Sorry if my response sounded kind of rough. Heck, I had to look up the word! Posted the first thing that came to mind. ;-)
Mammoth car, man. And Racer X. That show was great back then. If I were going to watch an old cartoon these days, it'd probably be Wacky Races.
Herculoids for the win. That and Thundarr were my two favorite late 70s early 80s Saturday morning cartoons.
Anime is certainly more mainstream accepted in the younger generations. You'll see high school or college students unironically wearing anime shirts, "regular" kids have a show or two they watch, etc. Heck, I've even been watching some sports shows and documentaries where they follow various players and they all watch anime.
I think you have to stop thinking of anime as a genre and more of a just a production style. There are shows for every single audience out there within the production style. I also think you have to understand that there are very real historical and cultural differences between Japan and other countries and cultures. Japanese culture has a big undertone of sexual repression, conservatism, being homogeneous, and conformity. I think when you see some of the weird stuff, its a culture letting off steam from its repressed nature as a whole. Also, they often have similar, but different cultural norms in general, so some things that seem off-putting or out of place, aren't as much so in their culture. There is also a little bit that their target audience for MOST anime is young, adult males, so many of the stories get a little "edgy" to appeal to that audience. Especially young, adult males that live in a sort of repressed society and often see themselves as victims of the culture.
I think my issue is not with there being different offerings or with some offerings having "edgy" content. I get that and that is true of any medium. My point was that the same content with the edgy content meant to appeal to 20 something men also has the cutsey bird or bunny or cat characters that clearly are meant to appeal to a MUCH younger audience. Maybe Japanese men like those characters and that is the cultural differences you are talking about, but that is the stuff that pushes me away.
Anime is a massive influence on Zoomers and their art. If you look at the Zoomer YouTube Zeitgeist, it's filled with Anime. To answer your original post, Anime is simply a medium used to tell stories. Before CGI they could do massive action scenes with monsters, cities exploding, battles in space at the fraction of the cost of practical effects in big budget movies. Voice actors are much cheaper than real actors. So you get high quality stuff for 'cheap' compared to live action. The stories and plots can range from kiddie to very adult. I think the key to enjoying it is to stop thinking of Anime as a 'Cartoon' and just enjoy the story and visuals. If you like action or martial arts, Anime can be just as good as stuff like The Raid.
Yeah, folks like Zion being huge anime fans is no different than folks digging Bruce Lee and poorly translated martial arts flicks from Hong Kong.
So you needed to jackoff to cartoons at 14? At 14 Heavy Metal was the only cartoon worthy. That's a harsh way of looking at anime.
Anime just involves such a broad range of themes. There’s certainly cringey stuff like harems and super young girls being dressed up and put into questionable decisions. A buddy of mine who isn’t into anime or follows it, absolutely loved my Vinland Saga recommendation. Thought it was one of the best shows he’s seen in awhile.
