AZ Rants is a segment where I take a less structured and humorous approach
to look at any topic that crosses my mind relating to the subject of anime and manga.
It contains my raw, biased opinion and is for the purpose of creating debate and/or discussion,
so it shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Got that? Great, now shut up and listen.
If you count yourself as an anime fan, or even if you don't,
I'm sure it's common knowledge that anime itself is a very obscure and niche hobby,
especially if you live in the West.
As a longtime avid anime fan, I wasn't always the most open with my love for anime.
And, to an extent, I'm still not.
Not because I feel ashamed for liking anime, but because, as it stands,
not many people in my real life actually have much interest in it,
and nor do most people, for that matter.
To put things in perspective, according to Google trends,
something like "Attack on Titan", which has taken the anime world by storm,
is only just reaching the same amount of interest that "One Piece" has held this entire time.
And this is just a small fraction that a super popular show like "The Walking Dead" achieves when it's airing.
While many people know of anime, those who actually indulge in it are few and far between.
But as someone who always tries to promote anime and get as many people into it as possible,
I always keep coming back to one question:
Does anime as a medium ever stand a chance of becoming mainstream here in the West?
Well.... yes, and no.
It's a pretty simple question, but not as simple to answer as many may first think.
And to so would draw from a lot of elements from all my previous rants.
But, let's start by addressing the biggest issue it has that will stop it from ever being acknowledged by the masses.
Animation is simply not a widely accepted medium that can tell a mature story.
Why would that matter? Well, let's look at it this way.
If we look at the most popular and critically- acclaimed shows coming out of The States,
you'd see that nearly all of them are garnered towards a mature audience.
The "Breaking Bad"s, "The Walking Dead"s, the "Game of Thrones", The "Dexter"s, the "Mad Men".
All these shows are far from child-friendly,
and for anime to ever stand a chance of being acknowledged,
I believe that it's this huge, untapped audience here that will do it.
The problem is that, to the western audience,
any piece of animation is simply not an option to tell a mature story,
being simply shackled to the word "cartoon,"
given the options of either a children's show or an adult comedy.
It's a shame because, when I look at my critically-acclaimed anime,
I don't just see its potential compared to other anime;
I see "Fate/Zero" as our answer to "Game of Thrones",
"Baccano!" comparable to Quentin Tarantino movies,
"Highschool of the Dead" as a response to "The Walking D—"
[laughs]
Okay, but seriously...
Anime has proven itself time and time again that it can tell a mature story,
and has arguably some of the best examples of mature animation out there.
But, in all honesty, it also has its own childish image to contend with over here.
All this roots back to the time of the anime boom in the early 2000s,
the time when "Pokémon" ruled the world, girls were looking up to their "Sailor Moon"s,
and guys were getting hyped on their "Dragonball Z"s.
The closest anime ever comes to being mainstream
is normally through a 4Kids dub of a children's show, or through a popular shonen,
which only further cements the childish image that it's given.
Though, let's not forget the other quite-big image that it has to deal with.
Anime is weird!
Yes, it is weird.
Even among some of the more toned-down stories we know anime has,
it's still buried between the mountains of moe-blob otaku pandering shows coming out every season
and the stuff that would raise eyebrows if you even try to describe the plot of them.
Sure, this is part of the reason we love it,
but it's even worse for the public eye because, to them, that's all that's seemingly out there.
All they see when they look at anime is a clique of odd, unsociable nerds
watching some bizarre high school girl fetish show,
complete with perverse masturbation material with a plot that's pretty much impossible to understand.
The public image for anime isn't the greatest,
and it's pretty much the same image that hardcore gamers or "Star Trek" fans had to deal with in the past.
And for anime to stand any chance of becoming mainstream,
it needs to break out of this preconception the public has of it.
And, to be honest, I'm not sure if it can yet.
Unless we get super lucky and have something like "Attack on Titan" air on HBO,
or "Wolf Children" gets super popular in theaters, we need to look at anime as a whole.
As much as we would like to think that there are anime for all ages,
honestly, it's not as mature as we make it out to be.
Yes, the image of cartoons is highly inaccurate for the diverse medium that anime is,
but in terms of primary demographic, it's still mostly for teenagers.
It's a rarity for anime to not be set in high school or have high school-age characters for their protagonists.
Fanservice, as I pointed out in my previous rant, is more glorified and plentiful than it ever was,
and the genre that is by far the most popular is still the shonen genre.
