Why Is Anime So Popular Lately?

[AFAB Transwoman]

So, I used to be a weeb during my elementary/middle/high school days.

During my run, I didn’t really meet many anime fans or at least they weren’t as loud as they are today. The only time I’d be around other enthusiasts was in my own little friend group at school, some back alley geek spaces or ( mostly ) online.

But since 2019, it seemed like the market has grown MASSIVE. Even more so.

Everyone is into it nowadays. You, your kids, your kid’s friends, your mothers, THEIR mothers, celebrities, et cetera. Suddenly anime is this popular hot topic among every kind of person and I’m curious about what made it explode to this level.

 

[The Luigi Player]

Porn. And Autism.

 

[Shitted Scaredless]

Because most western animated shows that are aimed at adult audiences are lame. Its all the same formula, swearing and sex jokes and violence. Like they say in the Family Guy theme song.

 

[The Luigi Player]

Because most western animated shows that are aimed at adult audiences are lame. Its all the same formula, swearing and sex jokes and violence. Like they say in the Family Guy theme song.

Anime in India is better than the Anime in Japan.

 

[A-Stump]

Big fat cartoon tiddies jiggling like meaty windsocks in a hurricane

 

[Book Thief]

This is a pretty succinct explanation for why anime and manga is dominating the Western market:



Western comics and movies are being written by absolute hacks who care more about artificial diversity of irrelevant traits in characters such as gender and skin tone, and not diversity in characterization. Their characters and stories are written with representation in mind first, and story second, and thus feel like bland slice-of-life bullshit that revolves around everyone being "quirky" and solving totally-real issues like racism, micro-aggressions, cyber-bullying, or whatever woke-agenda topic the author feels like ranting about at the time. On top of that, they try to "diversify their audience" by attempting to make their shows appeal to everyone -- because they're a bunch of bitter man-haters who want to steal nerdy things like comics away from men -- not realizing that not every demographic likes the same thing, which makes their product appeal to pretty much no-one.

Manga and anime, on the other hand, still relies on traditional story-telling elements and tropes. They get right to the meat of what their audience want, since they use specific genres to cater to different demographics, whether that's action, slice-of-life, romance, etc. They don't bash the viewers' heads over what the Current Year issue is, they just tell a compelling story that you can escape to.

That's why Japanese media is dominating Western markets. It's everything to do with amateur writers getting a free pass because they're black or a woman, instead of being a talented writer. Japanese media doesn't play that game, so their products tend to be more engaging than whatever shlock the West is pumping out.

 

[Gutpuke]

Because western animation is balls nowadays.

 

[Tren Shapiro]

Because vaccines cause autism.

 

[Malignant Cinnamon]

As the years go by, degeneracy is becoming more and more acceptable in the societal norm.
Add onto that you have two years where the majority of people were locked away and isolated from each other, with unrestricted internet access. I assume a lot of people who normally would not consider watching anime went ahead and opened that Pandora's Box.

Porn. And Autism.

^ and this. Definitely this.

 

[DoomsdayElite]

Because the North American male is being infantilized. First it's anime, then it's getting your sausage and meatballs lopped off. Or vice versa. I don't fuckin know anymore.

 

[Biggie Smalls' Taint]

Anime has always been popular, but it's way more prevalent now because of two things: Social contagion and ease of access.

Crunchy roll put all the popular anime in one place and advertised itself like crazy, implanting itself in the minds of the everyman as "THE place to watch anime". Crunchy Roll paid youtubers back around 2014 and 2015 to advertise it. It was the Raid Shadow Legends of the time. Every anime or nerd/pop culture channel got some crunchy bucks and shilled it. Pirate sites were the defacto place to get anime for a while, but normies fear them and normies don't torrent either. If you give them something in a clean, legal package that's constantly shilled by jewtubers, they'll eat it up.

Where does the social contagion bit come in? Memes. A small group of influential people watched an anime, made memes, the memes spread and then people see the memes and want to take part in it. Take Jojo's Bizarre Adventure as an example. It was always popular, but not so much in the west. It gets an anime adaptation, a whole new crop of anime fans watch it and are impressed by how weird it is and make memes of very surface-level things, such as the poses. The memes spread everywhere, everyone is doing le funny jojo poses XD and it spreads. Zoomers see the memes and want to be in on the joke, so they watch Jojo. Since they're already watching Jojo on Crunchyroll like their favorite youtubers, might as well check out that one other show on the recommended. Hey, I've seen memes about that! I'm in the know!

My proof of this might sound like a "trust me, bro", but I have seen dozens of posts on sites like reddit and 4chan where people unironically ask "How do I get into anime?", as if anime were some complicated esoteric knowledge and not cartoons you just watch. They don't want to watch anime out of a genuine interest, if they did they'd already be watching it. They want to BE someone who watches anime. They want to be part of the "community", to be in the know and get all the funny memes and do the funny jojo poses and argue about "bestgirl" on discord.

