Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno doesn’t believe creating for the global market is the way to go. “I’m sorry, but the audience will have to be the one to adapt” - AUTOMATON WEST

I don't think "Western sensibilities" bad is the right way to take this. Art is good when it's filled with the desires of the people making it. Anything made out of chasing what *other* people like is going to be insipid and meaningless. That's universal.

What western sensibilities are you referring to?

Because most of the big ticket ones have long since made their way into the medium.

Hell, I'd go so far as to say don't consider the audience much at all and focus on the art first and foremost. Like, don't make slop for the west, but don't make slop for Japan either. Make something that speaks to your art and be content when you find an audience that connects with your art.

“Western sensibilities” is not at all what he’s talking about if it even exists. Western anime consumption is minuscule compared to greater Asian market.

I don’t think “Japan good, West bad” is what he was getting at.

exactly, I hate this modern approach of taking established entertainment spaces and trying to cater to different audiences who were never part of its initial success, it was the death of Game of Thrones for example.

if people want to create because they are passionate then they should create exactly what they like and as you say it will find the audience

if people want to create solely for money then sure - make some generic safe slop that might do ok but will likely never be remembered 1 week after it finishes airing

Yeah, this is basically exactly what he's saying in the article.

As they have for the last 50 years, and look where anime is now. It's ubiquitous 

StarWars : Visions

I wonder, since the majority are adapted from manga that by definition are created to be published on japanese only magazines initially

The one director claimed issekeis like the vending machine n i call bs xD

Would that lotr anime count?

None, but it's a sentiment that gets floated by directors like this now and again lately. I think internally there are business people that are saying "think of the western audiences" during production of original media, and potentially for adaptations of manga. Like, money folks are going to see dollar signs when movies are doing gangbuster bucks and they're going to rub their hands together and say directors and writers should copy that success.

As with any country, the business people are scummy and greedy. It's a matter of time that they could warp the whole landscape if directors and artists aren't vocally against bending toward generic marketable ideas.

Lazerus is the most recent example. That was a snooze fest 

Most of the Netflix originals

If what you meant by global audience are Western audience, then look at Adult Swim/HBO Max shows like Lazarus, Suicide Squad Isekai, FLCL sequels, Ninja Kamui, etc.

when they worked on *Vinland Saga* season 2 they said they were focusing on global audiences since that's where the first season found success compared to Japan.

but I don't think that changed anything, well the openings are in English rather than Japanese

You could argue sports anime are probably the most globally accessible audience. If you know sports, which are a pretty universal concept, its fairly “unifying”. Slam Dunk, Blue Lock, Kuroko, Haikyuu, etc.

I'd say, one notable name that comes to mind would be the quite recent Lazarus, as an example. Shows which try to get a wider appeal is still very few.

Maybe the kinds of shows that are Netflix funded first? (as opposed to shows they just get the streaming license for) Or projects like the FLCL sequels and Lazarus that were commissioned by a Western production? That's the only kind of thing I can think of.

It's definitely not something that's happening en masse at all but it may be something that business people talk about behind the scenes.

the articlr is him complaining about production companies putting pressure on them to accomodate, he says in the article the creatives haven't really shifted.

Maybe stuff like Orb and Vinland Saga?

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust might be one. According to the director:

>Vampire Hunter D was actually supposed to be released in English only. So the music, sound direction and effects were handled directly by an American staff. The picture was entirely produced in Japan by Madhouse and a San Francisco-based studio took care of the sound. But we were kind of concerned by the differences between Japanese and American sound effects and the fact that the American staff weren't used to anime. A Japanese sound director ended up joining the American team.

This does still leave open many questions regarding the primacy of a Western audience to the production of the film, though it is also worth noting that the English Dub of the film was the first version that was released.

Chainsaw man season 1 supposedly. But I’m sure the director had that vision in mind for the show independent of some western focus group testing it just so happened Japan hated the style while the west loved it.

Ghibli? Some of them, anyway.

My favourite quote to this day is still in regards to a visual novel called "If my heart had wings" released in japan in 2012 and in the west in 2013.

They released a censored edition which on top of removing all the naughty bits also completely butchered the entire dialogue and story translation i guess to remove all references to it, to which when the spokesperson was asked about why they said they wanted to appeal to a wider audience "for example we want 12 year old French girls who like anime to know about it as well and make it so there is no problem appealing it to these girls"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmH3zQAC-ds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmH3zQAC-ds) a short talks about it here.

Dungeon Meshi and Frieren got more animation budget than they normally would've because of the international potential

Off the top of my head, Transformers arguably was an anime and was made for western audiences.

