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Forums - General Discussion - Why are manga and anime more diverse than American animation and comics?

Azuren on 30 July 2018
TranceformerFX said:
HomokHarcos said:

For mainstream anime and manga there are several different genres that have a mainstream series. Compare that to American comics which is dominated by superheroes and animation which is dominated by comedy.

Mainstream Japanese anime is diverse? No offense, but you're talking out of your ass. Anime isn't "diverse", nor has it evolved since it entered pop culture in the late 80's/early 90's. Infact, the "anime" business has been in decline for years now...

 

https://kotaku.com/evangelion-creator-predicts-the-death-of-anime-1706738732

 

http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/miyazaki-blames-otaku-animators-for-anime-decline/

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124894486860193163

 

https://kotaku.com/5966163/japanese-anime-fans-are-growing-tired-of-these-tropes

 

I don't know about Manga - but the animation industry has a cloud of doom lingering over it's head, and Japan only has itself to blame. When you cater to one audience (Japanese viewers) and capitalize on tropey cliche'd bullshit material year after year - oversaturation and disinterest is bound to happen. Which it clearly is.

 

Diverse? Don't make me laugh - Japan has largely been making the same shit since anime caught fire in the early 90's.

This guy right here saying anime hasn't changed since the 80's when one of the single-most influencial anime in the industry released near the end of the 80's.

 

Unless hundreds of manga writers and game developers are talking out their ass, your statement just simply can't be true since Berserk changed the fantasy genre in anime/manga in '89 ('88 if you count the one shot).

 

And I don't know what works you're living in, but anime has been more and more prolific in Western stages the past few years thanks largely in part to simulcasts. I mean, did you see the Dragon Ball Super gathering in Mexico?

 

And diversity?... Yeah, it has just the right amount, and has for a while.



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Azuren on 30 July 2018
Agente42 said:

1) One Piece (Pirates) - Fighting but not really super heroes - battle shonen

2) Dragon Ball - Super heroes - battle shonen

3) Naruto (Ninjas) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle shonen

4) Detective Conan - Not fighting nor super hero - Comedy Shonen

5) Golgo 13 - No super hero - action Shonen

6) Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo - "Kochikame" - comedy shonen

7) Oishinbo - comedy seinen.

8) Slam Dunk (basketball) - shonen sports, battle shonen in sports, basicaly

9) Bleach (Reapers) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle Shonen

10) Astro Boy - Can be said to be super heroing - Action

 

The majority belong to shonen battle or comedy, great diversity. oh not :)

Battle Shounen is a popular "genre", and it's a free market that has clearly said it likes when young men  have duels. I also like how you attempt to lump in Sports Manga with Battle Shounen, as though they're the same thing. In fact, based on that alone, I don't think you even know what you're talking about.



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DonFerrari on 30 July 2018
Azuren said:
Agente42 said:

1) One Piece (Pirates) - Fighting but not really super heroes - battle shonen

2) Dragon Ball - Super heroes - battle shonen

3) Naruto (Ninjas) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle shonen

4) Detective Conan - Not fighting nor super hero - Comedy Shonen

5) Golgo 13 - No super hero - action Shonen

6) Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo - "Kochikame" - comedy shonen

7) Oishinbo - comedy seinen.

8) Slam Dunk (basketball) - shonen sports, battle shonen in sports, basicaly

9) Bleach (Reapers) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle Shonen

10) Astro Boy - Can be said to be super heroing - Action

 

The majority belong to shonen battle or comedy, great diversity. oh not :)

Battle Shounen is a popular "genre", and it's a free market that has clearly said it likes when young men  have duels. I also like how you attempt to lump in Sports Manga with Battle Shounen, as though they're the same thing. In fact, based on that alone, I don't think you even know what you're talking about.

He may be counting the initial sakuragi figths or gori punches as fight... Then I can consider bd a driving anime because of the driver license episode

 

 

 



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HollyGamer on 30 July 2018

Because In US they compete with Hollywood and any other entertainment. In Japan it's like most of the entertainment are anime and games.



Mystro-Sama on 30 July 2018

DC has some pretty amazing animated movies though.



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pokoko on 30 July 2018
TranceformerFX said:
pokoko said:

One of your links is from 2009, another is an old man grumbling about animators, and another actually begins with the line, "The anime industry, while not as strong as it was back in 2004-2006, is still booming."

The simple fact is that anime is growing, mainly due to overseas interest.  

