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 don’t know. Instead I’ll focus on my subjective experience with comics and manga, as a nobody from LatAm who likes fantasy.
Manga is something that I grew up with. As adulthood came by, I didn’t feel the need to ditch it - instead I found other manga series to enjoy. There’s stuff for young kids and adults; spicy and tame; comedic and serious; romance and no romance. No matter who you are and the stuff that you like, I feel like you could find at least one enjoyable manga series to read.
In the meantime, what I’ve found from comics elsewhere:
- Local (at least in Brazil) - either tailored for kids (see: Monica’s Gang) or newspaper 4-koma with social commentary (see: anything from Glauco). So only kids get actual stories? Based on Mafalda I feel like that’s how the cookie crumbles in Latin America as a whole.
- European - wider in age demographic than the local ones, and some do have fantasy (Even erotica. Druuna, I’m looking at you.
And your butt.), but I feel like they lack dynamic. Even adventure ones like Tintin. Still enjoyable to read, but sometimes my cup of tea might be yerba or coffee, you know? - United-Statian - Mary Sue protag got superpowers from Z’bh’thy, and now is fighting the Evil for the sake of their country. Skip past 20 years and they’re still in the same slop, never reaching the end, in a multiverse that makes my PC cabling look tidy in comparison.
- manhua (China) - I actually found quite a few enjoyable series (like the Fairy Captivity, Yaoguai Mingdan, My Wife is the Demon Queen). Perhaps not surprisingly they’re similar in spirit to Japanese manga. I could see myself reading more of that stuff. (I’ll skip wuxia though.)
- manhwa (S. Korea) - 90% of the stuff that I’ve seen boils down to either “adultery stories” (I’m not into that stuff) or what feels like ultra-shōnen: “level ZZ is not enough, MC needs to reach level ZZZ”. That said I did find a few enjoyable series, like FFF-Trashero or Carnivorous Princess Yegrinna.
Are they always like this? Probably not; I bet that people can find exceptions to every single bullet point that I’ve listed.
Something must be also said about the synergy between light novels, manga, and anime: if you want you get to enjoy the same story thrice, in three different media, and the pleasure associated with each will be different. And if the story is good enough it won’t tire you down. I simply don’t feel the same in non-Japanese series, even the ones that adapt the same universe across different media (like X-Men).
I think one of the biggest reason is how easy and accessible it is to read manga or watch anime. There are countless sites where you can consume each for free.
I tried a few years ago trying to find a way to read comics online for free and found nothing.
Sure not the most legal thing but when you are tight on cash, last thing I want to do is spend it on entertainment.
I did used to read a ton of comics growing up, but I would borrow them from the library.
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 :)
Every major book store has a manga section about twice as big as western comics.
It’s been over 40 years that Japan has been massively exporting anime to the west.
People under 50 yo grew up watching Dragon-ball, Sailor-Moon, Naruto or one piece rather than Superman/batmanI’d argue that I’m smack in the middle of the generation that grew up watching Dragonball and Sailor Moon etc. but I also grew up watching Superman, and Batman, and Spiderman etc.
The problem I have with American comics is a whole list.
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The serial nature of American Comics and the likelihood that the comic will end its run before the story is finished (this happens quite a lot with smaller American Comics, making it difficult to find new material and the will to invest interest in it).
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Anime Stories may not always grow with the fan base, but enough of them do that they maintain their audience over years as the story progresses. I think that’s pretty important.
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The most popular American Comic stories are over saturated on their own material. They reboot repeatedly, and have a wrote way that the main character(s) face/handle problems and conflict. You almost never have a full story that’s not just a cyclical thing. A lot of Manga have a beginning, middle and end, even if the story continues afterwards (story arcs finish more often than not). Sometimes they rehash, the same thing arc to arc, but more often than not, because those characters are new and not 50 year old icons, the audience is more willing to invest in that kind of story.
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There was definitely always this FOMO feeling about anime back in the day because it wasn’t such an outwardly accepted thing. It used to be only the “weird kids” who were into it, so there was a sense of it being scarce, even when it wasn’t necessarily. I think that helped it to be more sought after. It went from weird to cool.
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Anime often doesn’t have a way to endear you to the characters in a cheap way that’s everywhere, enough for you to invest in buying the media. Some American comics started out in news papers and on things like cigarette packets. They gained some level of notariety and recognition from the public that way. So they didn’t have to give as much effort to a first issue as anime manga often does. This to me is a notable difference.
