Forum - View topicIs American animation's popularity overlooked?
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Samuknight
Posts: 35 |
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I saw this post.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Animators/comments/fd07w0/is_american_animations_popularity_worldwide_very/ So I have to ask. Because of how much anime dominates Geek culture, is the huge international popularity of American Animation so overlooked esp in online discussion? Even discounting Disney and Pixar, is American Animation actually in the same hallmark of popularity across the Globe outside of English speaking countries as anime is? Are the claims int he Reddit Link any accurate at all? [EDIT: Made the title a little less long-winded. -TK] |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23817 |
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No, I don't think American animation's international popularity is overlooked. I think it's pretty remarkable what the Japanese animation industry has been able to accomplish on the international scene, but I assume that American animation probably makes more money and gets more eyeballs internationally than anime does. On a purely subjective level, I guess maybe anime is considered "cooler" than American animation.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9854 Location: Virginia |
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I think that even here we tend to lump all of anime together and see it as a whole. On the other hand, residing in North America we tend to see US animation as individual shows, or at best, studio by studio. Both views are valid, depending on what you are looking for, but tend to lead to poor comparisons.
Entertainment is very much a "what have you done for me lately" industry. References to classics like Tom and Jerry are nice but serve no purpose in determining the current popularity of the animation of either country. This is probably not the best place to pose your question. While a portion of the audience here is interested in animation generally, I suspect most are not interested in US animation enough to have a valid opinion as to its world wide popularity. Your best bet would be a general entertainment forum with mostly non US or Japanese posters. People who see both anime and US animation as "other". |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6268 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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In my opinion and given my experience with animation (Japanese anime is not the only thing I watched, I've watched other animation), I don't think American/western animation is being overlooked. We (as in American) created a lot of interesting and innovative animation. Beside Disney, we saw Warner Bros coming out with some innovative animation like Harley Quinn, Primal (from Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Samurai Jack), & Young Justice. It isn't only the US, and Japan that are creating animation that stand out from one another.
How many of you know Bluey (the children animation from Australia that has been shown on Disney Junior/Disney+ in the US)? This animation from Australia is not only appealing to kids, but adults too. Because of streaming technology and premium providers like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Prime Video, Crunchyroll Premium, & etc. It's allowing obscure animation or animation you wouldn't think catch attention from mainstream audiences to thrive. So yes, it's not only Japan, and the US/west. You're going to have animation from other part of the world that are going to get audiences outside of a niche demographic and it's all thanks to streaming that make that possible. So American animation is not being overlooked, but we are not paying attention to animation from other countries that may stand out from American and Japanese animation. I also want to add that Japan and the US aren't the only one that are capable of good animation. You saw how Bluey did in the US and non-children audiences despite the animation is from Australia. Mainland China, and South Korea are capable of making animation that can rival their Japanese counterpart for their run of the money. There maybe other countries that are producing animation that may stand out from another, so don't underestimated the power of great animation regardless what countries it's from. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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Bro, are you kidding me; American Animation ALWAYS steals all the Oscars and attention from more deserving anime
 it makes me cry rivers of blood. lol
Also it's REALLY losing its charm nowadays.....2D is practically dead so we're left with a bunch of samey-looking rubber doll-esque movies preaching the same same kiddy stories, lessons and morals over and over and over again. Now I've heard that 2D animated shows from Netflix are pretty good....and most shows targeted at adults are too. So I might give those a look. (Castlevania looks so amazing that I can't believe Madhouse didn't produce it lol) But as long as the "Face" of American Animation is Pixar and Illumination? It's vastly overrated. |
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DankyKang
 Posts: 15 |
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Really depends what you mean by overlooked. Disney movies are super popular worldwide there's no doubt, but do American cartoons have the same kind of... I dunno, "fandom" aspect that anime does? I don't think so. I haven't watched Spongebob since like season 4 where it jumped the shark but it's apparently still popular with kids to get multiple spin-offs, movies, and merch still. Not sure how many adults are super into it and getting adult-aimed merchandise aimed at them like anime does. I'm more into action shows though. Not really any of those coming out of America these days. Outside maybe a couple of shows like Castlevania from Netflix, but 6 episode seasons dumped all at once kind of kills any fandom or discussion for shows like that compared to something like Attack on Ttian or Made in Abyss.
