Why are manga and anime more diverse than American animation and comics?

[Super_Boom]

Basically what pokoko said. There’s a lot more diversity with manga because other genres have had a lot more time to flourish. Sure, you have your One Piece and Dragonball clones everywhere, but if you check periodic Oricon sales you’ll find there’s quite a big audience for other genres. I remember Wotakoi, an SoL rom-com about working adults, recently made the top 3 or 5. Western comics don’t have that same diversity because there just currently isn’t that audience, money talks at the end of the day.

However, it does seem like the stigma of comics/animation being for children seems to be dying off, so it’s possible this mindset will shift over the next few decades. There’s already some nice diverse stuff in the western amateur scene, so it’s more than possible we’ll see popular western equivalents to shoujo/josei content someday.