re: #197 Targetpractice

Well, the rise of the anime culture in the West really had to do with Japanese anime companies deciding to follow the example of other countries in their land and either export the stuff directly to US consumers or create branches offices in the US for local distribution. Before that, anime was generally limited to what American companies could afford to license, because they’d have to spend extra money dubbing in English voice tracks. And US TV networks for longest time required syndication runs over 80+ episodes for a series, when most animes didn’t last a quarter of that due to the cost of producing them.

Hell, growing up, I can remember when manga were virtually unknown outside of comic book stories because major chains wouldn’t stock them. And what you’d find would be “Americanized” (i.e. read left to the right) and still limited to what was popular among US fans. Next to pirated music, subbed anime episodes were probably one of the biggest drivers of file-sharing in the 00’s.

Anime was pretty limited in the USA, as you noted, until the arrival of Akira; that particular film was a game-changer. It still took another 15 years or so before anime was embraced as a part of American pop culture.