Ease of access, way too many people on the internet and bandwagon jumping zoomers. Dragonball was mega-popular but it wasn't responsible for the crop of anime zoomers, neither was pokemon. People who watch those didn't really "watch" anime.

Fun little anecdote: I was talking to a classmate once and somehow the topic of anime came up. He was a full on normie and said that "Those chinese cartoons are all for perverts. It's all titties and demons and little girls." He was playing pokemon go (as was the style at the time) and I told him "pokemon is an anime". He said it wasn't REALLY an anime. I asked if he watched Dragonball, he said he loved it as a kid, then he said "Yeah but it's not the same". A lot of the people who called me a faggot for watching anime back in 2004 were also huge fans of DBZ.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

This is clearly a demographic issue, because I know one single fucking guy who's into anime (technically that's two people because his girlfriend watches it too), I'm sure a few of his more socially maladapted friends do even though I haven't heard about it.

That's it, I don't think anyone else I know even really knows what anime is. It's not mainstream in any way.

Although I guess morbid obesity, chronic porn consumption, the shut in NEET lifestyle etc is on the rise, lots of young people are absorbing their personality from the internet and online anime is popular, so I guess it would appeal to them.

So the answer to why it's so popular is probably "societal degradation".

 

[Epoch]

Its all the same formula, swearing and sex jokes and violence.

Isn't this most anime too though? Minus swearing because japs don't have swear words.

My proof of this might sound like a "trust me, bro", but I have seen dozens of posts on sites like reddit and 4chan where people unironically ask "How do I get into anime?", as if anime were some complicated esoteric knowledge and not cartoons you just watch. They don't want to watch anime out of a genuine interest, if they did they'd already be watching it. They want to BE someone who watches anime. They want to be part of the "community", to be in the know and get all the funny memes and do the funny jojo poses and argue about "bestgirl" on discord.

I've seen this same sort of thing happen with video games. They are now 'hip' and a lot of people (mostly women) force themselves to play them in order to not be 'left out'. That's why garbage like Fortnite, Warzone and the like are so popular, its the 'cool' thing to do so people force themselves to play them despite not actually having any interest.

 

[Book Thief]

To anyone answering "because anime has tiddie," ask yourself: when was the last time Western media sold itself based on how hot the female leads were? Where's the Charlie's Angels, the Bond girls, the Megan Fox in Transformers? Why are movies and games now centered around doughy nigresses and zoomers with dyke haircuts who wear so much clothing they're one hijab away from being Muslim-approved?

Are "waifus" popular because anime nerds are all perverts, or could there be a market that's currently being underserved by mainstream media?

Minus swearing because japs don't have swear words.

This is actually a myth. Go ahead and call someone 「気ちがい」 and see what happens. Just because 「くそ」 and 「野郎」 roughly translate to "shit" and "(son of a) bitch" doesn't mean the language doesn't have taboo words.

 

[skykiii]

Anime has been kinda going uphill in popularity since the late 1990s. I remember in High School I was the only person who had ever watched anime... then suddenly Pokemon premiered and now everyone knew about it. Of course most normies only knew about whatever played on TV which for awhile led to a decline of interest (I remember people watching stuff like Monster Rancher and thinking "this is it? This is what anime is?")

But then as others said, it got more easily available. Even on home video it got to a point where you could go to freaking Wal-Mart and find DVDs of things like Monster.

Everything sense has been just a gradual escalation.

And like others have said, anime and manga have just been meeting demand that western work has refused to. People like to focus on the woke shit, but honestly I sometimes think there's two other, just-as-important factors.

One is that anime artwork is (usually) pleasant to the eye. In fact I recall this being one of the reasons I myself went anime-tarded, as a lot of western cartoons then and now were starting to use these aggressively ugly artstyles (and comics were at it even longer--just look at The Dark Knight Returns). Anime though? Even something gross like Legend of the Overfiend at least didn't assault your eyes with ugly characters.

Two is optimism. Western media likes to be pessimistic as fuck these days and frankly, people are sick of it. So here comes these Japanese comics that have simple values and tell you that with DREAM AND FRIENDS, you can do anything... gee I wonder why people would love that?

That's not to say anime is never depressing, but at least in anime its optional and usually doesn't feel like you're being trolled by a pissant manbaby. Frank Miller comics or Zack Snyder films are empty nihilism just for the sake of nihilism most times, and that doesn't really serve a purpose beyond being annoying. Those are the film equivalent of this guy I used to know on Usenet who would go around insulting everyone just for the hell of it, and he just got on everybody's nerves. Anime is more a guy who will sometimes let you down, hopefully will let you down gently, but usually tries to help you through everything.

