Japan will be #1 in Entertainment

They don’t try to appeal to foreign markets – the Japanese market is big enough to make all of their industries thrive, and even if they wanted to franchise overseas virtually no one in Japan can understand a word of English (even words commonly used in their songs like “sunshine” they have no idea what any of it means) so I find it unlikely that Japan will lead the world in entertainment in my lifetime. I don’t want Japanese entertainment to become mainstream because it would have to change a lot to appeal to a broader international market. You could say that China has ruined Hollywood and Disney. You can forget about anything Japanese being shown in China since the Chinese despise Japan, as do Koreans. Anime might have become mainstream in the west were it not for censorship of breasts, guns, sexual themes etc. but because it’s so nerfed to be played on children’s television it’s seen as lame and gay by most people over 13. Japanese movies feature actors who are unknown in the west and they rely heavily on Japanese humor which is totally different from western humor, especially tokusatsu.

Anime (and manga) have definitely become more popular in the last several years – In the old days when I was a kid, you really had to go out of your way to get your hands on the original Japanese version. Now most shows are easily accessible as a home media purchase coupled with an English version that sticks close to the story as intended (with the exception of the much more recent political debacles, but that’s another topic).

But I don’t really want it to break into the mainstream. Just look at what happened to video games and western comics – As soon as it started to become more culturally acceptable to like those things, the tone police didn’t fall far behind and before we knew it companies just lined up to fall like domino’s to pander to those people. This ended up bleeding over to the western anime industry eventually. Don’t think they won’t try the same thing on the other side of the Pacific: They’re tireless and are convinced by their own moral superiority.

Anime is better off staying as something relatively niche.