I think once you get to a certain age cartoons become overlooked in the sense people move on to anime. The pre-school and children market is mostly what they want so they'll leave the adult side to a handful of comedy sitcoms like Family Guy and anime for the rest. |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 209 |
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The anime 'fandom' is almost entirely organised around consuming many shows seasonally, while the western animation 'fandom' is built around picking which American slice of life/comedy series you turn into your fandom, generally something upcoming from disney/nick/cartoon network, maybe you even pick a couple shows, or watch the most popular shows for american audiences from the 90s or 00's (powerpuff girls, ren and stimpy, etc). For example, a year or so ago(?) people sat around picking if they'll turn Amphibia into their thing, or the owl house. Imagine if the anime fandom was like this, where you have to pick which of about 100 series was your favourite(s), eg, gintama, attack on titan, one peice, naruto, bleach, and if you didn't like any of those, well your shit out of luck, good luck pirating or streaming something more obscure than bleach or naruto, or in western cartoon terms, something like powerpuff girls or rugrats.
I have a list of western cartoons I want to watch, some of which I can find, often via an official youtube channel (eg Bellflower Bunnies, Dragon Hunters), but often, you're just shit out of luck. I want to watch the 2010 Petit Prince TV series and I just can't find it. Because the western fandom is so obsessed with the same ~130 or so american series (eg phineas and ferb, doug, etc), things outside of that list don't get streamed, they don't get pirated, they don't get the acclaim, why review Little Grey Rabbit on your platform or something when you can write about adventure time or regular show. Think about it, crunchyroll was born from an anime piracy site, used by anime fans who consume many dozens of anime each year, the western animation 'fanbase', doesn't have that equivalent. People don't sit around watching a mix of popular and obscure western animations, they just pick a couple fandoms to join, that's it, there will never be that equivelent of big anime torrent sites or crunchyroll for western cartoons. If anything, the best place to watch western animation at this point is on TV.
He just picked some of the most popular cartoons from america and said, 'look how popular they are'... Flintstones has a cult following but so does Soupe Opera, that doesn't mean soupe opera is popular. Seriously, this reminds me of how american's assume everyone in australia just watches american tv 24/7 because they've heard of the american shows airing in aus but haven't heard of the british, canadian or australian shows airing in australia.
Again he's being america centric, most of the children's cartoons I'm most nostalgic for are from britain, europe and canada. Pablo the Little Red Fox, the 2d Peter Rabbit Series, etc. Yet he's projecting, he's assuming the stuff I must be most nostalgic for is on that list of about a hundred or so american cartoons I mentioned earlier. In reality, my biggest childhood nostalgia is probably Tintin, I watched powerpuff girls on rental once and don't recall liking it, most of my childhood involved stuff which aired on ABC kids. I might be repeating myself a bit here, but he goes through the same list of very popular american cartoons, "look, flapjack/fosters home/gumball" airs here, while fallaciously assuming that if a popular american cartoon airs in, say, france, that means it must be popular in france, many american shows probably are quite popular in france, but so are, from my understanding, french cartoons. Again, it's myopic. Sesame street airs in australia, but that doesn't mean it's the most popular childrens show, at least personally, I preferred play school as a child. Yet americans like to apply this logic where they assume the american shows must be the most popular. He's also ignoring Peppa Pig when he mentions british animation, of course it's not on 'the list' is it? Even if objectively it's more popular than gumball, no 20 somethings from america sit around building a fanbase about peppa pig, so it doesn't even register as popular. (I know I sound crazy mentioning 'a list', but if you look at messageboards about western animation, such as the reddit one or /co/, it's pretty obvious everyones obsessed with the same damn western cartoons) Anyway, I have many long rants about what anime does better than western animation, and I could probably go on about why 'fandom' culture and america-centrism kills western animation, but yeah, I'm well aware that at least half of what I wrote was only tangential. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1777 Location: South America |
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As it's well recognized by industry insiders, Japan has almost a monopoly on adult* animation. So this kind of animation has developed an international audience of enthusiasts. This is distinct from comics where the field is much more international: comics from countries like US, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, France, and China have won the "International Prize for Manga": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Manga_Award#:~:text=International%20Manga%20Award%20(%E5%9B%BD%E9%9A%9B%E6%BC%AB%E7%94%BB,Tokyo's%20Akihabara%20district%20in%202006. I think the reason why many countries have sophisticated comics is it's low cost of production compared to animation.
