11 ms·
I interned at Sony in Tokyo one summer. I was hugely surprised that nobody had heard of all the animes and cultural icons that I thought were household names —
by aabhay 6y ago
I interned at Sony in Tokyo one summer. I was hugely surprised that nobody had heard of all the animes and cultural icons that I thought were household names — Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, etc etc.
There’s a huge bias in the US towards taking niche cultural phenomena in Japan and putting them on a pedestal.
- selimthegrim 6y agoHow niche was Rurouni Kenshin I wonder (pre the artist’s arrest of course)
- vmception 6y agoReading light novels - of which manga is a respected category - is proportionately more popular in Japan. Rurouni Kenshin selling something like 70 million copies of the manga by some old record I saw. Anime programming on TV is a fact of life and not something people need to be "into". But that is to say that there is a lot more dramas and mundane animated programming that wouldn't have an economic rationale outside of Japan. A lot of it falls by the way side and then later turns out to appeal to Western audiences, even more rarely circling back to Japan for a closer look. The anime subculture is niche in Japan. ie. The niche where people collect merchandise and have whole shelfs on display as a point of pride. That garners the same discomfort from the general population and potential dates as it would in the West. That being said, the western market is MASSIVE as it is just a larger market and vibrant economy. Something doing "okay" in the US would be the same as shattering records in a Japan-only release. So enterprisers can resyndicate all the crap over to here and see what sticks.
- ineedasername 6y agoSo it sounds like a lot of anime popular in the West is the equivalent of a low budget made-for-tv movie in the US hitting paydirt with a foreign audience. I guess that makes sense, I'm sure that happens too.
- jcranmer 6y agoI wouldn't quite say that. The US imports virtually no live-action series or films from foreign language countries, and relatively little even from other English-speaking countries. So we extrapolate the tastes of the entire country from what is a relatively small market share. Imagine trying to judge US culture solely on the basis of shows like The Simpsons, Futurama, and South Park. These aren't low-quality shows, but they're also nowhere near fully reflective of the entertainment that people consume in the US.
- vmception 6y agoSome similarities, some differences. US sees most of the highest budget anime and from the largest studios. US entrepreneurs that started as enthusiasts are basically financing a lot of it directly and through syndication agreements. But there are tons of IP that is ignored and not syndicated abroad and there are tons more in the manga and book form. Although many western anime fans are curious about Japanese customs, the west likes the style more and resonates with things that have broader appeal to western interests. Essentially, not-Japan, or resonating with anime-style works from western studios and directors. I’m sure we can think of an exception here or there but anime about mundane life in Japan is not popular outside of a Japan.
- ineedasername 6y agoWow, I had no idea who Kenshin was, and having looked him up it seems crazy that his penalty for child porn was only a few thousand dollars, production of child porn was legal in Japan until 1999, and possession remained legal for another 15 years.
- Grimm1 6y agoThere's plenty of people here in the US who don't know about those either. While Anime is much more widely popular now in the US than it was even 10 years ago it's still a niche for sure and within that I still have to tell people what FLCL is, not so much the others though. My point being is it is still a subculture idolizing another subculture. I don't think you can say that is a US wide issue.
- presentation 6y agoIf you came to Japan you'd also need to tell people here what FLCL is - really, the only ones your typical mainstream Japanese person would know if prompted are the most famous, classic ones they might have seen as children like Doraemon, One Piece, Conan, Anpanman. It really is a niche.
- hshshs2 6y agothose aren’t household names in the US either... wouldn’t it be kind of naive to assume that everyone in japan knows about all japanese media? I’m american and i’m probably not aware of 90%+ what’s on american tv right now.
- gibolt 6y agoThe opposite is also true. Many of the most popular 'classic' western songs in Asia are songs you've never heard of.
- briankelly 6y agoThis piqued my interest - do you have any particular examples?
- mathattack 6y agoAlissa Milano was big there as a singer.
