21
votes
What is the general reception of anime in your country?
I've been curious about this for a while now. I'll start:
The Philippines has a fair number of weebs. It helps that the local networks have been reshowing shows like Slam Dunk, Yu Yu Hakusho, One Piece, etc since forever. We even have vehicles called jeeps that have murals painted- it's unsurprising to see an anime character or two there.
Of course you still get people who think animation is lame, those are never gonna disappear. But it's not hard to find someone who is familiar with a classic show or two (high chance it'll be One Piece).
Oh hey, I love this topic! In France, Japanese media has been prominent since the 90s, in good part thanks to the TV show Club Dorothée which included lots of anime from Toei, TMS & co. So prominent, in fact, that it caused tension between the TV network and politicians!
In addition, there's long been a lot of cultural respect for comics (BD) here. Today, France is the largest consumer of manga outside of Japan and there's even been several high-selling French manga, like Radiant, Zeitnot, Dreamland...
Also, French animators are everywhere in anime; Thomas Romain is one famous name (I think he just straight up appears in Pop Team Epic to talk about whatever). Obviously, the Gobelins school of art is famous for producing excellent animators in general.
They are! It's hard to keep track of them all!
Case in point... Thibault Tresca is the "Pop Team Mignon" guy. Thomas Romain is the guy who created Basquash.
I stand corrected!
Is Basquash! popular? I'm not familiar with it, I knew Romain more from Oban Star-Racers and Code Lyoko.
U.S. here. The tl;dr is over the years it has gone from cult following to fairly mainstream, albeit slightly niche.
I’m mid 30’s so my perspective isn’t all encompassing, but growing up anime was either seen as something for nerds or something for kids. There was a decent chance that, outside of the nerdier cliques, you would get made fun of for being a weeb if you openly admitted to watching anime. The truth is, at the time, lots more people watched anime but didn’t openly admit to it.
Now anime is akin to like Marvel movies/shows (though not as popular). Pretty widely accepted although people who are extremely into it would probably still garner a bit of judgement. A big driving factor of that is the fact that the kids who were somewhat ostracized before are now adults and openly admit to liking it. This is especially relevant for celebs/pseudo-celebs like basketball stars who have now made it “hip” to like anime, which in turn has driven younger fans to be more open about their like of anime. It’s pretty common that I see anime stickers plastered all over cars nowadays, or people who carry around items with anime branding. Overall it’s has become just another thing that people can be fans of openly, like sports teams or popular media or whatever.
Hey, kabayan.
I find that there is a generational dividing line on opinion about anime in our country. For teens today. It is a normal part of life, they live it and there is a big community, as you have mentioned. and it helps that there are cosplay events year-round. These are the 20-somethings and below, maybe even up to early 30s.
For the 40-year-old to 30-year-olds, they are the ones who grew up in the late 80s and 90s, they watch and enjoy anime, albeit in a more quiet and private way. when asked and within their own social circle, you'll find that they are as knowledgeable or more knowledgeable than the 20-something weebs. but the majority of them do not broadcast their enjoyment of the anime genre.
55 to 40 year olds. now this is a mixed age group and where you'll notice the division of anime fandom or tolerance of it. aka the outliers of the preceding and the succeeding group.
55 and older. these are the old-school people. where they view anyone that is not a child that still watches anime as very childish. This is where the old worldview of cartoons has cut off. Maybe because of our upbringing and that anime has not yet really taken hold during their childhood, combined with the economic standing of the country where there were many households who do not have access to Televisions.
well that's my piece and what i observed growing up here.
What country is that?
Tis the Philippines, same country as OP.
Aha, I didn’t catch your meaning when you said “our country”.
It's absolutely everywhere here. On TV, on billboards, and used to sell everything from snacks to cars. Anime has been a big part of the culture for decades now, and there's absolutely zero stigma around enjoying it, although there is a bit of a stigma around die hard fanatics, which I don't think is too different from any place else in the world.
It's also a source of pride in a way, seeing anime being enjoyed globally by people from all walks of life.
All in all, I don't really see anime's popularity waning anytime soon here in Japan.
Italy here, there's a divide between classic anime and "anime" anime. Everyone is ok with stuff like dragonball, saint seya, sailor moon, gundam wing, more niche stuff like evangelion or trigun, even stuff like naruto or onepiece are generally considered mainstream and totally acceptable to watch, albeit a bit weird.