In regards to American animation, the vast majority of it consists of animation aimed at small children. There is some adult stuff that exists like Family Guy but it's still very crude. It's not like the videogame industry (which is multinational and there are many important American videogame studios like Bethesda) which has something we might call a fandom. I don't think it's overlooked at all: The Simpsons is several times more well known than the biggest hits like Attack on Titan. I don't think the Japanese monopoly on adult animation will change. The reason why Japan developed manga and anime is due to deep cultural differences between Western Civilization and Japanese Civilization. While Japan has westernized it's institutions and technology it still has a heavy cultural baggage from it's pre-modern past. This heavy cultural baggage explains why their culture can attach much greater emphasis to cartons as form of artistic expression. Other East Asian cultures like South Korea and Taiwan are similar to Japan in this respect but they lack the market size to support a well developed animation industry and instead many are working with the Japanese industry. *While people often point out that many anime shows are categorized as adaptations of shounen and shojo manga which are not technically aimed at adult audiences one has to take into consideration the complexity of the shows/movies/OVAs/onas. For example, Claymore is a shounen series and it has lots of cliches from shounen but at the same time it's much more "adult" in terms of it's complexity than Family Guy or The Simpsons. Even a run of the mill shounen manga adaptation like Demon Slayer is very different from an American show like Last Airbender which is said by some to be similar to shounen. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6268 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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@Jose Cruz
Although I agreed with your assessment, there's couple of thing I want to add in there: -America has been and creating new adult animations for the last few years. I don't expect those to be on the same grand scale as anime, but they're still coming out in the US. Have a look at the announcement of adult animation (not including anime) coming to Netflix in 2022 and beyond. Also, it's not only Netflix that are doing this. I'm seeing new non-anime adult animation being made for Amazon Prime Video, and HBO Max too, so we're not running out of adult animation. What really surprised me is that anime has been influencing US animators (ie: as shown on Steven Universe, etc...), and I expect that trend to continue. -Japanese animation are facing competition from South Korea, and Mainland China. Although South Korean and Chinese animation are rare to see in the US. From 2 of the Chinese animation I've seen on Netflix, I thought they could hold the same candle as their Japanese counterpart (character details, background animation, and color gamut aesthetics looks really good in one Chinese animation I've watched on Netflix). Although there's too few Chinese and Korean animation in the US, and the west. Don't underestimate them, they can totally rival their Japanese counterpart for our run of the money. I would be very concerned about Korean animation because given that K-pop and K-dramas have gained mainstream acceptance in the US, I think Korean animation are the only one that can probably rival their Japanese counterpart on the mainstream level in the US assuming South Korea can come out with more adult animation. Also South Korea can do the media mix thing with their animation using K-pop and well-known K-dramas. Several Korean animation I've seen can hold the same candle as their Japanese counterpart (makes sense because Japanese animators outsource their animation to South Korea thus why South Korea can create animation that can hold candle to their Japanese counterpart). -US, Japan, Mainland China, and South Korea aren't the only one that can make adult animation. I read it from a Cartoon Brew article I linked above saying that other countries may try to create/make animation for adult, I'll cite the article:
So France is working on adult animation, although from my experience watching both western and Japanese animation (including Chinese & Korean animation), I don't think France will be alone. How do we know the Australian animation studio that did Bluey may end up doing adult animation in the near future. The fact that more western animation are taking influence from anime and breaking away from comedy, shows me that Japan has done it's job of making adult animation look appealing. What do I want to see in western adult animation in the near future? I want to see an American cartoon doing sports genre, I mean we've seen sports manga & anime. But I've never seen an American cartoon doing something like this in the same manner as anime would. I mean I want to see a western animation equivalent of Ace of the Diamond, Slam Dunk, Haikyu, etc.... I found out that back in the 40's, DC & Marvel Comic used to did sports comic, but they never got popular, I mean could you believe DC Comics once did this: 