- tomcam 6y agoObviously we need to re-evaluate our foreign relations with them
- brigandish 6y agoDo you know Beautiful Sunday by Daniel Boone or Welcome to the Edge by Billie Hughes? I certainly don't. Most of the others are played relentlessly in corner shops, malls and radio stations. I've heard so many Carpenters songs now I may as well be trapped in the 70s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_singles_in_Japan#List_of_best-selling_singles_by_Western_acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_singles_i...
- girzel 6y agoHa! I showed up in Beijing in 2001 at the age of 22 or something, and was met with frank disbelief when I not only failed to sing along with "Yesterday Once More", but failed to recognize The Carpenters at all.
- GolDDranks 6y agoHere's one, not sure if it's popular in Western countries, but it sure is in Japan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL7gxqk0fkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL7gxqk0fkU
- EE84M3i 6y agoOff the top of my head, most tokyoites today at least will recognize from the current heavy marketing Doraemon, Demon Slayer and Evangelion. Old anime, only active fans will know.
- x3iv130f 6y agoIt also depends on how old the person you ask and what part of Tokyo they live in. Pop culture is a lot more segmented than people realize. Even in the US.
- EE84M3i 6y agoYes and no. There's a demon slayer / Doraemon display directly at the front of every konbini you walk into in (afaict) most of the country.
- asutekku 6y agoBut you paid attention to those, because you (allegedly) were interested on those. A random passerby going to konbini is not going to care about them.
- EE84M3i 6y agoPerhaps, but demon slayer is also already the second highest grossing film in Japan ever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films... Doraemon is a "cultural icon" and has been for decades. Evangelion is debatable but the 25th anniversary has been present all year with a plethora of tie-ins. At the very least, people not interested in Anime will recognize these as "oh that thing from [the konbini/I saw the voice actress on a game show/billboard/my child likes/the picture on my candy wrapper/etc]".
- krapp 6y agoPossibly off topic but speaking of Evangelion tie-ins, here's a video about whether or not one one could live entirely off of Evangelion branded merchandise[0]. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Qr9rztRw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Qr9rztRw4
- ehnto 6y agoPeople often apply what they learn from anime as if it were the reality of life in Japan too. You would think Japan were still fuedal with the amount people attribute honor to the cultural norms of Japan. It is far more intentional and curated than a penchant for honor. I think perhaps we can miss some lessons in community values by seeing it so narrowly. I don't watch anime but I do love visiting Japan, and that has often stuck out to me with friends.
- m4rtink 6y agoWe were actually very surprised many times how certain stuff we encountered in Japan was 100% as seen in anime - for example matsuri, maid cafes, onsen towns, shrines, small countryside seaside towns, arcades or Hanabi.
- porknubbins 6y agoWell US tv anime viewer sees the (arguably) top 1% of anime from 10-20 years ago and there are huge followings for all of those in Japan but for the most part its drowned out by the constant deluge of mediocre content. Japanese anime fans tend to follow what is currently popular, it is a kind of disposable pop culture for the most part. You see this also with youtube vaporwave artists bringing back Japanese 80s city pop that no one remembers in Japan or if they do they just say “wow that song is so old”. I think the US in recent times has much bigger culture of curating classic pop culture.
- leppr 6y agoMay be oversimplification but I reason that this stems from the two cultures having opposed attitudes towards the "weird": USA: focus on, make fun of, pretend niche is bigger than it is Japan: pretend it doesn't exist, ignore That may allow some Japanese to indulge in weirder stuff that would not be tolerated in the US, but what Americans may not understand is that this stuff is still seen as weird/non-conforming/shameful by most Japanese. EDIT: Genuinely interested as to the reason for the downvotes. Plain wrong? Just stupid?
