what used to be considered "geek stuff" is becoming more acceptably mainstream -- I'm not sure geeks were EVER truly "in"), but I do think that it's true that you won't make a lot of money on something that appeals primarily to a hardcore geek audience. It's better to make a little money of a whole lot of people than a lot of money off a few. The continuing appeal of the Wii, which was deliberately targeted at a non-hardcore gamer audience, led to massive successes because it opened up video games to a new market rather than continuing to appeal to the existing, and ever-smaller, market of hardcore gamers.

This is relevant to the anime question because one can also argue that it's the same sort of genre blindness that misses the fact that Pokemon and Bakugan are still prominent parts of Cartoon Network's current lineup. Maybe they're not the anime you want, but that's a distinctly separate problem from asking if "anime" is heading downwarRAB in the United States. Maybe the Wii isn't the video games you want, but it's still a video game and it's still the top console in America. It's easy to see something in worse decline than it is if you're excluding the successes.

Regardless, anime has gone through up and down perioRAB since the initial launch of Astro Boy. There have been times when anime was the hot thing on TV, followed by perioRAB where it went back to being a niche product for a niche audience. I think anime is entering another down period now, and the reasons why aren't so simple. A lot of companies are probably looking at licensing fees for anime (many of which are top dollar because a lot of Japanese anime companies don't understand the foreign markets, and believe that if Naruto can charge top dollar, then so can they) and deciding that it's more economical to either license elsewhere (Go Go Riki is from Russia and Huntik is from Italy) or make their own stuff again. Other than the deliberately cross-Pacific projects like Afro Samurai or Highlander, I don't think Japan has ever really seriously considered anime to be more than a domestic product, and they still act like it.

The major difference, I think, between this anime downturn and other anime downturns is that the people who make anime are all aging and not being replaced by new blood, which is putting the entire industry at non-trivial risk. There are a variety of reasons why this is happening, and Japan doesn't seem to have many ideas on handling that.
 
I blame Japan. They want to abuse their expensive and nonsense way of DVD sales, so they purposely delay American licensing so the otakus just don't import it from America cheaper. They're like the RIAA, afraid of the internet.
 
Anime is certainly not a fad, but the mega-popularity of anime imports in the West is. All trenRAB go in cycles, and anime in the US is just in a downward slope right now.

I don't think it has anything to do with xenophobia, as others have have said in this and in other threaRAB on the subject; I'd say it has more to do with an over-saturation of the market. Over the past few years we've been subjected to a slew of Japanese imports which on the surface are practically indistinguishable from one another, with nary a standout show among them; let's face it: we haven't gotten a Pokemon or Dragon Ball Z-sized cash cow here in the US for quite some time. And when that happens, public interest begins to wane, and when interest goes down, naturally so do ratings and profit, and that's enough to convince networks and distributors to back off of something.

I don't think anime in the US is dead, but it's definitely in the throws of a down time right now. While anime in the US will never completely go away, it's not logical to expect it to perpetually be huge; nothing stays on top forever. It could pick up again, but that would require The Next Big Thing coming to US shores, and who can say when and what that will be?

But that's just my opinion, which doesn't carry the weight of a moonbeam.
 
...No. That's all incorrect.


Anyways, I agree with just about everything said. but also this:

CN had the right idea back in the day, but then the hype came. And with hype comes watchdogs.

And when that older generation don't understand that there are cartoons more adult than the Simpsons, and when they find that cursing, death, upskirts and sexuality is the norm in kiRAB shows in Japan, then there's a problem.

It doesn't help that the rampant H-manga and H-anime are causing crackdowns and people are being charged with pedophilia. (I personally think loli is terrible, but I wouldn't want to put anyone into that in prison, where they'd meet real criminals, especially pedos.)

All in all it's the negativity, and the older generation who is in control of this nation for at least another ten years won't believe that the world can be more diverse than what you hear about, or what you accidentally see.
 
I don't think that anime's problem is that old people are keeping it down. I haven't seen any congressional hearings on violent anime.

People would be wrong to think all anime is violent porn, but honestly, anime as an industry and a fandom have no one to blame for its image problems but itself. I think the existence of some of the sicker stuff and the icky things that crop up in even some of the more mainstream non-children's titles, like panty shots and characters with loli undertones and other assorted fan service, kind of hurt its acceptance. People aren't wrong when they think that anime is a place to find a lot of weird, culturally baffiling, fetishes. That stuff is there and you don't have to look that hard. And that of course turns off a mainstream audience.
 
True-True. First time anime fans might find it new for them and find it entertaining as well. But as a Anime fan that been a fan for a quite a while...FinRAB all the new Anime show that Japan been pumping seem, boring?

(WARNING: RANT)

Look-Look-Look, all I'm saying that what Anime have become, it shot itself on the foot. Now what ppl thinks of anime is: Guy looks like girls, girls with big boobs, Epic battle, etc. Yea, it was cute at first once we saw a Chibi style of anime, but once you see 50 titles that have the same art style, its annoying!

