Over the last few years, I’ve noticed how common anime has become. From Walmart to Hot Topic, from Netflix to libraries, anime has become a part of American mainstream culture. Of course, anime’s been working on becoming mainstream since the 1990s with Pokemon and Studio Ghibli releases.
It’s a childhood cartoon. During the early decades of anime in the West, anime was hard to get and a niche for the extreme geeks–those who spoke Klingon and elvish. Over time, as directors of films and other movie makers (such as Steven Spielberg) admitted the influence anime has had on them, people began to pay attention.
Ironically, these niches–goths, anime fans, punks, and so on–are quite common. True niches have limited markets and smaller outlets. Anime back in the old days had limited VHS releases and no stores that allocated valuable floor space to it.
The streaming colossus Netflix (current subscriber base approximately 150 million across 190 countries) is throwing its weight behind animation: it is buying in large amounts of anime films and series, investing in their production, creating its own animation. Netflix won’t discuss viewer figures, but the anime market is certainly ‘robust’.
Netflix reported that over 100 million households around the world watched at least one anime title in the first nine months of 2020, a 50% increase from 2019. Even Northwestern's Anime Club membership has more than doubled since the start of the school year.
Even though technology has made the accessibility of foreign media easier, anime and manga will continue to be considered 'niche' when it comes to the general entertainment industry.
In the 1980s, anime became mainstream in Japan, experiencing a boom in production with the rise in popularity of anime like Gundam, Macross, Dragon Ball, and genres such as real robot, space opera and cyberpunk.
Anime has become more popular overseas in recent years due to a shrinking Japanese population leading to an increased export-minded trade. This has meant that anime producers have started to make content more suited to Western tastes, as well as producing anime overseas as it is much cheaper.
From Walmart to Hot Topic, from Netflix to libraries, anime has become a part of American mainstream culture. Of course, anime's been working on becoming mainstream since the 1990s with Pokemon and Studio Ghibli releases. After all, many people don't consider Pokemon to be anime.
Japan's anime industry is massive. And, as a result, anime imagery is everywhere across the country. This doesn't necessarily mean that recognizable anime characters are everywhere. However, the style and tropes of the form are ubiquitous.
The Diverse Variety of Stories The wide range of genres in anime is the first reason why it is so popular. Every person enjoys a different story, genre, and style in anime! Romance, comedy, action/adventure, mystery/suspense, and horror are just a few of the many genres explored by anime plots.
It's a fact that even those who aren't fans can tell you: anime has been growing in popularity outside of Japan in recent years. Now, a new study is breaking down that continued growth and taking a look at what has been most successful and where.
However, anime has become more popular. Top streaming services such as Netflix have begun investing in the production of anime due to its skyrocketing popularity. According to Netflix, from October 2019 to September 2020, “Over one million households chose to watch at least one anime title on Netflix …
There are many reasons why anime has become increasingly popular. With more anime available to the American audience, people are discovering and falling in love with anime. Anime is very diverse and stretches the boundaries of the logical world with unique characters and stories.
Anime Top 10Top 10 Best Rated (bayesian estimate) (Top 50)#titlerating1Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (TV)9.082Steins;Gate (TV)9.043Clannad After Story (TV)9.028 more rows
like myself, some people are addicted to anime because it's fun, action-packed, comedic, and entertaining, it's like a show that's so good you can't help but watch another episode, and the characters are cute and different.
Another of Miyazaki’s projects, Spirited Away (2001), is the highest grossing film inside Japan and the highest grossing anime film internationally. It also won an Academy Award for best animated feature.
As McCarthy points out, “The wonderful thing with animation is that origination costs are just paint and imagination”, in contrast to traditional film-making, even in the age of computer technology, where personnel, infrastructure, and technical costs mount rapidly.
According to the LA Times, in 2018 Netflix spent around $1 billion, or 11 per cent of its original content budget, on animation; by 2022 that investment is expected to reach $5 billion, or 15 per cent. Similarly Amazon Prime Video’s $0.3 billion figure for 2018 is expected to rise to nearly $2 billion in 2022.
Getting in on the action. Anime and its sister printed art form, manga, used to be considered geeky (the Japanese say otaku) pastimes, but clearly they are moving into the global mainstream.
There are many more in the pipeline, across the streaming platforms. Netflix proudly trumpets its headline anime series, produced in partnership with leading Japanese production companies and creatives (Anima, Sublimation, David, Production IG, Bones, and more).