Forum - View topicAnswerman - What's A "Mainstream" Anime Fan?
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2529 |
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I keep it simple too. I don't go about categorizing people and making up terms that describe how they are or aren't at my level, I don't try to be a gatekeeper or a gate and ignore those who try to be. I like anime, am happy that others enjoy it too and have watched a good amount and continue to do so.
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Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
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With so many options and anime to watch, its going to be hard to find that one anime that's mainstream with many people like DBZ for newer shows. Basically many being on the same page, so to speak. That might be hard to pinpoint down the road.
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Joshua Zarate
Posts: 2061 |
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Not sure why you’re trying to compare anime to video games when they’re two completely different mediums from each other and while both aim to entertain, they both go about it in completely different ways that an attempt at a comparison between the two is unfair and will be impossible to truly prove one which is “better/has more quality” than the other. Your statement of anime is completely at odds with reality if you can just look at the recent seasonal lists for anime and not gloss over them. There’s so much variety nowadays that your “issues” aren’t nearly prevalent enough to be considered problematic. I could just as easily ask you the same thing you asked of the author of this article. Based on your previous post, I’m not too shocked to see this type of response appearing like this. As for the article itself, Anime is my main source of entertainment, but I also have several other hobbies that I personally don’t consider myself to be what one might consider to be “casual,” but I’m also not sure if I can call myself, “hardcore” either. Ultimately, I don’t really care for labels and I just watch anime for fun and not like a second job as I get the feeling some people on the internet subtly treat it as such. |
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almostapeach
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Are you even human? How can you hate moe 
I'm not a huge fan of moe and I used to also be a hater of moe. But I have since seen the error of my ways. I don't often watch moe, but when I do I f******* enjoy myself 
 No, but for real some moe are pretty awesome.
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1778 Location: South America |
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Its very hard for Western people to understand the appeal of moe. The reason is that cuteness is a dimension of human experience that is completely repressed in Western culture. As result Westerners are "trained" to be away from "moe", since one can think that a show like Slow Start is for "girls" and so adults will be unable to watch it unless they have substantial experience with Japanese culture.
Anyway, regarding the definition of hardcore and casual: I guess a hardcore fan is someone who had some deep emotional connection with some titles. For instance, I became a hardcore fan after watching Madoka which I found to be shockingly impressive, I never saw anything like it in any other medium (except in manga) and so I reallocated all my fictional narrative consumption time from watching Western TV shows and movies to watching anime and reading manga. The fact is that manga/anime felt to be just more powerful mediums than any in existence in Western fiction entertainment, something that Saito described as the unique combination of density of characterization with speed of consumption that is present in manga/anime. Regarding my impression of western animation and comics: I find then to be very limited in visual senses, animation being simplistic and crude while comics tend to be very slow and hence lack the high density of characterization that I seek in my entertainment. Manga/anime is the Japanese visual equivalent to rock/metal music in the West: something characterized by raw energy, disdain for formalism in presentation and youthfulness that did not exist anywhere else before its emergence. Western movies and TV shows to me now feel rather obsolete in comparison: as they are much more limited by their presentation techniques and adherence to traditional forms of narrative while lacking in energy and youthfulness instead feeling like something from the 19th century or earlier. Actually I read recently the novel Dom Quixote and it felt more "modern" than a typical recent Western TV show. Last edited by Jose Cruz on Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13567 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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@xchampion: that 280+ includes ongoing dubs like "Shippuden" or the various "Sailor Moon" dubs.
