Well said, Brian. While anime and manga aren’t without their share of garbage stories, I completely agree. There’s a video on YouTube by matttt [sic] that goes into great detail about how manga became the dominant form of comics in the US. Well worth the watch.
I do wonder if the old Japanese mindset of death before dishonor inherent in the culture is why we see that “higher purpose” as you’ve described.
The uniqueness of Japanese culture is certainly a factor, and that is a factor of how Japan was occupied after 1945 (very differently than Germany) and how Japan was able to retain Japanese entertainment and consciously and unconsciously reject Hollywood. Miyazaki might be a leftist douchebag, but he hates Hollywood.
I've been thinking something like this. I've only watched two animes, basically (Lain and Evangelion) but they were really both better than any Western TV show I've ever seen. Whenever I hear people plumping for a recent Western TV or movie as being very good... Well, all I can say is they usually seem to be such a boring, unimaginative person that their words function as an anti-recommendation.
Anyone reading this who wants to give further animoo recommendations, feel free, by the way...
The reason Japanese anime and manga became more dominant over Western media is not because Japanese media is less commodified for merchandise and advertisements- any walk through Akihabara would prove otherwise. It is not because the Japanese eschew new technologies such as AI generated media (which is becoming quite prolific in Japan right now), and it is certainly not out of some "cultural" superiority on the part of the Japanese.
The real reason Japanese anime and manga became so popular globally, is because the industry in Japan is not built around an oligarchy of a few companies, because there is a bottom-up talent pipeline that the West lacks.
To understand this, we must understand what doujin culture is. The term doujin (同人) - literally meaning "same-person", refers to a genre of works that is published by the same person that created them- something that is really only possible for smaller creators. As such, it is a catch-all term for what the West would call both "indie" - original works by small time creators published on platforms such as Spotify or itch.io, and "fanworks" - unlicensed derivative works of established franchises (often pornographic, which is why "doujin" is often synonymous with "porn" in Western circles) that are usually made for free as a hobby, or sometimes sold in fan conventions as anything bigger would draw the ire of the copyright holders.
Japan has had a long, multi-decade culture of anime-style works around doujin, from often young, nerdy enthusiasts to express themselves and share what they created personally to other nerdy enthusiasts. In fact, Comic Market (Comiket), Japan's largest doujin convention, has been around since 1973.
One major characteristic of this culture is just how many iconic Japanese franchises in the 21st century emerged from doujinshi. Type-MOON, creator of Tsukihime and Fate, as well as Visual Arts of Clannad, Summer Pockets, Rewrite fame all emerged from doujin culture. GameFreak, the creator of Pokémon, started as a magazine of doujinshi by Satoshi Tajiri. Much of vocaloid and vtuber media had its roots in doujin culture, not to mention the massive Touhou Project franchise, which is still the life work of only one man- Jun'ya "ZUN" Ohta. These were all, and still are often, a plethora of small, independent creators, with limited funding and even less desire of growth (ZUN for example has gone off the record of wanting Touhou Project to stay as doujin as possible).
Note that doujin was an underground culture developed independently, and oftentimes at odds with Japan's cultural elite. Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki was quite against doujin culture, particularly with its sexual openness, flaunting of cultural norms (i.e. "lolicon/shotacon"), and pandering to nerdy, shut-in "otakus". Yet this culture continued to attract people that enjoyed its authenticity, and overcame Japan's other cultural institutions becoming the dominant anime and manga culture we know today.
Now let us look at the cultural institutions on the other side of the Pacific. Much like doujin, indie creators pioneered many of America's cultural icons- Stan Lee (Marvel), Max Gaines (DC Comics), Jim Henson (The Muppets), Richard Garfield (Magic: the Gathering). These, however, were quickly bought up by large corporations seeking to consolidate power- Marvel and The Muppets by Disney, DC by Warner Brothers, MTG by Hasbro. These franchises would continued to grow, but under corporate, rather than independent creator supervision.
Because America had much more readily available capital than Japan, more and more money could be funneled into these large corporate brands at the expense of new ones, until they became superstar juggernauts. Eventually writers and artists were replaced by marketing directors that wanted to turn these works into mass-marketable media for a global audience.
