Anime has never been as popular worldwide as it is right now. One could almost describe the current period as the golden age of anime, with hundreds of different anime’s being released yearly to audiences both local and abroad.
It is estimated that between 2-3 billion people around the world currently watch anime. That is nearly half of the entire human population. Japan has decided to start taking its western audiences seriously.
So how did such a traditional and localised form of animated entertainment in Japan rise to such mainstream success?
Let’s take it back a few decades to the era of Cowboy Bebop, Akira, and Pokemon. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s anime consumption was not at its peak. But that has nothing to do with the demand for the popular Japanese entertainment.
People simply struggled to get their hands on these rare anime’s because there was no internet and no online streaming services.
You either had to catch these shows at the right time on television or you had to head to the local video store to pick up your favourite anime movie or TV series on DVD.
To discover new anime one would have to be lucky enough to stumble upon a random television broadcast at some point during the day. This did not deter people however as determined anime fans knew where to look and what time to begin looking.
On The Rise
Anime was popular throughout the early 2000s but the biggest drawback was availability and ease of watching. One had to go on a real mission to discover and watch their favourite anime’s.
At the heart of this burgeoning trend (like with any other popular trend) is the recent rise of online streaming services that are as popular as https://mobilecasino.ph/.
The fact that young people from all around the world can now research anime and decide what they want to watch, and then simply go watch it online has hugely broadened the western audience for anime.
The demand has always been there and there has been an avid western audience for anime for as long as anime has been around. But that audience is growing through word of mouth, online forums, availability wherever you look and an endless amount of anime to get through.
A Flexible Media
As a medium for storytelling anime seems to have something that can connect with everyone, no matter which part of the world you are from. The source material (manga – a style of comic book) offers creators a lot of flexibility as episodes are often released straight after a manga release.
This means the public can read and watch the anime episode straight after one another, interact with the creators and share their opinions with other fans and have their feedback incorporated into the next episode.
What makes anime so popular is its community and fans. Anime fans all love one another, and all share the same love for traditional Japanese animation.
The community grows larger with each passing day and with the volume and quality of anime continually improving it is not showing any signs of stopping its worldwide entertainment domination.