As I creep closer to marking the 25th anniversary since I discovered anime (1992), I continue to face the question of approaching anime fandom through the eyes of others. Wanting to connect with otaku in the wild leads me to network via social media and the internet in general. Aside from the abysmal interactions that are commonplace in any web based outlet, there are also interesting perspectives that I have gleaned. The majority of my direct online interactions with otaku are done through Facebook by participating in various anime and manga themed groups. The global reach of the platform leads to interaction not only with otaku much younger than I am but otaku from other parts of the world, which makes for some interesting perspectives to analyze.
I tend to both unintentionally and intentionally be the champion for a lot of stuff that isn't super popular and eschew some incredibly famous things in the process. I have a long standing distaste for Dragon Ball Anything and after a short stint of Naruto and Bleach fandom, I now point my daggers at almost anything coming from Jump. I also have a well documented dislike of harem and fan service-centric stories. While I have nothing against hentai in general I stopped consuming it once I became an adult. So when dealing with fans, who in many cases are half my age, likes and dislikes can be quite polar. I try to be respectful though and keep my outrageous opinions isolated to this blog.
The precursor to this blog was started as a way to expose people I knew to what was new and hot in the world of anime ten years ago. A vacuum was created in my circle of friends at that time when our best source for anime locally closed it's doors. In a side story I was very close to buying said store in 2004 as a turn-key agreement. The store, with it's owners policy relating to fansub, was the best place for us to learn about the newest stuff.
Once the store closed I took it upon myself to take on the mantel of herald in my group of friends. Scouring the websites of the Japanese TV stations I knew, trying to figure out what anime was new and what was upcoming. Soon enough I picked up on the cycles of the broadcasting seasons. I was about to start building a web database to help search similar anime titles when I discovered the existence of Anime News Network. What went from posting short critiques on MySpace for my group of friends, turned into regular postings on a MySpace blog page and then the migration to this site on Blogspot.
My fandom has seen two major breaks over the years. The first was around 1999-2003 when I had to shelve anime to focus on other issues in my life. The second was 2009-2013 when I became completely disenchanted with the industry. On top of that, some emotional aspects from visiting Tokyo in late 2009 caused me to want to ignore pretty much everything related to Japan. Since picking the mantle up again two years go I am still working on watching series lost in the last four year absence. While I was away from the fandom in those breaks I was still aware peripherally of how it was evolving. The period around the turn of the millennium is particularly interesting in how it ushered in the third wave of American otaku.
There is a tendency in multi generational things for each generation to worship the things that took place in their prime. Anime fandom is no different. There are many in my generation who profess that the titles we grew as fans on are the best and lament that more titles aren't produced that meet nostalgic demands. I have a hard time, artwork alone, sharing these opinions. Currently TV anime is producing some of the most detailed and amazingly beautiful shows out of its entire 52 year history. The animation, much through the aid of CG, is above anything we have seen before and should be lauded and respected for that. People argue that the stories are different and the focus has shifted and the new trends are bad. But, has anime really changed all that much when we look at it? Hasn't the hallmark of anime always been it's character driven stories?
Takahashi Rumiko is responsible for a few staples of the anime landscape since the 1980's. There are 3 series in particular that are iconic between the three different generations of American otaku. Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2 and Inu Yasha. There are a significant number of anime fans who were brought into anime via Inu Yasha and a few of it's contemporaries; Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, etc. This was through them being aired on cable TV. Unlike their predecessors, these shows were promoted as being anime, sold on that idea to the audience. Normally the anime that hit American TV wasn't outwardly presented as being a product from Japan. It was just a cartoon to try and gets kids hooked on in order to sell stuff. Yet at the turn of the century, following the immense boom in popularity for anime video's, a few cable networks decided to ratchet up the populism and actively promote syndicated anime. This lead to a flood of new fans who had access to anime unlike anyone before.
You have a large contingent of new anime fan's, borne from the push for televising a bunch of anime around 2000 and beyond that made entry into fandom significantly easier that it had previously been. The generation of otaku I fall into still had it easy compared to the pioneers 15 years before us. There were companies already in existence that were willing to license and distribute anime for general consumption, many of them started by the first generation of American otaku. By the mid 90's entire sections of Blockbuster, Planet Video and Suncoast were devoted to the medium. When it comes to popular awareness of anime and public availability the 90's doesn't compare to the 2000's. Truly a renaissance in anime fandom, when for the first time fans could consume large quantities of the product the way Japanese fans did, on TV.