For over 7 years now, this is how I watch much of my subbed and dubbed anime: I watch them in episode halves. I will have Tab A over Tab B. Tab A is the epi. at the starting point whereas Tab B is the same epi. at the 11-12 min. mark. I often do this with watching 2 episodes at a time. -Sometimes I will watch 4 episodes in their entirety simultaneously. This is how I watched all of the 1st 2 FMP series dubs on the same day (4 Fri. ago this Friday). |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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I mean... cuteness originates from our protect-babies-and-children instinct, which is a pretty hard thing to repress. American culture (which has a lot of influence in "western" countries but certainly isn't the be-all-end-all) emphasizes coolness and grittiness, and Japanese culture has a unique obsession with cuteness that isn't nearly as prevalent anywhere else in the world, as far as I know. American fear of cuteness is mainly a male thing--it's strongly associated with children, and caring for children isn't manly, so having interest in cute things means you must be a feminine loser, gay, a pedophile, or some combination. Japan just sort of plasters cuteness all over everything, so it's not really associated with a particular age or gender. It's less that Westerners don't understand the appeal, more that they completely misinterpret it. "Mainstream" shows around here fall into only a handful of categories, because everything else just doesn't mesh culturally, and it's hard to see that ever changing. Those top shows listed in the article--Dragon Ball, OPM, Death Note, Attack on Titan, SAO, Naruto--they're all shonen battle anime except OPM, which is a parody of that genre, and Death Note, which is sort of in the "shonen grimdark melodrama that you watch partly because your parents hate it" genre (Tokyo Ghoul probably also fits in there). My Hero Academia, the hot thing right now, is another shonen fighting series, with obvious Western-superhero influences. The other major category is Ghibli movies that can pass as Pixar movies (i.e. not violent/serious ones like Princess Mononoke). The only odd one out that got mentioned was Yuri On Ice, an extremely rare example of an anime breaking into the Western mainstream without being aimed squarely at teenage boys or families. I guess I'm overly cynical about it, but my interest in anime mainly comes from it being an eclectic mess of weird stuff that isn't like Western culture and isn't even all that much like Japanese culture--it's kind of a mishmash of the two, and some other stuff that's hard to pin down. And yet, Americans are mostly just interested in the American-friendly bits of anime. It's still hard for me to accept that I almost never like things for the same reasons as other people. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5357 |
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So you can have a casual viewer who gets their titles through Netflix, and then another who gets them through Amazon video and then both develop different tastes. It certainly is different from how homogenised it was back when I first started watching it, where we all watched the same shows.
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MarshalBanana
Posts: 5357 |
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belldandy.99
 Posts: 11 |
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Darn. The topic is not about this. so will go offtopic but you took the time to reply I feel that i have to reply back and clarify a fews things. 1.I was not trying to compare anime to videogames, nor I was insinuating anime replaced videogames literally, anime and videogames have always been there for me. I grew up with anime so it was actually first than videogames although not by much. I was saying that my top priority is videogames now, I gave up anime almost completely save for some series I grew up with (dragon ball) some I've been following for quite long time (one piece) and plan to watch a couple I grew up with or that are old time favorites (The new captain tsubasa, or the new Card captor sakura which I have made no room thanks to games, but plan to watch). 2.Yes, I can still compare anime to videogames as I am story driven person, and evidently given my infatuation with Japanese culture my priorities are rpgs, thou I play plenty or single player story driven western games as well. So yes, based on that, videogames for me are quite comparable to anime. Playing xenoblade chronicles x, ni no kuni 2, final fantasy xv, tales of games, nier automata, etc, YES, they give me a very rewarding experience that I cannot longer get from anime and that is quite comparable to the kick anime used to give me. 3. Yes, moe otaku play the card that there are lots of "variety" and to look at the covers and descriptions of new series, yes, true, now there are more series and theres revival of older anime but the overexposure was real and was quite significant a couple year back still nut ultimately moe culture continue to be HUGE so its not a simply to hey look at all this series, mow foot print continues to be significant. I have no problem with some of it. I get some in plenty jrpgs and its quite fine. BUT I didn't need moe in macross or change character designs (GITS) to satisfy the hordes of moe otaku, which didn't do anything for the series anyway, it didn't bring in moe otaku. These are the 2 titles that were the last straws for me BUT there are plenty more examples that happened over the years, I didn't need moe and fanservice, thus a degradation of "quality", at least FOR ME IF YOU WISH was and is significant, even more that I've been exposed to anime since the 80s, I grew up with series like heidi (not 80s anime but watched it in the 80s), captain tusaba, queen millenia for example and then seeing moe culture taking over, then have it series that should have had nothing to do with moe... Hats off to series like GUNDAM that continue to be true to the original spirit of the series. 4.I reckon there are more variety of titles today than say 2 or 3 years ago (in the late night anime spectrum, before you come and start counting mainstream anime like sasae, one piece, dragon ball, etc). Indeed There are several titles that interest this season like Persona 5, captain tsubasa, full metal panic, legend of galactic heroes, those I really want to watch. Some others I would have been overjoyed a few years back with megalobox, major, Souten no Ken, Gurazeni but I am sure I will not keep up with them because again, I lost my drive for anime thanks to moe/fanservice and my priority are videogames now.
