Ask John: Should Anime Remain An Underground American Phenomenon?

Question:
Some long-time fans complain about the number of young people into the fandom, and their usually faddish interest in anime. Some felt that bringing anime into the mainstream culture hurts anime and its fandom in America, and felt it would be best if anime is as underground a hobby as it used to be. Is there any good for anime to stay underground?

Answer:
I’m not one of the most veteran anime fans in America, but I have been watching Japanese language anime for 21 years now, which gives me more experience as a hardcore fan than many American fans. My experience also allows me to have a personal perspective on the “good old days” compared to today. I may not be entirely enthused with the way anime has disseminated into American culture, and I do have a fondness for those old days when anime was very far underground, but I honestly can’t think of any significant way in which anime was “better” in America when it was underground. Every favorable aspect of anime being a deeply obscure hobby in America is entirely a matter of egotism.

If I may be indulgent for a moment, I grew up during a time when American anime fans watched Nth generation VHS copies of anime that often had video distortions and even drop-outs. Even information about anime was scarce. In those days, an anime that had been released in Japan within the past 12 months or so was considered “brand new.” Fans including myself often watched untranslated anime with printed translated scripts in hand, or with detailed plot summaries in order to follow the action. Fans, including myself, eagerly purchased bootleg, home-made anime VHS recordings at anime conventions for $20 per tape because that was our only way to acquire anime. With the invention of the Wide World Web and fansubbing, I would request and receive bundles of fansubbed tapes in the mail several times a week in order to get my anime fix. I sold my extra Star Wars trading cards, invested in the speculative comic book market, wrote homework essays for classmates, and got a part time job in order to fund my addiction to anime.

In the 1980s, anime was difficult to find, so every single anime recording or book or toy discovered was like a rare treasure. Anime was something that only a select handful of people knew about. It was a private club, and membership felt exclusive and comforting. Fans like myself that experienced that age of American fandom tend to recall it warmly. And nostalgia makes us recollect that time as a rosy era of discovery and wonder. But upon critical reflection it’s clear that there was just as much poor quality anime released in the 1980s as there is now, and eagerly paying exorbitant fees to video pirates for atrocious quality bootleg videotapes is a mark of desperation, not a glad ideal. From a rational, objective perspective, the only genuinely “good” aspects of anime fandom in the 1980s still exist today, alongside many other advances.

The spirit of camaraderie within the fan community, largely illustrated by the fansubbing community’s desire to make anime more widely known and accessible without profiting from it, still exists. (For the point of this response, I’m not saying that fansubbing itself is positive. I’m saying that the spirit of community between anime fans is positive.) When anime was underground, Americans had access to only a small amount of anime, long after its Japanese release. Now we have access to nearly all of the same anime that Japanese fans have access to, at virtually the same time. And contemporary fans don’t have to settle for garbled, barely watchable copies. Contemporary American fans have instant, easy access to perfect quality anime video with professional translations at a reasonable price.

When anime was strictly an underground hobby in America, it was only known and loved by those who deeply loved and respected it. I sympathize with the sentiment that American fandom has been over-run with shallow, adolescent fans who have no appreciation for the variety, quality, and integrity of anime. At the same time, there are now commercial American distributors who likewise show little respect for the integrity of Japanese comic art or the Japanese culture that created it. But the potential for deeply devoted fans to still love and respect anime has not diminished at all. In fact, the increased exposure of anime has allowed it to reach a larger number of loyal and respectful disciples. Furthermore, I think that individual fans should ask themselves how much of their resentment toward a perceived shallowness of contemporary fandom comes from moral outrage and how much comes from a personal, selfish feeling of indignation. I admit that superficial or hysterical anime fans can be grating or annoying, but I don’t believe I have a right to dictate or judge the way they express their affection for anime. And domestic distributors react to the market. If the majority of America’s anime consumers demand authentic and respectful domestic presentation of anime, that’s what we’ll get.

Anime now has a bigger worldwide market, which brings more exposure and opportunity to deserving Japanese artists. Anime is now more accessible to American fans, in terms of both cost and variety. From an objective perspective, anime becoming more mainstream in America, more widely available and more widely recognized, has been undeniably beneficial to the anime industry and its fans. The contemporary state of anime in America isn’t all diamonds and pearls, but it is unquestionably better than the time when anime was strictly underground. There’s nothing positive about anime being underground which can’t also occur when anime is mainstream. But there are positive aspects of anime being mainstream which cannot occur when anime is underground.