Based on the popular series' for each wave of fans the experiences and expectations are different. In some ways very different. Takahashi has legions of fans in all generation of otaku. One thing that is interesting is to consider the divergence on fan expectations for her works when looking at the fans who were introduced to her through Inu Yasha and everything else. When it comes to the TV series' based on her works, Inu Yasha is the odd man out in many respects. In a slightly less drastic way Maison Ikkoku is also an odd duck. People who became fans of Inu Yasha might run into disappointment when digging into the rest of her catalog. Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura are similar enough to avoid this sort of dichotomy. There are few artist's who have been able to span such a large time frame. CLAMP and Tezuka Osamu are two that come to mind, particularly with the wide array of styles they have produced.
While a person's level and type of fandom can't not be identified by their gateway anime, it may be more appropriate to generalize fandom on their generation as a whole. Of course, this is a dangerous idea since everyone is an individual. Trends though can be determined and used as generalizations in fandom. Each generation does latch on to a handful of anime titles with feverish devotion that other generations have a hard time grasping. This may in part be from these series' imprinting the impression that will go on to form the growth of that generations fandom. It is typical for fans to seek out series' that match the styles of the series' that broke them into the medium.
At the same time people who herald from an older generation of fandom will not experience the same thing from the same series as the newer fans. Someone who was brought into the fandom through Space Battleship Yamato will have different expectations than someone who entered via Ghost in the Shell versus someone who entered via Naruto versus someone who entered via Fairy Tale. Our opinions and tastes are shaped by our experiences. This mind set, which is wholly understandable, leads to varying opinions one has on newer waves of anime. For a totally biased look at the reality behind 'old school' anime being better than 'new school' anime take a look at this post and this post to see my two cents on the matter.
If you maintain a dominant mindset in which you continue to expect anime to continue the stylistic qualities from a specific period you're are limiting your expectations and severely discrediting the medium. The best thing the public should expect out of anime is fluidity in style and content. The problem is overcoming the bias of opinion that comes from when one was introduced to anime. Fan's in general should demand a continuing effort by the industry to innovate and evolve. Stagnation leads to decline and death.
While I do enjoy trashy and cookie cutter anime like everyone else I strive to always find something interesting and new, something I haven't really seen before. It exists in all time periods of the medium but as is always the case, it's hidden and hard to find with out work. It's all too easy to look at popular shows from newer periods and cry foul, since the styles and stories of the newer shows don't match the ones that you were weened on. Opinion and taste don't reflect the reality of quality from varying time periods.
However I lean more towards pessimism and my general opinion is that a large percentage of anime made in any time period isn't very good. Some of this comes from my own personal tastes. I struggle to fight against my own anime fandom origins reflecting poorly on newer trends. Another portion comes from the realism I hold that the bulk of anime is mindless entertainment aimed at the mass audience. These cookie cutter stories, which exist in all time frames of the medium do not push the envelope of the medium or present originality and creativity. If everything was ground breaking and creative the authors and artists would never be able to maintain the high level of creativity for long.
In the general sense, anime is made for mass consumption, it is a product to sell. It is no different from a t-shirt or a car. People produce it with the intent of earning money from it. They put their effort and pride into manufacturing it, but in the end it is really nothing more than a commodity. We shouldn't expect the majority of the anime made to be amazing. But we can't forget that since the beginning anime has been comprised of products that are not meant to be ground breaking. What is important is being open to change. You can not support the industry by clinging onto the past. American otaku find themselves out of sorts when they realize Japan cycles through anime like toilet paper. In most cases series disappear into the past with little support for them once done. Some series' do maintain relevance and continued support, particularly the Gundam franchise. These series only remain relevant through being recycled. You would be hard pressed to find a plethora of Gunsmith Cats or Vampire Hunter D memorabilia in Japan.
In 1989 Gainax dipped it's toes into the American anime market through it's General Products US division. The intent was to directly import anime good to the American fans via mail order. American fans submitted their requests and the company went to work to fulfill orders. Unfortunately, many of the items and series' the fans in America were requesting were outdated by Japanese standards which caused issues for the company. Unable to really fulfill many of their orders the company had problems from the start and shut down after a few years.