I never hated it really. I didn't watch much but I have enjoyed A LOT a few moe titles, heck, I enjoyed quite a lot the epitome of moe anime: K-ON, the one that cemented for good the moe culture. In my case look at it like this: I could enjoy a cake every now and then, then I am given cake every 2 or 3 days, then one cake per day, then vegetables that have some Chantilly, then my meat start to get some Chantilly as well, I would get nauseated at some point.... I already said it, macross and gits were the last straws for me: I wasn't quite pleased with moe characters in my macross frontier like ranka lee or klan last decade, but they were quite ok. Fast forward several years later and macross was converted to garbage moe idol anime because its whats its popular today. Motoko didn't need to be changed to please the modern otaku. If there is something that i hated was kyoani as it was the culprit to put moe in the spotlight with haruhi (I said spotlight before someone starts to argue that there was other moe anime before it or that eva was moe, or that the first series was all the way back in the 80s), the boom happened from there and cemented it with k-on, always making series with over exaggerated moe which sole point was that. But now that i gave up on anime and that I am more serene I gave a chance to their lasted work last season, the only series I followed and it was quite satisfying, quite moving actually. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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There are some simple questions to ask to separate a mainstream anime fan from the rest:
1. Are you familiar with the concept of a seasonal chart? 2. How much Western television do you watch compared to anime? 3. How do you watch your anime? |
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writerpatrick
 Posts: 672 Location: Canada |
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There really isn't a clear division. It's more of a graduated scale. A casual fan will watch what becomes available, while others will actively seek out shows to watch. Very few are so otaku as to shut themselves away and just watch anime all the time. There are other things to do and other shows to watch. And with some dubs coming out only weeks after the original airing, it's not as much of a division as it once was.
Much of it depends on what shows are being aired. I watch the shows I like, so if the shows that are being aired aren't of interest to me I don't watch them. What's produced has more of an effect on how much I watch rather than how much effort I put into it. I've got almost no interest in shows that feature schools or school age kids, but do watch My Hero Academia. If the premise is interesting enough I might watch but I'm not going to waste time on generic shows. In other words, it's more about the material available than my dedication to it. |
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KabaKabaFruit
 Posts: 1873 Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba |
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My anime viewing is personally restricted to what is usually available on Crunchyroll. If I like what I see and want to own a physical copy, I buy direct from Japan. The end.
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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Here's how I define a hardcore anime fan vs a casual fan:
- They have watched a crap ton of anime (including pre-1990s anime) and know all the anime tropes (and moe elements). - They keep up with the seasons and actively search out (older) shows that are not available easily or legally. - They are knowledgeable about anime culture, history and production without having to resort to Google. - They move beyond anime and have an interest in Japanese language and culture. - They can consequently understand a multitude of references only a Japanese fan could. - They don't discriminate anime by genre and appreciate all kinds of anime. - They feel an attachment to fictional characters, empathetic, romantic, sexual, etc... - They embrace the more controversial parts of the culture like hentai, doujins, loli, etc... - They spend a crap ton of money on merchandise, not just DVDs/BDs, but figures and artbooks. - They get into heated debates regarding anime (online). - They actively visit anime news sites and forums in order to stay updated with the latest developments. Essentially, they make anime a significant part of their identity, investing a ton of emotion, time and money into it. Casual anime fans watch a show, enjoy themselves and don't think about it much after that. |
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Joshua Zarate
Posts: 2061 |
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@ belldandy.99 - You were the one who brought up the topic of video games first when the article is talking about anime. Anyway, the reason I said something to you in the first place was because I took issue with the tone you had that implied that video games were “superior” to anime and somehow treating it as an absolute fact which it isn’t. I didn’t know what type of video games you were talking about, so I was taking your claim as talking about all video games and not specific types. I’m also not sure why you’re putting quotation marks on variety in anime when it indeed exists nowadays and I don’t like the way you subtly said that I’m a moe otaku just for playing that “card.” I’m sorry to hear that you have currently lost your drive for anime (I find it weird timing considering you have only recently created an account on a website about anime), but all I’m ultimately trying to get across here is that it doesn’t mean the medium is any “worse” than others. It’s all just personal preferences here. Have a good rest of your day and I appreciate you clarifying some things.
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