The most popular TV show in the United States is a Japanese anime
Anime might be the single most overlooked part of gen z culture.
Anime is the reason cartoon network went from this...
to this…
(learn more about the evolution of cartoon network here. this isreally good context for anyone at the intersection of the creator economy and the entertainment industry.)
T.L.D.R about anime’s impact on cartoon network. Young teen boys started watching anime on Netflix and Cartoon Network action shows started flopping— thus completely changing the landscape for television series aimed at that demographic.
The mass adoption of Netflix, was actually a huge catalyst for the rapid growth of anime. In 2013, kids thought anime was hentai. (If you don't know what hentai is and you don't want to, just know it's an animated version of something that kids are not allowed to watch). Most people had heard of Naruto or Dragon Ball Z, but anime was a completely foreign concept.
Enter, Attack on Titan.
for all the actual anime fans that swear by the subbed version of everything. forgive this dubbed trailer. you can come for my life for watching dubbed anime once AoT is over.
I still remember sitting in my IT fundamentals class in high school, teacher was probably at his desk half asleep while the class was bundled in the corner around my computer watching the latest episodes of Attack on Titan on the now defunct site animehaven.net. We came in and watched each episode with our jaws stuck open from all the plot twists— only to be mentally stuck within the walls fantasizing about the pursuits of the main characters when we were supposed to be memorizing chemistry formulas.
This show was a game-changer. It didn't fall victim to the common shortcomings of anime shows. It was incredible.
the show was as complex as it was popular so there are a lot of videos online of people talking about it, this is a good watch.
Now, in the years since the show's first season in 2013, there was something like a four year gap between season one and season two and overall just a lot of spacing between seasons. However, it didn't stop the show from, in it's fourth and most recent season, becoming the most popular show in the US from Jan 31st to Feb 6th.
You read that right. Above The Mandalorian, The Office, Game of Thrones, etc...
An anime was the most popular show in the United States.
It's a long way from what anime used to be and it's also a long way from its peak. An anime became the number one show in the US without anyone knowing about it. The last time something like that happened, the world was finding out that the esports industry existed because it sold out the Staples Center in LA and Madison Square Garden in New York.
Gen Z watches anime, but we don't talk about it with people unless we know they watch it too. There's this gap between someone who watches anime, and someone who participates in the culture around anime that needs to close, but once that gap closes, it's going to be too late and the opportunity to grow with this $22 billion dollar market will be gone. (for reference, esports is fighting over letting itself say it's worth $1 billion.)
I have a few communities that I’m willing to bet will blow up in the next couple years, anime is one of them, 100%. So I’d watch the space. Watch the creators in the space, empower and enable them. There’s a lot of people consuming in this space, and not a lot of people marketing through it in a creative way. Love talking about anime with people, if anyone else knows anything about the space or is interested in it, lmk!
Stay tuned…