| ----Well, I think it would be great. |
[/center] |
| I don't think anime itself is becoming more mainstream. Sure, there are certain anime that are mainstream (e.g. mha, death note, sao, aot, sailor moon), and there are more and more anime fans lately... But anime as a whole doesn't feel all that more mainstream to me. Especially since fans of aforementioned shows are probably not gonna watch more obscure/older anime just cuz they're not like that one mainstream series. Maybe that's just me |
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| Eh generally censors will only significantly effect dubbed releases which by that point could often be supplemented by totally uncensored blu ray releases. Like if a show is considered too graphic for western TV they just won't air it, so you'll never see stuff airing on TV like Highschool DxD or To Love Ru. But violence generally gets a hard pass from western audiences and is often allowed (especially since most western anime blocks are really late at night so it's easier to dodge censor requirements). Anime featuring sexual content will almost always be limited to streaming services for western audiences and generally will only be uncensored on subscription based channels in Japan or on blu ray releases which is the norm. |
| In my country (Germany), anime and manga were extremely niche until about the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. Until then, many people (including young people) thought that they were some kind of horrible product out of Japan ruining juvenile minds, in fact, some referred to them as "japanische Pornos" (Japanese porn), basically thinking that all of manga/anime is hentai. In the 21st century, this stanced gradually started to disappear, as anime became better known and people learned that, in fact, their beloved childhood classics "Vicky the Viking", "Maia the Bee" and "Heidi" were anime. |
| More people talking about anime is good I guess? I don’t really care whether it does or not but it would definitely benefit the community |
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| Bad, because it brings censors specially from China, taking the money from China is a mistake that has cost western game studios dearly and a few anime studios have taken this risky money which is not a good sign. There's also a chance that some genres will be gone due to Netflix trying to get into anime (I don't see them snagging a license for a new idol anime to stream for example). |
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| Well it's definitely an issue or it wouldn't come up as a topic on this board so often, and there wouldn't be hashtags like #BringBackGatekeeping being thrown around on Twitter. I've argued with people about this issue a shit ton so I'm a little tired of it, but I want to comment in this thread just to give a voice to the side that is against both mainstream-ification and westernization of anime. To go just briefly in to the reasons, I think the best argument against mainstream-ification is how big money tends consolidate exposure and investment within an industry. Big money companies invest in to safe, popular-appeal content that lacks innovation or any kind of niche appeal, as well as lacking the artistic purity of work produced without the influence of people trying to make as much money as possible. The argument against this is that small, niche anime will still get made, so diversity would be preserved. But but there will be no middle ground. The "middle class" of anime will die. Gaming is a great example. There is only AAA titles and indie games. Diversity doesn't get preserved because the although some niche anime will be made, they will be squeezed by the overbearing presence of the big popular stuff. So not only is there less diversity, but those diverse anime has less funding. The other problem with anime becoming more mainstream in the west is the cultural influence. This topic gets really touchy as people get super defensive about western media culture. But I'll say it flat out: I don't like western media culture. It tends to be narrow-minded about what counts as art [EDIT: To expand on that, anime is so good because it takes things seriously where western media doesn't, most notably it's treatment of "kids" entertainment], it is very sex-negative, and it is filled with people trying to comment on real-world social agendas instead of just making art to create new fantastical experiences. For these reasons and more, I and many others do not want Japanese otaku media to become beholden to toxic western media culture because the west becomes where all the money is. This affect has already taken shape insidiously through Steam's censorship of visual novels. Steam is a huge revenue stream for the companies out of Japan looking to make money off their VNs. But Steam has not only been overly censorious, but extremely inconsistent with their application of their policies. You can't have even slightly sexual themes with girls wearing school uniforms, even if those girls look over 18. Not that it should matter for a number of reasons. It doesn't matter what your opinion on the issue is, these games break no laws, and Steam is not only directly harming Japanese companies, but actually changing the content. Only