| I mean it's crazy how mainstream it is, I remember back in the day when people watched anime they would rarely talk about it and watched it in secrecy. Now you have a large amount of rappers singing about Dragon Ball, Naruto, also celebrities who admit to liking it. The only real big anime back in the day were like pokemon which was more based on the games, and maybe death note. I remember back in the day the only artist who really talked about anime was wu-tang clan and they aren't really mainstream they are technically more underground. But what happened in the past 5 years where it became more widely accepted and talked about. I see tons of anime reels on IG, tik tok. |
| While western animation is dei slop, anime is beautiful and appeals to more than just women and twitter warriors. Same reason why manga grows as comics flop. |
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| Anime is rather creative in their stories, design and premises. Nowadays alot of Western media has become very stale. So anime is a great alternative |
   The Perfect Duo - has one who thinks and one who do's. To have a party, there's at least two When the world is dark, and you feel near to end. Just remember there's hope, in the form of a friend. |
| The vast majority of people still see anime as some weird shit for pedos, so no, it's not even remotely close to being mainstream. |
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Reply to princessoftrash
The vast majority of people still see anime as some weird shit for pedos, so no, it's not even remotely close to being mainstream.
| @princessoftrash You got that wrong. Even huge public figures like Pewdipie like anime openly, and he even moved to Japan. Mostly all guys at my workplace watch some anime including normies. If it was not mainstream we would not have so much anime merch at places like Walmart. Manga is one of the biggest things in bookstores. |
rohan121Feb 7, 2024 6:58 PM
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| It's interesting how much more acceptable it is now; I remember when I started watching anime when I was in middle school I didn't really talk about it because i remember other kids getting made fun of for liking it. I feel like that has really changed a lot recently, and in the last few years several people in university have brought up watching it or just started talking about it casually, which I guess I'm not used to lol. Even earlier this week a couple people in my plant physiology class started randomly talking to me about it. |
| It's growing super quickly too, I know a few classmates who are fans or view it casually with both anime and manga. As for why, I can only think of how widespread its influence and appeal reaches and how more creative it is with the stories and animation. |
 "You fought to the end. You survived. That's why you're here now. I think that's something you should be more proud of." - Vladilena Milizé |
| I think the pandemic has a role because many who didnt consider anime or watch it before watched it during the lockdown and ended up enjoying it and more people got into it. also in general people are less judgmental and way more open about stuff. and with tiktok also having anime openings and edits blowing up in popularity, normies got exposed to it too. |
| How to have a popular thing? You need to have a media that is accessible for everyone, widely well regarded by most group of people. You need something influencial that people always talks about and gets others interests. You need a lot of it readily available in a variety of genre, so it feels like brand new. |
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| I remember as a kid I would see Naruto and dragon ball when it was on tv. But Yea It started when I noticed rappers/popular people start to post anime characters/ anime inspired stuff. I love that nowadays almost everyone knows at least what anime is. I don't see a community growing as bad. I started watching anime during high school freshman years . I started with samurai champloo and just fell in love with Japanese animation/ manga since then. |
Reply to rohan121
@princessoftrash
You got that wrong. Even huge public figures like Pewdipie like anime openly, and he even moved to Japan. Mostly all guys at my workplace watch some anime including normies. If it was not mainstream we would not have so much anime merch at places like Walmart. Manga is one of the biggest things in bookstores.
You got that wrong. Even huge public figures like Pewdipie like anime openly, and he even moved to Japan. Mostly all guys at my workplace watch some anime including normies. If it was not mainstream we would not have so much anime merch at places like Walmart. Manga is one of the biggest things in bookstores.
