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INTEREST: Hideaki Anno Voices His Concerns About the Anime Industry

Works based on old, classic tales. Fair enough. Only partial credit for them being adaptations, thus not that representative of creativity. Now, truth be told, WMT never sols well, but they kept making them. Why? Honestly, I don't know. I'm too cynical to think they made them "for the people".

Now, I'm going to impart to you all the reason why WTM is probably not being made anymore. It's the same reason "moe" (not an actual genre) is being made in large quantities. It's simple: more fans buy anime. WTM fans do not.

Ugoki wrote:

How about "bishoujo zoo" for anime who's the main selling point is their display of cute girls?

Works in reverse as bishounen zoo as well.

I disagree. Why didn't you include One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, or even Pokemon? Those shows get consistently good ratings as well.

I think it's debatable that One Piece, Naruto, or Bleach is aimed at children and families. They're Shonen Jump titles, so there primary audience are teenagers and up. I said earlier that mainstream anime is anime appealing to a non-anime fan. Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Attack on Titan are shows that have served as gateway anime for many new anime fans. These are examples of mainstream shows because many people who didn't know anything about anime enjoyed these shows.

This is in addition to shows like Dragon Ball, One Piece, etc. You say mainstream anime is anime aimed at children and families. Why is your conception of mainstream anime so restrictive? Why can't a mainstream show be any show that's also popular among teenage or adult non-regular anime watchers. So if Fullmetal Alchemist or Attack on Titan pulled in more ratings than Detective Conan or Yu-Gi-OH, the former shows still wouldn't be mainstream because they're weren't aimed at children and families?

Because that's not what mainstream is in the context of anime. Mainstream anime is the kind that does not rely on disk sales, but TV ratings and sponsors. The whole point of otaku anime is to rely on the obsessive fans who will pay 700 dollars for a box set and merchandise to reimburse the production cost rather than making a deal with food companies or household products to air commercials during the show. It's why otaku anime is able to do things mainstream anime can't, they don't have to worry about backlash from advertisers or sponsorship being pulled, they only have to please the consumer.

Fractale

That is an excellent idea.
And could you please drop "moe" also?

If I had listed those, I knew I would have been accused of relying on shows which premired over a decade ago, which no doubt would prove how dead modern anime is today, so I stuck to anime which debuted this year alone.

It's not really debatable, not when I saw things like One Piece kids meal toys at McDonalds and tons of other kiddy toy commercials on my trips to Japan,

the fact Shonen Jump is a children's magazine as shonen literally means young boy.

People who insist those shows are for teenagers, or even adults, are probably western fans who want to push the "anime is cool" mindset to their peers by refusing to admit they watch a show for children.

Your definition of mainstream seems to be one concerning western perspective. "Anime appealing to non-anime fans"? That's solely a concern for westerners, generally ones who want to get their friends or family into their hobby. No one in Japan has to convince their friends or family to check out anime no more than Americans have to convince their friends and family to check out watching TV in general.

The whole point of otaku anime is to rely on the obsessive fans who will pay 700 dollars for a box set and merchandise to reimburse the production cost rather than making a deal with food companies or household products to air commercials during the show. It's why otaku anime is able to do things mainstream anime can't, they don't have to worry about backlash from advertisers or sponsorship being pulled, they only have to please the consumer.

Mainstream anime also includes anime made to sell toys for kids. Those don't rely as much on ratings as pure primetime mainstream anime are.

For example, the original Gundam had abysmal ratings but it survived because of the toy sales.

I feel like even if the creators want to make something with wide mainstream appeal as their intent, it doesn't mean it'll take off. Look at Xam'd and Fractale. Sure Xam'd may have been hampered by its ONA release, but I don't remember the series setting the world on fire by the end of its run.

The thing is, the arguments in this thread are arguing for a third party that does not exist. 'Mainstream' cartoons are--for the most part--just the family or kids cartoons airing during the morning, mid-day, or prime time slots.

No one in Japan has to convince their friends or family to check out anime no more than Americans have to convince their friends and family to check out watching TV in general. Everyone in Japan knows who Doraemon, Conan, Luffy, and all them are.

JacobYBM wrote:

The thing is, the arguments in this thread are arguing for a third party that does not exist. 'Mainstream' cartoons are--for the most part--just the family or kids cartoons airing during the morning, mid-day, or prime time slots.

For one, anime used to be able to support long-running shoujo drama. (That was a pillar for the NA anime boom a gen ago, appealing to even scores of young jr/sr high schoolers to find their place in fandom.) Unfortunately, it's a segment now mainly lost for anime on J-TV.
.

For one, anime used to be able to support long-running shoujo drama. (That was a pillar for the NA anime boom a gen ago, appealing to even scores of young jr/sr high schoolers to find their place in fandom.) Unfortunately, it's a segment now mainly lost for anime on J-TV.

Stuart Smith wrote:

the fact Shonen Jump is a children's magazine as shonen literally means young boy.

Here's a quote from Manga: The Complete Guide by ANN's own Jason Thompson:

"Shonen (Boy's Manga)- Aimed at boys from early elementary school to their late teens (it varies depending on the magazine) shonen manga spill over with action, sports, and battle scenes." pg. xxiii

You said Shonen Jump is a children's magazine, I said it was a teenager's magazine. Turns out we're both wrong (or right).

They are familiar with such anime, but regular Japanese generally don't check out anime for otaku. They differentiate, akin to Americans typically watching The Simpsons or American Dad don't consider themselves animation fans.

Just a quick clarification if your taking about children's magazines I think the ones you are referring to are Kodomo magazines like CoroCoro, which have series like Pokemon, Joker, Hero Bank, Oreca Battle, Duelmasters, and probably Yokai Watch (i'm not sure what exactly is running right now, these are just examples of what types of series one would typically see.

enurtsol wrote:

For one, anime used to be able to support long-running shoujo drama. (That was a pillar for the NA anime boom a gen ago, appealing to even scores of young jr/sr high schoolers to find their place in fandom.) Unfortunately, it's a segment now mainly lost for anime on J-TV.

I can't for the live of me think of a long running shoujo drama that ever aired. I can think of 1 or 2 cour shoujo dramas, but long-running? In the vein of Dragonball or One Piece? I'm coming up blank. Was that ever a thing?

enurtsol wrote:

For one, anime used to be able to support long-running shoujo drama. (That was a pillar for the NA anime boom a gen ago, appealing to even scores of young jr/sr high schoolers to find their place in fandom.) Unfortunately, it's a segment now mainly lost for anime on J-TV. .

Is that anime's fault, or the result of live action adaptations of traditional school romance manga being easier to make and market? I've noticed a large number of shojo manga based movies and dramas getting announced.

Onii-sama e... and Nana, Marmalade Boy, Marimite, Hana Yori Dango, Peach Girl, and others. But yeah, none of those are truly long running compared to something like a manga. Either way, most of those 90s and early 00s shoujo dramas wouldn't have been late night affairs, so their dropoff can be tied to general interest in normal viewers, not so much the otaku. Maybe that's what all of these old guys are concerned over, what anime is available for families at primetime since the otaku stuff has probably never done better in terms of sales. They might as well be entirely separate markets.