| Asking because in a recent thread i made, people said anime wasn't mainstream in the days of pokemon and that's why the new demon slayer movie broke it's box office record. But i don't think people remember how popular it and Yugioh and DBZ and Sailor Moon were at the time. So my question is, is today the most mainstream anime has ever been? Was anime's popularity in the 90's and 2000's just limited to the likes of Pokemon and Yugioh and the medium itself wasn't popular. |
| My waifu is the most wonderful waifu. Mai Valentine. We're freaking out that we're running out of time, but to do what? Should i stop and think of that? Is there something i could do to slow it down? Live in a day for once, instead of watch it sprinting by |
| Anime has been mainstream all the time since DBZ became popular globally, but only a very few anime were mainstream back then. |
No, this isn't my signature. |
| Anime is a medium with mainstream and underground media. I would say the 90s had some crazy mainstream anime like Pokemon, Digimon, and Yugioh. |
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| Treat anime like music. Some artists/series are mainstream, while others aren't. |
| I’ve often seen the argument that “anime was mainstream” back then because a lot of people watched Pokémon, or because lots of people got into a few anime that were airing on Toonami, or wherever. This argument never made much sense to me. A few specific anime were absolutely mainstream during that time, but I feel that anime in general was not. Lots of people were “Pokémon fans” or “DBZ fans,” but not necessarily “anime fans.” They often had zero interest in anime outside of a couple of shows they watched on TV, and wouldn’t go out of their way to seek more out. For example, I graduated in 2003, and there was a kid in my high school who sometimes wore a DBZ shirt. He was into DBZ specifically, not anime. I had a couple of classes with a girl who often brought Sailor Moon manga to read. That was the only series she enjoyed. She liked Sailor Moon, not anime. That kind of thing was the norm back then. I could often find other fans of this show or that show, but as soon as I would bring up other anime, it immediately became clear that they might love DBZ or Sailor Moon, but they didn’t know or care about “anime.” All those kids who saw the Pokémon movie and made it a success at the box office were Pokémon fans, not anime fans, and wouldn’t even consider themselves anime fans, but I’d bet the vast majority of people who saw the Demon Slayer movie would consider themselves anime fans, and regularly actively seek out other anime. That’s the key difference between then and now. People are now fans of anime in general, not just specific shows that happen to be anime. Looking at how anime movies are released is also very telling. When I saw Spirited Away in 2002, anime movies in US theaters were rare, and usually only came to big cities, and for a few days at most. I lived in a smaller city, and the only place showing it was a tiny non-chain theater. There was one single showing, dubbed only, and I felt lucky to even have that. Spirited Away only played in around 150 theaters in the US before it won the Oscar, and only then, once there was interest, was the release expanded to hundreds. The last Ghibli movie to be released, The Boy and the Heron, played in more than 2000 US theaters, subbed and dubbed, for weeks. It didn’t need an award to drum up interest, because the interest was already there. At least in the US, anime is more mainstream now than it’s ever been, there’s no doubt in my mind about that. |
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| You could say during the Pokémania but that wasn't anime being mainstream but specifically Pokémon. I don't think that anime is mainstream even now |
| Probably in the 2010s when the streaming era started and the big popularity boom happened in the 2020s during COVID. palm-tree said: This, a lot of kids watched anime, like Pokémon, Yugioh, Dragonball etc., but all these series were known as cartoons among most people, not as anime. It's more like some specific titles became popular because of TV, but not the whole medium.For example, I graduated in 2003, and there was a kid in my high school who sometimes wore a DBZ shirt. He was into DBZ specifically, not anime. I had a couple of classes with a girl who often brought Sailor Moon manga to read. That was the only series she enjoyed. She liked Sailor Moon, not anime. That kind of thing was the norm back then. I could often find other fans of this show or that show, but as soon as I would bring up other anime, it immediately became clear that they might love DBZ or Sailor Moon, but they didn’t know or care about “anime.” All those kids who saw the Pokémon movie and made it a success at the box office were Pokémon fans, not anime fans, and wouldn’t even consider themselves anime fans, but I’d bet the vast majority of people who saw the Demon Slayer movie would consider themselves anime fans, and regularly actively seek out other anime. That’s the key difference between then and now. People are now fans of anime in general, not just specific shows that happen to be anime. |
| @palm-tree Lots of people were “Pokémon fans” or “DBZ fans,” but not necessarily “anime fans.” They often had zero interest in anime outside of a couple of shows they watched on TV, and wouldn’t go out of their way to seek more out. Further supporting this, many western fans can note the specific point when they realized DBZ and Pokemon ARE anime. Usually through their claimed "gateway series" that made them go, 'Oh—this isn't just a cartoon, this is a whole medium, a whole genre. The stuff I grew up on? That was anime too.' Anime became "mainstream" in 2014. SAO started the boom in 2012. Shingeki no Kyojin solidified it. Anyone who was there before those shows aired can tell you how different the "fandom" was. |
ChandelaSep 15, 12:35 PM
| Anime has been mainstream plenty of times. The Pokemon fad, Yu-Gi-Oh fad, Naruto fad, etc. Those mostly appealed to children, but even if you were an adult you at least knew what the characters looked like since they permeated real life, especially Pokemon when it used to be promoted literally everywhere in the late 90's. Digimon, DBZ and Sailor Moon also became really popular around the same time frame, so they benefited from Pokemon's popularity. |
| Certain anime have always been mainstream throughout the years. It was Pokemon, DBZ, Naruto etc. Then it was Aot, Tokyo ghoul, OPM, Sao etc. Now we have Demon slayer and Jjk. Anime itself is more popular now I believe with how good the Demon slayer movie is performing. |
If you enjoyed the time you wasted, then its not a waste of time.  |
| People would have looked at you weird if you said you watched DBZ, Naruto, or Pokemon and weren't a kid anymore, since those were known as saturday morning cartoon shows for kids. If you said you watched Gundam, nobody would have known what you were talking about. If you showed them a clip of it, their interest my have been piqued but otherwise they would have moved on. It was not until the advent of Netflix streaming and Fate/Zero, Death Note, and FMAB that people started becoming aware that there was anime beyond just "saturday morning cartoon shows". |
| No, anime was not mainstream as a medium - it's just that a few anime where mainstream. But overall, the majority of peoples who watched them at the time, were kids, and had no idea what anime even was, or where it came from. I for one, as a kid, having Digimon and DBZ with the original Japanese OP's, I thought for many years, that they were Chinese cartoons. Generally, in the 90's and 2000's, even Western cartoons used to be a bit more serious at times, unlike the childish crap they make today. Stuff like X-Men for example was very dark and mature. There were a lot of more serious Europeans cartoons too. So in that environment, anime didn't feel necessary that more mature. DBZ aside, Pokemon or Yu Gi-Oh! were no seinen, and where actually more in line with the kid friendly edgy cartoons that Cartoon Network produced at the time. Something like Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop or Evangelion would have indeed feelt distinct next to those, but not by much next to something like X-Men. Now, anime is becoming mainstream as a medium, so it's something very different from the past. |
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| The anime scene started to bloom in the early '90s, but it was definitely not mainstream like it is today. I would say once it hit Cartoon Network was when that happened. |
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