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

outlawauron on 30 July 2018
pokoko 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.

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.

 

Thanks

I don't even watch anime much anymore but that post got me heated. The notion that anime hasn't changed in the past two decades is completely insane and just shows that you aren't paying any attention.



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Agente42 on 30 July 2018
DonFerrari said:
HomokHarcos said:

Agree that is one thing I like about manga over Amerian comics. For example I like Batman and Spider-Man, but I would never be able to read through them because they go on for decades and a whole bunch of different. Whereas the two manga I want to read (Ghost in the Shell and Sanctuary) are much smaller and contained.

Sanctuary is fantastic, best manga I've ever read.

Stuart23 said:

For comics, I think western comics are as diverse as manga,you just need to see outside the box of Marvel/DC.

For animations, the thing is that those different types of anime reached the mainstream audience and have its own dedicated fanbase while western animation is still having a hard time leaving the usual market. Big animation channels like Disney, Cartoon Network and Nick invest a lot on their usual comedy shows because that is were the easy money are and it is where they know there is an audience. You can find western animation taking different genres but those usually fall into the "niche audience" kind of thing and hardly reach the mainstream.

Please show me all the gay couples on Comics, transex, comics about writting comics, comics about playing wheelchair basketball, about hunting for food, mob, cycling, playing go or chess, etc.

At least in Brazil, nothing outside of heroes comics are know, but all these mangas are well know in Brazil.

Did you read Will Eisner, Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Maus? Maus won a Pulitzer. Vertigo ? Alison Bechdel? She won the NY Times nonfiction award, man. Everything is American comics. We talked about mainstream comic books , Japanese and american it was limited. All comics have genre and are diversity, but what is bringing money, real money in shonen jump is a One Piece, was naruto in its time, etc. A cut in the Marvel / DC universe to say that American comics is limited is not knowing the same. Not knowing that it has a lot of horror comic, fantasy comic, cover and sword, independent etc. Sometimes one of them can reach a large audience, as with Japanese comics, but what supports the market, at least in Japan, is shonen, battle-oriented and humorous, not unlike American superheroes and comedy cartoons.



pokoko on 30 July 2018
JWeinCom said:
I wonder if a big part of it is the fact that manga is black and white and (from what I've seen) generally printed on cheap paper.

Comic books are a lot more expensive to make, and that makes publishers more risk averse. It also would I imagine make readers a bit less likely to try new or weird things. Comics are about $4 an issue for about 20 pages. Getting into a series can be an investment.

Then there's also logistical difficulties. The US has a far more spread out population, and distributing books across 50 states again makes the process more expensive.

Manga is also usually printed in magazines that bundle several different works at once.  This leads to much greater exposure for new manga when it's included with something that is already popular.  And, of course, it's cheaper for the publisher and means less of a risk.  If a particular work is popular enough, it can be released in separate collections.

Agente42 said:

Did you read Will Eisner, Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Maus? Maus won a Pulitzer. Vertigo ? Alison Bechdel? She won the NY Times nonfiction award, man. Everything is American comics. We talked about mainstream comic books , Japanese and american it was limited. All comics have genre and are diversity, but what is bringing money, real money in shonen jump is a One Piece, was naruto in its time, etc. A cut in the Marvel / DC universe to say that American comics is limited is not knowing the same. Not knowing that it has a lot of horror comic, fantasy comic, cover and sword, independent etc. Sometimes one of them can reach a large audience, as with Japanese comics, but what supports the market, at least in Japan, is shonen, battle-oriented and humorous, not unlike American superheroes and comedy cartoons.

You're talking about a completely different scale.  Where would those comics show up on a sales chart?  The level of exposure and public engagement isn't even close.  

In Japan, Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii, a romantic comedy, is in the top 20 best-selling manga for the year.  So is 3-gatsu no Lion, a critically acclaimed manga about about the life of a young Shogi player.  Kimi ni Todoke, a slow and gentle romance manga, is in the top 40.  Komi-san wa, Community-shou desu is there, too, and it's about as far from battle manga as you can get.

Chihayafuru would almost certainly have been in the top 20 with a higher output of chapters (it was #11 in 2016).  It's an award winning Josei manga (intended for young women) that was popular enough to spawn 50 episodes of anime, three live-action films, and a short light novel spin-off.

Other manga intended for different demographics are spread out over the lower half of the top 50.

You're comparing two different situations and trying to present them as the same.

Last edited by pokoko - on 30 July 2018

DonFerrari on 30 July 2018
pokoko 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.

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.

 

All of those seem quite different looking from one another and generally great (much different than the deformed animations we have seem on Cartoon Network in Brazil)

JWeinCom said:
I wonder if a big part of it is the fact that manga is black and white and (from what I've seen) generally printed on cheap paper.

Comic books are a lot more expensive to make, and that makes publishers more risk averse. It also would I imagine make readers a bit less likely to try new or weird things. Comics are about $4 an issue for about 20 pages. Getting into a series can be an investment.

Then there's also logistical difficulties. The US has a far more spread out population, and distributing books across 50 states again makes the process more expensive.

It is basically newspaper paper where they print the weekly shonen jump and the like, with about 500 pages, and it is supposed to be recycled.

The series that make enough success will have a tankobon print (quality paper) but still B&W with about 200 pages each, and meant for regular collectors.

Often they will make "ultimate" editions with even more pages and premier paper.