Then you have slice of life stuff or magical girl stuff, and that's what's considered weird. There's still weeb communities that watch those shows, but if people actually catch a whiff that you're watching that kind of stuff you'll get clowned to no end (rightfully imo)
What is righteous about that? Why should anyone be harassed or ridiculed for watching something they enjoy, that harms nobody in the making? What makes Sailor Moon acceptable but not "slice of life" or "magical girl"?
You're saying harassing people for watching shows like Mushishi and Madoka Magicka (although you could say this isn't a magical girl show, gets pretty damn dark) is fine? I don't really enjoy either genre, but that sounds super narrow minded.
Why rightfully? I was agreeing with you in that people who aren't anime fans make fun of anime fans if they watch those genres (as I've even had it happen to me. Been made fun of for playing BanG Dream). This is true where I live too, even though it's not Italy. But then to say they're right to ridicule those who watch them?
Besides mainstream stuff, are other shounen action anime the only things we should watch?
Look, I watch stuff like Attack on Titan or Vinland Saga. I'm not hating on action. But I also watch and like anime like Non Non Biyori or Bocchi the Rock.
I don't agree that ridiculing someone for watching a genre that harms literally no one is the right thing to do.
Maybe it's a cultural thing, but i think a bit of banter is ok. I never said it should be fine to harass people for watching those shows, i watched madoka magica, pretty cure, nana, and other shows like that myself, and my friends make fun of me for it but it's all in good fun. Personally i feel like i deserve some flack for admitting to watching those shows, that's the only reason why i wrote "rigtfully so".
Ok yeah, teasing between friends is fine. It's just that there's a difference between friendly banter and ill intentioned ridiculing. I've had the latter happen to me too and so your comment kinda reminded me of that happening.
Maybe it was not worded ideally in your initial comment or maybe it was just me misunderstanding. Either way, the actual reasoning in the clarification makes sense. It's all good!
I'm from LATAM, my generation loves Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya. I would say anime is already part of out culture.
A while ago I saw a short youtube video about how much of Latin America managed to get a ton of Anime because it was a fairly cheap thing to import at the time. If you were going to buy foreign content to fill airtime, it'll need to be translated anyways - so why not translate from Japanese?
I'm super jealous of your childhood.
The US did get Ronin Warriors, but everyone knows that it's just a cheap knockoff of Saint Seiya.
Yeah it was available for free on TV and voice translated to Spanish, now most of anime are only available on streaming services.
My experience in the UK is that whilst it has grown in popularity massively since the 90s, mostly thanks to Dragonball and Dragonball Z, it is still not something you'd consider mainstream.
I never talk with my friends about anime shows that I enjoy (and my preferences are not really "out there", I like Code Geass, Deathnote and Attack on Titan for example), because when I have done, they have looked at me like I told them I'm into ritual animal killings.
The younger generations seem to care less about things like this and are much more open about enjoying anime. I frequently see young adults and teenagers in My Hero Academia or DBZ t-shirts. I think part of this has come from the rise in "nerd culture", and it being far more acceptable to be smart, techy, into science and into whatever hobbies you like.
It makes me feel like I was born a generation or so too early... Forgetting the many issues their generations will have to face of course.
There's a generation gap here. Below about 25-30 it's pretty mainstream but above that there's still the old perception of cartoons for kids that many people have
As someone from the U.S., I feel as though opinions are all over the place. But I can say I've run into some pretty odd opinions of anime here. I've encountered people who think anime is "devil's work", "witchcraft" and "propoganda". I've interacted with others who simply say, "yeah, I watched Your Name, it was weird, I didn't get it". And then there are the people who say, "oh yeah! I watched [insert Ghibli title here] and loved it, I'm totally an anime fan!" I notice a fair amount of people who don't understand anime and dismiss it as trivial but that's just my personal experience and likely due to my age and the age of people I typically encounter. I'm not an obvious anime fan, being a woman in my late 40s. But over the last 5 years, my love for various types of anime has grown exponentially.
These people live among us, not knowing they're the best anime fans.
Brazilian.
We've had a lot of anime in open television here [before having cable was commonplace], and so many people in my generation and before grew up with anime on TV. Highlights of my childhood include Saint Seiya and Dragon Ball [the two biggest anime hits in here], Yu Yu Hakusho, Digimon Adventure. "The big three" I never watched much. Those were pretty mainstream to have watched at some point.
Manga was also very prolific in our newsstands. That's where I bought most of my manga growing up. They outsold all of other forms of comic book and were really cheap. As of late, they are printed on better materials and sold at a higher price, so not very affordable anymore.
In the 2010's, that availability definitely decreased, but as the internet became ubiquitous, this new generation probably also grew with those but likely more fractured than before as most media has become.