The anime and manga fandom is a worldwide community of fans of anime and manga. Anime includes animated series, films and videos, while manga includes manga, graphic novels, drawings, and related artworks. The anime and manga fandom traces back to the 1970s and has an international reach.
Otaku
is a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests, including anime or manga. In its original context, the term is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family ( ), which is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun. The modern slang form, which is distinguished from the older usage by being written only in or , or rarely in rōmaji. In the anime Macross, first aired in 1982, the term was used by Lynn Minmay as an honorific term.May 2006 issue of EX Taishuu magazineオタク市場の研究(Otaku Shijou no Kenkyuu), 野村總合研究所(Nomura Research Institute), It appears to have been coined by the humorist and essayist Akio Nakamori in his 1983 series , printed in the Lolicon magazine Manga Burikko. Animators like Haruhiko Mikimoto and Shōji Kawamori used the term among themselves as an honorific second-person pronoun since the late 1970s. After its widespread usage by Japanese residents, however, it became pejorative and increasingly offensive in the 1990s, implying that a person is socially inept. can be seen as being similar to the English terms geek or nerd.
However, the term started to be used by anime and manga fans themselves again starting in the 2000s, in a more general and positive way, and today it is often used by those outside of the fandom to refer to fans of anime or manga. However, older generation , like (King of Otakus) Toshio Okada, in his book said "the newer generation of self-proclaimed are not real , as they lack the passion and research sense into a particular sub-culture subject and are only common fans which only overspent in buying products."
History of the community
Anime and manga fandoms have always been around, but many claim the first big arrival of a fandom was in the 1970s when fans of the series Space Battleship Yamato banded together to get it back on the air after it stopped airing on Japanese television. In Japan, anime and manga are referred to collectively as the content industry: anime, video games, manga, and other related Merchandising are different types of media focused around the same content.
English-language fan communities The fan community in the English-speaking countries started making numbers in the '70s and steadily grew. According to Japanophile Fred Patten, one of the very first fan club devoted to Japanese animation was the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, which began in Los Angeles in 1977. Its growth was characterized by waves, which Gilles Poitras, Bruce Lewis, and Cathy Sterling describe as distinct 'generations,' often sparked by a singular influential work.
In the Philippines, GMA-7 began airing Voltes V in 1978. It was the first exposure of Filipinos to Japanese animation. Voltes V soon became very popular between children all around the Philippines which led to the sudden popularity of other anime series related to the Super Robot genre in the Philippines. It was soon banned in 1979 by then president Ferdinand Marcos, four episodes before the end of the series, along with the other anime series airing at the time, supposedly for its violence and warlike themes. This, however, did not hinder the Filipinos' growing love of anime, leading to the large popularity of anime and manga throughout the Philippines.
Poitras identifies the first generation as the "Astro Boy Generation". Despite being the first and most popular animated Japanese television series, Astro Boy did not create many hardcore fans, but it exposed viewers to the medium and increased their receptivity towards it later on. The "Early Fans" or "Old Timers" generation that consumed titles like Speed Racer, Eighth Man, and Battle of the Planets as staples. These fans were much more aware that what they were consuming was Japanese and took the initiative to search for more. The "Yamato" or "Star Blazers" generation originating from the series Space Battleship Yamato that originally aired in 1979–80. Poitras states that this generation was so loyal because Star Blazers strong narration required viewers to never miss an episode. The Poitras dubs the next generation the "Robotech Generation", after the 1985 television series Robotech, is the earliest major generation in the USA and is distinguished by fans clearly recognizing anime as a Japanese product with significant differences from American animation. Fans from this generation and the Yamato Generation were to make up the significant portion of organized fandom throughout the 1980s. The film Akira, which played in art theaters in December 1989, produced a cult following that Poitras names the "Akira Generation". Akira inspired some to move on to other works but stalled many becoming an isolated work in their eyes, overshadowing the creative context of anime and manga it represented.
