Not against the medium I consume it.
But it occurred to me that there seems to be a lot more exposure to anime and manga largely thanks to services like crunchyroll and manga reader services, this includes physical sales as well.
It’s just that you’d think say, Superman would be more stupidly popular since everyone knows who he is than someone such as Lelouch from Code Geass.
Is it because comics just doesn’t have the same spark with the younger generation? Or is it because there are a billion different issues of comics so it makes manga more streamlined?
I would like to know your thoughts as I am quite curious about this phenomenon, since even in the early 2000s I was into anime, and you could get your fix from non legit services via the Internet, but I’m sure as shit it didn’t hit this mainstream until the mid 2010s and now the roaring 2020s.
I suspect the fact that I had to think a minute before I could name a recently released western cartoon that wasn’t Disney or aimed at the under 6 crowd may have something to do with it.
Sadly Saturday Morning cartoons just aren’t a thing anymore in the US.
As for comics, when was the last time you saw a comic at a grocery store or gas station? I know Marvel still makes comics but I haven’t seen them in a store in almost 30 years.
Japan likes their anime and manga so there’s a lot of variety, but for whatever reason our corporate overlords here in America decided that we didn’t want our equivalent anymore.
For the last several months I’ve been creating Saturday morning playlists of cartoons for my kid to recreate the phenomenon for him. It’s a fun little hobby and I’ve learned a little video editing along the way. I even have a spreadsheet where I track everything so we have a good amount of variety and consistently progress so there’s no repeats and it’s always fresh. I even mix in “commercials” in between, in the form of random video memes and short indie animations, as well as appropriate music videos. Wish I could make it available to other parents, but I can be a lot more dialed in with an audience of one.
This is awesome. I always thought I’d do the same if given the chance. You are a great parent.
Well this is genuinely heart warming. Sounds super cute and definitely something they will look back on fondly when they are older.
Hope so. I was showing Reading Rainbow every week for a good while, but he turned against it. Breaks my heart, but I guess there’s no accounting for taste. At least he loves to read, for which I hope Levar would pardon us.
Look, man. To recreate the experience each show is gonna need 8 minutes of adds for cereals, junk food, and toys. Then every other show is going to have to be a re-run. Also, no one can be dressed for the day and breakfast is in the living room with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
He likes oatmeal and fresh fruit. I once showed him a 70s slinky commercial, after he’d just gotten an original quality steel one, and it blew his mind. He’s a Gorrilaz fan, and knows all their MVs. He reads for pleasure, including Calvin & Hobbes. His childhood is a complete contrivance of my own devising, a hothouse flower cultivated purely for the beauty of the thing that could not possibly survive in natural conditions.
So no, I feel no allegiance to the original experience as it was lived. The 90s had its charms, but it was largely a cultural wasteland.
The overlords decided that comics are for selling shit to nerds and cartoons are for selling shit to children. Now that nerds are all over 30 there’s no need for comics anymore, duh!
/s
But in general, Japan is still way more into paper publishing still. Much more than the western world.
Check out Blue Eye Samurai, Twilight of the Gods, Arcane, and the Masters of the Universe revivals on Netflix, or Invincible on Amazon Prime, or Harley Quinn on HBO Max. It’s a good era for adult animation. Obviously there are a lot of anime influences, but these are all western-made for western audiences.
recently released western cartoon that wasn’t Disney or aimed at the under 6 crowd
Invincible, Arcane, Hazbin Hotel, The Legend of Vox Machina, Solar Opposites, The Boys presents: Diabolical, Krapopolis, Castlevania, Blue Eye Samurai, Star Trek: Lower Decks… and I’m sure I’m missing plenty (I intentionally left out anything by DC since you’d probably put them in the same bag as Marvel).
Frankly, adult western cartoons are probably more popular (and much higher quality) now than they’ve ever been before…
Vox Machina, Scavengers’ Reign, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal.
But yeah, one of the last gasps of the streaming bubble was a surge of adult-oriented cartoons which were far and above anything of the type before them. I’m a little worried that that bubble has started to deflate, we’ll see this go away.
Sadly Saturday Morning cartoons just aren’t a thing anymore in the US.
