Interest
Video: "The Rest is Entertainment" Podcast Comments on Anime
posted on by Andrew Osmond
For anyone unfamiliar with "The Rest of Entertainment," it is a British podcast about the entertainment industry, streamed on YouTube. Hosted by the journalist Marina Hyde and the TV presenter/author Richard Osman, the podcast had reached two million monthly downloads six months after lauching in November 2023. This week's episode, above, includes a discussion of the growth of anime from the 24-40 point.
In the discussion, Hyde brings up the claims that anime is now more popular with Gen Z than the biggest US sports. She cites the recent tie-ins between the Los Angles Dodgers baseball team and the Anime Expo convention in June 2025, including a One Piece Night with a new game card and hololive performances during a baseball game. Hyde argues it shows how a sports team "have decided that they need anime to engage younger fans rather than the other way round."
Osman contrasts his generation, brought up on American culture, and the next generation which is much more interested in Japanese, Korean and Chinese culture.
He also claims, "When (anime) becomes huge with everybody, it will not be the thing that people think of as anime now. It'll be anyone doing any sort of animation which isn't a traditional Disney animation." Osman says the recent Netflix hit KPop Demon Hunters, by America's Sony Pictures Animation, will be a threat to traditional anime: "People sort of think, 'Oh this is the stuff people have been talking about all this time,' and it absolutely isn't." He also predicts that Disney itself will make films in an anime style.
Grateful thanks to Carlo Bernhardi for the heads-up.
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