In short; all anime fans should maintain a level of curiosity and acceptance of change; welcoming it as a way to continue the viability of the industry. By maintaining a certain level of fandom with current trends we can all do out part to support the industry. Don't give up the past though but don't let the past cloud your perspective. Just because something is different from what you started with, doesn't mean it's wrong or bad. Many of us came into anime fandom through the qualities of uniqueness and innovation, clinging to outdated expectations belittles what got you interested in the first place.
I tend to both unintentionally and intentionally be the champion for a lot of stuff that isn't super popular and eschew some incredibly famous things in the process. I have a long standing distaste for Dragon Ball Anything and after a short stint of Naruto and Bleach fandom, I now point my daggers at almost anything coming from Jump. I also have a well documented dislike of harem and fan service-centric stories. While I have nothing against hentai in general I stopped consuming it once I became an adult. So when dealing with fans, who in many cases are half my age, likes and dislikes can be quite polar. I try to be respectful though and keep my outrageous opinions isolated to this blog.
The precursor to this blog was started as a way to expose people I knew to what was new and hot in the world of anime ten years ago. A vacuum was created in my circle of friends at that time when our best source for anime locally closed it's doors. In a side story I was very close to buying said store in 2004 as a turn-key agreement. The store, with it's owners policy relating to fansub, was the best place for us to learn about the newest stuff.
Once the store closed I took it upon myself to take on the mantel of herald in my group of friends. Scouring the websites of the Japanese TV stations I knew, trying to figure out what anime was new and what was upcoming. Soon enough I picked up on the cycles of the broadcasting seasons. I was about to start building a web database to help search similar anime titles when I discovered the existence of Anime News Network. What went from posting short critiques on MySpace for my group of friends, turned into regular postings on a MySpace blog page and then the migration to this site on Blogspot.
My fandom has seen two major breaks over the years. The first was around 1999-2003 when I had to shelve anime to focus on other issues in my life. The second was 2009-2013 when I became completely disenchanted with the industry. On top of that, some emotional aspects from visiting Tokyo in late 2009 caused me to want to ignore pretty much everything related to Japan. Since picking the mantle up again two years go I am still working on watching series lost in the last four year absence. While I was away from the fandom in those breaks I was still aware peripherally of how it was evolving. The period around the turn of the millennium is particularly interesting in how it ushered in the third wave of American otaku.
There is a tendency in multi generational things for each generation to worship the things that took place in their prime. Anime fandom is no different. There are many in my generation who profess that the titles we grew as fans on are the best and lament that more titles aren't produced that meet nostalgic demands. I have a hard time, artwork alone, sharing these opinions. Currently TV anime is producing some of the most detailed and amazingly beautiful shows out of its entire 52 year history. The animation, much through the aid of CG, is above anything we have seen before and should be lauded and respected for that. People argue that the stories are different and the focus has shifted and the new trends are bad. But, has anime really changed all that much when we look at it? Hasn't the hallmark of anime always been it's character driven stories?
Takahashi Rumiko is responsible for a few staples of the anime landscape since the 1980's. There are 3 series in particular that are iconic between the three different generations of American otaku. Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2 and Inu Yasha. There are a significant number of anime fans who were brought into anime via Inu Yasha and a few of it's contemporaries; Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, etc. This was through them being aired on cable TV. Unlike their predecessors, these shows were promoted as being anime, sold on that idea to the audience. Normally the anime that hit American TV wasn't outwardly presented as being a product from Japan. It was just a cartoon to try and gets kids hooked on in order to sell stuff. Yet at the turn of the century, following the immense boom in popularity for anime video's, a few cable networks decided to ratchet up the populism and actively promote syndicated anime. This lead to a flood of new fans who had access to anime unlike anyone before.
You have a large contingent of new anime fan's, borne from the push for televising a bunch of anime around 2000 and beyond that made entry into fandom significantly easier that it had previously been. The generation of otaku I fall into still had it easy compared to the pioneers 15 years before us. There were companies already in existence that were willing to license and distribute anime for general consumption, many of them started by the first generation of American otaku. By the mid 90's entire sections of Blockbuster, Planet Video and Suncoast were devoted to the medium. When it comes to popular awareness of anime and public availability the 90's doesn't compare to the 2000's. Truly a renaissance in anime fandom, when for the first time fans could consume large quantities of the product the way Japanese fans did, on TV.
