Anime as a subculture

[KoKo37]

Originally posted by: KaosSinner
Most of the people that I know of do not have the same image as I do of the anime world. A great majority of people think animes are for children, theyre too childish, not worth giving it a try, people watching those things are total freaks with no social skills whatsoever. However, I dont think that way. As an anime supporter, Im not embarassed of liking anime, I let people know about my hobby very proudly. You could say Im some sort of anime missionary. I try to get as many people as I can to give this a try. Elfen Lied and Full Metal Alchemist are always what my recomendations.IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif" border="0[/IMG]

i totally agree with you there XD, its so annoying when people are like "0mG YUo's like Animez?' when they never even watched like more then 1 espisode -.-, like i dont mind if they watch like 20 espisodes then dont like it, nor if they dont give anime a try and dont talk about it. however if they start saying it sucks and stuff and its kids only without watching it, that can be annoying at times because they see like one childish English dub espisode of something then they judge *All* anime based on the 23 mins of one show they saw -.-, though i dont usally let people get on my nerves less they keep repeating it over and thinks it makes me shamefull to hear something i admitted -.-t lol. ne ways im not embarassed to talk about anime, if a espisode of something will make a good part of a discussion then il talk about it [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img] ( less the person doesn't like the show or has never seen the espisode b4 >: ).

[XanBcoo]

I think you mean English Dub, Koko. In any case, a lot of people's bad impressions of anime comes from shows like Pokemon or Yugioh. Which is unfair.

Anime in the same way as other cartoons were first created to entertain children. The main difference between anime and american cartoons lets say, are the different directions they have taken. Anime has become an important subculture with a greater purpose than to merely entertain children. Over the passing years it has become an art, a channel to express peoples ideas, thoughts and belief, just like painting and music, it has become a way of expressing peoples feelings. Anime and Manga display a very accurate picture of our society today. Through proper interpretation we can appreciate all the critisms, ideal scenarios, different cultures that are present today.

I completely agree with that. Very good points.

[masamuneehs]

If there is an 'answer' to this topic, I think Kaos just about has all of it accounted for.

The only thing I find lacking in this discussion about anime is how it is a business. Anyone who suffered through Gundam Seed: Destiny knows that anime is a huge tool for marketing to an audience that cannot just be captured by picking various movie or TV genres. Namely, the correlation between video games and anime (and, for younger audiences, card collecting and anime) is pretty evident. Then, naturally you have action figures and the more expensive Model Kits.

In a way, anime has created its own kind of economy to go along with its culture. Unfortunatley, that means that some shows will just overdose you with plugs for model kits, cards, and the like. Cash is king. I suppose greed and ugly ambition sneak their way into every kind of culture.

[LobsterMagnet]

There is absolutely no entertaiment industry that is as fricking comercialized as anime. A really good exploration of these sort of subversive marketing tactics can be seen in the PBS documentary: the merchants of cool. If you can get your hands on it by either download or hardcopy I highly recommend it since it details the process of marketing cool used by massive conglomorates like MTV. Same messages can easily be applied by anime.

I'll do some summerization for you off the top of my head. There are expert researchers called cool hunters who go about and track down trendsetting kids. Kids, and teenagers who lookoutside their backyard for inspiration and find things outside the norm to choose for their trends. These cool trendsetters often create new subversive niche cultures based around their findings as well as influencing other peers. What happens once a cool hunter finds this property is that it is mined, marketed and then distriputed towards the masses. Thus forcing the cool kids who may have started the trend in the first place to move on and abandon what they found. The paradox of cool hunters is that they invariably kill what they find.

Examples of this can be seen in such stores like hottopic which has literally created an entire brand around creating the illusion of subversive against the norm rebelious punk/goth culture by selling subversive sarcastic t-shirts promoting bands, movies, and anime. But if you look very carefully you can tell that despite the alternative culture image that hottopic uses a very coporate buinsess tactic such as selling tie-in promotions to recently released movies like the burton remake of charlie and the chocolate factory. As well as to cult favorites like Napoleon Dynomite.

A good example of this that I'm observing right now in the anime world is what's going on with naruto. Naruto started out as a cult anime phenomena that was spread by word of mouth and proliferation of fansubs. It has reached it's peak of saturation and began to decline. This decline has been created by numerous factors (fillers, released of dubbed naruto in US.) forcing those who originally discovered naruto in the first place to move on to other anime (i.e. Bleach) or different anime genres or series. Now naruto is becomming to gain momentum in the states, evidence of this can be seen in the increasing amount of naruto merchandise available in hottopic (naruto jumpsuite featured as a sweater, more and more common use of forehead protectors) I believe that once the chuunin exam arc begins to air in the US that naruto will begin to start building up to critical mass. About this time educated anime fans such as us will begin a massive movement denouncing naruto making it a taboo in our society similar to what's happened with Yu-Gi-Oh, pokemon, and dragonball z. Once something that we once found special and to be exclusive to us is taken and accepted into the mainstream culture is when we begin to reject it since it loses it's original niche quality. To a lesser degree this has happened with Full metal alchemist.