| @rohan121 Pewdipie is just a youtuber, most people who aren't chronically online don't even know about his existense. Heck, I am chronically online, yet the first time I've heard of Mr. Beast was less than a year ago. And I am willing to bet a lot that my parents have never heard of either of them. You should have mentioned Elon Musk instead, as an example of an actually huge public figure who is kinda into anime. Maybe in the US anime is actually mainstream and thoroughly accepted by everyone (I somewhat doubt it though, considering that 40% of the country are MAGA boomers), but that's definitely not the case in the shithole I live in. Honestly, I wouldn't even call gaming mainstream since a large chunk of the world's population (even some fairly young people among them) still consider it a hobby unbecoming for an adult. I think people just use the word "mainstream" incorrectly. "The ideas, attitudes, or activities that are shared by most people and regarded as normal or conventional" - definetely NOT how I would describe the universal perception of anime. |
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| Shonen and maybe some romance are mainstream. saying anime as a whole is mainstream is wrong. people know what it is, but don't look past the surface. anime is more than 2 genres. we will always have a safe haven from normies in anime. they always try to push their SJW trash into the medium but always fail to breakthrough. |
Fischer77Feb 7, 2024 9:24 PM
| It kind of always was, it's just now all of the shows are more accessible now due to streaming services. You don't need to watch Toonami or Adult Swim to watch your shows anymore. It's still a pretty niche when you go outside of shonen anime though. Instead of shows like DBZ, Naruto, and Bleach we have switched to Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, and Attack on Titan. |
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HarryRambod22 said: I mean it's crazy how mainstream it is, I remember back in the day when people watched anime they would rarely talk about it and watched it in secrecy. Now you have a large amount of rappers singing about Dragon Ball, Naruto, also celebrities who admit to liking it. The only real big anime back in the day were like pokemon which was more based on the games, and maybe death note. I remember back in the day the only artist who really talked about anime was wu-tang clan and they aren't really mainstream they are technically more underground. But what happened in the past 5 years where it became more widely accepted and talked about. I see tons of anime reels on IG, tik tok. Anime has been extremely mainstream since the time when Pokemon came out to the West. Rap songs began incorporating Anime references in the late 1980s to the early 1990s if anyone remembers stuff like Kool Moe Dee's - "Wild Wild West" mention of "Gigantor". So Anime has been in western music even before the Wu-Tang Clan even existed. Anime only seems more Mainstream now simply because the existence of social media. |
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| 'Why and what happened', you ask? In short, good marketing at the right place and right time. That includes input from influencers. We're now in an age where information is spread really fast too. A lot of people look at it more as a passing fad though as if anime is something you grow out of or get out of, so I feel like there won't always be a bunch of people into it as much as there are now. Who knows though, because it kinda depends on how things are marketed and if what's made resonates with the West. As it is now, creators are realizing they can make money if they take an extra step to appeal to the West a little though, so I wouldn't be surprised if anime gets more and more collab anime. We've had collab anime (and games) in the past and on, of course, but it might end up being more common and later on, on a different level than what we've often seen with early collab anime. We'll just have to see what happens. |
| Oh really? Cause it isn't as accessible here as I wish it is, in my national language. I ain't noticing it yet, wake me up when Poland will have anime as mainstream as it is in the west or far-east. Cause right now there even exist an audio catholic Polish podcast, in which a Priest Exorcist believes that Anime is the product of Satan and it demoralize the children [after seeing forums I can't even deny him kekw] - https://egzorcyzmy.katolik.pl/zagroenia-duchowe-naszych-dzieci/ , here the audio, I ain't joking about it, although you need to understand Polish. |
ZettaikenFeb 7, 2024 11:41 PM
| People are definitely talking about anime/manga a lot more nowadays than before, and are more open about saying they like them, but I don't know if I would go as far as to say this is 'mainstream'. |
| Western media has the cancerouse woke agenda and people hate it. East Asia>West |
| It doesn't matter if you like LoGH,Monster etc.If you are a jobless or college/school dropout living in your mom basement, you are still an unintelligent loser. Taste in anime does not make you a better person. |
Reply to Papa_Scorch
Western media has the cancerouse woke agenda and people hate it. East Asia>West
| @Papa_Scorch Don't get me wrong I have always found North East Asian media to be more entertaining to watch than Western media but I don't get this complaint I am always seeing about western media being too "woke". Specifically define what you actually think "Woke" means? Because to my understanding it's a term used to describe awareness of social and racial injustice. On the other hand I have seen Right Wing Lunatics use it frequently as a go to word to carelessly throw around simply to describe anything they don't like. It's so weird for people to be so outraged by something when they don't even specifically know what exactly they are outraged about and how things would actually be better in their mind being not "woke" anymore. It reminds me of politicians constantly complaining about things when in actual power but don't actually try to do anything meaningful and in good faith to try to fix the things they keep complaining about. Specifically what would people who keep complaining about Western media being too "woke" want to be changed about it? Is it as simple as "people" wanting western family sitcoms to go back to a time when there was casual misogyny, open racism, and insensitivity towards minorities? |