Then in the 1990s, Poitras states that "something new happened in the U.S.", the "Sailor Moon Generation" was born. Previous generations consisted mostly of college age fans, however in 1995 Sailor Moon was adapted into English and caught the attention of people even as young as grade school in age, many of them female. In the span of a few months, the fan demographic changed dramatically and as their interests diversified, so did the titles adapted into English. Poitras, Lewis and Sterling describe current generation of fans as the "Otaku Generation", however not necessarily applying the word to current fans. For this generation, the release of a title onto the television in the past was unusual enough that fans often remember their first anime experience as something special. Poitras remarked that as of the "Otaku Generation", the influx of fans into the fandom is better characterized by a continuous stream than as waves as it was in the past.
In the United States, the fan community began as an offshoot of science fiction fan community, with fans bringing imported copies of Japanese manga to conventions. Before anime began to be licensed in the U.S., fans who wanted to get a hold of anime would leak copies of anime movies and subtitle them, thus marking the start of fansubs. By 1994, anime had become more common in the U.S., and had begun being translated into English and shown on television, most commonly series such as Pokémon and Astro Boy.
Marathon viewing sessions of Japanese anime television series have been a common trend in anime fandom for decades, dating back to the late 1970s to 1980s. According to an early American anime cosplayer Karen Schnaubelt, Japanese anime were "incredibly difficult to come by" with "nothing available except broadcast TV until" VHS videotapes became commonly available in the late 1970s, allowing fans to import anime shows from Japan; she noted that a friend "would record the episodes" and then "a group of us would gather at his apartment and watch a marathon of the episodes". At comic conventions and sci-fi conventions in the 1980s, fans brought video tapes to hold marathon anime screenings; BayCon 1986, for example, held an 80-hour long anime marathon.
According to Mike Tatsugawa, the founder and CEO of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation, the first milestone for anime in the U.S. was in the 1980s with the advent of the Internet. With the Internet, fans were able to more easily communicate with each other and thus better able to exchange fan-subtitled tapes and higher quality versions of anime. Some experts, such as Susan Napier, a Professor of Japanese Language and Literature, say that Akira marked the first milestone. However, most experts agree that the next milestone was in 1992 when U.S. Renditions, a film importer, released the first English-subtitled anime videotape that year, entitled Gunbuster. According to Tatsugawa, the success of Gunbuster triggered a flurry of releases. According to Lawrence Eng, around that time, Gunbuster was the first anime that could have caused anime and manga fandom, specifically the otaku subculture, to grow, as the protagonist, Noriko Takaya, is shown to be an otaku.
Due to the localization process, many people who grew up watching anime did so not realizing that it originated in Japan. After the success of Power Rangers (which first aired in 1993), U.S. television companies began broadcasting Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z in 1995 and 1996 respectively. However, due to the relative failure of the latter two (both shows brought success when aired at a later time on Cartoon Network), anime did not seem like it would become mainstream. However, the anime boom in the U.S. began with the airing of the anime series Pokémon in syndication in 1998, which served as proof to U.S. broadcasters and distributors that Japanese media could succeed in the U.S. market. It was only after Pokémon and Power Rangers left the mainstream that U.S. audiences became aware of anime's Japanese origins.
Anime streaming outlets in the United States In the United States there are multiple streaming outlets that fans can use to view anime and manga, while also being able to connect with those communities. One such outlet is Crunchyroll, a streaming service that lets users view popular anime from the past and new anime episodes released to the website. Crunchyroll was created in 2006 as a distribution outlet for anime. Crunchyroll has since evolved into becoming something more for fans in the anime community. They have added an addition to their website that allows anime and manga fans to get news about anime releases, events, and topics related to the community. This has also evolved to the creation of the Crunchyroll Expo. This exposition is a large-scale event in San Jose, CA, that allows anime and manga fans to connect. The streaming service also features a store where you can purchase anime related products such as figures, Japanese snacks, apparel, posters, video games and manga.
In addition, another streaming service within the United States is FUNimation. Similar to Crunchyroll, FUNimation allows you to view newly released anime while also offering a store with products similar to Crunchyroll. FUNimation's website also has a section created for events related to anime and manga that allows their members to connect at the local and national level. There is also a blog section that allows those with an account on FUNimation to connect with other fans and talk about their favorite, or maybe even least favorite, anime and episode.
Mass streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video have also expanded into licensing and distributing anime since the early-2010s.
European fan communities