Even in terms of movies, there isn't really anything that can match the top, critically-acclaimed stuff that Hollywood offers,
unless it just falls back to the family- friendly, Disney-esque type films,
which doesn't really change any preconceptions about animation as a medium of storytelling.
As it stands, anime's just not mature enough yet to break out of its pre-existing image of the general populace.
There's still too much reliance on stories that revolve around high school,
gratuitous fanservice in abundance,
not enough anime that can appeal to the mature audience.
And one "Attack on Titan" isn't going to change the mass opinion alone.
Anime simply is not ready yet.
Though, that's not to say that it never will be.
Recently, there have been snippets of news here and there that hint at a possible future for anime over here.
The highly-successful "Little Witch Academia" Kickstarter campaign,
which managed to completely obliterate its Kickstarter goals within days
despite the fact that it did so poorly in Japan they had to cancel live events due to low ticket sales.
This follows news of a live-action adaptation for Naoki Urasawa's "Monster" coming to HBO,
along with a Toonami revival that, so far, has pretty much exceeded all expectations.
Hollywood, it seems, is also slowly starting to take interest
after producing the highly-anime-influenced "Pacific Rim", even though it did tank domestically,
alongside rumors of Leonardo DiCaprio turning down a role in the new "Star Wars"
to work on a "Robotech" movie with Tobey Maguire,
and Warner Bros. announcing a new live-action "Death Note" movie.
The prospects for an increased awareness of anime are certainly looking up,
but this actually leads me to my final question.
Do we, as a fanbase, actually want anime to become popular and mainstream?
There's an irony in my own personal opinion,
since I never would have started this YouTube channel if anime were more popular
and I had friends to talk about it with.
But, just think about it for a second.
Imagine a place where people stand around water coolers discussing the newest events in "Attack on Titan",
where you can walk down the street with a "Madoka Magica" t-shirt
without having to explain that it's a dark and edgy show,
where Fox News are debating the controversial violence portrayed in "Elfen Lied".
The effect of making something mainstream may seem like a simple case of "More Popularity = More Money = Better Stuff,"
but things don't always work out like that.
If we look at another part of nerd culture that's become mainstream, gaming,
we see that the popularity spike didn't mean that independent artists
were allowed more creative freedom to do what they wanted,
but instead, we now see the control of select multi-billion mega-corporations
funding the same gritty, realistic war shooters every year to fit within their business models.
While, arguably, the majority of the creative stuff is coming from the little guys.
Sure, there is still some great stuff coming out,
but what kind of change would anime see if it were to become popular?
Right now, we are a cult -- a niche fanbase within an already niche part of geek culture.
And while there are plenty of plus sides to finding out that our strange little hobby
has suddenly exploded in popularity and is now understood by the masses,
we would lose the uniqueness we shared when this was just some obscure little thing
that was only appreciated by other people like you.
Yes, it's filled with strange archetypes and tropes that put other people off,
but it's these characteristics that we all love about anime.
As much as I complain about the clichés and tropes of anime sometimes,
if I stay away from it for too long, I secretly crave it.
I want my tsunderes, my insane shonen power-ups, my short high school skirts.
And while it may be great for the medium we love to be acknowledged by the masses,
is it worth it at the cost of watering down these characteristics that drew us to the medium in the first place?
Would it change a lot from the thing that we know and love at this moment?
And would the fanbase we're in now change from the people in this little corner of geekdom we're all connected with?
So, I'm asking you guys now.
Do you want anime to become mainstream?
Leave a comment or video response for your chance to get featured in my next rant.
Anyway, that's it for me now, though, so with your response to my last rant,
what do you think about fanservice in anime?
[42believers] Fanservice... a topic that makes many female anime fans groan in disgust
as they rant and rave about how degrading it is to anime,
not to mention women in general,
and how it's the most evil thing in the entire world, which must be...
Hey guys! Gigguk here. Now, you may notice I'm somewhere different today.
And, well, that's because I'm on holiday in Thailand.
Why am I in Thailand?
Well, 'cause I'm... Asian and Thai...
Yeah...
If you enjoyed this rant, be sure to check out my other rants and the featured video
for some more interesting discussion videos.
And, as always, you can find me on Facebook and Twitter in the description below.
Anyway, that's it for me now, though.
So, I'm still waiting on my voice actors for "EvAbridged 4.0", so that'll be out later.
But, until then, I've been Gigguk, and I'll see you all next time.