a few years ago, VNs were much more likely to contain high school settings and girls with petite figures. Now, largely because of western influence, there are a lot less of those settings, and the girls are noticably older in appearance. Again, it doesn't matter what your opinion is. Japanese culture has no problem with presenting high school age characters in sexual situations. Hell, it's a highly sexual time of life. It's interesting. But I don't want to get in to the debate around the rights and wrongs right now. I've made my point about the affect of western influence. Lastly, there are people that say it's good for industry. It's the best sounding argument, but it's a bad argument when you really look at it. The industry will grow, sure. But that only means more people working in it. The animators will still get paid fuck all, the only individuals who will benefit will be the company execs and CEOs. The people at the top are always the ones who benefit when people about "muh industry" or "muh economy". A bigger industry does not mean a better industry, it doesn't mean better pay for the little man, it doesn't mean more anime, it doesn't mean higher quality anime (unless you think the budget of the most generic popular stuff defines the quality of anime overall). |
YossaRedMageSep 21, 2019 7:08 PM
| “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” -Friedrich Nietzsche Aggregate scoring is bad for the anime fandom |
| I see more and more people complaining about the fact that anime needs to be changed based on how they try to “oversexualize” the women. They also believe they needs lolis to die off, despite the fact that they don’t know that some could be over 9,000+ years old. If anything, we should talk about how mainstream anime could end up being more uninteresting as time goes on — especially in the 2020’s. |
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| It is not. SOME anime is becoming mainstream, anime in general just isn't. |
| I like how this makes the anime industry more financially sustainable because the customer base is larger. Izac_Kak said: How would this "potential censorship" work? At most, an additional layer of censorship would affect the more "mainstream" series, the bigger releases, but such releases were already a presence in the west since decades ago. Besides, anime -- like basically any other artistic medium -- has a variety of niche products, which can basically ignore content rules except in authoritarian regimes.I ask this is a controversial topic since on one hand, some people see this as a way to find more people who like anime, but at the same time, this opens more gates to potential censorship. I just want to see how MAL users feel about this. And this neglects the fact that the anime industry's home market itself has content rules, as well as the fact that stuff gets affected by what does or doesn't sell on the market, so it's not exactly a bastion for "purity" of artistic intent. If anything, that latter constraint -- whether something can sell -- gets loosened when there are a greater number of consumers, because more people means more possible niche tastes. So anime gaining a greater fanbase in the west is, on balance, probably a good thing for artistry. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
CowboyMode said: Not "everything".also the endgame of that kind of "growth" is everything just ends up being more normie friendly This reminds me of how for a while I felt the game industry had abandoned me, a person interested in stuff like pixel graphics and sidescrollers and more colorful and "kiddie" stuff, because the industry went big in on catering to tastes for photorealism (including "real is brown"), "mature" (or one might say "edgy") violent/sexual content, grittiness, and full-3D everything. But during that time I didn't abandon gaming. I simply kept on playing the older games that interested me. And when indie games explored these older styles of games, as well as when retro gaming became a more popular thing, I simply spent my money and time on things that appealed to me. They're niche, of course -- it's not like Terraria ever overtook Call of Duty in attention (not to mention revenues) -- but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying them. TL;DR: It doesn't matter whether industry leaders are catering to my tastes; as long as my niche is served, we're all good. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| Been mainstream since at least 2006. So I guess I don’t have a problem with it. |
The anime community in a nutshell.  |
| As long as normies are confined to their containment shows like MHA and containment communities like instagram I'm fine. I'll not be fine when the new arrivals start demanding censorship to make anime fit their morals. This will make the core audience bypass the official distributors and resort to piracy since it has been proven that companies cave in to demands of vocal minorities to advertise their supposed moral superiority. |
| MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST |
| i mean it's not still not super mainstream in any given season, there will be 4 non-sequel anime MAX that will be popular among people who don't usually watch anime and in some seasons, nothing is popular at all any how, there's always a surplus of shows that score ~8.0 or higher and have less than 150K watchers so anime isn't there yet |
