Why are anime and manga so niche in America?

Oh boy, I was waiting for the moment when I'd have to hear about fucking Glitter Force again.

oh just go to the last page for context

edited 16th Jan '17 8:08:08 AM by PhysicalStamina

Nothing beats changing Sailors Uranus and Neptune to cousins for me.

Especially since they still ended up having subtext in the dub.

Because we should totally include stuff that would never make it past American broadcast standards!

Well, stuff like that is why they just opt to market towards teenagers when bringing anime over to America.

Honestly, the Yokai Watch US dub is the best attempt at a compromise we're gonna get.

And considering Steven Universe's canon lesbian relationships they could probably get away with Uranus and Neptune if it aired on CN today.

edited 16th Jan '17 7:14:59 PM by PhysicalStamina

Yep, now they just have to downplay so that censors would not get angry.

I don't understand why stuff like that angers censors.

Then again, I rarely understand the logic behind censors: Violence can be aimed at teens, yet a Cluster F-Bomb means that it's for adults even if the rest of your work is a Disney movie.

We're talking old white men in suits here, what do you expect?

edited 16th Jan '17 10:17:23 PM by PhysicalStamina

I agree with Kaos: no other cultural product from outside the Anglosphere has as much traction in it. Franco-Belgian comics other than Asterix and Tintin are even less known. I occasionally see French or German shows on television but they are hardly mainstream. Even British television is somewhat niche in the States.

I would say that the cultural differences help the spread more than hinder it. Japan is insular, homogeneous and large enough to sustain its own market, while being different enough to make a mark in the West. Ghibli in particular is generally inoffensive to the censors while offering very distinct visuals and presentation.

A better question is why American cartoons and comics are so uniform.

Japanese culture (not just merely pop culture, but their actual culture) is quite different (and, at times, incompatible) from America's, so it's no surprise many folks are turned off by it.

True, thougnis becoming less of an issue as both Japanese traditional culture and their pop culture becomes increasingly more well known amongst the general public.

I can see Anime finally become fully mainstream if Your Name, a much more "Anime-looking" anime movie then the more realistic looking Ghibli films in terms of design, does as well in the rest of the world as it has in Japan, China, and Korea, especially in North America on April 7th.

Here's hoping, I guess.

Didn't Love Live and Madoka films get theatrical releases? I wouldn't call that so niche.

How is the situation outside the US? I'm curious about how things are in Europe.

I know that manga, not anime so much, is pretty popular in France - probably because the French already have an established tradition of making good comic books for all ages, whereas the American comic book scene is still considered a little bit niche, I think. Especially in comparison. I remember being in a bookshop in France at some point and being surprised at how much more manga was in there, and how they had tankobons of certain series which didn't have an official English release yet, and being further ahead of the English releases when it came to some series.

As for my place of habitation, the UK, probably much the same as the US really.

edited 19th Jan '17 1:57:57 AM by GoldenKaos

Right?

edited 19th Jan '17 3:06:18 AM by PhysicalStamina

Limited Runs, though, not wide releases.

Still, that's pretty big, especially for something like Love Live.

The French also had anime for longer than we did and got a better picture of what it's really like than we Americans, who got it very late.

I think we have a decent understanding of what it's "really" like, due to Crunchyroll and other services that stream a bunch of anime, even the really terrible ones.

I don't even understand that logic. What anime was "really like" when France got it isn't what it's "really like" when America got it. Things change.

Imagine if your entire knowledge of American cartoons was based on Adventure Time and everything that came after it, without any idea of what was going on beforehand, particularly the very popular shows that shaped the medium (Looney Tunes, The Simpsons, Ren And Stimpy and so on).

That's what we have now for anime.

No. No it is not. That's your opinion, and trying to use it as fact doesn't make it right.

The shows that shaped anime, like the ones that shaped WA, are a completely different beast than what we have now, so your argument still doesn't hold up. Whatever anime was like back in its heyday isn't what it's like now. What defines a medium isn't static from generation to generation.

The fact that we got anime incredibly late and that we got little-to-none of the shows that defined it in Japan means that Americans have a very skewed idea of what anime is, and this is why it is so niche.

Most people in America have the impression that anime was a fad, and what's going on at Crunchyroll is not going to change that impression at all.

Is anyone even making shows like the ones that defined anime anymore, though? If not, then what anime was like then and now are not. The fucking. Same.

Shows that are normal and that you can watch with the whole family?

Undoubtedly they do make them still, but we don't get them and anime fans never talk about them, so thus another reason for the skewed perception of anime.