Afro Samurai - originally produced in English and never got a Japanese dub because Samuel L Jackson heard of the project and approached the studio to get involved. The end product ended up with a significant amount of art direction from western artists, arguably making it "western-catering"

Space Dandy - thematically I don't see anything about it that comes across as trying to appeal to the west but its English dub was released before the Japanese version aired.

I \*think\* Watamote got an adaptation because the manga was popular on 4Chan - I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head but I think there were a few other series that got adaptations or continuations because of popularity in the west.

cyberpunk edgerunners

Creators should make their vision, its marketing’s job to sell it.

Also can't imagine anyone with even half a brain looking at the decay of the American Media juggernaut to this sad hollowed out shell and think "this is the winning move".

I think Evangelion's original anime ending perfectly showed this as Shinji being blended into a soup with no form, but by accepting a form he loses degrees of freedom and chooses more and more definition.

I think Netflix for example operates on choose a cast of actors that meet a diversity quota, take a story rip out any meaning and pasteurize it to a sterile soup for the masses. You won't generate controversy but also wont generate meaning.

It's great for a mega corp milking boomers but completely toxic to building new lasting IP

Yeah, I don't think pandering to an audience is a noble thing regardless of the demographics lol. Isekai slop is catering to japanese audiences too

Pretty much. The creators should be as Japanese or otherwise as they want.

Agreed. Those same creators are also just going to have to make peace with the fact that the attention economy isn’t working in their favor.

They could create the most breathtaking work of art possible, and only a handful of people might ever experience it.

This is exactly why I like anime more than western shows

Definitely agreed, though the Japanese audience has its own problems with generic shows taking precedence; its not just a Western thing. Everyone should be encouraged to express what they want in their own unique ways.

You speak as if the vast majority of anime coming out isn't generic dogshit for mass appeal ala isekai BS.

I mean like anime it’s where you look. People can easily characterize the medium, as banal, with an over focus on similar tropes/genres. When it comes to SFF, I find those novels have been punching harder for me than any recent anime I have watched (the Suneater series has been better than any recent anime I have seen in the last six years). Regardless of what some may say, I think the Western gaming sphere is fine, granted more notable works are coming from Europe than NA.

Anyway I think the whole debate is meaningless because in the end Western and Japanese tastes for anime are largely the same. Excluding a few genres that get way more attention like idol shows or that Japan still values old IPs like Gundam, what is popular in Japan is popular in the West, for anime fans at least.

And it’s not like Western influence is a bad thing inherently. Edgerunners would be in my highlight reel for the 2020s.

Edit: Also it’s reflective of this community that Anno says global and everyone thinks NA lol. Asia is 50% of the global market. China will have more influence than the USA.

I don’t really agree. Saying Western media is watered down for mass appeal feels like the same blanket criticism people use against anime. There’s a ton of Western stuff right now that’s taking risks and leaning into being weird or niche; it’s not all corporate sludge unless you only watch the biggest releases.

It's like target audiences have to be a general group over being able to make for specific audiences

Lmao, like Japan isn't putting out drivel every year. Outside of a few prestigious studios, their gacha shit is subpar even for gacha. So many power fantasy / isekai / ecchi that just appeals to the lowest common denominator weeb. Hell, FF16 is super derivative.

We just had a great year of games from western studios. Amazing movies from studios like A24. Amazing TV shows.

There's always going to be a lot of mediocrity anywhere in the world. Making it an east vs west culture thing is dumb.

>The reason so much of western media is dog shit now


Not even true at all. Sucks to be you if you believe that.

Exactly why final fantasy have been floundering all this time

Tbf, I remember people in the community feeling this way 20, 15, 10 years ago on places like animesuki, ANN, animeforums, or /a/, for one reason or another during that time. In particular, there was a big worry that 2020 would be Armageddon for anime because of the Olympics and sanitising the weird and wacky parts of it, even parts most of us would not find palatable. It came, passed, and not much really changed.

While the global market share has increased and anime has become more mainstream, which has led to demographic and cultural changes in opinion among the western fandom. Their (our) voices are still insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

I have no doubts that production committees are telling studios to go for more global appeal, but outside of a few series or movies that get greenlit by western companies like the Terminator anime and shit of that ilk, anime still looks and feels like anime to me.

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They're already catering to the global market. This is Anno speaking out against the current industry trend.

My dude....Demon Slayer made DOUBLE what fucking SUPERMAN did at the box office.

What do you think the 'global market' is, lmao?

The masses who watch cr doesn't care about that sadly. Even more so, they wouldn't even like it. TL notes are also seen as a failure for professional translators. While some anime literally came with pdfs to explain stuff.