The West did have a comic convention/fandom culture somewhat like Japan's doujin culture (i.e. ComicCon), but it became mainly focused around fanworks and the celebration of established brands over new ones. Eventually, there was very little space a new content creator like a comic artist or animator could carve out an independent fiefdom that could grow into the "next big thing". If you wanted to make a lot of money to create something in America, you had to join one of the big companies (Marvel/DC Comics) and do what they asked of you to grow their own brands.
There is therefore virtually no structured bottom-up pipeline for new talent in America, like doujin in Japan. As such, there is nothing to challenge the media oligarchs- Disney, Warner Brothers, etc. who further consolidate power and find it easier and easier to cut out all competition. This eliminates the incentive for big companies to compete for the customer, instead focusing on maximizing the quantity of reach for their brands through sanitized but bland themes, at the expense of authenticity.
In fact the American media landscape, compared to Japan's, shows that capitalism does not necessarily bring a free market, and can oftentimes just lead to an oligarchy that cuts out all competition so they can improve profits through enshittification.
I deeply resonate with your words. I think The Western culture have a lot of work to do, casue whats was once brilliant, now is just scrapping the rests of coins of the great minds the yonce had. now its just copy of a copy of another copy. Before we had dragons, struggle, symbolics. now we have the same, but shallow. hollow. empty inside, and for every production i see i think there is nothing except some effects and (no longer) funny catchy frase here and there. its just scarecrow of a human. They don even try to fill it up a hay anymore. On the other hand i think than anime is also starting to face problems. Japanese had great understanding of systems and construction of a story, but they got locked in unmature and undeveloped characters that starts to reflect eachother across the different titles, there is getting more and more copies, also going for testes funny elements. Its not like they are getting better either, they just have still more unused material, yet. I think the next coming 50 years we are going to suffer, struggle, and probably then maybe we will fall deep enought to start realising that the potential was always there. we just needed some time to realise that money wasnt the first reason why we started creating art in the first place. Quiet countrary. We just need more realisation of that, and i dont think we are just ready jet.
Well said, Brian. While anime and manga aren’t without their share of garbage stories, I completely agree. There’s a video on YouTube by matttt [sic] that goes into great detail about how manga became the dominant form of comics in the US. Well worth the watch.
I do wonder if the old Japanese mindset of death before dishonor inherent in the culture is why we see that “higher purpose” as you’ve described.
The uniqueness of Japanese culture is certainly a factor, and that is a factor of how Japan was occupied after 1945 (very differently than Germany) and how Japan was able to retain Japanese entertainment and consciously and unconsciously reject Hollywood. Miyazaki might be a leftist douchebag, but he hates Hollywood.
I've been thinking something like this. I've only watched two animes, basically (Lain and Evangelion) but they were really both better than any Western TV show I've ever seen. Whenever I hear people plumping for a recent Western TV or movie as being very good... Well, all I can say is they usually seem to be such a boring, unimaginative person that their words function as an anti-recommendation.
Anyone reading this who wants to give further animoo recommendations, feel free, by the way...
The reason Japanese anime and manga became more dominant over Western media is not because Japanese media is less commodified for merchandise and advertisements- any walk through Akihabara would prove otherwise. It is not because the Japanese eschew new technologies such as AI generated media (which is becoming quite prolific in Japan right now), and it is certainly not out of some "cultural" superiority on the part of the Japanese.
The real reason Japanese anime and manga became so popular globally, is because the industry in Japan is not built around an oligarchy of a few companies, because there is a bottom-up talent pipeline that the West lacks.
To understand this, we must understand what doujin culture is. The term doujin (同人) - literally meaning "same-person", refers to a genre of works that is published by the same person that created them- something that is really only possible for smaller creators. As such, it is a catch-all term for what the West would call both "indie" - original works by small time creators published on platforms such as Spotify or itch.io, and "fanworks" - unlicensed derivative works of established franchises (often pornographic, which is why "doujin" is often synonymous with "porn" in Western circles) that are usually made for free as a hobby, or sometimes sold in fan conventions as anything bigger would draw the ire of the copyright holders.