I save up anime episodes throughout the week and watch them all on Sunday morning during breakfast. It’s my way of recreating that magic from my youth.
I personally think that anime and manga having a ‘pipeline’ helps them.
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A publisher like Weekly Shonen Jump shotguns a load of new series into their comic and sees if any stick.
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If a series is popular, then their individual volumes sell well, encouraging WSJ to continue publishing.
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After a while, the popular series will most likely be given an anime (which nowadays tend to be very manga accurate), which tend to export better.
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If the anime is popular, volume sales increase worldwide, and you have a massive hit.
While this quite effectively creates new popular series, it leads to a massive manga graveyard.
Western comics don’t really have this kind of pipeline and I’m not aware of any WSJ-like publications for new Western projects.
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With comics specifically, marvel and DC have been out of touch for a very long time. The best stories tend to be one-shots or short stories that don’t interfere with the ongoing arcs. There’s also little perceived variety given those two powerhouses, despite them not being the only USA comic publishers.
Compared to the US, Japanese manga has much more variety in styles and stories, though some genres (flashy fighting, harem shit, Isekai shit) are beyond oversaturated. A manga that becomes a success has a high chance of becoming anime too, the same doesn’t seem to be the case with western animation, which tends to work the other way around more often (a cartoon gets a comic release).
Lastly, USA lacks a single fucking mecha cartoon. Megas XLR was ages ago.
Side note: I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the fuck Netflix went with a live action rendition of Sandman, instead of an animation, which would be perfect for any and every sudden change of style instead of relying on cgi that stands out against the actors
Compared to the US, Japanese manga has much more variety in styles and stories, though some genres (flashy fighting, harem shit, Isekai shit) are beyond oversaturated.
I saw yesterday one guy talking about absolute Batman… another take on Batman as if we didn’t had enough. It could have the best writers and all but again, more Batman? The method Japan has is basically everyone gets a chance and try to standout with his idea by himself.
In US is get hired by one of the corpos that brought a successful idea and do something that sells. Nobody friggin dies BTW.The results are obvious there’s people that will buy Batman, Spiderman or Superman at every turn but for many there’s only so much Spandex superheroes you can have.
There was that Voltron reboot that was on Netflix about a decade ago. Granted I was a teenager back then, but I remember liking it
I mean there are a lot of reasons, but the main one is that the anime industry has its shit a lot better than the Western equivalent and the night novel->manga->anime pipeline.
First, you have sheer quantity and variety. Every season, meaning four times a year, more than 50 anime are released, in all genres and for all ages. Meanwhile almost all Western animation is either for kids or marvel. Compare the darkest or most brutal Western animated show you can find to stuff like Perfect Blue (huge trigger warning BTW) and Made in Abyss. I, personally, watched more than a thousand hours of anime, likely more than all Western animation not aimed at kids below 10 put together. It just doesn’t begin to compare. Even popular titles like Adventure Time or Gumball are for kids; they’re just high quality works that also appeal to adults (more on this later). I know series like Invincible exist, but seriously. Name me 10 of them. Anime is a huge industry of its own right, more comparable to Hollywood than Western animation, and I think we all know Hollywood isn’t interested in making anything decent right now. That’s part of why anime is so popular.
Second, with anime there’s usually a story that’s being adapted. This means there’s a lot less of the hit or miss aspect surrounding a new work, as a manga or novel needs to have a certain amount of quality before it even qualifies to be made into an anime. Also, the market cares more about its customers than in the West, so studios do their work more faithfully (otherwise they won’t get new jobs). As someone making a new anime, you want to sell blue rays, you want people to buy the original work, you want them to buy merchandise, and for all these you need to create something good that will actually turn in a profit. Also, if they’ve got a good anime going they don’t suddenly decide to kill it and spend the money on another yacht. I’m still salty we didn’t get a proper season 3 for The Owl House, for example. Studios have more respect for the work they’re doing, and an original story they have to follow or they won’t be getting any more work. Nothing like the MBA infested mess that exists in the West.