Anime Stories may not always grow with the fan base, but enough of them do that they maintain their audience over years as the story progresses. I think that’s pretty important.
I don’t think they grow as much as they don’t rely too much on the audience being a certain age. Of course a lot of anime will be more entertaining or relatable if you’re part of its target audience, but a 50 years old can easily find Demon Slayer or Nichijou entertaining. Because of that simply shaking things up every now and then will be enough to keep your audience engaged; it’s the same reason an adult can be entertained by Adventure Time and not Paw Patrol.
I suppose it depends on the Anime you watch or read vs the comics you watch or read. But comics generally have an over arcing plot and that plot goes somewhere. I’m that way the protagonists grow up or get better etc. The protagonist gets harder better/faster/stronger. Some long running comics do this eventually, but they run for so long often that these arcs just become rehashes of things that have already happened. Spiderman runs into most of the villains in his stories more than once (in one run of the comic, I know there are multiple). Batman and Joker, Superman, and just about every other person from his native planet. Hell, Superman and Lex Luther.
But perhaps it’s just harder to notice these kinds of themes repeating in a lot of anime. Or perhaps it’s just my experience or specific anime and manga. I will concede that they generally are more “audience of all ages” friendly in a specific way that American comics don’t.
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If I want to read Spider-Man, I would probably post the question “where should I start with Spider-Man?” on something like Lemmy and I’d get a dozen different responses suggesting different comic runs or artists. That alone means I’m not getting the full Spider-Man story.
I can go pick up volume 1 of One Punch Man and know I’m at the beginning of a cohesive story.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is awesome. I always thought I’d do the same if given the chance. You are a great parent.
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.
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.
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.
A large part of it is the target audience.
Like western (or at least, American,) animation is mostly intended for children (Disney animation, Pixar. Paw patrol… looney toons,) or is of one of two genres (dc/marvel superhero’s, or like Family guy, South Park, simpsons.)
A lot of anime is intended for kids, too, don’t get me wrong. But a lot of it is also very much not. You also have a much broader array of genres, as well as a much broader distinctions in style in them.
redo of healer and made in abyss are clearly childrens shows, both of them contain children and are serialized TV shows.
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
people have been trying to figure out why kids like the things they like for many decades, ever since they became their own demographic. the only reasonable conclusion i’ve heard is kids like what their friends like, and tend to move away from what their parents liked (superman). why do they latch on to some things and not others?- who tf knows
best advice is to not waste time trying to figure it out
I’d argue that the main reason you see more anime is the target audience.
Western animation is usually aimed at young children. For as much as I may have loved Disney’s Gummi Bears as a young child (decades later and I can still hear the theme song on my head), it’s now pretty painful to watch. Some shows have aged pretty well and some newer shows aren’t quite so bad. But, the target audience still seems to be younger children for much of it. There are exceptions, and several of those are pretty well known. For example, The Simpsons and Futurama are both popular animated shows, and both are not aimed at children.
Anime, by contrast is often aimed at teenagers. This means that it’s part of the audience’s formative years. People form bonds with the shows and carry some of those bonds into adulthood. And while the writing often falls into cringe inducing melodrama, there’s enough of it that is passable fun, usually simple hero stories. The shows can be like a comfy blanket that doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence too much.
I’d also note that anime’s appeal goes back further than the 2000’s. My own introduction was Robotech, back in the 80’s. While it was a bastardized version of Macross, with some pretty awful writing (not that Macross’s writing is going to win awards any time soon) and a couple other shows, it was certainly a step above what most western studios were putting on for Saturday Morning cartoons. And that created a lifelong soft spot for anime. Heck, my desktop background is currently a Veritech Fighter. I still love the idea of Robotech, even if I only watch it in my memory through very heavily rose tinted glasses. And I imagine I’m not alone. The show may be different, but I suspect a lot of folks graduated from Disney and Hanna-Barbera cartoons to some type of anime as they got older and that anime was stuck with them.
Saint Seiya was the “graduation” anime for me, back in 1995 or 96. He-Man, Ninja Turtles and Spider Man stood no chance against a consistent story and bloody fights to the death. The anime dragged on a fucking lot, but the fights were like nothing else
Compare the population amount
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.
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.
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.
I would say Superman is more popular.
After all, everyone knows who he is.Superman though is also popular just as an icon, not necessarily (in this day and age) because he’s a comic book character. There are people who have never picked up a comic who knows his name and his general story. They may have never even actually seen a show or movie about him, but he’s now such an icon that this doesn’t matter. People still know him.