| I think it's great, and I also think people who complain about "Normies" or whatever just need to realize that they're gatekeeping something wonderful and amazing from literally the rest of the world. Anime is great and it should be something everyone should get a chance to check out. |
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| "I'm feel, I'm very feel" I don't see what else i can say about it |
| pretty good. validates all kinds of anime-related activities. for example, we see more and more kids putting "animation club" or something on their apps (college, hs, even career), which was pretty rare before 20 years ago. its not all about sports or chess, at least here |
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Izac_Kak said: I ask this is a controversial topic since on one hand, some people see this as a way to find more people who like anime, but at the same time, this opens more gates to potential censorship. I just want to see how MAL users feel about this. I think it would be great. I might mean more investment and more anime being licensed to consumers outside of Japan. |
| I'm not a huge fan of the idea (I selfishly enjoy when something belongs to 'us') but like the user above me said, the licensing opportunities make it worth it. |
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| I'm not a gatekeeper so it's fine for me. The only entities we need to keep away are our respective governments. It is their power to censor and regulate that we must watch out for. |
| You are not your body, you are your brain, the "self" that emerges from within it. |
| the only censorship that will increase is censoring sexualize lolis anyway look at hollywood movies/TV shows they are still airing a lot of uncensored shit so who cares |
RedPlaty said: Oh yeah, this is another good thing. People don't have to hide their hobby as much.pretty good. validates all kinds of anime-related activities. for example, we see more and more kids putting "animation club" or something on their apps (college, hs, even career), which was pretty rare before 20 years ago. its not all about sports or chess, at least here |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| I don’t see it as an entirely bad thing, being a little embarrassed of my hobby, it does feel nice to be able to find and talk to people about it easier. I never really cared about the popularity of what I like. If I like it I like it. I just don’t want it to get so mainstream the government sees it as an “issue” |
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| The feminist and sjw scare me a lot just look at how many stuff they have destroyed. |
hack5Sep 22, 2019 5:50 PM
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| If you're talking outside Japan then Japan doesn't care and probably never will. But I don't know. I'll keep watching my anime anyway and that's all that matters. lol |
 Life is a despicable endurance race |
| Maybe it'll stop women from getting retarded outfits to show off as much as possible, in the dumbest way possible once it does. It'd also be swell if they didn't pedo-bait their shows. hack5 said: The feminist and sjw scare me a lot just look at how many just look at how many stuff they have destroyed. Nothing of value was lost. |
TylaenSep 22, 2019 4:36 PM
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| No thanks, we already have a ton of people complaining about fanservice in the anime community, we don't need more. |
| "Well, she's flatter than a pancake" -Mimi Alpacas "Woof" -Tobiichi Origami "Are you trying to turn the dormitory into a strip club!?! -Atena Saotome |
| In Japan: it was mainstream by default, it's on a TV after all. In other countries: mostly shonen stuff. Normies won't watch series that requires 100+ titles in list. |
| Titan of 20+ virgins club. |
Tylaen said: Maybe it'll stop women from getting retarded outfits to show off as much as possible, in the dumbest way possible once it does. It'd also be swell if they didn't pedo-bait their shows. hack5 said: The feminist and sjw scare me a lot just look at how many stuff they have destroyed. Nothing of value was lost. Yeah well nothing of value to you to me it means something so many stuff/shows I have lost respect for because of their intervention looking at star wars,comic book heroes and the constant bitching about video games eg they way the acted for the upcoming person 5 royal a certain new character battle suit it goes on and on just look how upset some of them are over the big shield hero controversy ridiculous I am woman and I could understand stuff upsetting some people but the way they behave is toxic it even when down to a stupid Gillette commercial all I could say is anime I wish thee luck and its been nice while it lasted. |
hack5Sep 22, 2019 6:03 PM
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| I don't want it to, the SJW will infest themselves in it and then it will become as boring as western TV where everything is about how many black people they can fit in the show and how many women they can put in powerful positions. |
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