Japan has had a long, multi-decade culture of anime-style works around doujin, from often young, nerdy enthusiasts to express themselves and share what they created personally to other nerdy enthusiasts. In fact, Comic Market (Comiket), Japan's largest doujin convention, has been around since 1973.
One major characteristic of this culture is just how many iconic Japanese franchises in the 21st century emerged from doujinshi. Type-MOON, creator of Tsukihime and Fate, as well as Visual Arts of Clannad, Summer Pockets, Rewrite fame all emerged from doujin culture. GameFreak, the creator of Pokémon, started as a magazine of doujinshi by Satoshi Tajiri. Much of vocaloid and vtuber media had its roots in doujin culture, not to mention the massive Touhou Project franchise, which is still the life work of only one man- Jun'ya "ZUN" Ohta. These were all, and still are often, a plethora of small, independent creators, with limited funding and even less desire of growth (ZUN for example has gone off the record of wanting Touhou Project to stay as doujin as possible).
Note that doujin was an underground culture developed independently, and oftentimes at odds with Japan's cultural elite. Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki was quite against doujin culture, particularly with its sexual openness, flaunting of cultural norms (i.e. "lolicon/shotacon"), and pandering to nerdy, shut-in "otakus". Yet this culture continued to attract people that enjoyed its authenticity, and overcame Japan's other cultural institutions becoming the dominant anime and manga culture we know today.
Now let us look at the cultural institutions on the other side of the Pacific. Much like doujin, indie creators pioneered many of America's cultural icons- Stan Lee (Marvel), Max Gaines (DC Comics), Jim Henson (The Muppets), Richard Garfield (Magic: the Gathering). These, however, were quickly bought up by large corporations seeking to consolidate power- Marvel and The Muppets by Disney, DC by Warner Brothers, MTG by Hasbro. These franchises would continued to grow, but under corporate, rather than independent creator supervision.
Because America had much more readily available capital than Japan, more and more money could be funneled into these large corporate brands at the expense of new ones, until they became superstar juggernauts. Eventually writers and artists were replaced by marketing directors that wanted to turn these works into mass-marketable media for a global audience.
The West did have a comic convention/fandom culture somewhat like Japan's doujin culture (i.e. ComicCon), but it became mainly focused around fanworks and the celebration of established brands over new ones. Eventually, there was very little space a new content creator like a comic artist or animator could carve out an independent fiefdom that could grow into the "next big thing". If you wanted to make a lot of money to create something in America, you had to join one of the big companies (Marvel/DC Comics) and do what they asked of you to grow their own brands.
There is therefore virtually no structured bottom-up pipeline for new talent in America, like doujin in Japan. As such, there is nothing to challenge the media oligarchs- Disney, Warner Brothers, etc. who further consolidate power and find it easier and easier to cut out all competition. This eliminates the incentive for big companies to compete for the customer, instead focusing on maximizing the quantity of reach for their brands through sanitized but bland themes, at the expense of authenticity.
In fact the American media landscape, compared to Japan's, shows that capitalism does not necessarily bring a free market, and can oftentimes just lead to an oligarchy that cuts out all competition so they can improve profits through enshittification.
I deeply resonate with your words. I think The Western culture have a lot of work to do, casue whats was once brilliant, now is just scrapping the rests of coins of the great minds the yonce had. now its just copy of a copy of another copy. Before we had dragons, struggle, symbolics. now we have the same, but shallow. hollow. empty inside, and for every production i see i think there is nothing except some effects and (no longer) funny catchy frase here and there. its just scarecrow of a human. They don even try to fill it up a hay anymore. On the other hand i think than anime is also starting to face problems. Japanese had great understanding of systems and construction of a story, but they got locked in unmature and undeveloped characters that starts to reflect eachother across the different titles, there is getting more and more copies, also going for testes funny elements. Its not like they are getting better either, they just have still more unused material, yet. I think the next coming 50 years we are going to suffer, struggle, and probably then maybe we will fall deep enought to start realising that the potential was always there. we just needed some time to realise that money wasnt the first reason why we started creating art in the first place. Quiet countrary. We just need more realisation of that, and i dont think we are just ready jet.