Why isn't the American animation industry like the Japanese one?

Disney did make some direct-to-video movies through the '90s to '00s, but they were all cheap cashgrabs. The reason America never had its own Akira or GitS largely comes down to cultural differences; America does not respect animation.

@Purple_Gh0st24 America likes animation. Disney animated movies appealed to adults. Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra were popular for all ages. Steven Universe appealed to grown women. Regular Show appealed to grown men. A lot of adults like South Park, Rick and Morty, American Dad, etc. Black adults liked the Boondocks. And a lot of American adults watch anime. American consumers seem to like animation.

The issue is that American companies don't respect it. Disney's current problem is that the CEO and employees that make the movies, don't like animation. Disney doesn't like animation. Why is that even a thing? Disney is the one that ushered in top tier animation. Their company is built on animation. So why tf do they hate it? They insist in live action remakes. When some of them have animation, they insist on 3D animation. 3D animation is okay in some cases, but we really need more quality 2D animated movies.

There's definitely a cultural difference. Comics are primarily seen as bland newspaper filler or pulpy superhero stuff in the USA, while there is significantly more variety and respect for the medium in places like Europe and Japan.

America used to be the standard back then. Several problems:
- Disney: and no, not the "woke" thing. Disney is ironically the furthest thing from woke. The issue is that Disney is an animation company that hates animation. These live action remakes, aside from a few, are trash. It's like the animators don't understand why the cartoons were popular. Mufasa is especially insulting because it changes the backstory of Mufasa and Scar, and tries to justify Scar being evil. Scar is evil because he's a power hungry POS. That's it. The original Lion King was based on Hamlet, but the new writers retconned it. I love Beyonce and I truly wanted to support her and Blue Ivy. Though I'm not supporting that trash movie. SMH. Once again, the new Disney CEO and employees don't like animation, so they don't have respect for Disney's old works.
- Adult animation: supposedly, this is getting better. Bojack Horseman, the new Samurai Jack, Rick and Morty, and South Park is still popular. Though the dark age of this stuff was ugly art, trying to be as gross and offensive as possible, etc. And even now, most animation aimed at adults has ugly art.
- Defunding the arts: it's the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. Everyone got pushed into STEM. People said art was worthless. Now they complain about western animation being ugly, writing being bad, lack of creative ideas, etc. If you want good shows and movies, you gotta invest in liberal art majors. They're the ones who will draw the animation, they're the ones who will act (live action or voice acting animation), who will write the scripts, create plots, direct the work, etc. They're the ones who will write books, that the movies and cartoons are based on. If you want good work, invest in artists!
- comics: I would give advice for this, but I don't read comics, so I actually don't know what the issue is, as far as content. The immediate issue is that I don't know what the comics are even about. Which is sad. They need better marketing, advertising. That's the immediate issue.

Some American cartoons are good. I liked Regular Show, Amazing World of Gumball, Adventure Time, ATLA/TLOK, Steven Universe, etc. I heard good things about Stars vs the Forces of Evil and Gravity Falls. With adult animation, once again I heard good things about: Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, and Samurai Jack. South Park still has a very dedicated (and annoying) fanbase, so it's doing something right. American Dad also has dedicated fans.

@Purple_Gh0st24 America likes animation. Disney animated movies appealed to adults. Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra were popular for all ages. Steven Universe appealed to grown women. Regular Show appealed to grown men. A lot of adults like South Park, Rick and Morty, American Dad, etc. Black adults liked the Boondocks. And a lot of American adults watch anime. American consumers seem to like animation.

The issue is that American companies don't respect it. Disney's current problem is that the CEO and employees that make the movies, don't like animation. Disney doesn't like animation. Why is that even a thing? Disney is the one that ushered in top tier animation. Their company is built on animation. So why tf do they hate it? They insist in live action remakes. When some of them have animation, they insist on 3D animation. 3D animation is okay in some cases, but we really need more quality 2D animated movies.

As someone who reads Western comics, the issue here is WHERE they market as they only ever seem to market to their existent readerbase instead of advertising on TV and movies. Its absurd that companies like Marvel don't advertise their comics before the movies in the cinema and have essentially let what is the root of their business just kind of be off there to the side and treated as an afterthought while the movies do their own thing. Editorial is also an issue where they wont let major changes happen to their stories even if its to the detriment of the narrative like what is happening in mainline Amazing Spider-Man right now with how they are just destroying MJ's character and her relationship with Peter with the Paul cuck arc that nobody likes. Forward progression has essentially been gutted from most long running super hero comics

I think animation in America is heavily stigmatized as being for kids.

An American animator named Ralph Bakshi tried to make adult animated films in the 70s and 80s. I wouldn't say they flopped, but it certainly didn't catch on. He was also being limited by the producers to tone down the content in his films because they were afraid kids would see it and parents would be angry. (Perhaps you can blame this on the evangelist Christians) So that definitely weakened the appeal of what he was trying to make.