Based on the popular series' for each wave of fans the experiences and expectations are different. In some ways very different. Takahashi has legions of fans in all generation of otaku. One thing that is interesting is to consider the divergence on fan expectations for her works when looking at the fans who were introduced to her through Inu Yasha and everything else. When it comes to the TV series' based on her works, Inu Yasha is the odd man out in many respects. In a slightly less drastic way Maison Ikkoku is also an odd duck. People who became fans of Inu Yasha might run into disappointment when digging into the rest of her catalog. Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura are similar enough to avoid this sort of dichotomy. There are few artist's who have been able to span such a large time frame. CLAMP and Tezuka Osamu are two that come to mind, particularly with the wide array of styles they have produced.
While a person's level and type of fandom can't not be identified by their gateway anime, it may be more appropriate to generalize fandom on their generation as a whole. Of course, this is a dangerous idea since everyone is an individual. Trends though can be determined and used as generalizations in fandom. Each generation does latch on to a handful of anime titles with feverish devotion that other generations have a hard time grasping. This may in part be from these series' imprinting the impression that will go on to form the growth of that generations fandom. It is typical for fans to seek out series' that match the styles of the series' that broke them into the medium.
At the same time people who herald from an older generation of fandom will not experience the same thing from the same series as the newer fans. Someone who was brought into the fandom through Space Battleship Yamato will have different expectations than someone who entered via Ghost in the Shell versus someone who entered via Naruto versus someone who entered via Fairy Tale. Our opinions and tastes are shaped by our experiences. This mind set, which is wholly understandable, leads to varying opinions one has on newer waves of anime. For a totally biased look at the reality behind 'old school' anime being better than 'new school' anime take a look at this post and this post to see my two cents on the matter.
If you maintain a dominant mindset in which you continue to expect anime to continue the stylistic qualities from a specific period you're are limiting your expectations and severely discrediting the medium. The best thing the public should expect out of anime is fluidity in style and content. The problem is overcoming the bias of opinion that comes from when one was introduced to anime. Fan's in general should demand a continuing effort by the industry to innovate and evolve. Stagnation leads to decline and death.
While I do enjoy trashy and cookie cutter anime like everyone else I strive to always find something interesting and new, something I haven't really seen before. It exists in all time periods of the medium but as is always the case, it's hidden and hard to find with out work. It's all too easy to look at popular shows from newer periods and cry foul, since the styles and stories of the newer shows don't match the ones that you were weened on. Opinion and taste don't reflect the reality of quality from varying time periods.
However I lean more towards pessimism and my general opinion is that a large percentage of anime made in any time period isn't very good. Some of this comes from my own personal tastes. I struggle to fight against my own anime fandom origins reflecting poorly on newer trends. Another portion comes from the realism I hold that the bulk of anime is mindless entertainment aimed at the mass audience. These cookie cutter stories, which exist in all time frames of the medium do not push the envelope of the medium or present originality and creativity. If everything was ground breaking and creative the authors and artists would never be able to maintain the high level of creativity for long.
In the general sense, anime is made for mass consumption, it is a product to sell. It is no different from a t-shirt or a car. People produce it with the intent of earning money from it. They put their effort and pride into manufacturing it, but in the end it is really nothing more than a commodity. We shouldn't expect the majority of the anime made to be amazing. But we can't forget that since the beginning anime has been comprised of products that are not meant to be ground breaking. What is important is being open to change. You can not support the industry by clinging onto the past. American otaku find themselves out of sorts when they realize Japan cycles through anime like toilet paper. In most cases series disappear into the past with little support for them once done. Some series' do maintain relevance and continued support, particularly the Gundam franchise. These series only remain relevant through being recycled. You would be hard pressed to find a plethora of Gunsmith Cats or Vampire Hunter D memorabilia in Japan.
In 1989 Gainax dipped it's toes into the American anime market through it's General Products US division. The intent was to directly import anime good to the American fans via mail order. American fans submitted their requests and the company went to work to fulfill orders. Unfortunately, many of the items and series' the fans in America were requesting were outdated by Japanese standards which caused issues for the company. Unable to really fulfill many of their orders the company had problems from the start and shut down after a few years.
In short; all anime fans should maintain a level of curiosity and acceptance of change; welcoming it as a way to continue the viability of the industry. By maintaining a certain level of fandom with current trends we can all do out part to support the industry. Don't give up the past though but don't let the past cloud your perspective. Just because something is different from what you started with, doesn't mean it's wrong or bad. Many of us came into anime fandom through the qualities of uniqueness and innovation, clinging to outdated expectations belittles what got you interested in the first place.
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