how many people watch anime?

H

huxley

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would like to know how many people watch anime,

in north america.
you think anime could be big in north america if it was widely available in theaters. i talking about japanesse anime.




like the other day i saw that profits for the movie "spirited away"


it cost 19 m$ to make. and it grossed 234m$ in japan alone.
but in the usa it only made 10m$ cause it was released only in the big cities. like new york, and l.a. chicago.
released to less than 20 cities.

so my question was , do you think anime could be huge in the usa if it was widely released and advertised correctly. through comercials and such.

specificaly anime movies in theaters.
like a lot of kids/parents go see the pixar movies all the time. wouldn't they go see anime as well if only they understood it better.
 
We went to see Howl's Moving Castle in theater - there were maybe 1/4 as many people in the audience as any Disney-type flick. I just don't think anime is quite ready for American audiences in the mainstream yet. It is gaining in popularity, however slow, and someday may be profitible. The trick is to hook kids and have anime grow with them. There are at least a dozen poplar anime kid's tv shows, so I think as these kids grow so will mainstream popularity. 15 years ago there was almost nothing available - who knows 15 years from now?
 
If you hadn’t qualified the statement to just motion pictures, I was going to say that Anime is and has been main stream for quite some time. I was born in 1970 and some of my earliest memories were watching speed racer and I can’t remember a time in my life where there wasn’t some form of Japanese cartoons on tv. From Battle of the Planets (Gatchamon) to Star Blaizers (Space Cruiser Yamoto) and Robotech. In my 20s I pretty much grew out of these cartoons because most of them were poorly drawn, poorly written garbage with the only real goal to sell toys. The difference with Spirited Away was that it was one of the few that wasn’t garbage. I know the world of Japanese cartoons is huge but the main reason I stopped watching them was I was disappointed 9 times out of 10. Sometimes all this wonderful creativity would go into design and nothing into plot and character. Anyway, I’m not a huge fan of the Pixar films but I can see how they appeal to children and adults where Anime pretty much keeps it’s appeal towards young children. It was funny, I was with a Japanese friend who was visiting the US and we went to a local Japanese festival and all these kids were dressed up as Japanese Cartoon Characters and she just tilted her head and said “why are they doing that?”

To be fair my complaints about Anime are pretty much the same as Hollywood action movies. All style and very little substance.
 
Here in the UK, there used to be very little choice of anime around, with next to nothing shown on television and the rest being sold on video. It's becoming more mainstream, and more channels are showing it, but it remains largely the domain of the fans who have watched it from the start or the kids who watch the stuff on the children's channels. Sadly, a lot of people think that anime falls into 2 categories - the stuff for kids or the ultra violent sort that was released in the late 80s/early 90s, but opinions do seem to be changing.
I'm glad that more of Miyazaki's work is being shown in cinemas, even here, but there are still many more titles being missed. Maybe the tv channels here will recognize the popularity of anime and show more, so that the cinemas will feel it's acceptable to show more anime, too. In the future, it's possible that a lot more people will watch it, if it's given a chance.
 
Hmm I usually download my animes. I do watch them from time to time and enjoy them, but I'm not a huge anime fan.

Kitera
 
I am not presonally a fan of Anime but I did buy Spirited Away coz I saw a review of it and it was the nuts! Great animation, great storyline, truly wonderous and truly wonderful!

That is about as far as I go on the Anime front.
 
Saolta Oiche said:
I am not presonally a fan of Anime but I did buy Spirited Away coz I saw a review of it and it was the nuts! Great animation, great storyline, truly wonderous and truly wonderful!

That is about as far as I go on the Anime front.
Click to expand...

Have you seen the director's other films (Princess Mononoke, Castles in the Sky etc.)? They do tend to be very good, although Spirited Away is arguably the best (possibly with Mononoke).

I think the problem with discussing anime is that it describes a very broad range of films, there is some very good anime (the various Miyazaki films, Ghost in the Shell, for example) and a lot of awful anime and plenty in between the two extremes. Unless you have some fundamental objection to the visual style used in it, I don't know if it is particularly meaningful to discuss how good anime as a whole is or not, it is not really a genre in the same way Fantasy or Science Fiction is - different animes may have nothing in common with each other at all apart from a similar style of animation.
 