Later there was Peter Chung and his Aeon Flux, but it's experimental nature caused it to not gain mass appeal.

Then throughout the 90s you start to see adult animation getting popular on TV. Shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc get quite popular but are only edgy sitcoms. And then the Adult Swim shows in the 00s like Space Ghost, Home Movies, Aqua Teen etc. which may be entertaining but generally have poor animation and are dismissed as dumb comedies by the critics. This continues on to this day from shows like Archer and Rick and Morty to Smiling Friends.

So basically, the biggest market for animation here is for kids, and anything else made for adults is just not taken seriously as an art form. Besides Disney doesn't even make 2D animation anymore so when we talk about "American Animation" it's mostly 3DCG films, bean art cartoons, and the Adult Swim stuff.

My guess is that Disney was so fundamentally involved in the animation landscape that it created a culture where animation was a medium for children. You cannot undo this cultural standard that was established for close to a century. They created animation, and dictated the majority of animated works in the West for over a century.

In a way, anime makes it harder because why create a western series with action if Japanese studios and artists can do it better? So there is no market for Western artists to flex their action choreography because there is not nearly as big a market for it In our highly connected society, it may make more sense to outsource it to Japan and Korea, and now perhaps China as well.

Another important aspect is how differently we treat voice actors. VAs in Japan are so much closer to our Hollywood celebrities than people like Eric Bauza. VAs do not get respect, and being a VA is not seen as a respectable position compared to traditional actors.

The west like America is heavily trenched in dei hiring endorced by gov and investors like blackrock. This pretty much creates a corporate culture where stuff like cute girls and teens are heavily taboo. Homosexual and gender ambiguity are endorced. This is why most western media focuses on women. The rare exceptions are kids cartoons which are mostly made for a young audience (not teens). Japan is very homogeneous, and they are far less divided. This means dei makes no sense to many corpos like how DQ creator did not understand type AB nonsense. Some dei in japan is often implemented by 3rd party companies like sweet baby. All the sexual stuff in anime is not possible in western media besides for women.

Most American animation that aren't sitcoms tend to be super hero/comic book stuff. That stuff is huge in America for some reason. Personally I don't care about it, but many do. Although as a kid, there was plenty more different ones, like Disney movies had their own cartoon things. I think one's today are more 3D and for little kids.

A few factors play into this.

1. Animation, like any visual medium, is highly multidisciplinary and labour intensive, something your post greatly underestimates. There's a reason fan works are usually limited to still art. While they are talented fan animators out there, they are usually short and done cheaply, and they still need musicians and VAs. A typical person does not have the time and money to compete with big studios.
2. The vast majority of anime is YA fare, and many people grow out of that at some point. Specifically being an anime themed artist can be limiting not just in audience reach, but also what topics one covers in their work. So a lot of people may take inspiration from anime, but not specifically define themselves as such to avoid pigenholing.
3. Too many anime fans watch anime and nothing else, which again compounds the audience reach issue if an artist wants to move on to different things eventually.

The question is: why didn't comics rebrand themselves, or market themselves?

The question is: why didn't comics rebrand themselves, or market themselves?

@LuxuriousHeart
They did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_novel

Also, it's worth pointing out that similar on how a large part of the 1995 senate hearing regarding video-games was Nintendo trying to screw it's competition, so was the creation of the CCA.
Shit on the level of the words "Terror" and "Horror" being banned because they were the flagship titles of the competing company.

Because of historical materialism, duh

@Flick_on
All right, what were the material conditions that led to such difference?

A few factors play into this.

1. Animation, like any visual medium, is highly multidisciplinary and labour intensive, something your post greatly underestimates. There's a reason fan works are usually limited to still art. While they are talented fan animators out there, they are usually short and done cheaply, and they still need musicians and VAs. A typical person does not have the time and money to compete with big studios.
2. The vast majority of anime is YA fare, and many people grow out of that at some point. Specifically being an anime themed artist can be limiting not just in audience reach, but also what topics one covers in their work. So a lot of people may take inspiration from anime, but not specifically define themselves as such to avoid pigenholing.
3. Too many anime fans watch anime and nothing else, which again compounds the audience reach issue if an artist wants to move on to different things eventually.

In the context of fan animations, there are also plenty of fan music producers who will make remixes for no price other than the love of the series. But it also requires knowing who to reach out to and having good relations with them. Public domain soundtracks often sound cheesy because people already hear them as musical clichés (e.g. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for spooky scenes).

Also, avoiding paying composers this way goes against my self-interest. Making original music, let alone one that accurately tells the story of the scene it's in, takes a lot of effort and inspiration. Love Live Superstar would not work with a public domain soundtrack because the music is too important to the story itself.