Hydreigon wrote:
jowsh wrote:
Not to mention that the notion of "it's a cartoon, so it's for kids" would slowly die off.
It already died, there are many R rated animations in the west and around the world.
Not necessarily. You're focusing too much on the literal meaning of it's for kids. When things are animated it used to be generally assumed that there wouldn't be any deep plot lines or compelling characters. This is obviously not the case when it comes to most anime. While there may be some series that have a much lighter story, a really big amount of series have really some really captivating stories and arcs. Series such as Death Parade, Psycho Pass and Inuyashiki, all deal with profound topics of morality. While series such as Made in Abyss, and The Promised Neverland are both shown to have a very child-friendly facade while the main story points that happen throughout the plot are anything but.
To me, the whole stigma of 'animation is for kids' won't really go away unless it's shown to more people that anime, and, more generally, animation have great potential for a unique type of story telling. The spectrum of emotions and how you express them are all different for the kind of media that is used to convey that story.
In 2d animation, you don't get the subtleties of the facial movements that actors have, nor do you get the smoothness from professional 3d animation. What you do get from 2d animation, however, is a much differently expressive style of conveying emotion in a medium. This is most seen in shows like Ping Pong the animation, or the new Kimetsu no Yaiba. These shows have very distinct art styles with ping pong having a very raw and unfiltered lineart style where you can see every detail that the animators put in to the characters. This style lends itself to be a good vessel when it comes to conveying a sense of great motion and emotion.This whole janky style isn't something that everyone might like but it is something that I personally adore. In the case of Kimetsu no Yaiba, The thick lines help in giving the viewer a sense of depth adding yet another layer to help distinguish the foreground from the background. With it being made by UFOtable, there are some sequences that are extremely well made that would otherwise be impossible to replicate were it a live action show.
This brings me to the topic of live action adaptations. The thing that disney is slyly putting in the notion that a live action or 3d movie is much better than the original 2d animated one. For me this is most shown with the movie The Lion King. I was really jarring for me to see hyper-realistic animals sing with human voices while their faces are completely stiff. This was most seen with Pumbaa and Simba. Every time they'd speak I'd fall into a state of disbelief, the bad kind, since it felt as if they had disembodied voices that didn't at all match what they looked like in appearance. Not only that, but doing all of these adaptations is depriving the new generation of kids of any good 2d animated movies.
Going back to the topic of anime being a norm in society.
I don't think it'll ever be a complete norm in society just like how it's not that common to find people reading novels all that often. At most it'll be something that everyone's heard of but not something that everyone is engaged in. This much is obvious. I'd have to agree with Asphyre on what he said. Liking anime is cool and all but it sucks that you'd be considered a bit differently just because you decided to watch japanese animated media instead of western live-action comedies.
Over here in the Philippines, it's starting to get some traction and has been a pretty big part of the modern social landscape for the past decade. One of my favorite factoids is that the country where anime is searched for the most is the Philippines. Whichever friend group you're in, you're bound to find at least one person who's kinda into anime. Not only that, but anime conventions have been a thing for quite a while already, and those are always a good thing when it comes to being an anime fan. You get to meet new people, buy actual merch, and feel included in a much bigger community than you've ever been part of.
Whatever the case is. I still think that the propagation of anime in the more general culture of people is a win-win. Weebs get to feel less ostracized, and more people are getting exposed to a new type of media.