But you are right about it probably being a lot more costier to make comics.

dx11332sega said:

Theres comics outside of marvel like :
darkhorse comics that do evil dead /army of darkness series ,star wars , terminator, robocop, conan, aliens or aliens vs predator ,overwatch , halo, starcraft,
IDW for My little pony , adventure time , Transgormers, Sonic ,
Archie comics that does Jughead, Megaman ,merry christmas.
Dynamite Entertainment comics does Vampirella,Jungle girl,Red Sonja,Robot princess,Battlestar Galactica
Many more etc etc

Most if not all from your list are adaptations from movies and animations that were highly sucesful and wanted a quick cash in.

But are that diverse as the examples given for Manga?

Agente42 said:
DonFerrari said:

Sanctuary is fantastic, best manga I've ever read.

Please show me all the gay couples on Comics, transex, comics about writting comics, comics about playing wheelchair basketball, about hunting for food, mob, cycling, playing go or chess, etc.

At least in Brazil, nothing outside of heroes comics are know, but all these mangas are well know in Brazil.

Did you read Will Eisner, Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Maus? Maus won a Pulitzer. Vertigo ? Alison Bechdel? She won the NY Times nonfiction award, man. Everything is American comics. We talked about mainstream comic books , Japanese and american it was limited. All comics have genre and are diversity, but what is bringing money, real money in shonen jump is a One Piece, was naruto in its time, etc. A cut in the Marvel / DC universe to say that American comics is limited is not knowing the same. Not knowing that it has a lot of horror comic, fantasy comic, cover and sword, independent etc. Sometimes one of them can reach a large audience, as with Japanese comics, but what supports the market, at least in Japan, is shonen, battle-oriented and humorous, not unlike American superheroes and comedy cartoons.

None of those got released in Brazil (not sure if you read the last line of my post).

One piece was ever much bigger than Naruto in Japan. Still let's look at the all timer longest series and big sales and see if they are all Super Hero stuff. And you are very much wrong that they support the market in Japan. Shoujo manga is very very very big and have nothing to do with the likes of One Piece, neither does Berserk.

Longest:

1) Dokaben (about Baseball) - Not super hero

2) Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo - "Kochikame" (comedy - daily life in a police station) - Not super hero

3) Golgo 13 (assassin) - Not super hero 

4) Minami no Teio (debt collector) - Not super hero

5) Cooking Papa (Cooking) - Not super hero

6) Grappler Baki (wrestling) - FIghting but no super hero

7) Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (fighting/horror) - Can be called Super Hero (1st on the list)

8) Hajime no Ippo (boxing) - Fighting but no super hero and very grounded manga

9) Oishinbo (cooking) - Not super hero

10) Haguregumo (about bumps on old era) - Not super Hero

So on the top 10 longest running series we have only 1 that could be said about super hero and no more than half that could be said to be based on fighting (can we see the same for comics?)

For the highest seller

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

2) Dragon Ball - Super heroes

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

4) Detective Conan - Not fighting nor super hero

5) Golgo 13 - No super hero

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

7) Oishinbo

8) Slam Dunk (basketball) - No super hero

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

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

You can see that even among the highest sellers the list isn't really all about same genre. And there is even Shoujo manga among let's say top 25 of all time. How much does the non super hero can get on the top 10 of all time for comics in USA?




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"

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

Baddman on 30 July 2018

Huge comic fan here..comics only appear not diverse if you focus on Marvel and dc there are other comic companies and comics are plenty diverse. This opinion seems based on lack of knowledge



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Paperboy_J on 30 July 2018

The new TMNT cartoon is looking pretty good so far...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X9LU0Lj2FA



Agente42 on 30 July 2018

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 :)



TranceformerFX on 30 July 2018
pokoko 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.

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



Agente42 on 30 July 2018
dx11332sega said:
Is there a manga about having trouble cleaning your dog because cleaning him would give a curse? I wonder if there anything like a wheel chair bound robot that feels pain and is a part time sky diver in olymics year 2900?

have many comics craziest things, like The Maxx and Zero Girl, Sex Criminal (two people when make sex freeze time), etc.



DonFerrari on 30 July 2018
dx11332sega said:
Is there a manga about having trouble cleaning your dog because cleaning him would give a curse? I wonder if there anything like a wheel chair bound robot that feels pain and is a part time sky diver in olymics year 2900?

I bet if you look you will find something close and not needing to be specific because if you put it like that you could make almost all manga seem like their own gente.

Baddman said:
Huge comic fan here..comics only appear not diverse if you focus on Marvel and dc there are other comic companies and comics are plenty diverse. This opinion seems based on lack of knowledge

Mind to show these on a top 50 highestsellers? 

dx11332sega said:
A teen soul trapped in a bowling ball of a ex bowling champion that needs to win again against some cheater he cant beat thats cheating and cant prove it because he's using magic so the ex champ has a chance to beat the cheater by cheating aswell the soul trapped in the bowling ball controls the ball and curses magic users? I wonder if manga is diverse as that?

or finding the next fat fat man to stripe tease the president of japan and has 3 way way with his pillow and ex boyfriend from bulgaria

I'm interested in these stories I'm not making fun of this I actually want something crazy stories like these if theres any?

There are some that would be pretty close. And if you where mangaka you would probably be able to publish it.

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 :)

So putting shonen on everything make it shonen?

you may not know but DB was create as comedy but gone more fight because of public demand?

making sports into fight is hilarious though. Even better that you ignored the longest list because you had less spin space there right?



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."