animes reputation in america.

it dawned to me the other day that its been frowned upon to be a fan of anime more or less here in the states, and that whenever you mention it to someone the raise there eyebrow and say "you mean you watch cartoons?"

but i dont rember how it got its reputation overhere, what happened? how did that start?

1) Just do you and no one else if someone looks down upon you for liking anime. I am an African American who likes anime, metal, and talks proper. You know how much I would get looked down upon in my community? I don't let it bother me because I love the fact that I am different and not a follower.
2) Sorry for going off on a tangent, but I think anime got its big mainstream start in the States in the 90s with titles such as; Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, Dragonball, Speed Racer, and I think Tenchi Muyo was here early as well. Not sure if this is true but... When a casual viewer would see said titles they would think of it as over the top. The fights and the voice overs mainly. Then again weren't a lot of things in the 90s corny? [size=5]It's still better than modern day mainstream crap [/h]

95% of people do not tell me anything negative when I tell them I watch anime.

It's pretty commonplace now.

i live in england and i think we have a similar situation...
'those chineese cartoons'
no, they're japanese.
etcetcetc. There's a large handful of people who do watch it, but it's rare to find. You know you're not alone after you go to an expo. it's lots of fun and you get confidence in your hobby!
Alot of people are stupid so don't let it get you down. you enjoy it because it IS good. other people would enjoy it, but deny liking it because of it's reputation

nah i dont care what people think about me i can watch what i like, but ive always wonderd how it started, i know nowadays its the weeaboos and narutards that ruin the imiage for the rest of us

You said it yourself. The loudest voice will always be heard the most. It's called stereotyping.

edit- How it started is beyond me I don't know how besides what I said above. I am not sure if it is %100 true

Not all people understand art. Also, fuck stereotypes.

I live in the UK and my friends know that I really like Anime, They obviously see this and they do like to give me a bit of a ribbing every now and then but my buddy whos way into movies asked me one day "Why do you like this ching chong cartoon shit?" I simply said "Because I like it" and his response to that was: "Fair enough".

Whatever you like people are gonna try to take the piss out of it. If you like American cars for example their gonna call them Cheap, Shit, Gas guzzling cars! (I think that everyone generally likes American muscle cars but thats the way it goes)

The brother of my friend likes DBZ strangely enough but he still pokes fun at me for watching Anime. He most probably considers it to be more Marvel-esque thus its OK. (I just dont think that Clannad would be his thing)

To each their own I guess... All youve gotta do is be honest about the things you love! :)

It has become tremendously easier now than ever before to become an INFORMED enthusiast, not just a fan, of the anime culture. There was a time oh so long ago around two decades ago where anime fandom was an extremely difficult thing to grasp. We didn't have the modern amenities of being able to download the newest fan subs of the next slice-of-life series (Hell, I don't even know of ANY slice-of-life series during that time...), watch it within a day or two, and then move on to the next. if it was made on VHS, you might go out and buy two episodes for what at the time cost about three to four full tanks of gas. One could potentially argue it was actually easier to be a fan back then, simply because Japanese animation on a whole had yet to develop into what it is today simply because many of the titles that were or had been released were considered peaks of what Japan could push out (Akira, Robotech [Macross], Gundam, etc). There was for sure a lot less to choose from.

I have to say that one of the series that I saw really help to build up anime's modern reputation though is Dragon Ball. If you were buying anime in the mid 90's, you were likely buying a Dragon Ball VHS, and this image of anime formed to where there were two camps - Dragon Ball series, and everything else. I for one during that time did not really care for Dragon Ball, but many of my friends did, and I saw what happened was Dragon Ball worked itself as a "gateway" into the larger spectrum of what Japanese animation is. Someone whom just was introduced to Dragon Ball was likely to watch some other sort of anime. Maybe it was another action series like Fist of the North Star or something else, but at least that person was watching anime.