- jcranmer 6y agoAnime is not the dominant form of media in Japan, and is largely targeted at a relatively narrow age band. Outside of the main target demographic, you're not going to get a lot of familiarity with anything but the very largest show. In the US, how many current animated shows can you name? I can name a decent fraction of cartoons from the late 90s, but am completely unable to name anything since then--at least until I got a nephew and am now getting acquainted with the relevant demographic shows. That's a 20 year gap in shows. Compare other media. How many classical composers can you name? I doubt many people, even erudite people, could push well beyond the basic frontier of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. Recognition of well-known tunes (such as Pachelbel's Canon, whose name my spellchecker doesn't appear to recognize) is going to far exceed their name, let alone the composer's name. The most recognizable anime to a layperson in Japan is likely to be the big mega-blockbusters of various eras. I'd be more shocked if you said that no one had heard of Mobile Suit Gundam, Dragonball, Naruto, or Attack on Titan [which one they'd pick up on depends on their age] than any of the shows you've mentioned. Hell, the only thing you listed that I'd think people in the US with a passing familiarity with anime might know would be Cowboy Bebop.
- tayo42 6y agoIsn't ghibli a big deal? Atleast that's what one person told me in Tokyo.
- fomine3 6y agoAnime for kids is always mainstream content. Anime for non-kids is not mainstream but not very niche, it getting very popular for around 10-30s age people compared to around 2000. Pachinko and mobile games (both makes $$, publish ads) also contributes for otaku contents' popularity.
- markus_zhang 6y agoThose are classics ones that nowadays most new comers don't get a chance to watch, I guess?
- Scapeghost 6y agoWhen talking to Japanese people I sometimes surprise them by mentioning or recommending Japanese media or things about Japan I love that they didn't know about. Likewise, when they talk about my country they sometimes mention stuff that I barely know! This is usually good. It shows us what qualities about us are the most visible to other people, to build upon them or fix them.
- marcan_42 6y agoI'd be somewhat surprised if literally nobody knew about Ghost in the Shell, but I bet you didn't use the Japanese title (攻殻機動隊, Koukaku Kidoutai). However, only big anime fans around here would have heard of that title (of which you're likely to find a bunch at Sony, though, but certainly not everyone). The US puts late night anime on a pedestal, stuff that fans focus on. That's a big market in Japan, but not ubiquitous by any stretch if the imagination - and the names that become popular in the US are often very different to the names popular here, and often only after they've fallen out in Japan. Takeda-san doesn't know about FLCL. Anime is part of daily culture in Japan and everyone knows about it, but for household names you need to go to long-running, popular shows that run in kid-friendly slots. Stuff like Pokemon, Precure, Detective Conan, etc. It is those long-running shows that become part of the collective consciousness, because everyone watched some of that when they were kids. Same with Ghibli movies and anything by Shinkai Makoto (Your Name, Weathering with You, etc). That, and truly impactful stuff like Evangelion, the Gundam franchise, Naruto, etc. Then there's the fads. Everyone in Japan knows about Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) right now because they're doing tie-ups with seemingly every shop and business under the sun. Walk into any convenience store and they'll have branded snacks. Whether that series will survive to become something that people remember or not, time will tell.
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago>> Takeda-san doesn't know about FLCL. Is "Takeda-san" the Japanese Joe Schmoe?
- bitwize 6y agoMaybe to GP. The generic Japanese names in Japan are Yamada Tarō (male) and Yamada Hanako (female). My Japanese textbook always had a Suzuki-san conversing with a Tanaka-san, who I guess were the equivalent of the stock characters "Marc" and "Sylvie" I kept meeting when learning French.
- marcan_42 6y agoDuh, sorry, I derped. I wanted to type Tanaka-san. I knew something sounded off... (Tanaka is #4 on the top surnames list, Takeda is #78)
- busfahrer 6y agoThis is akin to how Starcraft used to be portrayed as the national sport of South Korea. As to how popular it actually is, I've heard a good analogy: It's similar to pro wrestling in the US, in that most people are aware that it exists, but only a niche group actually follows it.