I don't see anything like this being made in the US when their Japanese counterpart are able to to do this. I want to see US comics, and animation to do a sport genre that can hold the same candle as their Japanese counterpart. But the future of adult animation, and the diversity of animation genre has evolved in the US and the west, I hope to see more western animation that can have a storyline as good as their Japanese counterpart. Last edited by mdo7 on Thu Sep 22, 2022 9:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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It's usally the kids stuff that wins the Oscars. Movies like A Scanner Darkly, and Paprika got robbed by Happy Feet and Cars back in 2006. |
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 571 Location: North America |
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There is Peppa Pig merchandise in my local grocery store here in a medium size city in the Upper Midwest, so it must have some USA popularity. For those who enjoy NSFW Aussie humour, look up "Aussie Peppa Pig" on YouTube for some very rude but hilarious Peppa Pig voice-overs. |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 209 |
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There are a bunch of international sports animated series, including The Wild Soccer Bunch, Foot de Rue and Extreme Football Tricks. (Out of those three wild soccer themes to be the best looking one, I can't endorse any since I haven't watched them). There's also an upcoming french bande dessinee adaption Loucas. I think basquash was a french co-production, the three I listed are probably pretty similar to it in tone. For the record, I'm not interested in saying any western animation does the things people like about sports anime better than anime, this is just for the sake of knowledge, as well as some possible sports cartoon 'recommendations' in case people wanted any. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6268 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I'm not aware of this, but thanks. Whoa, so France has done only soccer animated series while in the US we don't have any Basketball, Baseball, or any American animated series equivalent to Haikyu!! I mean I just found out that we do have one sports comic book series, Fence. It's published by Boom Studio, this is the only "sports manga" US comic that I know of (if you know any other, please let me know). Ironically, Fence's author, C. S. Pacat has said it on record that she cited sports manga like Haikyu!!! as a inspiration for Fence (If her LA Times article wasn't enough, this is her Twitter, and you can tell here how much Haikyu! has influence Fence). So that's one good progress for western/American comic book. I would love DC & Marvel Comic (hell, I would love it if IDW Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, & Image Comics) to try doing the sports genre that can match and be on par with their Japanese counterpart. Comic Books in the US shouldn't be just focus on superheroes, make something as good as manga (I mean I know some that are good storytelling like manga but a lot of time western comic book are just superheroes I think about 80-90% of the time, correct me if I'm wrong). I mean that's what lacking in western/American comic book, no sports genre. But back to US & western animation, I would love to see an American cartoon doing a sport genre that can be on par with sports anime. I would kill to see an American animated series with a story/plotline specifically on Baseball that can be on par with Touch, Major, Cross Game, Ace of the Diamond, etc.... Now that adult animation are being taken more seriously and more animators have cited anime as a influence, I hope to see US animation can tackle sports genre that can be on par with sports manga & anime. |
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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Most animation for older people in the west are usally sitcoms/comedy movies. One reason why anime became big in North America because wanted to watch cartoons that are not for kids. The list of serious western animated shows and movies is still pretty small. NA and Europe still has ways to go.
