Surprise, surprise...I haven't talked about anime in a while. Well this article will change that. I am going to be talking about my thoughts on the anime industry and what we can do to preserve it for future generations. But first, allow me to talk about me and my first experience with anime. The year was 2001 and I was six years old. I came across a show that would forever change the lives of not only me but millions of children worldwide: Pokemon. I could have been a casual fan. I really could have. But then my six year old brain was like "Why not let it consume my life instead?" And so it did. The next year, I also came across something that too would change my life forever: the Golden Age of Toonami. Rorounin Kenshin, Yuyu Hakusho, whatever iteration of Gundam was on... it had it all. Which leads me to my first hope: The Preservation of Toonami.
To all the no lives who have zero clue on what Toonami is, it is a late night block that shows nothing but action anime. I was a fateful watcher until around maybe 2007, when all they gave was reruns of Samurai Jack and Dragonball, along with new episodes of One Piece and Naruto. In 2008, Toonami closed its doors, seemingly for good. That was until one faithful April Fools' Day in 2012, they aired a segment of Toonami promoting the hashtag "#BringToonamiBack." And come back it did, on May 26. Now the reason why I say people should go watch Toonami is because of not only because of the great selection of anime they have but often times it is one of the few places where you can watch anime without illegally streaming it. After all that was how Manglobe became extinct. Do you want anime to become extinct as a medium here in the United States? No? Alright then.
Pirating anime is also a huge problem in the community. Yes, I understand that is one of the few ways to watch anime these days, especially if it is a series that is new to foreign audiences. But remember that this hurts the Japanese economy. In 2008, anime itself contributed to 13.3 Billion Yen in overseas sales alone. That's ton of dough thanks to the globalization of anime. Also as stated earlier, this can cause companies to tank and a lot of those companies produced really good shows. Manglobe, for example produced the beloved Samurai Champloo series as well as Gangsta, a modern favorite among today's otaku.
Lastly, I wanna talk about bringing new people into the anime scene. A lot of people tend to think that either anime is for kids and that you're a total dork for watching it, or that it is only for mature audiences and has nothing of value for children. This is wrong on both ends. There is plenty of anime for children (Pokemon, Yokai Watch, Hamtaro...) as well as for adults (Ghost in the Shell, Ergo Proxy, Monster, Deadman Wonderland...). What anime needs is a new generation of viewers and to gather those viewers, we need to show that anime can literally offer almost any type of story telling experience. Show your young nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, etc. some of the child-oriented stuff and watch the older stuff with their friends. Jus t don't force it on anybody.
That's all for now, folks. I await your responses.
