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NEWS: Boys-Love Manga Hitorijime My Hero Gets Anime

I can't think of any others off the top of my head but Yamada to Shonen by Mita Ori is really darling and I'd love to see it animated.

Or they could do Honto Yajuu and make all my BL dreams come true.

I'm probably gonna check this one out even though I'm feeling very little tolerance for power imbalance relationships after Super Lovers. If at least this was a college setting situation I would be more open to it but high school...:/ Then again, I suffered through all of Super Lovers and Junjou Romantica 3.

Alabaster Spectrum wrote:

[long rant] [/long rant]

Show me exactly on the doll where the gay touched you.

TL;DR here is I'm regularly operating under the assumption that this industry is woefully incompetent and still unsure of what direction it wants to take even now as it tries to convince people and potential investors otherwise and a lot of what I have to say lately kind of works from that angle. Call it pessimistic but I've just never been one for blind optimism period, particularly when I'm not presented with many reasons to have any.

TL;DR.

"Suffered through"? Why do you force yourself to watch things you don't even enjoy? I really don't understand this. Maybe suffering through one episode, and then deciding "yeah, that's not for me" and dropping it, but forcing yourself to see the whole thing even if you hate it? What's the point of that? Being able to say that because you clearly dislike it, it was crap? I don't get it at all.

For me one common sense rule always applies "Don't like? Don't watch." If you watch even though you don't like anything of what you watched then I feel like you don't get a right to complain. You chose to watch something that clearly wasn't for you, what else did you expect?

People do things for a number of reasons and it can get complex. Also, with me, "suffered" just means I laughed at the ridiculous shit happening during the episodes. Maybe you should take your own advice of "Don't like. Ignore" and ignore comments that you don't like because apparently someone not liking something you do is a personal offense.

Alabaster Spectrum wrote:

TL;DR here is I'm regularly operating under the assumption that this industry is woefully incompetent and still unsure of what direction it wants to take even now as it tries to convince people and potential investors otherwise and a lot of what I have to say lately kind of works from that angle. Call it pessimistic but I've just never been one for blind optimism period, particularly when I'm not presented with many reasons to have any.

The fundamental issue with your thinking is that it's entirely based around the assumption that anime is (or even should be) designed for foreign consumption. And, extending that, the idea that targeting fringe groups is somehow removing resources for more "consumable" anime and therefore having a negative impact on the industry as a whole. The animation studios doing these fringe projects do mostly fringe projects. That's their business. That's like telling a horror novelist that he shouldn't be writing in the horror genre because romance is more profitable. Everyone has their niche, and there's a reason these groups go after these projects. Minimal effort for maximum monetary returns. No complicated animation, lots of reusable elements, absolute certainty that people will buy it in a content starved genre.

ACJ and similar ventures is less geared towards the global domination of anime and more geared towards "we know all these fansub groups exist and put our stuff out there for free and we want to make some money". I would liken the state of the anime industry to the kdrama industry. MANY foreigners watch kdramas and Korea is aware of that. Ignoring that is leaving money on the table so there are many legal options to watch Korean dramas these days compared to a few years ago. However, kdramas are not not remotely geared towards western audiences. They are just taking advantage of a market that is already there. Who wouldn't?

The American audience SUCKS for making money. We don't buy shit, we stream shit. We don't buy merchandise. We don't have the same "collector mentality" that Japanese people do. We are not their intended audience because we're not the audience that makes them money.

You keep bringing up foreign projects like Netflix's upcoming animation projects, but Netflix is not depending on the health of the anime industry for its original animation. Netflix takes many risks but its platform ensures that people will see its animation and judge it on its own merits regardless of how the anime industry is doing.

You are correct in the fact that the industry tends to go towards what is tried and true in both mainstream anime but especially in fujoshi land. They like the tropes. The genre is popular because it is repetitive and sleazy. That predictability is what makes money. It sucks, but it's the same reason that 95% of MMORPGs are incarnations of WoW. It sells and it's dependable and that's really all anyone (in the business of making anime) wants. In a way, this is also the reason there is no unifying vision for anime in the west. Expanding anime to western audiences takes a lot more than having content that is consumable by western standards. It takes marketing. A content delivery system that is watched by mainstream audiences and not just kids who already like anime. And then it takes luck. These are all uncertainties in an industry built around certainties.

Perhaps the growing domination of Netflix will bring an anime renaissance and we will see more diverse projects. However, these projects? These projects have always been a part of the industry. Live and let live. There's a market for it and you're not it. Let the studio make their money and the fujoshi revel in their sleaze.