TV Shows: Aeon Flux Arcane Castlevania Invincible The Legend of Vox Machina The Maxx Primal Spawn: The HBO Animated series Spicy City Undone Movies: $9.99 Alois Nebel Anomalisa Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic Dead Space: Downfall Dead Space: Aftermath Fear(s) of the Dark Heavy Metal 1-2 Hellboy Animated 1-2 Mortal Kombat Legends 1-3 Persepolis Pink Floyd: The Wall Ralph Bakshi's films Scanner Darkly Several DC animated films The Triplets of Belleville The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury Waltz with Bashir Waking Life When the Wind Blows, Fantastic Planet, and Watership Down are debatable depending on who you ask. There's probably more that I'm forgetting, but I'm going with the serious western animated stuff that pops up in my mind first. |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 209 |
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There are almost certainly animations (series, movies) which you would describe as serious, which you've failed to list, for example Last Man from France, Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992), The Canterbury Tales (1998). I imagine Toldi (a hungarian miniseries) would probably be something you'd describe as 'serious'. I mean, I can't read your mind or know what you refer to as serious, it seems you've listed 'prestige adult animation', and 'award winning features'. To be honest, the stuff you've listed excluding Triplets of Bellesville is the exact opposite of what I want to see from western animation. I'm tired of the idea animated media has to contain explicit adult content to get out of the 'ghetto' or at the very least win an award. I don't give a shit if I can't mention the fact I'm planning on watching Redwall in polite society, I can't mention the anime I'm watching without facing potential judgement anyway, I don't even have to name a series to be judged. I would disagree with your core premise, people don't consume anime because they don't like children's media, most anime fans (at least, younger ones) are in fact somewhat confused and believe stuff like Fullmetal Alchemist is for children, and they sing the joys of how these are much better children cartoons than western childrens cartoons... And what do people like about, say FMA or Tenkuu no Escaflowne? They're serial. Pretty much every popular western animation is not serial. To be serialised, at least by my definition, you actually have to tell a larger overarching story over the course of the entire series (every episode should contribute, sans one or two fillers). For example, the beginning is in ep 1-8, the middle is ep 9-15 and the end is ep 16-26. Serialised television gives opportunies for stories far more complex or interesting than movies. Contemporary American western animation instead uses tricks to make people believe they're watching serialised stories, but in reality, they're not, like the lore-baiting from adventure time (adding little clues such as a map or an ancient tome), continuity (characters who die stay dead, characters who get introduced stay introduced), double and triple-parters (often as ep1-2 and ep 25-26, of course, ep 3-24 is all episodic filler which can be watched in any order), foreshadowing (eg, hinting that you'll kill a character in an episodic story about the characters playing golf and then killing them in a double parter), and finally adding stakes to each episode (eg, they have to defend themselves before the villain abducts them, of course, they successfully defend themselves wrapping up the story in a single episode). When I was an adventure time fan, (I watched the whole series), I tricked myself into believing all these story arcs like BMO's factory would come together and get wrapped up somehow, when in reality, it was all stuff written by storyboard artists by the seat-of-their-pants, it never got wrapped up and it was never going to get wrapped up because ATs storyboard artists aren't good at writing (or drawing). A truly episodic show, would by my definition, be one in which each episode introduces a new story which is resolved within the same episode, and overall, some of these tricks (except lore bait which is awful) make a show more enjoyable and create the illusion of a larger overarching story, or in some cases, an actual overarching story (which would make it some kind of 'hybrid' according to my definition). Western fans are so desperate for serialised childrens media, that they latch onto anything which uses these tricks like steven universe or gravity falls. Think of one of the most popular western/american series, ATLA and its sequel, people love it, it gave people what they wanted from western animation, a larger story divided over the course of many episodes, with actual story arcs which pay off, of course, season one does rely on the two double parters with episodic middle I mentioned. Of course, there are other things about anime people like like the cute girls slice of life genre, actual romance stories (and not just the writers shipping two children together for no reason), the iyashikei 'genre', many other genres which are entirely neglected in america (at least post 2000s) like the sports genre, and most importantly the artstyle itself (which combines realism and disney-esque visual appeal, aka the principal of animation, in a unique way, whereas western animation leans in towards either hyperstylised graphic designs such as Finn the Human or complete realism, such as the rotoscoped works bakshi mentioned above). There are things western animation frankly does better than anime, mainly the preschool genre (stuff like Pip and Posy, Odo, Maisy, Bouli, or Trotro are far more comfy than modern japanese shows aimed at the same agegroup), also the talking animal genre which is popular in the west (eg, Ernest and Celestine) is almost non existant in anime. |
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