Another ordeal that has somewhat hurt the whole anime genre is that for a while most American publishers were very unsure as to how Americans would take in the bulk of Japanese culture. The greatest example of this was in just about every video game released here that came from Japan. Most all of them were cut or modified in some way, and of course whole gaming genres were simply overlooked. The dating simulation genre is one that immediately comes to mind. I remember that one of the first real deal Japanese games I got to play was Tokimeki Memorial back around fourteen years ago a little while after it was released on the Sega Saturn. I was amazed to see something so nice and put together that for some reason we just did not get in America. Playing from the perspective of an avatar, interacting with characters whom actually had deep backgrounds, were fully voiced, all the while being able to determine the outcome of the game... was well... pretty amazing. If we got anything from Japan at the time, it was simply a (badly) translated RPG or maybe a fighting game or two. Here was a whole genre that for a while not only did most know did not exist, but one that has still to this day never really caught on - name the console games that allow you to date characters. If you can count any with your fingers, they'd all fit on one hand.

I do think that what will be the ultimate downer that the American mass at large will never be able to surpass is the instances of underage characters frequently being engaged in sexual activity in many of the stories. Fan service is something you simply do not see hardly at all in the main stream American animation market other than the occasional innuendo.

the other i get from people is "that japanese squid rape shit". fyi not into tentacle rape hentai

My father describes anime as "cartoons." I think because there are more series airing on TV that are aimed at children, all anime get's labeled as children shows. It may change one day, but not anytime soon.

4KIDS must die first IMO.

4KIDs raped my childhood.

Going to give you guys a bit of history as far as anime goes. the 80's you had Robotech AKA Macross, Urusei Yatsura, Gundam, but it wasnt until Akira made its debute in the states and that started to get the attention that this was not your traditional Saturday morning cartoons, the 80's was defined as the Golden Age of Anime.

Now in the 90's you had a huge boom Evangelion was the series of the decade, Cowboy Bebop brought the funk, and Tenchi Muyo showed pimpin aint easy... the list can go on, you can say that anime had a place in the states.

As the 90's came to a close and a new millennium was upon us you can say that anime became apart of our culture and was reconized everywhere in the states that is until 4KIDS thought it was a good idea and get on the bandwagon and completely destroy some great shows like One Piece, Cardcaptor Sakura, YuGiOh and so on.

Thankfully Cartoon Network got ahold of some great shows like Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragonball Z, Bleach, Ghost in the Shell and so on... It wasnt untill a few years ago that we are now seeing that the anime bubble has bust. A good example is Central Park Media filed for bankrupcy, ADV Films which has been the #1 provider when it comes to anime had to breakup and split into 4 distrubiting parties.

Now we are seeing a decline when it comes licencing anime and 4KIDS completly not getting the picture and not leaving anime alone, there are alot of reasons why anime has made a rapid decline, one economy is in the tolet, two anime is getting little air time, and three the Internet (that discussion is for later).
Anime's reputation in the states has not slowed down because of Anime conventions that take place all over the America and the devoted fans that love this form of entertainment will not let it go.

ha ha better explanation than my answer. Well played

Part of the success of anime here in the states can be thank to Toonami; showing us some of the best that Japan had while not covering our ears to the badness of voice acting. One that is often forgotten is Zoids: Zero (music to my ears!)

And I do have to admit, 4kids did a crappy (shit) job bringing anime (one reason I never got what was happening in One Piece or Sonic X).

Anime does have some bad rep here but I think that the situation is improving as time passes by. Still, I don't go around announcing that I love it. I also really don't need to because most of my friends are into anime. Hell, I didn't care about anime until I became friends with them and they introduced me some good ones. The rest don't think much about anime, but they do find the style interesting.

Whenever I tell people I watch anime they assume I like hentai, which is very true, so I guess that people just assume that everyone who watches anime is a pervert

We were all screwed the instant Urotsukidoji and La Blue Girl made their way here.

Put simply, it isn't anime per se that has a bad reputation, it's the general public's perception of it. Some one posted earlier that his father simply considers anime as 'cartoons', and by and far, that is the opinion of most of the American (and probably British) general public.

The Japanese have always seen animation as just another tool to tell a story - as such, there is a much broader range of anime than there is among traditional western animation, which is primarily used to create cartoons. Most people will simply equate any and all animation, including anime, with Saturday morning cartoons - or at best Disney and Pixar.

Personally, I don't get much negative feedback about being an anime fan, but then again I am much older than most of you guys - whether that has an effect, I don't really know. But bottom-line, why would you care what someone else thinks?