Death of the anime scene and rise of the posers.

I'll try to keep this short since it's going to mostly fall on deaf ears anyway, but for those reading this who are real fans of anime, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the current state of things in the scene. For me, it feels like the anime scene in the west is dying, while at the same time growing bigger. That seems contradictory till you realize it's the true fans who are vanishing while posers and casual mainstream audiences take over. Every con I've gone to has been flooded with people who have little or no interest in anime, online anime communities meanwhile keep getting invaded by people who again have no interest in anime and are just looking for a community to join. There's a lot of that going around it seems. Sometimes the world can feel like a big empty lonely place, and people can find it hard to find a place to fit in. Desperate for a sense of belonging, people join whatever groups/communities they find. The topic of the communities are secondary to these people, and what they really want is a place to fit in. As such they tend to take a very lazy and half assed attempt at getting involved with whatever that community is about, and there's a good chance instead they'll try to incorporate their own interests into that community. It's something I've seen a million times before, but it's not just me. We've all seen it before in videogames. Used to be gaming was mainly for nerds, now look what happened. You've got hipsters who treat old school gaming like it's something trendy and fashionable while chances are they rarely ever actually play video games. You've got your brain dead frat boys and kids who exclusively play call of duty. Gamer girls who pretend to like video-games for easy attention from nerds, and those who never touch a game that isn't on their cellphone. Many of these people wouldn't think twice about calling themselves gamers, and we're seeing the same thing again with anime. Hipsters, posers, and casuals are taking over. I gotta say, it's pretty freaking sad to see history repeat itself like this.

I'm not going to be as prompt and extensive as you are Neet, but certainly, I remember not so long ago liking anime around here was odd and uncommon, then all of a sudden I see all these people that only know about animes like SAO or SNK and claim they love anime culture dressing up using as reference these ahegao cam girls. They all suddenly love cats and plenty of other stuff that the Japanese sell through anime even though is not what they really practice or live by most of the time. It kind of annoys you, since you feel like you'd be confused with idiots like this as well. It's just the fact liking anime now makes you part of a much bigger community that's accelerated to be less welcoming. Became a fashion trend.

Yeah, I've definitely noticed what you're talking about at anime cons and what not. So many people who only have ever watched stuff like SAO or SnK running around just to experience the "geek culture" I guess. Though honestly among those casuals, there are some people who are genuinely interested in getting into anime more so I wouldn't say it's exactly all a bad thing. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the last con I went to, I did a panel on the history of mecha anime with my friend and there were a bunch of people who were already into the genre and very familiar with the older more obscure stuff, and also a lot of casuals who were part of the "I don't usually watch mech anime but..."-crowd who only ever watched stuff like Evangelion, Code Geass, or Gurren Lagann that were genuinely interested and asked us a ton of questions, asked for a list of all of the titles we went over, and more suggestions after the panel. I don't think things are THAT grim honestly.

I wish I could go to those big cons... But on topic, it simply happens on most trends, or sub-trends, like communities about games in particular. In my case, I remember being a bit annoyed about the rise of casuals on the Fire emblem community, but no interest in the series as whole. Looking back, I was annoyed because my sort of "secret club" was invaded, and the same thing bothered about some new anime fans, but I don't think actual fans are dying, the raise of new people just makes them harder to spot.

I think it's great..I mean you have to start somewhere right? There's many people who have an interest in anime, they may not have extensive knowledge like some hardcore fans..but that doesn't mean that they don't appreciate anime. Some folks probably view me as a casual cause I'm not geek'd out(in the stereotypical Otaku way) or because I'm unaware of certain shows. Hell most folks don't know I like anime until I bring it up. I don't put much effort to be apart of the local Anime community, I do the same thing at cons or events. My community in rl are the people I chill with, some of them like anime and some don't..some like anime and have only seen DBZ. That doesn't mean that different groups of people can't come and enjoy the fun. I know if I go to an event or something and folks are looking at me like I don't belong..then I won't be back. Same thing for gaming and as far as those female gamer's go..I can't knock their hustle. If they sit there and look cute and some simp decides to donate a few grand..then that's what's up.

Here are the list of animes that always was mainstream and had a large fangroup: S-Class: Db, Pokemon, OP, Naruto, Dedective Conan, yu gi oh, fairy tail A-Class: OPM, SAO, No game no life, SnK, Mirai nikki, death note, soul eater, clannad, my hero academia, digimon, dragon maid, tokio ghoul, noragami, Highschool of the dead B-Class: Evangelion, Cowboy bebop, Elfenlied, Dears, Angel Beats, anohana, melachony of suzumiya, blue exorcist, Inuyasha, code geas, black butler, zubasa... Mainstream posters literally milk those and thats whats so annoying on it (List is too long I was too lazy to complete it)

I agree with shadower. Everyone has to start somewhere, as long as the community is not becoming more vitriolic (look at the communities for a lot of videogames that are abundant with harassment). It is more so up so the remaining fanbase to recommend more obscure anime that are actually meaningful, because most of the people I know who have gotten into the "mainstream" anime have done so more to have a form of media that they can relax and turn off their brain to.

I would like to preface this with "I hate dubs". The growing anime community has increased the number of these things and it makes me cringe. I had hoped there would be an increase in print manga and light novels but there hasn't been. I had hoped the price of blu-rays would go down but they haven't. I have never liked subscriber content, but that is the method of the casual fan. Even the usage of the word "weeaboo" irks me. I have always been an otaku, what is that even? I am at the point where I just want to import because I don't want my dollars to go to sucky voice actors. I am :(

Agreed... Those horrible horrible dubs... Aren’t there enough child actors not to have 40 year old men voice child characters. And it’s like they have the same ones dubbing every anime.