How many time have you heard of a guy living with 7 girls ( Or more) girls want to get it on with him? And he's shy? He's a sweet boy? He's a cute guy? TO MANY TIMES!!

I think anime fans that been fans for a while get whats going on. If you seen one anime show that have a cute guy with a lot of girls that loves him with some odd reason, you seen them all. Why do you want to buy an anime that have been done some many times with plot/art/scenes/jokes before? It gots a different title, but you know what going to happen.

Anime fan grown brains to get what going on. The new fan might take the bate, the old fans won't.

Let's avoid the stereotypical anime for now. No more high-school storys (It lies. 90% of those things will never happen) . No more epic battles (DBZ is all the epicness I need). No more pretty boys (Were are the bad-a**?). No more girls acting like durab, shy, having big boobs, and turn on to everything they see (What happen to girl power?). No more dark-emo-sad storys (You think I need an anime to bring me down?). No more same art style (Is creatively dead?). No more chibi's (Cute at first, but now annoying). No more frienRABhip ( I got frienRAB, I don't need you to tell me about frienRABhip). No more epic drama (I get it! She's dead, don't need to remind me that every episode). No more love storys (We know you love him. Lets same some money, go tell him. We don't need 20 episodes why you love him). No more War stories (War is bad. I GET IT). No more, no more! No means “No”.

If you like those things, fine. Have fun, don't let me rain your party. But give me something decent, give me something new!

I'm not asking for perfection. I'm not asking for something to blew my mind, but give me something that gave me a reason why I like anime...SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

Cowboy Bebop was ok. It felt more like Lupin the 3rd, but “DIFFERENT”. G Gundam was cool, but felt like DBZ, though it was “DIFFERENT”! Get it...DIFFERENT! My taste have improve over the past years, give me something different to eat, give me something new to snake on. It doesn't have to be perfect, but give something then those type of food I been eating for a while. FEED ME, COOKER! I'M A BIG BOY AND I NEED SOMETHING NEW TO EAT!

Japan can't fool me now with all these new anime show that are poping up, see...I'm learning. :P

Rant: Done

Look, the main idea I'm saying: Anime fans are not going to buy something that have been done before. If you to want sell something that's at least decent, make it different. Give us a reason why we love anime.

Please...Please. You can do it Japan, I believe in you. Make daddy happy.
 
After reading through this thread, I'm gonna add unreasonable fan-demand to the list of reasons why anime is in a rut right now. In addition to fans wanting their shows as soon as possible completely free, I now see fans demanding and expecting originality, and with a lack of it many of them have gone and said, "I'm tired of seeing all the same stories in anime," even many though many times the best and brightest and most innovative in the genre is what those fans immediately think of instead of the cliched mediocre stuff. Look, all I'm saying is that if your main reason for getting into something is simply based on it being "exotic" or different, then I think you're missing the true magic of what makes something so inherently appealing in the first place.
 
Crap or not, it's still what a lot of USA citizens (we are Americans, too, geez!) do believe.

But no matter what, as long as the economy doesn't recover, anime *and* comics won't recover either.
 
I would be careful about tying the bursting of the anime industry's bubble too closely to the actual popularity of anime. I will not sit here and argue that it's mainstream, but it will never really be the 1990's again simply because the subculture is so much more robust than it used to be. Even when history repeats itself and goes around in circles, it doesn't necessarily take the same road every time.

And here's the thing--it (the subculture) tenRAB to grow! Look at any major anime convention and it's seemingly recession proof. This is ancendotal but over a month ago I saw a medium-sized one overflowing a hotel that it would have fit into just a few years ago. Which it did, by the way.

The issue, of course, was and is translating that into profit. The end of the "fad" hit when it became clear to enough people that a lot of average or even subpar stuff was getting sold at a disproportionate price. The lesson learned is one that applies beyond the anime industry: you're asking to get hurt if you encounter an economic boom and behave as if it's never going to end. Some of the players overreached and paid the price. Some figured out how to appease demand and live on.

As for exposure, it's a problem that Cartoon Network now doesn't care and prefers to focus on their original productions and shows that can sell toys. If Naruto never comes back to Cartoon Network, it sure as hell won't be because of ratings. Let's be clear about that. Likewise, no, anime hasn't changed compared to earlier in the decade. Cartoon Network has changed. That's just how it is right now, unfortunately. That said, one way or another somebody will eventually fill in the gap if CN has no interest in doing so through Adult Swim or something new. Assuming anyone can take time out from this insane race to try being everything to everybody, that is.

Now, eventually it COULD fade if there's nothing out there acting as a hook for kiRAB. Many otaku may hate to admit it, but the "hackdubs" of yesteryear targeted to kiRAB ended up creating more than a few fans, myself included. Obviously, any industry neeRAB new fans in order to grow. But no, the fandom isn't perpetually fading as it is, and TV and word of mouth aren't the only way to spread awareness anymore--hello, internet. I'd argue that the market correction is basically over. Between the end of the boom and the recession, we are experiencing the low point right now. So those that survive it--Funi and Bandai, basically--are likely here to stay. And in time we may even see active expansion again with the next economic upswing, though hopefully it will fare better than the strategies of Geneon and ADV.