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-04-30/anime-industry-report-shows-continued-growth-in-overseas-market/.130302

"Total revenue from overseas sales, which includes broadcast rights, box office, DVD/Blu-ray sales and merchandising, jumped almost a third to $6.79 billion (￥768 billion) over the previous year. Sales to China increased, an AJA spokesperson confirmed, but figures for individual countries aren't compiled for the report."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/japans-anime-industry-grows-record-177b-boosted-by-your-name-exports-1058463

The decline you're talking about doesn't exist.  There certainly are problems but there have always been problems.  The outlook, however, is positive.

As far as your idea that Japan needs to change anime to suit the rest of the world, we've already seen that with the gaming industry and it was a failure.  The Japanese gaming industry only began to recover when they stopped trying to copy western trends and returned to doing what they knew best.

Regarding your remarks on diversity, I still get the impression that you're talking about a subject where you know little.  Does anime have big name titles designed to appeal to key demographics?  Of course.  However, saying this means it lacks diversity would be like pointing to a select group of Hollywood movies and pretending nothing else was being produced by the film industry.  Anime pulls from sources designed for little girls, little boys, teenage girls, teenages boy, mature women, and mature men.

Is anime anywhere close to being diverse as manga?  No.  Is it more diverse than western animation?  Yeah.  It typically hits several different genres that are intended for different demographics.

Let's take a look at some of the best anime of last year in visual form:

Not diverse enough for you?  Okay, that's fine.  "The same shit"?  It would seem that you're talking about a subject where you know very little.

 

So you cherry pick certain series while disregarding another users sources based on...how old it is? Does that make it untrue then? Even when it's coming from insiders who are involved in the industry and have been for decades? And your source is a .net website? A website that CLEARLY says "but figures aren't compiled for individual countries"...

 

*Slow Clap*

 

 

 

Sr

Are you serious?  Of course the age of a report matters from a financial perspective.  Is that even a serious question?  You used a link from almost a decade ago.  My source is, since you're having trouble reading, is The Association of Japanese Animations (AJA).  As for it saying CLEARLY that "figures aren't compiled for individual countries", it CLEARLY doesn't make any difference as long as they CLEARLY have the total.

If you want the direct link, here you go.  http://aja.gr.jp/english/japan-anime-data

You obviously have no clue what you're talking about one way or another.  Even worse, you didn't even bother to read your own sources.  



outlawauron on 01 August 2018
Agente42 said:

1) One Piece (Pirates) - Fighting but not really super heroes - battle shonen

2) Dragon Ball - Super heroes - battle shonen

3) Naruto (Ninjas) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle shonen

4) Detective Conan - Not fighting nor super hero - Comedy Shonen

5) Golgo 13 - No super hero - action Shonen

6) Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo - "Kochikame" - comedy shonen

7) Oishinbo - comedy seinen.

8) Slam Dunk (basketball) - shonen sports, battle shonen in sports, basicaly

9) Bleach (Reapers) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle Shonen

10) Astro Boy - Can be said to be super heroing - Action

 

The majority belong to shonen battle or comedy, great diversity. oh not :)

The primary audience of Slam Dunk is women.

and don't ignore the other half of his post.



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AngryLittleAlchemist on 01 August 2018
TranceformerFX said:
HomokHarcos said:

For mainstream anime and manga there are several different genres that have a mainstream series. Compare that to American comics which is dominated by superheroes and animation which is dominated by comedy.

Mainstream Japanese anime is diverse? No offense, but you're talking out of your ass. Anime isn't "diverse", nor has it evolved since it entered pop culture in the late 80's/early 90's. Infact, the "anime" business has been in decline for years now...

 

https://kotaku.com/evangelion-creator-predicts-the-death-of-anime-1706738732

 

http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/miyazaki-blames-otaku-animators-for-anime-decline/

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124894486860193163

 

https://kotaku.com/5966163/japanese-anime-fans-are-growing-tired-of-these-tropes

 

I don't know about Manga - but the animation industry has a cloud of doom lingering over it's head, and Japan only has itself to blame. When you cater to one audience (Japanese viewers) and capitalize on tropey cliche'd bullshit material year after year - oversaturation and disinterest is bound to happen. Which it clearly is.

 

Diverse? Don't make me laugh - Japan has largely been making the same shit since anime caught fire in the early 90's.

Lmao really? We're using the two biggest disgruntled disillusioned industry names to make claims? Come on now. And you said other people were cherry picking! 

