Anime in the mainstream

Pierrot Le Fou · Post by **Pierrot Le Fou** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 4:05 pm

After I saw Kill Bill, I came to realize that Anime is now on the verge of becoming mainstream in North America. I mean look around, it was thrown into the Matrix, shown late at night on Cartoon Network, it's been showing up on the DVD sales charts in single digits, and now showcased in Kill Bill. So what do we think of this? Are we fearful and angry that our secret little phenomenon is coming out into the open, or are we happy that anime will finally get the audience it deserves?

J-0080 · Post by **J-0080** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 4:22 pm

Well this has been asked a multitude of times

but anyway.

I see nothing wrong with a rise in anime's popularity, in fact I rather like how people at least know what it is now.

True there are those who still associate it with the likes of Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh, but there are also a lot more people who know I'm not talking about a food dish when I mention Furi Kuri

and yes, people have thought that before

hyperchica11 · Post by **hyperchica11** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 4:53 pm

i think that it is good that more people are learnig about anime, but it's bad when shows get bastardized by people trying to make them into little kids' shows.

It's not just kill bill either... the matrix universe too.... and... Everwood. And.... hm....

**shameless self promotion**

I wrote this about anime hitting the mainstream. I figure it kinda pertains.... **shrug** oh well

hyperchica11 wrote: “And the Oscar goes to . . . Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away!”

During the Academy Awards this year, an anime movie called Spirited Away won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It was the first anime movie ever to receive such an honor in the United States. This prompted many people to say that anime is finally beginning to hit the mainstream. However, what they don’t realize is that it already has.

Anime, the slang term for Japanese animation, is a type of cartoon that is characterized by crazy hairdos, large eyes, and weird facial expressions. It is most definitely not a normal cartoon by American Standards, however. More often than not, anime contains adult themes and deeper meanings of seemingly shallow things.

Anime has been with us for sometime now. In late September of 1963, a show called Astro Boy appeared on the American front. This show was the first anime show ever to be aired regularly on American TV. A few years later in 1967, the baby boomer generation watched the first Speed Racer, which was also an anime show. However, neither of these were actually labeled as anime. They were both just another cartoon.

With Cartoon Network’s Toonami block, however, many things changed. For one, the mondo-popular Sailor Moon appeared June 1, 1998, followed closely by the release of the equally-popular DragonBall Z on August 31 of the same year. These two shows became an integral part of American pop culture, and soon, people everywhere were talking about “DBZ” and Sailor Moon. Elementary school kids had lunchboxes portraying their favorite characters, and weekday afternoons from 4:30 to 5:30 were virtually silent, save for the sound of the shows coming from TVs in the homes of Americans everywhere.

These two shows, although they were anime imports, were heavily edited. For example, in DBZ, they erased any trace of ANY objectionable material, including guns, alcoholic beverages, and suggestive dialogue. In fact, they edited an entire character out of the show, renamed other characters, and drastically changed personalities. In the Japanese version of Sailor Moon, Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune were lovers; in the United States, their characters were changed to be cousins. Gives “kissin’ cousins” a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

It is not uncommon for anime shows to be edited in such ways. In Japan, anime is made for adults, not children. Children do not have time for fun. When you walk onto a Japanese subway, many of its passengers will be reading “manga,” a type of anime comic book. For this reason, “adult themes” frequently appear in many anime shows. However, in America, they are edited out.

When the late 90’s came along, it brought with it the most popular kids show of it’s time: Pokemon. Most people at least heard something about the Pokemon phenomenon. It sparked plush toys, a clothing line, a card game, at least three movies, and a whole lot of controversy. Angry moms declared it satanic because it taught kids to pit their “pet” Pokemon against other people’s Pokemon and (GASP!) knock them out. But really, Pokemon teaches values that are not present in other cartoon shows. For example, instead of growling and being bad losers, most of the characters on the show bow and congratulate their opponent on their win. Even during the battles, each team takes turns. Compare this to other shows. Fighting with turns? What, are you kidding?Just take a look at other shows of the time. The fights were free for alls! Even the beloved Bugs Bunny frequently delivered blows below the belt.

Towards the beginning of the new millennium, Cartoon Network aired another block of programming devoted mostly to anime. It showed late at night, and was called “Adult Swim.” It proved to many people that anime is not just for kids, and furthermore, some shows are not for kids at all if you get my drift. The show Cowboy Bebop contains smoking, more deaths-per-episode and blood that thought humanly possible, and also, the Earth had been devastated in the show. That’s not kid stuff at all.

And now Hayao Miyazaki comes along with Spirited Away, and people are proclaiming it the “Big Bang” of anime in the mainstream? I say no. It was not sudden at all. It has been here all along, but it is only now that people are beginning to recognize it for what it is.

StarRaiders]cV[ · Post by **StarRaiders]cV[** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 5:23 pm

you wrote that? or copied and paste -.-

angelx03 · Post by **angelx03** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 5:26 pm

StarRaiders]cV[ wrote:you wrote that? or copied and paste -.-

It's called using this

.

StarRaiders]cV[ · Post by **StarRaiders]cV[** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 5:39 pm

close enough to copy and paste =]
quoting...
copy and pasting...
they are all the same -.-
well
kinda

Jonathan02us · Post by **Jonathan02us** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 10:26 pm

Im sort of glad that anime is going mainstream, but then the networks will only cut out the good parts. I dont think that the people are ready for the good stuff, because it is not like things on regular tv.

motemote · Post by **motemote** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 12:03 am

cartoons have been mainstream for awhile. no clue what you're talking about.

or is it that you want stuff from japan to receive special treatment like the kids on the shortbus who wear helmets and get made fun of at recess?

SarahtheBoring · Post by **SarahtheBoring** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 12:30 am

Uh-huh. For the last freaking time, it's been mainstream for at least ten years. It was showing on the Sci-Fi channel throughout American suburbia in the early 90s. And before that, everyone and their dog watched something or other growing up, just check out the "how did you get into anime" threads.

If nothing else, Spirited Away won an Oscar; was it nominated for Best Picture too? I don't remember, but everybody knows about that movie.

Pokemon. For the love of gravy, POKEMON.

It has been mainstream. If you've been living under a rock, congratulations for catching on.

Sorry for my jadedness, but people say this every week and it's getting awfully tiring.

Pierrot Le Fou · Post by **Pierrot Le Fou** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:47 am

Perhaps you're missing my point. Of course anime has existed and been present in North American culture for some time, but aside from some very special cases, it has remained a subculture. Every Anime show to hit the mainstream has been severly edited to the point that I would not consider it to be anywhere near true to the original series. This is true not only of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, but Yugi-Oh as well. I'm not talking about a bunch of middle school kids with Dragon Ball Z lunchboxes and Sailor Moon Barbie Dolls here.

I'm talking about a widespread cultural phenomenon that cannot be ignored or dismissed as a fad. As far as I can tell, anime had not reached that point in North America until quite recently, if it even has yet. When was the last time you saw anime uncut on prime time television? How many full length anime movies have you seen in a large format movie theatre? I haven't been in a coma, and I sure as hell haven't been living under a rock. I just don't consider an underground cultural phenomenon relegated to small format theatres, the back of movie store racks, and dismissed as either pablum or obscenity in the public consiousness to be "mainstream".