Some other explanations that I've seen here really don't work, to be honest. Adaptations are the problem? Lots of great shows came from manga or novels. There's a nerd/geek backlash? Please. NerRAB are not "despised," there's just an understanding that there's money to be made by daring to offer reasons for people to become new customers. And I'm very skeptical that the perception of the fandom is very different from what it was 3-4 years ago. Xenophobia? With all due respect, that's just nonsense. Most anime fans, lest we forget, are in their early 20's or teens. Whatever else may occupy their thoughts, I doubt that an unhealthy suspicison of anything foreign is among those things.

Finally, as for the idea that the decline of quality anime is to blame, I strongly disagree. Anime does put out quality compared to the past. The problem is, once again, saturating the market with too much medoicre content while using the success of quality as a crutch. The economic boom has allowed a lot of awful and uninspired stuff to get made, and Japan is now paying the price, as we discussed here. The sooner they learn their lesson and return to the basics of what made anime originally popular, the better. It's about refocusing on programming that has some general appeal to offer, as opposed to things that are designed to appeal to the margins of the Japanese fanbase. It's really no more complicated than that. Which is not to say that solving the problem will be easy, it won't be. But it's not complicated.
 
I know that, you know that, but try getting that into the thick heaRAB of Mariam Soccer Mom and Bill the Pluraber Next Door.
 
Considering it's been around since the sixties when NBC aired English-dubbed episodes of Astro Boy, I've never thought of anime in America as a mere fad.

I'd say more, but GWOtaku already covered what I wanted to say and then some.
 
Your conceptions of what a stereotype is are a bit off, though.



90% of the things that happen in any anime (or any cartoon from any country, for that matter) will never happen. It's called fantasy. Animation can do anything that other mediums can't, so why not use it for fantasy stories?



No more epic battles? Define "epic battles" for me. If you're simply against big scale action shows, I hate to break it to you, but Gurren Lagann, Rorouni Kenshin, One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Yuyu Hakusho, Ghost in the Shell, etc. have all done "epic battles" better than DBZ did.



What about pretty badasses?



I agree with you we need to see a lot less of this, and this is a stereotype. I don't know if we need to remove all characters like this, but we do need a greater diversity of character types.



I don't like having everything trying to be "dark and edgy", but certainly there's a place for serious stories in anime. They just have to be tastefully done, that's all.



If anything, there's been quite a bit of artistic variety in anime lately. Look outside the mainstream stuff to the works of Studio 4C.



At first was quite some time ago (the '70s, maybe? '60s even?), so you can't say anime has gotten any better or worse in this regard.



No more frienRABhip? That's just silly. So all characters in anime need to be antisocial loners from now on? Doesn't this contradict your complaint about "dark emo sad" stories? Kind of hard for me to think of anyone who could have no frienRAB without becoming dark, emo, and sad,

If you just mean no long speeches on the importance of frienRAB, I can agree with you on that. You can have those themes without being preachy.



Against drama? Well, I think the drama is why people watch anime (or movies, or read books, or go to plays, etc.) in the first place, so removing drama makes things more creatively bankrupt.



Love stories have been around long before anime since forever. It's not a stereotype, rather one of the basic archetypes of storytelling. Remove romance and you're limiting variety rather than expanding it (and I assume people in this thread want more variety).



War provides a lot of intense drama and action, which are things people hear stories for in the first place. You're able to make a war story less preachy without, but removing all war stories just removes a lot of variety. Love and war are really probably the two extremes of human emotions, really, so it makes sense that they're a focus in stories.



Well, what would you say yes to?
 
Yeah, this is a pretty big problem. I've also noticed this being brought up more often by non anime fans then it used to. It's begun to shape a whole lot of early opinions. It's really hard to get others to give anime a chance when this is the first thing they think of when it comes to anime.

The anime fanbase certainly isn't helping matters when they defend this kind of stuff.
 
I'll say yes to if the anime trying to be different. It doesn't have to be 100% original, but different. Or at least try to be different.

We can have a epic adventure story of a guy with super powers and stuff or just really really strong, but that doesn't mean he can win every battle he fight in. Why can the hero lose more then win? He's the hero but that doesn't mean he got to be the best. Can he learn the mistakes why can keep on failing? You can through him a bone time to time, but he's not going to learn anything about being a hero. What happen he learns why he keep on failing? What happen he gets that even with power he gotten, that doesn't mean you can win all the time. We can add an epic battle of him winning for once, but that doesn't mean his adventure is over.

Just make it different, that's it. It doesn't have to be perfect. Or make it personal, that will give a lot of originality there. Something then the same old, same old.
 
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