That being said, diversity in popular anime is definitely a problem. However, the most hilarious thing of all is that despite the fact it's an issue - it's still more diverse than the American cartoon industry, where what survives is exclusive to either children's cartoons(which have become very homogeneous), or campy adult comedies. In other words, you slamming someone for calling anime or manga more diverse doesn't actually work, because your rebuttal isn't in the context of a comparison, it's just based on the overal vacuum of the Japanese industry. 

Also @Agente42 Shonen is a demographic, not a genre. It seems like the only time people use the term shonen in discussions of diversity is to argue that anime or manga aren't diverse because a majority of them are shonen. This doesn't make sense, because shonen is not a genre. There are TV anime that I honestly would have no idea were shonen (or even seinen) had I not looked it up. 

To argue that anime or manga isn't diverse by using the term "shonen" is intellectually dishonest. It's like if you tried to argue that movies are largely the same shit by showing ratings instead of the actual content of the movies. 



AngryLittleAlchemist on 01 August 2018

I think it's also worth mentioning a lot of anime fans are very disillusioned with it as a whole. It's one of the consequences of having everything at your finger tips, you look at a lot of stuff and it looks the same, instead of a few handful of anime that are lucky to come to the west like in the past.



DonFerrari on 01 August 2018
outlawauron said:
Agente42 said:

1) One Piece (Pirates) - Fighting but not really super heroes - battle shonen

2) Dragon Ball - Super heroes - battle shonen

3) Naruto (Ninjas) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle shonen

4) Detective Conan - Not fighting nor super hero - Comedy Shonen

5) Golgo 13 - No super hero - action Shonen

6) Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo - "Kochikame" - comedy shonen

7) Oishinbo - comedy seinen.

8) Slam Dunk (basketball) - shonen sports, battle shonen in sports, basicaly

9) Bleach (Reapers) - Fighting and some super heroing - battle Shonen

10) Astro Boy - Can be said to be super heroing - Action

 

The majority belong to shonen battle or comedy, great diversity. oh not :)

The primary audience of Slam Dunk is women.

and don't ignore the other half of his post.

Hey, I'm a man and love SD, know other men that like it (it even increase basketball practice in Japan several fold)... but yes, perhaps there are a lot of women fan...

But to call SD battle shonen is bizarre.

AngryLittleAlchemist said:
TranceformerFX said:

Mainstream Japanese anime is diverse? No offense, but you're talking out of your ass. Anime isn't "diverse", nor has it evolved since it entered pop culture in the late 80's/early 90's. Infact, the "anime" business has been in decline for years now...

 

https://kotaku.com/evangelion-creator-predicts-the-death-of-anime-1706738732

 

http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/miyazaki-blames-otaku-animators-for-anime-decline/

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124894486860193163

 

https://kotaku.com/5966163/japanese-anime-fans-are-growing-tired-of-these-tropes

 

I don't know about Manga - but the animation industry has a cloud of doom lingering over it's head, and Japan only has itself to blame. When you cater to one audience (Japanese viewers) and capitalize on tropey cliche'd bullshit material year after year - oversaturation and disinterest is bound to happen. Which it clearly is.

 

Diverse? Don't make me laugh - Japan has largely been making the same shit since anime caught fire in the early 90's.

Lmao really? We're using the two biggest disgruntled disillusioned industry names to make claims? Come on now. And you said other people were cherry picking! 

That being said, diversity in popular anime is definitely a problem. However, the most hilarious thing of all is that despite the fact it's an issue - it's still more diverse than the American cartoon industry, where what survives is exclusive to either children's cartoons(which have become very homogeneous), or campy adult comedies. In other words, you slamming someone for calling anime or manga more diverse doesn't actually work, because your rebuttal isn't in the context of a comparison, it's just based on the overal vacuum of the Japanese industry. 

Also @Agente42 Shonen is a demographic, not a genre. It seems like the only time people use the term shonen in discussions of diversity is to argue that anime or manga aren't diverse because a majority of them are shonen. This doesn't make sense, because shonen is not a genre. There are TV anime that I honestly would have no idea were shonen (or even seinen) had I not looked it up. 

To argue that anime or manga isn't diverse by using the term "shonen" is intellectually dishonest. It's like if you tried to argue that movies are largely the same shit by showing ratings instead of the actual content of the movies. 

Don't you know there are like only 4 movies genre? All Family, Teenagers, Grow ups, Mature Woman



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."