ColourWheelFeb 8, 2024 2:27 AM
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| Well it was growing pretty popular a few years before the lock down. Then the lock down happened and people were bored so they went and watched anime in their free time. I have found so many people who started watching anime during the lock down. Some popular shows came up like new seasons of Aot and Kny movie breaking records. That's just one thing. Another factor is that there is a lack of good shows or movies now. Most movies suck now, superhero movies were most popular but their phase is declining. There are some popular TV shows here and there but it's not enough to keep people interested. |
If you enjoyed the time you wasted, then its not a waste of time.  |
| Same reason as anything else that started niche and became more popular with time: the numbers of people who grew up with Anime is constantly increasing while those who never watched Anime are decreasing. At some point the ratio became high enough to call it mainstream. |
*kappa* |
| Anime was getting increasingly more popular since around 2013 or 2015, but when absolutely full mainstream when Demon Slayer broke the internet back in 2019 and then during the lockdowns in 2020 when Mugen Train broke all records. So, yeah. That's why most tourists have account created in 2020 or later. |
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| Because we didn't gatekeep hard enough. |
| Anime watcher will grow over time. But because of COVID and people have nothing to do, people start watching anime. Is it bad thing? No. I think it's a good thing. Many people watch anime means you can have topic and discussion. We must welcoming people for watching anime, instead of keeping them away by gatekeeping. |
| COVID lockdowns gave many people a lot more free time, so a lot of people started watching Japanese shows to fill in the time, and it has benefitted a lot of the popularity of many shows, and especially long running ones like One Piece since when you're cooped up in your house for months on end, watching a long show can really help fill the time |
This post is brought to you by your local transfem gamer goblin. Will not tolerate bigotry and will fight against "anti-woke" sentiment to make the anime community a safer place.  |
| Attack on Titan became a smash hit in 2013 because violent and unpredictable fantasy was in that year (GoT was at its peak of relevancy). Then came One Punch Man and My Hero Academia, which blew up in part because of how massive superhero media like the MCU was and still is. I feel like those three shows laid the groundwork for where we are now because they took advantage of what mainstream international audiences wanted. |
Take care of yourself |
Reply to LoveLikeBlood
Attack on Titan became a smash hit in 2013 because violent and unpredictable fantasy was in that year (GoT was at its peak of relevancy). Then came One Punch Man and My Hero Academia, which blew up in part because of how massive superhero media like the MCU was and still is. I feel like those three shows laid the groundwork for where we are now because they took advantage of what mainstream international audiences wanted.
| I see you did the work for me already. I was about to bring up the same series. Those are instrumental in more normie types finding anime. Not just those but there have been a myriad of new shows that have been appealing to more and more people. Promised Neverland, Sword Art, Chainsaw Man, Demon Slayer. It's really common for people to be hopping in in the past 15 years. |
| I can only see this as a good thing when weighing the "pros and cons". At least I don't get laughed at for watching anime anymore. |
"Nobody could laugh at someone who's trying their hardest" -Machio- |
| I really noticed this, when I was a big anime fan over 10+ years ago I got made fun of and bullied about it alot and like no kids my age in my school liked it that I knew of. but now its pretty acceptable that even some normies watch it, I think a big reason is the pandemic it made people want to watch it since they didn't have much else to do and i guess they ended up liking it lol , and then using anime in internet culture became a big thing all those aesthetic pictures and edits that use anime, and all the memes im sure brought more attention to it |
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| Probably because of the recent successful shows like AoT, JJK, and KnY. They found out that anime isn't just horni stuffs for weird people |
| In general, anime majorly benefited from the cultural shifts in how people consume media at the start of the 2010s, specifically the rise of streaming and the mainstreaming of geek culture in general. The emergence of Crunchyroll as a legitimate platform to get easy access to anime already boosted its visibility in the mainstream, but it was helped even further by the fact that some of the biggest shows to emerge on the scene at the start of the decade (Attack on Titan, Sword Art Online, and Fate/Zero) were very specifically in line with a lot of the big trends in mainstream television at the time (dark atmosphere, large cast of unique characters, high-minded themes, “Anyone Can Die” atmosphere, etc.), and seemed relatively clean of the usual vices which put people off of anime (SAO turned out to be an exception to that, but regardless) that they became objects of strong interest from mainstream culture, and the relative easy accessibility of anime then compared to previous decades meant it was now much easier for someone who was hooked on those to start jumping right into others and get into the medium as a whole. Additionally, the generations of kids from the 90s & 2000s who’d grown up watching Dragon Ball, Naruto, Ghibli films, and the like were now adults, specifically adults in the age when nostalgia-pandering is a bigger market than ever and growing out of the stuff you liked