Third, anime and manga aren’t tied to a certain age in Japanese culture. 60% of Japanese people watch anime at least once in a while, and a similar percentage reads manga. It’s not something you graduate as soon as you enter middle school. Light Novels are also obviously not for kids, because what kind of kid reads for entertainment today? These media all lean towards teenagers and young adults, and generally don’t make too many assumptions about the viewer. I mentioned Adventure Time up there; so even anime that’s made for kids doesn’t treat its viewer as an idiot, which makes it watchable as an adult. Now how watchable depends on your tastes, but even a straight shonen like My Hero Academia or Demon Slayer has reasonably realistic characters with personalities, as tropey as they may be. Even the most shonen of shonen anime passes the same standard that makes Adventure Time and Gumball watchable to an adult compared to something like Paw Patrol.
So, yeah, it’s not even a comparison at this point.
doesn’t treat its viewer as an idiot
A lot of what you said is reasonable but this is absolutely laughable. As someone entering their thirties, this is the single most annoying aspect of anime and it’s especially blatant in works aimed at teenagers. And trust me, I’m not here to hate - this stuff isn’t aimed at me and that’s okay, but claiming most anime doesn’t do this or that not virtually 100% of shonen does this is absurd.
Nah, it doesn’t. Now excuse me while I spend 10 minutes of this 25 minute episode exposition dumping every plot point in great detail so that the viewer doesn’t get confused.
As someone entering their thirties, this is the single most annoying aspect of anime and it’s especially blatant in works aimed at teenagers.
I meant an idiot in the sense that kids are idiots. I should’ve probably used a better word but I was comparing with Paw Patrol for a reason. I was talking about watchability, not quality, and while I definitely agree a lot of anime doesn’t respect the intelligence of its audience nearly as much as it should, that’s more lowest common denominator stuff rather than assuming everyone watching is a kid below 10 who recently graduated bedtime stories.
Because anime are allowed to tell complete stories before being cancelled out of nowhere for not selling enough merchandise.
That’s false. Plenty of manga get cancelled after the first volume/ chapter. Only the best of the best selling get an anime adaptation.
Yeah, the best become anime (if based on a Manga. Times may be a changin) so they pretty much always get to tell their whole story. Or they’re actually designed to be a single season or two instead of trying to become a cash cow that goes on way too long. NGE, Cowboy Bebop, Death Note, Love Hina, and several of the Gundam animes were all great single season stories. No 10 years of fluff.
I really wanted more Iron Blooded Orphans but it’s so good how it is
Continuity. Nothing ever matters with comics. Superman was a communist, a nazi, a zombie, a literal god and everything inbetween. But most commonly, he is about the same he was 50 years ago. Meanwhile I’ve been growing up alongside famous manga characters. I could be following Naruto to this day and he’d be roughly my age at most points.
Variety. I’m not into comics, I admit, but almost every popular comic I’ve seen is about some kind of superhero. Manga on the other hand have a wide range of topics and target audiences.
Accessibility. I can read a lot of manga right now. Offical, free and online (at least the most recent chapters). There’s no such thing for comics. And while we’re at it: Manga release at smaller chunks in shorter time intervals, which keeps more attention. Being black and white does help, I’d assume.
Anime. They are mass produced and serve to promote manga. There is no equivalent with comics and extended media like cartoons or movies and such often follow their own storyline. Assuming I’d be into the MCU, there is no single comic I could read to see exactly what’s next. If I watch a season of Jujutsu Kaisen, I can look up the correct chapter and continue the story seamlessly.
I’m not into comics
I can read a lot of manga right now.
Pls to explain how manga is not comics
Comics = American
Manga = Japanese
Generally that’s the accepted connotations, even though the words are technically the same.
Those were the terms OP used lol. But yeah, generally people view comics as western rather than a catch all term.
Dude the marvel cinematic universe is we…was one of the biggest hits to smash into the box office. Batman is one of the most popular fictional characters ever written. People are still talking about adventure time, regular show, Avatar the last Airbender, and they ended how long ago? SpongeBob is still on the air. Simpsons has lasted longer than most anime.
What are you talking about, Western comics and animation being less popular?
You want to know a pretty unbiased way to judge this? Look at a Halloween store. Spirit even has stuff from the hawk tuah lady, so you know they work fast and go with what’s popular. You might see an old Naruto costume or two, maybe a Goku, and an endcap of what’s popular this year possibly still demon Slayer. But you’ll see a bunch of stuff for Batman, Superman, hell the joker and Harley Quinn gave their own sections each, and that’s just DC.