Ta Williamj, I'll look into those to other films, most definately.

I myself do not object to that way of animation but I do find things like Dragon Ball Z and that sort a bit too much in the way of wacky drawing, in Spirited Away they got it just right.

Maybe I am just getting muddled there though, is Manga and Anime the same?

I loved The Last Unicorn, I know the film was not very true to the book but I loved the film anways. Was that an early Anime?
 
^Manga = Japanese Comics, Anime = Japanese animation

huxley said:
but in the usa it only made 10m$ cause it was released only in the big cities. like new york, and l.a. chicago.
released to less than 20 cities.
Click to expand...

Hrrrmmmm... I don't know that that's quite true. Spirited Away had a much broader release and a much heavier marketing campaign than most anime gets in North America. Yeah, it originally opened in only a few theaters, but it expanded to a wide release after it won the Oscar. If anything, Spirited Away probably convinced studios *not* to push forward with larger theatrical releases for anime. If a high-pedigree, family-friendly, Oscar-winning movie like S.A. couldn't draw big crowds, what hope is there for other titles?

That being said, I think it'd be fair to say that anime and manga are way closer to mainstream today than not. We may not see it much in our movie theaters, but it's not like there are big blockbuster anime movies premiering in Japan every other week, either. But we *do* see it all the time on television, and the growth of the manga industry in recent years has been *astronomical*. There are also many anime-specific conventions throughout the year that pull in thousands, and in the case of the larger regional cons, tens of thousands of attendees. It may not be "mainstream", but it's no small potatoes, either.
 
While I was in the US I didn't encounter a lot of animes.

Here in Germany it has been a big trend for a few years There are some TV channels that have almost only animes in their kids-afternoon-programm. And all these anime connected cardgames are very popular, too.
In my opinoin most of the series aren't any good (But they are made for kids so who knows.:confused:) others on the opposite are really good. One of my favorites is Visions of Escaflown. (Info )
 
ras'matroi said:
While I was in the US I didn't encounter a lot of animes.

Here in Germany it has been a big trend for a few years There are some TV channels that have almost only animes in their kids-afternoon-programm. And all these anime connected cardgames are very popular, too.
In my opinoin most of the series aren't any good (But they are made for kids so who knows.:confused:) others on the opposite are really good. One of my favorites is Visions of Escaflown. (Info )
Click to expand...

Woo! Escaflowne!

The manga is great too.
 
I think animé could be huge all over the world, and is becoming increasingly so. Animé basically does a lot of new stuff where US and Europe has stagnated. There's lots of junk, but I think Theodore Sturgeon has got something to tell you there.
 
I think there is a fundamental reason why anime is not as popular in the US as might be expected. Most Western nations have traditionally viewed cartoons as a medium for children's entertainment. The Japanese has always held the view that animation is a medium usable for any film project.

For example the anime "Grave of the Fireflies" is a wonderful cartoon, but very, very sad. It was not made for children at all. It is practically non-marketable in the US. The majority of Amercans simply do not see anime as being for adults.

Part of Miyazaki's true talent, beyond his astonishing artistic capability, is his ability to create stories that are enjoyable for people of any age. Only then can the US gear its marketing to children, but allows adults to enjoy it too. My personal favorites are Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service.
 
I watched quite a few years ago, seem to remember Fist of the North Star and Akira and they were OK but I prefer live action films. Spirited Away is on TV tomorrow though so I might watch it. (BBC2 5.15PM)
 
I just started watching D.N. Angel and it deals with quite a few up to date morals (?) and beliefs.

I love to chill out watching anime and Manga is great for some between book entertainment.

It's profile has been growing rapidly in the UK and all it needs is for some clever boss to market it properly. Pokemon/ Digimon/ Yu Gi Oh made it over here well. (Although these are some of the worst IMO, well maybe not pokemon but I have a soft spot for that hehe)

Spirited away is in my top 10 films I have seen. So beautiful and moving :)

I agree the problem with it's popularity in the western world is not based in it's content but it's medium.
 
Alurny said:
I have the Escaflowne manga and I plan to expand to the likes of Trigun, Full Metal Alchemist etc...
Click to expand...


Cool, I've heard of them before. I collect Queen's Knight. Its rather interesting, but it kinda drags a bit.
 
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