as a kid was starting to feel like an antiquated concept, so now you suddenly have a huge portion of the population who have had fond memories of the medium all their lives living in an age where access to it was easier than ever. I know this generation of people intimately since I’m one of them. I watched Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon as a kid, and watching DB Super as a teenager is part of what pulled me into full weebdom. Related to the above point, this level of anime nostalgia also very much crept its way into mainstream culture even outside the anime community. Western-made shows like Steven Universe were made by huge weebs who directly site even lesser-known shows like Revolutionary Girl Utena as influences. The fact that the Disney cartoon Amphibia included a direct reference to the obscure 1998 OVA Getter Robo Armageddon is burned into my brain. This isn’t even a recent thing either, the makers of The Matrix were very openly influenced by Ghost in the Shell, and Avatar, a series which is almost 20 years old now & is practically the forefather of most of the modern western animation scene, has so much commonality with anime that whether it counts as one is practically a meme at this point. The people who make western media love anime and want more people to watch it (ironic considering how many people in this thread despise those very same pieces of western media). |
Infamous_EmpireFeb 8, 2024 10:06 PM
| Barely catching my breath! Lay my eyes on the crest! Gonna square up to all of the heat that is left! So I carry the torch! To Inferno! Inferno! GENERATION 45: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. |
| Because nowadays everything else sucks. |
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| 1. I think anime was always attractive and exotic to the westerners, the potential always existed, but licensing + distribution were slow, expensive and technically complicated. Now with the changes in the production logistics (for example you can be an USA company, commission english dub from Canada and get the audio files the minute the work is done) and distribution methods (internet streaming) the process is more affordable and faster. 2. The rise of the nerd culture removed (well only partially) some prejudice against asian culture and the stigma of watching animation which is not dedicated to little kids and Japan has one the biggest catalogs of such. Anime becoming mainstream was bound to happen. All the anti-anime reactions I have met in my life were anti-nerd tendencies or xenophobia, maybe nowadays those are on decline? |
alshuFeb 9, 2024 1:41 AM
| Not anime as a whole. Mainstream appeal new gen shonen is. And by the way, most of those can't even be called fans. The real ones are called by derrogative names by them. |
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| Tiktok. It's social media in general, but mostly tiktok. It exploded on those platforms during the pandemic. Anyone who's account was made after 2019 most likely got into it that way. The reason it worked so well is because stuff like dbz, naruto, etc. are really easy for someone who doesn't watch anime to appreciate. Usually it's the fight scenes or whatever. Then they went from there. |
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| Probably the pandemic which gave ppl a lot more free time. I think people stopped judging this book by its cover and started realizing that it's pretty damn good and that there's stuff for everyone. |
“๐๐จ๐จ๐ค ๐๐ญ ๐ฆ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฌ, ๐
๐๐ฒ๐. ๐๐ง๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ ๐๐๐ค๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ ๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ง ๐๐๐๐ข๐๐๐ง๐ญ. ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ง, ๐’๐ฏ๐ ๐๐๐๐ง ๐ฌ๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ข๐ง ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐๐ง๐ญ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐จ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ซ.” |
| [Screen Actor's Guild Strike * (Boredom + Pandemic)] - Employment = Anime Fans |
| "The name's Gambit. Remember it." -Gambit "X-Men '97"  |
| Because popular influencers have brought it to social media light. |
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| I wouldn't say it's mainstream by any means, it's just more accepted. And like all forms of media, there's layers to it. What 'normies' watch might be mainstream, but past a couple huge shows there's still a majority of anime that the average person would have no idea about. And when I say "average person", I mean average of everyone, not just your average anime fan. Huge difference, obviously. Another factor I see noted frequently is the increasingly poor quality of originally Western shows and movies. They're frequently written with the sole purpose of making money, and building a story around what's going to get people to watch it, which is why you get plenty of repeated and unoriginal plots and themes - they know what sells well. Thanks, Marvel. The only time I can enjoy a movie in a movie theatre these days is if I just turn my brain off and stare at the screen like they're fireworks or something. Likewise, I think you have a number of anime that are increasingly emulating these patterns - seasonals that are made to get viewers, crutching on tropes and bland storylines. Sorry shounen and isekai (and increasingly so romcoms), I'm looking at you. I think those ones are the 'mainstream' ones you're referring to. |
 My 2024 MALoween Candies:        |
| More marketing thanks to TikTok and other social media And people had a whole lot of free time during quarantine so they watched anime, and a lot of them continue to do so |
| I wouldn't say most people who watch anime are hardcore anime fans, and more just fans of about 5 specific anime. While that's the majority, I'm glad that more people are becoming more hardcore anime fans, or are simply appreciating good shows. It's definitely become more acceptable and I'm here for it. |
| Because younger people are bored by normie stuff. |
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