I remember in onipan, there was this mekabu joke or whatever, and they didn't do tl notes, or try to even change the dialogue to make it make sense. It was just weird, and made no sense.

I miss TN’s so much

While this is true, it is easier to get japanese figures and whatnot nowadays. Tariffs aside, I expect more than just a handful of bandai figures will start hitting the shelves in the next couple of years

A lot of the biggest problems in anime are a result of anime series existing to promote manga/merchandise rather than being competent stand-alone works.

Taking anime merchandising global will just result in the same problem on a global scale.

Yeah, the Japanese is somehow bad at marketing (and releasing) their product to the worldwide audience when compared to South Korea or China.

They weren't the only ones gatekeeping. Western companies have also done that shit, and bad deals made in the 80s let them. Example: Harmony Gold.

There's still no-where to watch Baccano legally, the west or otherwise.

mamoru nagano _still_ refuses to make a home release of gothicmade, meaning you have to be fluent in spoken japanese (no subtitles, even japanese subtitles, in the theatre release) and go to japan during a period when it's being shown in theatres (it still gets yearly theatrical runs) to see it. even if you're fluent in spoken japanese you're still gatekept by having to physically go to japan at the right time to see it when it's actively being shown

Yeah, pirating has been the bridge for so long, and they just do not try to provide a lower friction option.

If they stop being weird with licensing, the audience will come fine.


For the longest time, the only way to legally watch the Bunny Girl Senpai movies was by buying ridiculously priced Blurays. Only with the release of S2 they finally came to streaming. 

Yeah, the main problem wasn't about the creators- it was the global distribution of their products.

No one wants any Japanese writers, directors, artists to cater towards western/global audiences. We just wanted access to it bro. But yeah this has always been a problem in the Japanese creative industry. And to be fair, the Japanese population themselves have been a huge market, full of high buying power consumers compared to a lot of other countries. Plus a lot of the time they're quite content in the domestic market. But gaining more international fans would always be a good thing for overall profit- if the distribution mechanisms are done right.

That said the Japanese culture have always been a bit more insular and it's not surprising this extends towards the distribution of their arts as well. Strong copyright laws + hesitancy towards publishing outside of Japan = not a good recipe for strong external, international support. They don't have to of course, but as a fan I'm just sad I'm missing out on a lot of good manga/anime.

Also Chinese and Korean have been more open and continuously trying to promote their creative industry a lot more than Japan recently and have been gaining a lot of success. This is like when Kpop took over Jpop all over again. Japan's economy is rather struggling so I don't see why they're not utilising this amazing market opportunity. Great products built over decades + great global interest... why are you not taking advantage of this more intensely?

There's a thousand shows airing every week. I don’t want a 1000 shows vaguely catered to everyone, me included. I can't watch a thousand shows. I want a thousand shows catered to .1% of the population. I'll find MY show and it’ll be the best thing I ever watched.

Yup. That's why I hate nearly all of the live-action adaptations of anime in the west. They're always so afraid of offending Americans with Japanese culture, so they remove everything cultural about the original and Hollywoodify the IPs to "appeal to a broader audience." Even the One Piece LA, which is greatly praised, admits to doing to this to some degree (changes to some characters' mannerisms and background settings to appeal to the west like removing all the Asians from Shimotsuki village or having Luffy say some out of character/Hollywood one-liners at times).

It always feels weird when creators are so afraid of their audience. We live in a multicultural world nowadays. Even if a specific group gets offended that it's not the same culture as them, there are tons more out there that will be interested it. A passionate work that expresses itself will always be attractive to the world

This is QOTSA in a nutshell. They make the music they want to hear and that's why they are still around (Radiohead are another that fall into this category)

But that's also the same reason why the japanese media isn't as popular as say, other east asian countries.


See how popular k-pop is and compare it to their japanese counterpart.

It's not just the "nasty Western libs" that are the issue. There are also a lot of nasty Western conservatives that have just as deep of issues due to their excessively Puritanical value systems. And there are plenty of "concerned parent" groups that would love to sink their editorial claws into every scrap of media on the planet that fails to conform to their standards. Just look around for the "How do I convince my parents that I'm not watching hentai?" posts that crop up in this sub on a regular basis.

>It’s been talked about before, but anime/manga/light novels have become extremely inbred, only ever referencing themselves.

100% agreed there. More often than not, I'm recognizing certain plot points or tropes the authors are using aren't coming from life experience or inspiration from another medium, but just regurgitating another author who did it better the first time. Photocopies of photocopies are so dull and lifeless to sit through.