I wonder if perhaps they meant prevalent? Because, yeah, Western animation is extremely popular (at least, in the West where they were made) but it’s not exactly as prevelent as Japanese animation. For every Western animation, there seems to be 25 Japanese ones. It’s a much bigger thing in the East.
Though I also don’t believe this has anything to do with what the people want, it has more to do with producers and execs at Time Warner and such hating animation, making it really hard for animators to make anything and get it out in the public unless they can produce it themselves.
That makes a lot more sense
At least from my perspective, manga and anime are mediums. They can be used to tell any story, and they are used like that. You can find manga and anime for any age group and in any genre. The medium is used for all kinds of stuff.
The problem with western comics and cartoons is that (at least from what I know), the medium is mostly only targetting kids or it’s superhero comics. It’s just so very limited.
For example, I’m currently watching Ancient Magus Bride. It’s a very non-traditional romance story in a fantasy setting with interesting characters and emotional dynamics. So far I’m really enjoying it. I simply can’t imagine a western cartoon/comic even attempting to produce a similar thing. Or well, perhaps I can imagine it but it just doesn’t happen for some reason.
Go to a comic store and ask for some recommendations that prove this take wildly wrong.
That said, it’s an understandable one. Believe it or not, anime, manga, and freaking video games all once had a similar perception, but for some reason western comics just haven’t broken out of it.
I dunno “comics” in the US are still mostly superhero stuff. Once you get into the non-superhero stuff it generally gets referred to as “graphic novels”. Maybe that term is used only to separate it from the superhero image, or it may have to do with syndication and release schedules? I’m not entirely sure.
A graphic novel is a comic in longer form. Something like Persepolis that was released in one volume vs something like Watchmen that was released as normal comic books.
Go to a comic store and ask for some recommendations that prove this take wildly wrong.
Right, I don’t doubt that some might exist. But it’s a minority of what’s available.
Also I doubt any of it is serialized as a TV cartoon show in the same sense that animes are made from mangas. But I’d love to be proven wrong :)
There’s actually quite a lot (maybe not by Japanese standards, but more than you’d think). Forgive the listacle, but, for example: https://collider.com/iconic-films-based-off-of-comics/
https://screenrant.com/tv-series-shows-didnt-realize-know-surprise-based-comics-graphic-novels/
And that’s part of the image problem. Hollywood decided that “based on a comic” wasn’t a selling point if it’s not about superheroes, where it doesn’t need to be stated, so they frequently don’t mention it.
That’s interesting, thanks!
Like others here, I was drawn to anime and manga for the varied storylines that had arcs that mattered, and an ending, and then stopped. And wrote something totally new.
Whereas comics would reboot the same story, and reboot it, and reboot it… Or they’d have a big arc that dramatically changed things… and two issues later suddenly its status quo all over again.
All of this made it hard to really get invested in their characters or stories. Why even do a story if you’re going to erase it all in the next storyline? Why care if so-and-so died if they’ll just be back in next week’s issue?
The other reason was strong female protagonists that weren’t all sexualized to the wazoo. In western comics it was all tight spandex and butt-boob shots and shots framed by women’s thighs… and most of the non-super women were just plot points to be stuffed in a fridge.
Meanwhile there were piles of strong, well-rounded, independent women of all different ages in manga and anime. Even the sexy women were developed characters first and sexy second. With western comics it definitely felt the other way around.
I grew up on Magic Knight Rayearth and Slayers and Iria and Cowboy Bebop. Watching those was like a breath of fresh air compared to Batman Reboot #242 or whatever.
And I really liked the varied art styles. Western comics were pretty much all of a muchness, the same style or close to it. Manga, meanwhile, had everything from Clamp’s super-detailed art to Dragonball’s more simplistic style. It gave them a much more unique feel.
I think it’s because comics keep refrying the same story over and over again. Boot, let it run, reboot, let it run, reboot … You get the idea. They try to spice things up and change stuff - the equivalent of remixing a classic song ad infinitum, some iterations will be better than others and you will probably like some more than the original but it’s the same song.
