Not against the medium I consume it.
But it occurred to me that there seems to be a lot more exposure to anime and manga largely thanks to services like crunchyroll and manga reader services, this includes physical sales as well.
It’s just that you’d think say, Superman would be more stupidly popular since everyone knows who he is than someone such as Lelouch from Code Geass.
Is it because comics just doesn’t have the same spark with the younger generation? Or is it because there are a billion different issues of comics so it makes manga more streamlined?
I would like to know your thoughts as I am quite curious about this phenomenon, since even in the early 2000s I was into anime, and you could get your fix from non legit services via the Internet, but I’m sure as shit it didn’t hit this mainstream until the mid 2010s and now the roaring 2020s.
I suspect the fact that I had to think a minute before I could name a recently released western cartoon that wasn’t Disney or aimed at the under 6 crowd may have something to do with it.
Sadly Saturday Morning cartoons just aren’t a thing anymore in the US.
As for comics, when was the last time you saw a comic at a grocery store or gas station? I know Marvel still makes comics but I haven’t seen them in a store in almost 30 years.
Japan likes their anime and manga so there’s a lot of variety, but for whatever reason our corporate overlords here in America decided that we didn’t want our equivalent anymore.
For the last several months I’ve been creating Saturday morning playlists of cartoons for my kid to recreate the phenomenon for him. It’s a fun little hobby and I’ve learned a little video editing along the way. I even have a spreadsheet where I track everything so we have a good amount of variety and consistently progress so there’s no repeats and it’s always fresh. I even mix in “commercials” in between, in the form of random video memes and short indie animations, as well as appropriate music videos. Wish I could make it available to other parents, but I can be a lot more dialed in with an audience of one.
This is awesome. I always thought I’d do the same if given the chance. You are a great parent.
Well this is genuinely heart warming. Sounds super cute and definitely something they will look back on fondly when they are older.
Hope so. I was showing Reading Rainbow every week for a good while, but he turned against it. Breaks my heart, but I guess there’s no accounting for taste. At least he loves to read, for which I hope Levar would pardon us.
Look, man. To recreate the experience each show is gonna need 8 minutes of adds for cereals, junk food, and toys. Then every other show is going to have to be a re-run. Also, no one can be dressed for the day and breakfast is in the living room with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
He likes oatmeal and fresh fruit. I once showed him a 70s slinky commercial, after he’d just gotten an original quality steel one, and it blew his mind. He’s a Gorrilaz fan, and knows all their MVs. He reads for pleasure, including Calvin & Hobbes. His childhood is a complete contrivance of my own devising, a hothouse flower cultivated purely for the beauty of the thing that could not possibly survive in natural conditions.
So no, I feel no allegiance to the original experience as it was lived. The 90s had its charms, but it was largely a cultural wasteland.
The overlords decided that comics are for selling shit to nerds and cartoons are for selling shit to children. Now that nerds are all over 30 there’s no need for comics anymore, duh!
/s
But in general, Japan is still way more into paper publishing still. Much more than the western world.
Check out Blue Eye Samurai, Twilight of the Gods, Arcane, and the Masters of the Universe revivals on Netflix, or Invincible on Amazon Prime, or Harley Quinn on HBO Max. It’s a good era for adult animation. Obviously there are a lot of anime influences, but these are all western-made for western audiences.
Invincible, Arcane, Hazbin Hotel, The Legend of Vox Machina, Solar Opposites, The Boys presents: Diabolical, Krapopolis, Castlevania, Blue Eye Samurai, Star Trek: Lower Decks… and I’m sure I’m missing plenty (I intentionally left out anything by DC since you’d probably put them in the same bag as Marvel).
Frankly, adult western cartoons are probably more popular (and much higher quality) now than they’ve ever been before…
Vox Machina, Scavengers’ Reign, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal.
But yeah, one of the last gasps of the streaming bubble was a surge of adult-oriented cartoons which were far and above anything of the type before them. I’m a little worried that that bubble has started to deflate, we’ll see this go away.
I save up anime episodes throughout the week and watch them all on Sunday morning during breakfast. It’s my way of recreating that magic from my youth.