One way I sometimes like to put it is that Anime is a natural extension of what western animation was doing in the 1980s, and in a lot of ways delivers on the promise that decade held. Indeed sometimes its easy to watch a cartoon like C.O.P.S. and feel like you're actually watching a dubbed anime not just in art style but also in tone and themes. The difference is, anime stayed the course (at least up until just recently) whereas western animation when fucknuts,

Addendum: Anime is also appealing to creative types because--while its apparently gotten more restrictive--anything and everything can become an anime. I just said in another topic how shocked I was that some old-ass RPG Maker game got an anime recently. In western nations you'll only get a cartoon if you're based on a decades-old property, or if you'r a new IP you basically have to slot into an existing paradigm like superheroes or Looney Tunes-esque shorts, or be someone with a lot of clout.

 

[BlaireWhitesBottom2]

ive been in a gay orgy before yet anime is gayer than anything ive ever seen in my life

 

[Kari Kamiya]

My proof of this might sound like a "trust me, bro", but I have seen dozens of posts on sites like reddit and 4chan where people unironically ask "How do I get into anime?", as if anime were some complicated esoteric knowledge and not cartoons you just watch. They don't want to watch anime out of a genuine interest, if they did they'd already be watching it. They want to BE someone who watches anime. They want to be part of the "community", to be in the know and get all the funny memes and do the funny jojo poses and argue about "bestgirl" on discord.

I can barely stand these people. They have no love for the medium itself, they just want to be part of the "in crowd" over silly memes instead of gaining an actual interest in the why and maybe the how. It's then almost cathartic when the anime-only watcher gets into a show where you know it turns to shit later on, and you just wait with bated breath on their reaction to its unraveling.

Too many anime-watchers watch just for the simple gratification of "Ooh, it's pretty and cool", they don't entirely care about the message and intent it's going for. Hell, they don't even care about its production. This was always a problem with movies because only fucking autists like me watch the behind-the-scenes documentaries, and it's the same thing with animation on both sides of the pond. Very few fans of anime are actual animation fans, and it's painful trying to talk about it with someone who doesn't understand or won't care to. Zoomers are really bad about this (had a couple success stories, though), but even my age-group has people like this.

At least with older people who had seen anime up until after the '90s or 2000s, they were utterly fascinated by it and wanted to know or find more before real life had to take precedence, and they have neat tales about the fan culture from the time. I love that shit, and it saddens me so much of that was taken for granted. Mainstream success is a double-edged sword, and here I was complaining to a friend about how disingenuous the Ghibli Fest is because they're only showing Hayao Miyazaki films, but none of Isao Takahata's or even Goro's, let alone any of the one-off directors. And yet people say they're a fan of Ghibli. Shit like that boils my blood.

Anyway anime was just meant for the very autistic (anti-social nerds) and now everyone wants in. It's stifling and is one of the reasons I stopped partaking in conversations outside of friend groups and stopped watching modern seasonal anime as a general rule. I just have way too many older titles on my backlog I'd like to see and give some long-awaited attention to.

 

[melty]

It's because anime is fun and there's something for everyone to like.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

This is a pretty succinct explanation for why anime and manga is dominating the Western market:

Ver archivo adjunto 4794670

Western comics and movies are being written by absolute hacks who care more about artificial diversity of irrelevant traits in characters such as gender and skin tone, and not diversity in characterization. Their characters and stories are written with representation in mind first, and story second, and thus feel like bland slice-of-life bullshit that revolves around everyone being "quirky" and solving totally-real issues like racism, micro-aggressions, cyber-bullying, or whatever woke-agenda topic the author feels like ranting about at the time. On top of that, they try to "diversify their audience" by attempting to make their shows appeal to everyone -- because they're a bunch of bitter man-haters who want to steal nerdy things like comics away from men -- not realizing that not every demographic likes the same thing, which makes their product appeal to pretty much no-one.

Manga and anime, on the other hand, still relies on traditional story-telling elements and tropes. They get right to the meat of what their audience want, since they use specific genres to cater to different demographics, whether that's action, slice-of-life, romance, etc. They don't bash the viewers' heads over what the Current Year issue is, they just tell a compelling story that you can escape to.

That's why Japanese media is dominating Western markets. It's everything to do with amateur writers getting a free pass because they're black or a woman, instead of being a talented writer. Japanese media doesn't play that game, so their products tend to be more engaging than whatever shlock the West is pumping out.

I also want to point out that while Japan is struggling to keep their anti-piracy laws in check to support mangaka artists, it can be also argued that American comics from the 70’s to 90’s beat most current day comic book stories that are in print. Even the underground comic book scene is better than most in current day.

If anything, it speaks volumes that Invincible and The Boys were the only two comics in recent memory that most young people seem to care about these days.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

Western media has become shit and Japan is the second largest entertainment producer in the world.

Anime is also very easily accesible thanks to the internet, which wasn't a case for older people (the most popular pirate anime sites have several leagues the traffic than crunchyroll), and there's plenty of brainlet anime for dumb coomers that caters to every fetish and every tiny niche available. American media mostly tries to appeal to anyone always, instead japanese media tries to fill every tiny crevice and more idiosincratic choices are possible.

Good anime remains niche, the anime thats mainstream now is moe-trash , shounen of the day (totally-not-naruto) slice of life and romcom crap.