Manga and anime have originality on the other hand. Even if some genres become cliche, each story remains a closed entity. Characters here don’t end up elsewhere, and once a story is complete it doesn’t get a reboot. This means the audience can relate more easily to a franchise, because there are not as many variants, and then move on to the next.
There is also less influence in Manga from current affairs, society and history, whereas comics always meddle with those three just too much. Mangas released in the 80s remain relatable today, but a lot of comics don’t for example, or feel like they’ve aged awkwardly.
So it’s easy for people to remain ‘loyal’ to an anime franchise, but difficult for the average comic.
It obviously depends on location. But where I live, anime is nowhere near more popular than Western animation.
Comics have an issue with Marvel and DC sucking up most of the air in the room just to rehash the same characters for the millionth time. I’m generally pretty unenthused with superhero stuff and the general aesthetic around that content, however I do like batman to an extent and have enjoyed the movies and stuff related to him. If I wanted to read a batman comic where do I even start? The beginning? Which beginning? His first appearance back in the 40s or the beginning of one of the many iterations of batman? Now I have to do research into 80 years of content just to figure out what to read, or just pick one at random.
The appeal of manga is just being able to read three series in a week that each explore a different setting/idea and are only one volume apiece. If someone tells me to read a longer series I can just start at chapter one and go until I hit the end. Manga/anime absolutely have some oversaturated settings/ideas as well but there’s generally a lot more space for other stuff to get seen and do well, get anime adaptations, etc
Is it more popular? Are you sure you’re not just making an assumption based on your anecdotal experiences?
Yes.
Demon Slayer either nearly sold the same amount of units in one year as the entire American comic industry or actually just straight up outsold it. Manga is very much larger than comic books.
I remember seeing that headline some time ago.
According to this fact check piece, for 2019, Demon Slayer probably sold around 10.8m copies (Shueisha reported such number), vs 15 million sum of the “top 750 titles” comics. Demon Slayer didn’t outsell “the entire western comic industry”, but it damn well outsold the vast majority of best sellers. I couldn’t find anything concrete for 2020.
Yeah I remember there being some uncertainty on the actual numbers when I last looked at it so I said “nearly” cause I didn’t wanna look it up. Thanks for giving the actual numbers though :)
Didn’t realize this was only comics
Every major book store has a manga section about twice as big as western comics.
That’s also because of how they are printed.
There is creativity and risk in anime that no western media company would ever touch, even if its disagreeable or just shitty. Western stuff is cookie cutter slop aimed at checking all the boxes of a profitable product.
Western media seems to only push things that fit the mold of an investor worthy price of art. Anime goes for a “throw things at the wall” approach so things that are a gamble get made. I think its an issue of scale, anime has a smaller market so the stakes of fucking up massively are survivable while having a huge farm of original indy stories dreaming of being an anime to source from. Western stuff dose not not have the pool of creativity to lift from as scaring or offending investors with risk gets you fired. Triple A gaming seems to reached the same point, bureaucracy and safety prevents new ideas that are risky or they come out bland and boring. Without risk you stagnate and people think your boring. Animation is cheap enough to take risk but has less returns since the market is smaller.
TL;DR: Western media is too bloated to take the creative risk needed and they got to throw buckets of cash to prop up Ol’Reliable season 20 instead.
Don’t worry Blackstone recently bought the largest e-manga company so we can all enjoy cookie cutter slop.
Investment firms, the 5th horseman.
there will still be those that shove out incest rape fantasy anime.
Game of Thrones Season 8 already came out.
smells like live action
The sheer volume and variety of anime and manga is why it has such a reach
There’s only about a dozen things that always pop up when you mention western animations, regardless of the genre or target audience
Why? My personal guess is that it costs too much/doesn’t generate a lot of profit and that due to that, series don’t build on top of each other like they do in Korea or Japan
Example off the top of my head, Korea has a lot of “awakened player” stories like Solo Leveling, the anime of which you may have seen recently; those stories are good because they keep building off of each other, eliminating the boring tidbits and coming up with more creative ways for the stuff that is interesting, and more importantly, its current, not 10 years ago, not 20, they refine the genre every season and it gets incrementally better, something that has simply not been happening in the west for a good long while now.
